Bullshit Jobs: How Our Modern Bureaucracy Created Them
The radical point of view of an anarchist anthropologist
In the Soviet Union, work was both a right and a duty. So the Soviet state created loads of completely useless jobs just to keep people busy. Several people often performed one simple task that could have been done by one, like selling potatoes in a shop: one person to weigh the potatoes, one to wrap them and another to take the money (or the ration stamp). The quality of service was probably awful, because people weren’t exactly happy at their jobs…
In the Soviet Union, as in most communist countries for that matter, everyone had a position, a status and a job. But a lot of these jobs did not create much value, help people or have a positive impact on society. A lot of people were just the bureaucratic cogs of a machine only designed to produce red tape, or the links of a chain whose sole purpose was to spy on the neighbours, or brave soldiers asked to produce obsolete goods in an inefficient way.
Of course, we don’t live in the Soviet Union. Yet the description of that dark universe seems somehow familiar, doesn’t it? The word bureaucracy is not much in use anymore. If we want to criticise an organisation, we now speak of “poor design” or “poor customer experience” instead. Yet the concept is as relevant as ever. Everywhere there are people who feel that what they do has no meaning. It’s like an epidemic! And bureaucracy provides a good explanation for it. Aren’t we also the victims of a bureaucracy that empties our work of its meaning?
A boom of “bullshit jobs” in the capitalist system
No doubt about it, we’re better off (and safer) in a capitalist system than in the USSR. But strangely enough, the capitalist system has produced as many useless jobs as the communist systems had. David Graeber, the anthropologist who coined the now famous phrase “bullshit jobs” wrote at length about the phenomenon:
“This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear?
Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.)” (Strike Mag)
In a recently published book titled The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, David Graeber writes a (fascinating) little history of bureaucracy and explains how we got to where we are now. For several decades now, we have been producing overblown bureaucratic machines composed of many hierarchical layers, whose objectives are to map and control processes and produce forms. According to Graeber a majority of our jobs in the capitalist economy are in fact “bullshit jobs” whose impact and worth are more or less null. Bullshit job holders secretly know they contribute nothing to society, and it makes them suffer. As bureaucracy has spread to nearly all aspects of our lives, we’re more than ever in search of meaning.
Every aspect of our lives is increasingly fraught with red tape—endless forms whose vacuity can make us feel mad or stupid. One need only renew one’s identity papers to experience it. Bureaucracy will always make you feel stupid, wrong or guilty. To win against the system you need to be a judo master: turn the bureaucracy’s strength against itself, as French comics hero Asterix does brilliantly in The 12 Tasks of Asterix. His task is to accomplish an administrative formality in”the place that sends you mad”. The episode, broadcast in 1977, has not aged one bit!
Bureaucratic red tape marks out each important step in life—the death of a parent in particular is a sad high point in terms of red tape. It marks out our lives with numerous rituals we couldn’t imagine questioning: they are rites of passage we have long accepted. Usually rituals are a subject of interest for anthropologists. But because it is so excruciatingly boring, bureaucratic red tape has only seldom been studied by social scientists. Instead of being sent mad by bureaucracy as an object of study, anthropologists are understandably more drawn to artistically dense and meaningful symbols.
Only writers have dared take hold of the subject, for they do not fear the void. The work of Franz Kafka typically features lonely characters who have to face surrealistic situations and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers. Kafka explores the themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt and absurdity. That’s why the word Kafkaesque has entered the English language to refer to situations that involve a senseless nightmarish bureaucracy. Kafka’s characters dream of retaking the initiative and controlling their own destiny, making their own choices and becoming responsible, but they are always beaten by forces that are superior to them.
From bureaucracy to “bureaupathology”
The word bureaucracy was created in the 18th century. It refers to a form of organisation invented by the Chinese, and perfected in France by Louis XIV and Colbert, the inventors of modern administration. It was perfected further by the Prussians.
Bureaucracy worked wonders for all the big projects that required efficacy and rationality. The Prussian Post was the most successful illustration of that efficacy: “A lot of the achievements of our modern era were somehow inspired by the Prussian Post, or are an imitation of it”. The Prussian Post was the first attempt to apply military principles to a public service. Historically all postal services come from armies and empires. In the case of Germany, one could say that the nation was created and consolidated by the postal services.
