If you look at the proportions of the work that is actually being done in our society, and you eliminate first of all, the jobs that don't need to exist at all, second of all, the unnecessary work those jobs create for others, and then finally, the real work which is done in order to support the guys doing the nonsense, well I'm sure you can easily get rid of 50% of the work we do and there'd be no trouble at all.

Anthropologist David Graeber explores the rise of useless work under late capitalism / early managerial feudalism - as a phenomenon everyone but CEOs and economists understand perfectly well, and as a grim reminder that we could all probably be doing something (or nothing!) better than with our time than bullshit work.

David is author of the new book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory from Simon & Schuster.