Bullshit Jobs

March 5, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that by the end of the century, technology would have advanced enough to give us a 15-hour work week. Instead, as anthropologist David Graeber argued in his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs, technology has been used to make us all work more. Graeber’s central claim is that huge swaths of the workforce—particularly in professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service roles—spend their days performing tasks they secretly believe do not need to be done. The book became a phenomenon, but when you press on its categories and evidence, the argument gets slippery.

The Five Categories and Why They Don’t Quite Hold

Graeber defines a bullshit job as “a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence.” He sorts these jobs into five types: flunkies (whose role is to make their boss feel important), goons (aggressive roles like lobbyists or telemarketers that exist only because others employ them), duct tapers (people hired to fix problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place), box tickers (employees who allow an organization to claim it is doing something it is not), and task masters (middle managers who assign bullshit work to others).

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of If Books Could Kill

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (00:40) **Book Introduction & Initial Criticisms** - Michael and Peter introduce David Graeber's "Bullshit Jobs" (2018), noting Graeber is a leftist anthropologist whose work is interesting but meandering and lacks data.
2 (03:04) **Defining a Bullshit Job** - Graeber's definition: a job that is "completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious" such that even the employee can't justify its existence.
3 (04:58) **From Essay to Book: The Origin Story** - Graeber's 2013 essay in Strike magazine was the seed, and the book feels like an essay stretched to 300 pages without sufficient data.
4 (07:21) **The Shift to Service & Administrative Work** - Graeber argues that productive jobs were automated away, but instead of reducing hours, we saw a ballooning of administrative, financial, and legal sectors.
5 (09:14) **The Ruling Class Conspiracy Theory** - Graeber claims the ruling class opposes free time because a "happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger."
6 (12:19) **The Five Categories of Bullshit Jobs** - Graeber's research is mostly self-reported anecdotes, which he uses to delineate five categories: Flunkies, Goons, Duck Tapers, Box Tickers, and Task Masters.
7 (14:44) **Goons, Duck Tapers, and Box Tickers** - Graeber's categories get increasingly murky as Peter and Michael test them against real-world examples.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Peter and Michael discuss "Bullshit Jobs" by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber. The result: two professional podcasters debating which jobs are real and which jobs are fake.

Where to find us:

Sources:

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod