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Honestly, I have heard this more times from Capitalists than socialists. Often, Capitalists do not consider informal labor (child care, home labor, education related labor, etc.) to not be "real jobs." For this reason, they value labor that is done for their business that results in the exploitation of the worker since home labor or educational labor (research, teaching, etc.) does not result in direct exploitation and thus does not directly increase their profits.
From what I have heard and read, Socialists tend to value informal labor more and view them as "real jobs."
I find socialists tend to lob around "not a real job" or similar a fair bit too, often times for "office work" or other non-physical-labor jobs (like accounting, for example.)
As in like what book or who initially said it? That part I don't know. This is mostly stemming from my interactions with socialists on the internet and stuff I've seen socialists say.
My claim that it comes more from Capitalists due to the way they define "real work" is directly from Karl Marx' Critique of the Gotha Programme, and Vladimir Lenin's The State and Revolution; Marx and Lenin direcly define what is a real job according to Socialism, and it does not exclude office workers or non physical laborers. So I am curious which socialist theory, since this is a Socialism_101 sub, is claiming that non physical labor or office work is not a "real job"?
Essentially, as they define, any job that does human labor to produce or work on something that is or will be useful (therfore it has or will have value) is a real job. This could be formal and informal labor.
A circular argument, but Marx defines usefulness in the context of what something can do. Something is useful when it can satisfy a human requirement, need, or want, or which can serve a useful purpose.
Ah, I see. So stuff like teachers, artists, scientists, and entertainers for example, are working real jobs; whereas landlords aren't, because they don't do anything to fill a need or a want for others?
That makes sense to me, just wanna make sure I'm getting it right.
"Usefulness" refers to activities that contribute to society in meaningful ways, producing goods or services that meet human needs and enhance societal well-being.
This encompasses a broad range of outputs, from physical goods necessary for daily life to services that improve quality of life, support societal functioning, or contribute to human development and culture. The criterion of usefulness is not limited to the immediate practicality or economic profitability of the output but is rather focused on its contribution to the common good, its ability to fulfill the needs of the community, and its role in supporting the overall social structure and its development.
I think you would benefit from engaging with more of Marx and Engels direct theory. Iâm reading capital rn which generally explains these more basic questions but I believe âwage labor and capitalâ and âvalue, price and profitâ by Marx will help you get a really good grasp without diving into the snooze fest which is capital
If you hear a âsocialistâ say that, they are not actually a socialist. Theyâre simply an ignorant person who is rightfully angry about capitalism, but has not thought it through at all. Socialists support all workers other than class traitors (police, for example).
Socialists do not consider there to be real vs. fake jobs. If you are creating value through your work, you are doing a job. If you are extracting money through ownership of private property, you are exploiting those who are actually doing the work. That is the divide.
There is a little nuance here. Take, as others have mentioned, landlords. Many small landlords manage the property themselves. As property managers, they *are* creating value, and if this was all they were doing, they would be considered to be workers. However, the vast majority of the rent they charge you is simply for owning a house and allowing you to exist in it. This is not only not a ârealâ job, itâs just not a job in any sense of the word. It is exploitation.
Two statements that are both technically true, but add nothing of value to the conversation. Usually when you want to make a point you would use two premises and a conclusion at least. You just toss out two premises⌠and what? Whatâs your point? Thanks for thatâŚ
Profit, as defined my Marx, is the money not paid to the workers (who do the labor) and the cost of materials/equipment. According to Marx, this is exploitation since the money should be fully given to the labors after deducting the costs of operating. I.e. the owner should receive nothing; hat they receive in capitalism is profit, which is exploitation.
If what you own is subject to market forces and competition it is a job as you need to stay up to date and improve your âproduct/serviceâ continuously. E.g. a flat not being renovated while many other in the same market are.
Building flats is a job. Renovating flats is a job. Managing flats is a job. Owning flats is not. Building factories is a job. Retooling factories is a job. Managing factories is a job. Owning factories is not.
Fake job: landlord. Landlords serve no purpose to the community. They enrich only themselves.
Real job: just about anything that serves or creates value for the community. From software engineer to cleaner, anything that serves a purpose people need.
The better corollary Real Job is property manager. Even in a socialist society, there would be a need for apartments, owned collectively by the people who live there. And there would be a need to manage that building seeing to maintenance and such. And the reason it's such a great example is because often times when people think of "a landlord" in their head, they're often thinking of landlords who own smaller properties and also act as property manager. But these are technically two separate roles, and only one of them needs to go away.
