Zach WeinersmithExtremely niche gripe:
I regularly see people citing David Graeber as showing that 40% of jobs were "bullshit jobs." But, like, that was based on a survey where around 40% of people said they didn't think their jobs contributed to the world.
Which is perhaps not great, but also doesn't mean they're bullshit in the sense of pointless busywork. Like, in a world where everyone was a subsistence farmer, everyone would feel like they contributed, but we'd all be a lot poorer and hungrier.
I believe I've read most of all Graeber's books, and I find him really frustrating because he has really fun ideas, but then his books just sort of meander around the topic rather than prove anything. And then later the books get used as if they did build a case.
Like a lot of the case in "Bullshit Jobs" is Graeber talking to people who don't like their jobs and extrapolating to how society works. And as I recall he never reckons with the obvious objection that if many companies are pointlessly paying wages, why don't leaner companies outcompete?
Bam BuzelInteresting! That one is on my to read list. Can you think of an argument on that point? Oligopoly, like another commenter suggested? To me that could explain part of it but many markets are certainly not oligopoles