Lessons from coronavirus: Not all jobs are ‘bullshit’

But yours might be.

David Graeber is professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and author of "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory" (Simon & Schuster, 2018).

LONDON — Crises tend to reveal unacknowledged truths. In 2008, we learned that the majority of the financial wizards we had been taught to treat with awe for the previous two decades were, in fact, little more than scam artists — and rather clumsy ones, at that.

The coronavirus, and resulting lockdowns, is teaching us an even more startling lesson: that a very large portion of what we call “the economy” is little more than just another scam.

It's hard to know what else to conclude when literally millions of highly paid office workers have been forced to stay away from the office, to reduce their work to 10 or 15 minutes a day, or often nothing at all, without having the slightest impact on those essential functions that keep the public fed, clothed, distracted and alive.

What actual purpose do leadership consultants, brand managers, marketing researchers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, strategic deans or vice presidents for creative development (let alone their endless legions of administrative assistants) actually serve? In many areas — notably hospitals — things seem to be running decidedly more smoothly in the absence of the “nonessential workers” at the top of the administrative and managerial food chain.

Perhaps the most telling symbol here: Back in March, there was a debate, including in POLITICO, over whether it might be a good idea to shut down Wall Street entirely, if only for a few weeks, to calm the waters.

Nowhere in the discussion was there any suggestion that shutting down trading would itself have any negative effects on … pretty much anyone (except for the traders).

What does it say of an institution that it can do terrible harm, but no one is quite sure in what way it does them any good?

Economics textbooks of course teach us that “financial markets” are the superior, free market-driven way to do what governments used to try to do by central planning — that they serve us by optimally allocating resources to meet future wants and needs.

And yet, “the market” seems to have failed about as completely as any Soviet five-year plan ever could, creating almost unimaginable divisions between rich and poor, teeing up periodic financial crises, and, apparently, driving us with breakneck speed to destroy the earth.

Maybe efficient allocation was never really the point. Maybe Wall Street just existed for its own sake. Maybe all these glittering towers are just as much vanity projects as the hundreds of in-house corporate magazines. Maybe half the carbon dioxide we're pumping into the air is ultimately being released so that some executive vice president can wave his hand and say, “behold my empire!”

The people ultimately responsible for this state of affairs are many of those now working from home.

So, what about those actually working — that is those who, as we have newly discovered, actually make our lives possible?

Let’s perform a thought experiment. What if we conceived “the economy” not as a market but as the way we human beings take care of one another, by providing each other with material needs and the basis for satisfying, meaningful lives.

Define productivity in this way and it's hard to escape the conclusion that the more economically beneficial jobs — fruit-pickers, nurses, delivery workers, electricians, shelf stockers — tend not just to be the least well paid; they are also treated with the least on-the-job respect, and they’re often the most dangerous.

Indeed, at least half, and perhaps most, of the most valuable work isn't paid at all, but performed out of love, overwhelmingly by women.

It's commonplace now to celebrate “essential workers” as heroes, in the same way we are accustomed to doing when speaking of soldiers and the police, putting their lives on the line for the sake of all of us.

In reality, farmers, fishermen, drivers, garbage collectors and construction workers have always been more likely to die on the job than police officers; we simply never think about it, in much the same way we never seem to ask ourselves why it is that so many of those who provide our essential needs are forced to wear strange, uncomfortable uniforms for no particular reason.

They were always putting their lives on the line for our benefit. We just never noticed.

The governing principle of our current system seems to be exactly backward: Those with the power to do the most harm are rewarded most, while those who do the most good are rewarded least (“virtue should be its own reward” as the ancient Stoics used to put it).

How about this year we turn it around? How about we give essential workers “special bonuses” worth two or three times their normal annual salary, like we normally do for Wall Street executives, and let the executives make do with occasional waves of applause.

Then we can start thinking of how many of those now working from home actually need to return to their cubicles, and how many of the jobs out there are better left undone.