Bullsh*t jobs overload

Even corporate lawyers admit their roles are meaningless

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IT’S as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.

In capitalism, this is what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both aright and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to.

This is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat.

But, of course, this is the very sort of problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to dois shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.

While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things.

The number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 4o or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours, since the rest of their time is spent organising or attending motivational seminars.

The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on its hands is a mortal danger. The idea that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, came up with one possible vision of hell.