Bullshit job - Misplaced Pages

(Redirected from Pseudowork) Meaningless or unnecessary wage labour This article is about the phenomenon. For the book, see Bullshit Jobs.

A bullshit job or pseudowork is meaningless or unnecessary wage labour which the worker is obliged to pretend to have a purpose. Polling in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands indicates that around 40% of workers consider their job to fit this description.

The concept was coined by anthropologist David Graeber in a 2013 essay in Strike Magazine, On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, and elaborated upon in his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs.

Graeber also formulated the concept of bullshitization, where previously meaningful work turns into a bullshit job through corporatization, marketization or managerialism. This has been applied to academia, which Graeber and others contend has been bullshitized by the expansion of managerial roles and administrative work caused by neoliberal educational reforms, contributing to the erosion of academic freedom.

References

Fogh Jensen, Anders; Nørmark, Dennis (2021). Pseudowork: How we ended up being busy doing nothing. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs. Simon & Schuster. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-5011-4331-1.
^ Heller, Nathan (2018-07-06). "The Bullshit-Job Boom". The New Yorker.
Graeber, David (2018-05-06). "Are You in a BS Job? In Academe, You're Hardly Alone". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Kezar, Adrianna; DePaola, Tom; Scott, Daniel T. (2019). The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 69–70. ISBN 978-1-4214-3271-7 – via Google Books.
Maiese, Michelle; Hanna, Robert (2019). The Mind-Body Politic. Springer. p. 146. ISBN 978-3-030-19546-5 – via Google Books.
Delucchi, Michael; Dadzie, Richard B.; Dean, Erik; Pham, Xuan (2021-06-17). "What's that smell? Bullshit jobs in higher education". Review of Social Economy: 1–22. doi:10.1080/00346764.2021.1940255. ISSN 0034-6764. S2CID 237792077.
Reichman, Henry (2019). The Future of Academic Freedom. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-4214-2859-8 – via Google Books.

External links

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs, Strike Magazine (August 2013)
Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs, via The Anarchist Library.

v t e Critique of work
Historical persons	Abbie Hoffman Edward Bellamy Alfredo M. Bonanno André Gorz Bob Black Günther Anders Guy Debord Heinrich Böll Ivan Illich Mikhail Bakunin Paul Lafargue Walter Benjamin Antonio Negri Bertrand Russell Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Herbert Marcuse Jerry Rubin Josef Pieper Karl Marx Max Stirner Max Weber Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Raoul Vaneigem Renzo Novatore Zo d'Axa
Contemporary persons	Franco Berardi L. Susan Brown Madeleine Bunting David Graeber Michael Hardt Maurizio Lazzarato Claus Peter Ortlieb Roland Paulsen Jeremy Rifkin Penelope Rosemont Mark Slouka Nick Srnicek Claire Wolfe John Zerzan
Terminology and related topics	996 working hour system Absenteeism Abusive supervision Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy Autonomism Bare minimum Monday Bullshit job Coffee badging Corporatocracy Cycle of poverty Dolce far niente Effects of overtime Employee ghosting Extermination through labour Career cushioning Careerism Flextime Forced labour Four-day workweek Funemployment Ghost job Uberisation / Gig worker Glass cliff Happiness economics Honeymoon-hangover effect Hush trip Job crafting Job cuffing Jobless employed Karoshi Loud quitting Neijuan Occupational burnout Occupational safety and health Occupational stress Orange S.A. suicides Overwork Performance punishment Post-work society Precariat Presenteeism Digital presenteeism Productivity theater Professional abuse Protestant work ethic Psychological safety Quick quitting Quiet hiring Quiet promotion Quiet quitting Quiet thriving Lazy girl job Rage applying Refusal of work Resenteeism Right to rest and leisure Sampo generation Sunday scaries Six-hour day Tang ping Technological unemployment Toxic workplace Narcissism Psychopathy Wage slavery Work ethic Workaholic Working poor Work–life interface
Theater, movies, music and art	À Nous la Liberté Office Space Swedish Public Freedom Service "Take This Job and Shove It" The Future of Work and Death The Main Thing Is Work! The Working Class Goes to Heaven Yama—Attack to Attack
Literature	Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral Bartleby, the Scrivener Bonjour paresse Bullshit Jobs The Conquest of Bread Critique of Economic Reason Fight Club Future Primitive and Other Essays In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays Inventing the Future Manifesto Against Work New Escapologist On the Poverty of Student Life The Society of the Spectacle Steal This Book The Abolition of Work The End of Work The Human Use of Human Beings The Idler The Revolution of Everyday Life The Right to Be Lazy The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy
Communities	R/antiwork CrimethInc. Situationist International
See also	Criticism of capitalism Critique of political economy Job strain

v t e David Graeber
Bibliography	Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value (2002) Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004) Lost People (2007) Direct Action: An Ethnography (2009) Debt (2011) The Democracy Project (2013) The Utopia of Rules (2015) On Kings (2017) Bullshit Jobs (2018) The Dawn of Everything (2021) Pirate Enlightenment (2023)
Related	Bullshit job Critique of work

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