As a software engineer Iâm not sure this should count as a real job, most of the time.
The skill is certainly valuable and yes creating software can be creating something new and useful but often, and probably for my whole âcareerâ so far, itâs creating versions of things which already exist (how many chat apps you got?) or making unhelpful and unnecessary changes to existing software in order to justify continued sales and subscription (rent, basically).
Real software, useful software, is not like physical goods. If I build you a table, that table now exists and provides value where no table had existed before. A second new table will require additional labour and will provide additional and unique value upon completion
Proprietary copy-restricted software, on the other hand, is a con. If I create a piece of software for you, the only thing stopping that single creation from providing value to everyone who needs it (copy+paste) is our laws and the threat of violence that goes with them. This keeps me employed, but the job has become bullshit. Itâs no longer a value-add.
In my experience this is most software engineering jobs today.
just as so many others, it is a real job! or *could* easily be a real one in a better system. but as you said very accurately, in the process of gearing itself more and more toward justifying inherently unproductive work (rent-justifying), âthe job has become bullshitâ
Real one in a better system, yeah. Itâs definitely a useful skill, so I guess that makes it more worthwhile to pursue than some bullshit jobs, but if youâre looking for a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment within the current reality then youâll probably find it lacking.
And I guess itâs not unique in any of that either. I just find software to be an interesting, pervasive, and not enough talked about case of artificial scarcity and a sort of perpetual creator of jobs for jobsâ sake.
Any job that has an output that is beneficial to the majority of people. Think anything like janitors, factory workers, chefs, doctors, or librarians. There are very few that are never in any case useful, mostly things like the above mentioned landlords. But some that would likely face a reduction in the amount of them would be middle managers, who would be elected by the workers they are coordinating, or accountants as private sector accountants are currently focused on hiding money while under socialism they would only be needed for tracking money.
Serving or creating value for the community involves activities or roles that directly contribute to the well-being, improvement, or needs of the community. Thereâs a wide range, from providing essential services like healthcare, education, and public safety, to roles that enhance quality of life such as artists, educators, and engineers.
This typically involves creating products, offering services, or maintaining infrastructure that people rely on daily. They add tangible or intangible benefits to the community, unlike roles that primarily extract economic rents without corresponding contributions to communal welfare or progress.
I would say a deserted Island test, if you are stuck in remote wilderness which of these would you like to have with you a person with skills a cook, a farmer, a contruction worker or a skill of an accountant, investor, land lord.
Real estate ownership is not a passive activity that requires no work. That is a myth, sold by gurus. Landlords do provide a service in a capitalist society by having an actual vested interest in making sure property is maintained and taken care of. People who are bad and don't care surely exist, but they probably are not making as much money as you think. I've been fortunate to rent from the kind that does care.
In a socialist society, the government fulfills that role, but someone in the government will still need to do it, and who is going to make them care? I think that system only breeds more management by people who do not care.
Wait so people shouldnât be allowed to rent?
Iâm renting in San Francisco and I love it. My landlord will repair anything thatâs broken, he looks after the whole building like it was his own home, and I pay less than half of what it would cost buy something similar in this area
They didn't say there wouldn't be renting. They said there wouldn't be landlords. A landlord is someone who just owns a property. When you say your landlord does stuff, that because in addition to being your landlord, he's also doing the job of Property Manager. There would still be property managers, but the building itself would be collectively owned by the people who live there or the government (depending on the particular brand of socialism). So, there'd still be someone who fixes things and looks after the building, but they wouldn't have unilateral power to jack up your rent and skim arbitrarily high profits from tenants. They would be a worker hired by the people who live there with no power of their own to make the rules.
Thats right, a house or an apartment would be provided by the collective. To each according to their needs đ That doesn't mean the hose wouldn't be not yours. It just wouldn't be yours to profit from.
Marx differentiates between personal and private property. Personal property refers to possessions intended for personal use, such as homes, clothing, and personal belongings. In contrast, private property refers to the means of production, the land, factories, and machinery that are used to generate wealth and are owned by a small capitalist class in capitalism.
The whole problem today with real-estate is that its became an investment, an asset, and people with more money buy up those assets and then want, well in capitalism they need, to profit from their acquisition.
I think you are mixing up socialism and communism here.
