…the average oppressed medieval serf…worked less than a modern nine-to-five office or factory worker…
—David Graeber & David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity #humanrentals

If women were to be compensated in the same way as men then a huge proportion of the world’s wealth would instantly have to be handed over to them; and wealth, of course, is power.
—David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #work #humanrentals

It’s hard to imagine a surer sign that one is dealing with an irrational economic system than the fact that the prospect of eliminating drudgery is considered to be a problem.
—David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #work #humanrentals

They [compensatory consumerism] are the sorts of things you can do to make up for the fact that you don’t have a life, or not very much of one.
—David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #work #humanrentals

…the fact that our jobs…come to eat up more and more of our waking existence means that we do not have the luxury of…“a life,” and that, in turn, means that furtive consumer pleasures are the only ones we have time to afford.
—David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #work #humanrentals

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it’s hard to see how they could have done a better job. …workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited.
—David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #work #humanrentals

I believe that this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply fear of the mob. The mob (the thought runs) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.
—George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London #work #humanrentals

Bullshit jobs proliferate today in large part because of the peculiar nature of managerial feudalism… …the greater the social value produced by a job, the less one is likely to be paid to do it. …if one does not engage in labor that destroys the mind and body…one does not deserve to live.
—David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #management #humanrentals

How are workers supposed to find meaning and purpose in jobs where they are effectively being turned into robots? Where they are actually being told they are little better than robots, even as at the same time they are increasingly expected to organize their lives around their work?
—David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory #work #humanrentals