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Book Summary: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

Posted on January 1, 2019April 9, 2022
Topics: Social Sciences

Rating: 6.9/10.

A bullshit job is one where the worker feels does not contribute anything useful to society, but is obligated to pretend otherwise. About 40% of all jobs in the USA are bullshit by this definition. People feel unhappy in these jobs because they must pretend to work, yet ultimately the work is pointless, so it’s a degradation of humanity. The first half of the book is basically an extension of an essay he wrote in 2013; in the second half he speculates on why there are so many bullshit jobs and what to do about it.

Overall, the book is quite verbose and I skimmed it, don’t think I missed that much. There’s a lot of anecdotes and rambling, kind of like his other book about debt. The author has opinions that lean towards socialist propaganda, for example a naïve belief that people who contribute more should be paid more.

See more reviews on Amazon.com

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Most similar books:

The Left Behind by Robert Wuthnow Factfulness by Hans Rosling The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce de Mesquita and Alastair Smith Science Since Babylon by Derek de Solla Price

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