local sheep wrote:
Did you read "Bullsh*t Jobs" by David Graeber? It's a great read. I agree, I think over half the jobs in the economy are useless.
Sadly he passed away in 2020. The premise of the book is that most jobs are pointless and just serve to justify giving people the money they need to survive.
Basically we make up stuff for people to do in a huge scramble to appear busy and useful. How many managers hire more people than necessary just to have people to manage and demonstrate to people above them that they are needed?
Deep down most people realize their jobs are mostly meaningless and that demoralizes them because work has become tied to their self worth and identity but we don't need everyone to do 40+ hours a week but we need to work 40 hours to meet living costs.
Graeber proposes it's harmful because there are other sources of happiness in life that people don't pursue to the fullest because they're indoctrinated to think having a job is a worthwhile way to spend their daylight hours, in most cases it's not.
It's a long criticism of the Protestant work ethic.
It's also the jobs that are reasonably well paid that are the most useless. Store workers, nursing home staff, janitors, delivery drivers - these are the things that are necessary.