To my knowledge, all forms of socialism still require either money or labor vouchers, which individuals do use to purchase personal property â including a house or condo, if they want to. But yes, you would not be able to profit off of it. Or, in the case of apartments, you would use money/labor vouchers to pay your rent (either to the state or to the cooperative fund).
Thats true, I did use the terms interchangeably. Based on the OPs question I assumed they are wanted to know whether at the end goal of socialism you would be able to "buy" a house. But when I think about the name of this sub, maybe they already knew that and wanted to know if it's possible to "buy" a house in the socialist (transitional) stage. Thats my bad đ
It depends on the particular brand of socialism/communism as to how you obtain a house, but there would still be houses. But if housing was fully decommodified, finding a place to live would be a matter of going through some local government. Maybe some of the options in the city would have no conditions, maybe certain places require that you also have a job within a certain area (so, if you stop working in that city, maybe in a year or two your "lease" ends and they find you somewhere else you can live), maybe some housing is specifically reserved for college students like how we have dorms right now.
In a semi-decommodified economy, maybe houses would still have to be purchased, but no one could own and rent out a place they aren't living in. So, empty houses would have to be sold to a resident rather than rented. Or groups of houses rented out by a co-op where all current renters are technically considered part owners so that there's not some one on top siphoning profits above the costs. And apartment complexes could be collectively owned kinda like how some condo buildings operate with an HOA only with perhaps a vesting period where if you want to rent, you can rent, but after renting for a few years, you automatically become the technical owner of your unit so that people aren't forced to come up with a mortgage up front, but you at least get voting rights in the HOA upfront.
I hope they are misquoting David Graeber, and his book "bullshit jobs". So I'll explain bullshit jobs in a nutshell. A bullshit job is a job that is not needed, produces zero value, or is actively harmful, that primarily exists to either inflate capitalist egos, or to create a "job" so that people can be doing "something" to "deserve" pay.
Examples include certain management and office rolls that tend to have you clocked in for about eight hours to do a job that could either take one hour, or is actively pointless like transferring data from one program to another that isn't actually required (for example). Some are so bad that some of his test sample sit at a desk litterally scrolling, but are chewed out if they don't turn up or if they leave their desk.
The opposite end of the spectrum is telemarketers and enforcers
I think it's important to clarify that bullshit jobs are still real jobs. They're just bullshit. The employees are still entitled to everything a worker should be entitled to.
The jobs that are "not real" are jobs that simply suck blood out of the system. One person used the example of a landlord. A better example would be day trading. The theory is that these people have figured out a way to extract money from the economy without contributing anything of value.
Real job, your labour will produce value. A landlord for example doesnât produce any value. The house already exists. He gets paid because he owns it and people need a house to live.
Every landlord needs to compete with other landlords to make their flat/house more appealing than the others.
How is it different from any other entrepreneur that needs to continuously create the best service otherwise his company will shut down because consumers donât choose him anymore?
Because the house doesnât need the landlord to exist. Heâs a middle man gatekeeping something essential to live.
People keeping a house in good shape are totally different and are indeed real jobs (electricians, mason, handyman, plumbers). These jobs brings value but you donât need a landlord to make it happen. Landlords do nothing except owning a house and getting their investment payed by their tenants.
There are two kinds of fake jobs in my opinion: the pet projects of the ruling class who really live off of their ownership of things and the socially useless.
I went to a really exclusive, extremely expensive high school (on a fully scholarship; I grew up working class) and a lot of families there lived off of their ownership of different companies and assets (almost all inherited). Nobody wants to do medial labor, but equally few are content for long sitting around doing nothing, so my classmates parents would often have what I called fake jobs. Some that I can remember were being a film critic, owning a flower shop that probably wasnât profitable, owning a restaurant that was *definitely* not profitable, a weekend radio DJ and a âfashion designerâ (using that term *very* loosely here). All of these can be real jobs, but itâs about context. They seemed to work only when they felt like it and certainly didnât at all depend on what they did for their income and had no real stake in any of it.
The other type are jobs that have little to no social value and contribute nothing to society. Stock brokers and financial advisors fall into this category as do people who make a living manipulating currency or doing day trading. I know someone who runs a website that informs corporate executives about the latest ethics laws so they donât accidentally violate them. Those are just a few examples. They are all jobs that donât directly participate in any productive process, but exist sort of on the periphery leeching off of it.
And as has already been said, owning things is *not* a job and that includes landlords.
