A few months ago, I read a blog with the premise that although we do not need full employment to prosper, we are trapped in a mindset that claims otherwise and this we create make work for the masses. The idea was that while J.M. Keynes was right- we do not need as many workers as we once did- we nevertheless continue to churn out millions of (indebted) graduates who are supposed to get jobs, even though those jobs have no worthwhile function.
This is a phenomenon primarily in white collar, managerial professions as egos and delusions compete with the desperate hunt for cash on the trail of make-work. David Graeber called this Bullshit Jobs. Consider, if you will, the following exchange, which took place during an interview with a committee who was looking for a research director at a community college. This is an exchange between me and the committee chair:
"What are the primary responsibilities of this position?"
"Huh, that's a good question. What do you guys think?"
Now rewind to six months ago, when I had another interview (a freelancing, part timing, gig economy ninja on the edge of penury, I have many interviews.)
"If I were to be hired, what would you consider to be the most pressing task as I begin?"
"Wow, that's a good question! I don't really know!"
The idea behind bullshit jobs is not to make something, do something, produce something for the betterment of humanity- as you know, such hippie-ish notions are to be scoffed at in a society where you're only as good as your IPO- but rather to force people into labor for the sake of labor. It is a bit like Sisyphus, pushing the rock up the hill for no discernible reason. However, I believe that in our case there is a reason, albeit not one you may wish to publicize.
If you were to take a random member of Congress, administered him or her truth serum, and asked whether they supported repealing the Reconstruction amendments, there is probably a fifty percent chance that they'd say yes or, confronted with their own venality, go insane. America was founded on theft and slavery and religious coercion (remember Reverend Edwards and "sinners in the hands of an angry god"?) It has had brief moments (i.e. the 1870s, the period between 1954 and 1965) when it rose above that, but essentially one cannot overwrite one's own nature. A vulture cannot become a vegan.
Thus, slavery continues. Millions of poor people, primarily minorities, are holed up in prisons, slaving away for thirty-five cents an hour. Many millions more perform service related jobs, sometimes for as little as two or three dollars an hour. And then there are those, like me, the pseudo- white collar professionals. Can we honestly say that our lives are better as we scurry from one part time, temporary, contract gig with no benefits or hope to another?
Most people in most societies long to say that they are better off than their peers. Whether it is competing with the Joneses or the Garcias or the Schwartzes, most people want to feel that they are better than their neighbors. This is self-defeating. There is always a neighbor out there who has a nicer car or a bigger house - if not on your block, then two streets away. The impulse to feel that you're better than another has perhaps been the most destructive one in human history. Third Reich, slavery, feudalism, communism, eugenics, et cetera ad nauseam, all contain the notion that by an accident of birth, you are a better human being than those who are different.
Bullshit jobs keep you on the treadmill and holding a sufficiently distinguished sounding bullshit job lets you feel better about yourself by thinking that you're better than others. We are accepting the creation of a modern feudal slave society, because deep down each of us hopes to be an overseer. It is a fools game.