The bureaucratic organisation is founded on rational legal authority. It is based on rules and specific knowledge. It makes things predictable. In that sense it is a vast improvement over the arbitrariness of dictatorial organisations (monarchies, mafias, gangs). For some philosophers, bureaucracy is a form of meritocracy-based utopia: its agents are recruited on the basis of their merit (with a transparent recruiting process), they obey their superiors and focus on their work.
Because bureaucracy proved so successful, its model was rapidly imitated by all organisations. In the late 19th century, large corporations, in particular banks, copied the organisational model of public administrations, with all its hierarchical levels, processes and forms. Sociologists have soon studied the excesses of bureaucracy, how rigid formalities render innovation and action nearly impossible, how all power can be progressively monopolised by bureaucrats, who actively resist change and rely obsessively on rules…
When both employees and users (customers) experience pain, then bureaucracy turns into bureaupathology. Because the gap is increasingly wide between employees and users’ expectations on the one hand, and the bureaucratic organisational model on the other, bureaucracy is perceived as ever more “pathological”. It creates a feeling of alienation that empties work of its meaning.
The perceived lack of meaning marks a transition
The malaise that results from the gap between the bureaucratic model and individual aspirations is typical of a period of transition. The bureaucratic paradigm just doesn’t fit today’s economy and society anymore:
- red tape is incompatible with the necessity to innovate that characterises today’s digital economy: an organisation must be leaner and more flexible to move fast or die;
- professional hyper-specialisation and a lack of mobility are irreconcilable with the aspirations of today’s workers who need (and want) to change jobs several times over the course of their lives.
Frédéric Laloux, in his best-selling book Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, provides an interesting explanation. He writes a history of organisations that links an organisation’s form to a “level of consciousness”. The bureaucratic organisation’s paradigm he calls “Amber Conformist”. This form came about when humanity moved away from the tribal organisation form in order to build states, religious institutions and administrations. It is a vast improvement over the previous paradigm (which he calls “Impulsive Red”) because it marks a new vision of time that leaves room for ambitious long-term projects that transcend individuals. Plus it’s based on scientific rationality. In the Amber paradigm, individuals have to follow rules, their rules are strictly defined, but they’re also happy to be rid of arbitrary violence.
Problem is that innovation, critical thinking and free expression aren’t exactly welcome in Amber organisations. They’re even seen as a threat. To perpetuate itself, the organisation needs its members to just follow protocol. Thus it forces its employees to wear a “social mask” (title, rank, uniform, etc.) to make them fully identify with their roles. The employees belong to the organisation that employs them. The tradeoff is they have total job security. Their job is permanent.
The “Amber Conformist” paradigm is still very widespread. In one form or another, there are traces of it even in “modern” organisations. Administrations and more traditional corporations are still completely in that paradigm. Yet because other organisations and individuals have already moved on to more advanced paradigms, the conformism of the Amber model has become unbearable for those who are still stuck in it. Because we have been “contaminated” by more progressive and flexible paradigms, we find the lack of meaning insufferable when stuck in the Amber model. Even job stability can no longer mitigate that.
Conclusion
The quest for meaning concerns an increasing number of workers. It pushes millions of professionals to try out new jobs and explore new work models. Many of us can no longer accept to wear a “social mask” at work.
Many organisations have taken the bull by the horns and transformed their management methods to give their employees more autonomy and responsibility so they can better develop their creativity. And it’s worth it, because a worker creates more value when he/she can bring all of who they are to work.
New management models—liberated company, holacracy—are gaining ground everywhere. More than ever workers want to try out organisational models that empower them to have more impact. That is one of the reasons for the ever larger number of independent workers. Independence may not always come with meaning, but at least indenpendent workers can pursue their quest for meaning without wearing a mask. That is likely to be powerful enough to ultimately destroy bureaucracy. Will we be able to create enough jobs to replace all the “bullshit jobs” about to be destroyed?
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