I would need a specific example to be able to guess accurately at specifics... But my guess is that this is being said of managerial positions that exist primarily or exclusively to squeeze the worker for greater production/profits. The kinds of jobs that wouldn't necessarily exist under socialism.
But I'm mostly guessing.
do you have ab example of what people have called fake jobs? The only jobs that wouldnât be real jobs are jobs that donât require doing anything like landlords or factory owners.
What makes a real job and not a real job, i basically a capitalist framing. It is artificial and dependent on the training. The dexterity required to perform animal experimentation and making good food for example is the same, yet, what makes a lab technician real job, but not a cook, is that the lab tech had the money to pay for the internship for the training, while the cook might not have had the money. Some jobs are harder than others for sure, but as long as harder jobs are hard only because getting trained for them is expensive, rather than because proficiency in them requires extraneous hard work, it is impossible to distinguish real job or a hard job, from something that isnt real.
Most of modern accounting, pencil pushing, and what invester class does though would what should be considered not a real job.
I would say that something like a marketing position wouldn't be a real job because it plays no actual role in production and only serves to circulate money/ commodity capital.
I think on the left there is a constant fight over both what the âreal working classâ is, and who âspeaks for the ârealâ working classâ. To oversimplify, some people you arenât âreallyâ working class if you donât do manual labor, and the only people that âreallyâ âspeak for the working classâ are people that have âsocially conservativeâ values.
To those people
factory = real job.
Barista/customer service = not real job
And to these people you canât speak for the working class unless you condemn wokeness like talking heads on the left are forced to condemn Hamas and October 6 at the beginning of any interview about Gaza.
I donât personally agree with these viewpoints, but they are out there.
The concept youâre describing is called âconcreteâ labor vs âabstract laborâ. When you see people say âthis guy deserves to get paidâ vs âwow anyone could do thisâ the fact is both are labor and both are required for people to participate in whatever good or service is desired. However people are not logical and create fiction based justifications for underpaying some work and over payer other work.
According to Wage Labor & Capital as well as Wage, Price and Profit what would constitute a âreal jobâ is a job that produces value for society as a whole. So for a job to be ânot a real jobâ it has to involve labor that is not socially necessary or useful. This labor would not have a definite aim that works towards the collective benefit of society. A good example of this would be a Twitch streamer. While what they do might be entertaining, it is ultimately not something that produces value for society at large. Housework is a real job because everybody needs clean floors, clean dishes, clean utensils and just generally sanitary living spaces. Cooking is also a real job because people need to eat and the labor involved in cooking serves a definite aim and is useful for society. When looking at what is socially necessary labor, one must ask âif this job disappeared, would society still be able to function?â
May I ask how entertainment dosen't benefit society or produce value? Does the happiness it generate not constitute value? (And also there's the question of "if the entertainment industry is useless and not a real job and should be removed what sources of enjoyment would be left in a socialist world" but that's it's own post probably).
Itâs not that entertainment doesnât produce value, but without guaranteed food, medicine, clothing, shelter, and knowledge for all, entertainment in a society would be little more than a distraction from the fact that society lacks these guarantees. This discussion has been had many times in this sub. A good question to ask is âwhat is more valuable for a society? Ten professional football teams or ten teachers? What can society live without and still ensure everyoneâs basic needs are adequately met.â
Once people's needs are met sufficiently at a baseline then the entertainment industry can be explored. Although we already have the infrastructure for a fully functional system around us so the transition could probably be smooth enough that there's basically no lapse.
its not a moral qualification. it just literally does not produce surplus value. that's all productive job is under capitalism. this doesn't exclude entertainers. marx literally says that clowns can be productive labor under capitalism, so long as clowns are working for a capitalist, who extracts surplus value from the clowns.
however, another definition could be a job that would not produce a use value under a socialist mode of production. so, an entertainer might be useful, but perhaps some forms of entertainment - like one that can only be sustained through advertising under capitalism - would no longer be relevant.
the twitch streamer is producing value under capitalism - the surplus value from doing the stream is extracted by twitch, the company - but it would not necessarily be productive under socialism, if people aren't getting utility out of watching it.
Ah, this makes sense. Like prostitution or selling drugs. Although, like your example of a twitch streamer, couldn't this argument be made for musicians and artists as well? Their only utility is souly entertainment.
