Excellent analysis of the incredible disconnect that modern neoliberalism has created in people.
And it's not just what it does to the poor working class people. David Graeber wrote a book Bullshit Jobs, A Theory. From the review of his book by Mary Tracey,
''In 2013 David Graeber told the world what many of us secretly believed but were too afraid to admit out loud: many modern jobs appear to be bullshit because they are, in fact, bullshit. Graeber’s argument is that automation has already happened, but instead of freeing us from the tyranny of the 40 hour work week, we have invented a whole crop of pointless occupations that are at best unnecessary and at worst pernicious. What is a Bullshit Job? A job you secretly believe to be pointless and meaningless. What could be the point of pointless jobs? This is what Graeber seeks to find out with this book. The point of pointless jobs is that they are politically useful.
Here is the core argument of the book: we are no longer living under “Capitalism“. We are living under a system Graeber calls “Managerial Feudalism”, where most of the money comes from either “rents” or “debt”, precisely like in the days of feudalism proper. In other words, the “FIRE” sector: finance, insurance, real estate.
We are used to thinking about the economy as “production”, that is, making things. But under this “Managerial Feudalism”, the money flows to the elites, the owners, regardless of what workers do. And so “doing” becomes less important.
What, then, to do with all that money, but buy a whole cohort of people who will be kept in comfort and security and who, in exchange, will swear loyalty to the system, to feudalism; people whose wealth and status prove, by definition, that the system “works”, that some get to do very nicely indeed.
To put it in simple terms: the economy is no longer run by the “making of things” but by the “stealing of money”, and so large chunks of people are employed in the stealing of said money (jobs) and in the pretending that they aren’t (bullshit)."
Excellent analysis of the incredible disconnect that modern neoliberalism has created in people.
And it's not just what it does to the poor working class people. David Graeber wrote a book Bullshit Jobs, A Theory. From the review of his book by Mary Tracey,
''In 2013 David Graeber told the world what many of us secretly believed but were too afraid to admit out loud: many modern jobs appear to be bullshit because they are, in fact, bullshit. Graeber’s argument is that automation has already happened, but instead of freeing us from the tyranny of the 40 hour work week, we have invented a whole crop of pointless occupations that are at best unnecessary and at worst pernicious. What is a Bullshit Job? A job you secretly believe to be pointless and meaningless. What could be the point of pointless jobs? This is what Graeber seeks to find out with this book. The point of pointless jobs is that they are politically useful.
Here is the core argument of the book: we are no longer living under “Capitalism“. We are living under a system Graeber calls “Managerial Feudalism”, where most of the money comes from either “rents” or “debt”, precisely like in the days of feudalism proper. In other words, the “FIRE” sector: finance, insurance, real estate.
We are used to thinking about the economy as “production”, that is, making things. But under this “Managerial Feudalism”, the money flows to the elites, the owners, regardless of what workers do. And so “doing” becomes less important.
What, then, to do with all that money, but buy a whole cohort of people who will be kept in comfort and security and who, in exchange, will swear loyalty to the system, to feudalism; people whose wealth and status prove, by definition, that the system “works”, that some get to do very nicely indeed.
To put it in simple terms: the economy is no longer run by the “making of things” but by the “stealing of money”, and so large chunks of people are employed in the stealing of said money (jobs) and in the pretending that they aren’t (bullshit)."
https://davidgraeber.org/david-graeber-i-would-like-this-book-to-be-an-arrow-aimed-at-the-heart-of-our-civilisation/
And your pottery is beautiful and useful!! Great article!
Thanks Steve!