/lit/ - Literature

>>22067540
Why would this count as a 'leftie' book

>>22067540

>>22067540
of course it's not worth reading. all you need to know is that there are people out there making 200K a year doing nothing but attending a couple meetings every day.

>>22067540
Probably worth reading because Graeber is worth reading even if you're not onboard with his politics. It will confirm for you yet again that wherever the current flavor of activist political "radicalism" comes from, it is not from intellectuals that have any grounding in reality, left-leaning or no. Measure his worldview against those that inherited the Occupy Wall Street movement and see how it changed.

>>22067540
>reading dead jews
>worth it
First day here?

The book is ok. He offers too many examples of bullshit jobs so it’s very tedious to read. Also I think getting rid of those jobs will fuck a lot of people over. Like a lot of leftists he wants to tear down capitalism without a clear or realistic alternative, which will end up failing and hurting a lot of people who aren’t rich leftists. His pro automation utopian ideas make me sick and anyone who thinks automation is a path to making a utopia is not living in the real world.

>>22067540
Read the essay, the book doesn't add much. It's an interesting perspective on the current culture / economy, but the book desperately tries to push the theory onto reality a little too much.

>>22067540
it's thought-provoking. I don't necessarily agree with all of it I think it's Graeber at his sloppiest but he makes some interesting points. have to keep in mind it's not an academic text but a "hey, weird thing I noticed" book

>>22068481
>Like a lot of leftists he wants to tear down capitalism without a clear or realistic alternative, which will end up failing and hurting a lot of people who aren’t rich leftists.
when the house is on fire, you're not worried about where you're going to sleep. you know you have to get out

I can’t really read much more stuff about what a disaster modernity is. I know it is. I just can’t take much more pessimism. I need to feel good about my life before I opt out of it. Maybe if I had been a journo or college professor, I’d feel better because I wouldn’t have a bullshit job or something g.

>>22068554
Ok but it’s not a fire. I get what you’re saying though but let’s be real.. I completely agree that things should change, if possible I’d love a UBI but rushing into a revolution with no real goal can lead to something more dangerous than a house fire.

>>22067540
I'm personally not a fan of Graeber's style so I wouldn't recommend reading it for enjoyment, HOWEVER, a lot of what he says turned out to be completely true with the pandemic, which makes it worth reading to have the sort of academic reasoning of present days events. Something like managers pushing office workers to end work from home, even though wfh ends up being more efficient and better for the environment, is something that could have been pulled straight from this book. Where I am, politicians have even used the logic that ending wfh needs to happen to save the jobs of fast food workers and restauranteurs that only existed to service the office hours lunch rush, great examples of bullshit jobs.

>>22068008
Because the right is pro work and makes not qualifications between work that is bullshit or not. So long as it is work it is good and righteous.

>>22068008
I think he basically advocates for UBI

>>22069098
UBI is rightist

>>22069098
I remember the UBI section being only a small fraction of the book near the end, I think people get too fixated on it when the majority of the work simply aims to show bullshit jobs and bullshit work are real things.

>>22068920
>So long as it is work it is good and righteous.
That's horrifying.

>>22068646
sit with me and watch atmospheric carbon tick tick tick up with each passing hour, anon. the world’s on fire. the fire exits are to the far left

>>22068297
this. and im close to being one of them

Debt: the first 5000 years of history is so much better, it's not even close.

>>22068297
>Of course it’s important to go into life not knowing anything or thinking too hard about stuff. Pass on it OP

>>22069448
>This. I have senseless zoom meetings to show up for. I don’t have time for reading.

Kek.

>>22069098
I'm centre-right and I support UBI if everyone receives it regardless of their wealth. The money would return to the economy anyway because people need to spend money in order to survive. Given that AI will replace millions of jobs, it sounds like a sensible economic policy.

>>22071137
>Given that AI will replace millions of jobs
Nah, people will do the same jobs, just expected to have higher output and get paid less because they are relying on a proprietary machine learning algorithm that does most of the thinking for them. .

>>22069918
my first favorite book when it came out

>>22069098
>I think he basically advocates for UBI
I'm not well read on UBI but my understanding is is a solution intended for sustaining the current market capitalism based economy most countries follow. At best it socialist since its mostly seems to be about recognizing the tax base more than anything else.

nobody reads anymore because of movies are just better at best you could animate sex meanwhile you have text saying haveing sex and there no point reading

>>22068297
in related news overwatch 2 was cancelled after five years of "work"

>>22069429
your head is far up your ass mate

>>22067540
>Is it worth reading?
Not really. It's been debunked a million times.

>>22069918
Another book that has been refuted by austrian school economists.

>>22069429
you people are in a religious cult and your ideological enemies know more about your ideology than you do

>>22068297
I think about that Facebook middle manager, just shy of turning 40, who complained anonymously online that he was close to having a $1M total compensation package, but when Facebook announced their layoffs this year, he was afraid that all his hard work was going to be for naught and they'd lay him off before he got the chance to make real money.
No one in the forum was particularly sympathetic.