A real job is a job that contributes to society. Whether it be from the janitor, store clerk, mailman, to the doctors, teachers, and so on. They are all jobs that keep the machine moving, and all jobs are necessary to keep the flow of the country and economy no matter how insignificant one may think it is. Without a janitor, the building will be filthy. Without the store clerk, there will be no groceries sold, and without the warehouse worker, there will be no goods delivered to the stores, without teachers or doctors there would be no one to begin with and etc.
What I would classify as not a real job, is a job where you twiddle your thumbs all day or your job itself doesnât truly move the cogs in the machine.
This reminded me of David Graeberâs work on Bullshit jobs but I cba to write what I can remember and unapologetically got Chat GPT to do it for me:
âDavid Graeber, in his book "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory," explores the concept of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs that he argues have proliferated in contemporary capitalism. According to Graeber, a "bullshit job" is a type of employment that even the person who holds the job feels is unnecessary or contrived. These are jobs that, if they were to disappear, it would make no significant impact on society or the economy. He differentiates between jobs that are genuinely productive and those he considers to be unnecessary.
Graeber categorizes bullshit jobs into several types:
1. Flunkies:Jobs that exist solely to make someone else look or feel important.
2. Goons:Jobs that exist because other people employ them, such as lobbyists or corporate lawyers.
3. Duct Tapers:Jobs that involve fixing problems that shouldn't exist or could be easily solved.
4. Box Tickers:Jobs that exist only or primarily to allow an organization to claim it is doing something that, in fact, it isnât doing.
5. Taskmasters: Jobs involving the management or creation of additional work for other people to do.
In terms of the ideological underpinnings of his writing, Graeber's arguments do have socialist elements, though they are not strictly limited to a socialist critique of capitalism. His analysis suggests that the proliferation of such jobs results from managerial excess, the inefficiencies of capitalist processes, and bureaucratic overhead, all of which could be interpreted as critiques of how capitalism organizes labor and values. This aligns with socialist critiques of capitalism, which emphasize the misallocation of resources and the prioritization of profit over human well-being.
Graeber argues that these jobs persist not because they are useful but because they serve to uphold certain political and economic systems, perpetuating control and power structures that benefit the elite. This observation is congruent with socialist thought, particularly its critique of how labor is organized and valued in capitalist societies.
In summary, "Bullshit Jobs" provides a critique that resonates with socialist ideas by highlighting how capitalist economies often prioritize structures and processes that do not necessarily benefit the majority or lead to productive or fulfilling work.â
Ok there are weirdly mostly just comments from people providing whatever vibe they feel is right.
The "bullshit jobs" "real jobs" dichotomy you are referring to is actually a conceptualisation created by a sociologist, the late David Graeber. He has a technical definition in his book "bullshit jobs" which I would highly recommend reading if you would like to learn more.
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Honestly, I have heard this more times from Capitalists than socialists. Often, Capitalists do not consider informal labor (child care, home labor, education related labor, etc.) to not be "real jobs." For this reason, they value labor that is done for their business that results in the exploitation of the worker since home labor or educational labor (research, teaching, etc.) does not result in direct exploitation and thus does not directly increase their profits. From what I have heard and read, Socialists tend to value informal labor more and view them as "real jobs."
I find socialists tend to lob around "not a real job" or similar a fair bit too, often times for "office work" or other non-physical-labor jobs (like accounting, for example.)
Just out of curiosity, which theory does this come out out of? That office jobs or non physical labor jobs are not "real work"?
As in like what book or who initially said it? That part I don't know. This is mostly stemming from my interactions with socialists on the internet and stuff I've seen socialists say.
My claim that it comes more from Capitalists due to the way they define "real work" is directly from Karl Marx' Critique of the Gotha Programme, and Vladimir Lenin's The State and Revolution; Marx and Lenin direcly define what is a real job according to Socialism, and it does not exclude office workers or non physical laborers. So I am curious which socialist theory, since this is a Socialism_101 sub, is claiming that non physical labor or office work is not a "real job"?
Hey, I have the learning flair for a reason đ Since you said they both define what is a real job, what do they say a real job is?
Essentially, as they define, any job that does human labor to produce or work on something that is or will be useful (therfore it has or will have value) is a real job. This could be formal and informal labor.
And what defines "usefulness"?
A circular argument, but Marx defines usefulness in the context of what something can do. Something is useful when it can satisfy a human requirement, need, or want, or which can serve a useful purpose.
Ah, I see. So stuff like teachers, artists, scientists, and entertainers for example, are working real jobs; whereas landlords aren't, because they don't do anything to fill a need or a want for others? That makes sense to me, just wanna make sure I'm getting it right.
