There seems to be a spate of these articles right now, relating to bullshit jobs (etc). I wish there was some sort of top-down way of tracing this kind of thing. Has anyone noticed how news stories and commentary pieces come and go in waves? Comments upon comments. Would be really interesting to collate them.

David Graeber the anarchist anthropologist (he doesn't like being called that) wrote a good 'un at libcom: https://libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber One commenter has attempted to give an estimate of the number of "bullshit jobs" (i.e. red tape / only there to make money and not really to help anyone).

Society is so focused on work, that when people have any free time, the idea of doing work unconnected to the profit motive (e.g. exercise, learning, teaching, reading, writing) is the last thing that they want to do. People are just too fucking tired. What's the first thing that you want to do at the end of an eight hour day? Unfortunately these kinds of work are more beneficial to ourselves and society than many forms of profit-related labour.