> Unfortunately Graeber's book went for the headline instead of analysing them more clinically.
Really? I thought he actually did divide "bullshit jobs" into different categories (5 of them total) in his book.
But I am not even sure that your 1,2,3 is so separate. Isn't creating jobs that nobody needs and nobody would notice if they went away also alienating and, consequently, toxic? Isn't that just a matter of extent?
Anyway, I agree that free markets cannot be a solution to any moral problem, because participation in markets is by definition symmetric and voluntary, and so they cannot consistently impose any values. (But the people who push the markets do want them to, for ideological reasons, appear as if they are inevitable, and this requires the capability to resolve moral ambiguity.)
Really? I thought he actually did divide "bullshit jobs" into different categories (5 of them total) in his book.
But I am not even sure that your 1,2,3 is so separate. Isn't creating jobs that nobody needs and nobody would notice if they went away also alienating and, consequently, toxic? Isn't that just a matter of extent?
Anyway, I agree that free markets cannot be a solution to any moral problem, because participation in markets is by definition symmetric and voluntary, and so they cannot consistently impose any values. (But the people who push the markets do want them to, for ideological reasons, appear as if they are inevitable, and this requires the capability to resolve moral ambiguity.)