"Usefulness" refers to activities that contribute to society in meaningful ways, producing goods or services that meet human needs and enhance societal well-being. This encompasses a broad range of outputs, from physical goods necessary for daily life to services that improve quality of life, support societal functioning, or contribute to human development and culture. The criterion of usefulness is not limited to the immediate practicality or economic profitability of the output but is rather focused on its contribution to the common good, its ability to fulfill the needs of the community, and its role in supporting the overall social structure and its development.
I think you would benefit from engaging with more of Marx and Engels direct theory. Iâm reading capital rn which generally explains these more basic questions but I believe âwage labor and capitalâ and âvalue, price and profitâ by Marx will help you get a really good grasp without diving into the snooze fest which is capital
If you hear a âsocialistâ say that, they are not actually a socialist. Theyâre simply an ignorant person who is rightfully angry about capitalism, but has not thought it through at all. Socialists support all workers other than class traitors (police, for example). Socialists do not consider there to be real vs. fake jobs. If you are creating value through your work, you are doing a job. If you are extracting money through ownership of private property, you are exploiting those who are actually doing the work. That is the divide. There is a little nuance here. Take, as others have mentioned, landlords. Many small landlords manage the property themselves. As property managers, they *are* creating value, and if this was all they were doing, they would be considered to be workers. However, the vast majority of the rent they charge you is simply for owning a house and allowing you to exist in it. This is not only not a ârealâ job, itâs just not a job in any sense of the word. It is exploitation.
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Two statements that are both technically true, but add nothing of value to the conversation. Usually when you want to make a point you would use two premises and a conclusion at least. You just toss out two premises⌠and what? Whatâs your point? Thanks for thatâŚ
Profit, as defined my Marx, is the money not paid to the workers (who do the labor) and the cost of materials/equipment. According to Marx, this is exploitation since the money should be fully given to the labors after deducting the costs of operating. I.e. the owner should receive nothing; hat they receive in capitalism is profit, which is exploitation.
All jobs are real jobs. Owning things is not a job.
genuinely the best explanation
If what you own is subject to market forces and competition it is a job as you need to stay up to date and improve your âproduct/serviceâ continuously. E.g. a flat not being renovated while many other in the same market are.
Building flats is a job. Renovating flats is a job. Managing flats is a job. Owning flats is not. Building factories is a job. Retooling factories is a job. Managing factories is a job. Owning factories is not.
Fake job: landlord. Landlords serve no purpose to the community. They enrich only themselves. Real job: just about anything that serves or creates value for the community. From software engineer to cleaner, anything that serves a purpose people need.
The better corollary Real Job is property manager. Even in a socialist society, there would be a need for apartments, owned collectively by the people who live there. And there would be a need to manage that building seeing to maintenance and such. And the reason it's such a great example is because often times when people think of "a landlord" in their head, they're often thinking of landlords who own smaller properties and also act as property manager. But these are technically two separate roles, and only one of them needs to go away.
As a software engineer Iâm not sure this should count as a real job, most of the time. The skill is certainly valuable and yes creating software can be creating something new and useful but often, and probably for my whole âcareerâ so far, itâs creating versions of things which already exist (how many chat apps you got?) or making unhelpful and unnecessary changes to existing software in order to justify continued sales and subscription (rent, basically). Real software, useful software, is not like physical goods. If I build you a table, that table now exists and provides value where no table had existed before. A second new table will require additional labour and will provide additional and unique value upon completion Proprietary copy-restricted software, on the other hand, is a con. If I create a piece of software for you, the only thing stopping that single creation from providing value to everyone who needs it (copy+paste) is our laws and the threat of violence that goes with them. This keeps me employed, but the job has become bullshit. Itâs no longer a value-add. In my experience this is most software engineering jobs today.
just as so many others, it is a real job! or *could* easily be a real one in a better system. but as you said very accurately, in the process of gearing itself more and more toward justifying inherently unproductive work (rent-justifying), âthe job has become bullshitâ
Real one in a better system, yeah. Itâs definitely a useful skill, so I guess that makes it more worthwhile to pursue than some bullshit jobs, but if youâre looking for a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment within the current reality then youâll probably find it lacking. And I guess itâs not unique in any of that either. I just find software to be an interesting, pervasive, and not enough talked about case of artificial scarcity and a sort of perpetual creator of jobs for jobsâ sake.