>>22072521
>Another book that has been refuted by austrian school economists.
refuted how?

>>22073211
With theoretical graphs and proven assumptions on their results! We took a zoom meeting and all agreed with the data. Don’t question!

>>22071137
Wouldn’t the amount of money you give out just become the new $0?

Also, work sucks, but I’m not sure that people have fully thought out what will happen if a bunch of people become suddenly unemployed.

>>22069132
The problem is if jobs are bullshit, who's doing them? If it's talented people that just caught up in bureaucracy--there are plenty of people out there that are in the wrong job, both overemployed and underemployed, then UBI is not the answer. If it's talentless people in bullshit jobs, then they shouldn't be getting paid to exist.

>>22068026
Wood

>>22075124
>wouldn't inflation turn a nonzero amount into zero
no that's stupid

>I’m not sure that people have fully thought out what will happen if a bunch of people become suddenly unemployed.
It probably differs depending on whether they're hungry and unemployed or fed and unemployed.

>>22069098
So did Nixon.

>>22076168
A functionally zero amount. Don’t act like you don’t know what I meant. Reduced labor and increased demand would drive prices of goods up in a way we’ve never seen before. And people are often miserable if they have nothing to do. Work functions are a sort of foil that people blame for not achieving whatever it is they think they should be doing, but if they were completely freed from work they would achieve even less, and would likely be miserable. They’d be met face to face with their own inadequacies. Most people would not be self-disciplined enough to do anything worth while in the absence of structured labor. If you need proof of how undisciplined everyone is, just look at how fat all of them are. If money is the sole ingredient for happiness, where are all the blissfully content rich people?

>>22076391
If only 100 dollars exist and you give 90 of them away as UBI, the 90 dollars won't somehow buy nothing while whoever gets hold of the remaining 10 buys everything. The same principle holds for any non-negligible fraction of the economy given away as UBI. UBI might cause inflation but there's no inherent pressure compressing purchasing power from UBI down to nothing. That's just not how numbers work.

If someone actually cares about what they achieve at work they can always keep doing it, and even keep being rewarded for it. I don't think shelf stockers who don't give a shit about the result of their work will become less happy.

>>22068008

Graeber is a leftist anarchist. Although you could definitely use this book to support traditionalist rightism.

>>22076391
>if they were completely freed from work they would achieve even less, and would likely be miserable
What's the suicide rate among retirees?

>>22076459
>Although you could definitely use this book to support traditionalist rightism.
if you were illiterate, and retarded, then sure

>>22076459
>traditionalist rightism.
>God and king
>Patriarchal rule with strict sexual morality diminishing the roles of women's participation in community.
>Strong centralized state/kingdom/empires

This is a book talking smack to capitalism. The so-called rightwing in the US and "west" are LIBERALS who get butt-sore at things like this. Look at this guy >>22076524


And no, Ted Kaczyński isn't a right-winger

>>22076497
70 year olds sitting around doing nothing isn’t the same as having a bunch of 25 year olds doing it. Work is annoying, but it’s also how a lot of people meet friends, romantic partners, and future spouses. (People also do these things in college. But why are they in college? To get a job.)

>>22076449
That’s with the huge assumption that the government won’t simply increase the money supply, which they already do now and we don’t even have UBI.

>>22076626
>That’s with the huge assumption that the government won’t simply increase the money supply, which they already do now and we don’t even have UBI.
And "establishing a whole network of government employees to give people free money" sounds like a bullshit job in itself.

>>22076626
>70 year olds sitting around doing nothing isn’t the same as having a bunch of 25 year olds doing it.
what's the suicide rate among young retirees
>romantic partners, and future spouses
maybe if you don't mind being charged with sexual harrassment

>>22076640
You just mail people a check. One of the selling points of UBI is that it could replace a lot of welfare programs like food stamps or housing assistance or whatever. It would dramatically reduce bureaucracy.

>>22076626
>>22076644
>>romantic partners, and future spouses
This. You can't do it safely anymore in this culture. That is, if you're serious about your carreer.

>>22076626
No matter what the money supply is, 100 dollars given away as UBI will be worth the same amount as 100 dollars not given away as UBI. UBI will become worthless if and only if all other money becomes worthless. So saying UBI will deflate to nothing is wrong. It will successfully provide real goods and services to UBI recipients, just like it does to every other entity the government throws printer paper at.

>>22069429
>nooo earth won't be able to support 10 trillion humans anymore
it was better back at 10 million

>>22067540
Graebar worth reading? Ehh... I don't like him very much. He's your typical waffling post-Cold War leftie who pulls nonsensical theories out of his ass which he justifies because he was a college professor. I've met a few anthropologists who don't like him because he threw some people under the bus and has a reputation for strawmanning his opponents, and these anthros were pretty left leaning themselves. Graeber is the type that takes relatively short essays and blows them up with filler into full size books to make money, just find his original articles and essays and forget reading his books and don't spend a dime on anything printed by penguin.