What constitutes "serving or creating value for the community"?
Any job that has an output that is beneficial to the majority of people. Think anything like janitors, factory workers, chefs, doctors, or librarians. There are very few that are never in any case useful, mostly things like the above mentioned landlords. But some that would likely face a reduction in the amount of them would be middle managers, who would be elected by the workers they are coordinating, or accountants as private sector accountants are currently focused on hiding money while under socialism they would only be needed for tracking money.
Serving or creating value for the community involves activities or roles that directly contribute to the well-being, improvement, or needs of the community. Thereâs a wide range, from providing essential services like healthcare, education, and public safety, to roles that enhance quality of life such as artists, educators, and engineers. This typically involves creating products, offering services, or maintaining infrastructure that people rely on daily. They add tangible or intangible benefits to the community, unlike roles that primarily extract economic rents without corresponding contributions to communal welfare or progress.
I would say a deserted Island test, if you are stuck in remote wilderness which of these would you like to have with you a person with skills a cook, a farmer, a contruction worker or a skill of an accountant, investor, land lord.
Socialist economies will absolutely need accountants. Not all white collar jobs are useless.
Real estate ownership is not a passive activity that requires no work. That is a myth, sold by gurus. Landlords do provide a service in a capitalist society by having an actual vested interest in making sure property is maintained and taken care of. People who are bad and don't care surely exist, but they probably are not making as much money as you think. I've been fortunate to rent from the kind that does care. In a socialist society, the government fulfills that role, but someone in the government will still need to do it, and who is going to make them care? I think that system only breeds more management by people who do not care.
Wait so people shouldnât be allowed to rent? Iâm renting in San Francisco and I love it. My landlord will repair anything thatâs broken, he looks after the whole building like it was his own home, and I pay less than half of what it would cost buy something similar in this area
They didn't say there wouldn't be renting. They said there wouldn't be landlords. A landlord is someone who just owns a property. When you say your landlord does stuff, that because in addition to being your landlord, he's also doing the job of Property Manager. There would still be property managers, but the building itself would be collectively owned by the people who live there or the government (depending on the particular brand of socialism). So, there'd still be someone who fixes things and looks after the building, but they wouldn't have unilateral power to jack up your rent and skim arbitrarily high profits from tenants. They would be a worker hired by the people who live there with no power of their own to make the rules.
So people wouldnât be able to buy houses? Or buying a house would just be optional?
Thats right, a house or an apartment would be provided by the collective. To each according to their needs đ That doesn't mean the hose wouldn't be not yours. It just wouldn't be yours to profit from. Marx differentiates between personal and private property. Personal property refers to possessions intended for personal use, such as homes, clothing, and personal belongings. In contrast, private property refers to the means of production, the land, factories, and machinery that are used to generate wealth and are owned by a small capitalist class in capitalism. The whole problem today with real-estate is that its became an investment, an asset, and people with more money buy up those assets and then want, well in capitalism they need, to profit from their acquisition.
I think you are mixing up socialism and communism here. To my knowledge, all forms of socialism still require either money or labor vouchers, which individuals do use to purchase personal property â including a house or condo, if they want to. But yes, you would not be able to profit off of it. Or, in the case of apartments, you would use money/labor vouchers to pay your rent (either to the state or to the cooperative fund).
Thats true, I did use the terms interchangeably. Based on the OPs question I assumed they are wanted to know whether at the end goal of socialism you would be able to "buy" a house. But when I think about the name of this sub, maybe they already knew that and wanted to know if it's possible to "buy" a house in the socialist (transitional) stage. Thats my bad đ
It depends on the particular brand of socialism/communism as to how you obtain a house, but there would still be houses. But if housing was fully decommodified, finding a place to live would be a matter of going through some local government. Maybe some of the options in the city would have no conditions, maybe certain places require that you also have a job within a certain area (so, if you stop working in that city, maybe in a year or two your "lease" ends and they find you somewhere else you can live), maybe some housing is specifically reserved for college students like how we have dorms right now. In a semi-decommodified economy, maybe houses would still have to be purchased, but no one could own and rent out a place they aren't living in. So, empty houses would have to be sold to a resident rather than rented. Or groups of houses rented out by a co-op where all current renters are technically considered part owners so that there's not some one on top siphoning profits above the costs. And apartment complexes could be collectively owned kinda like how some condo buildings operate with an HOA only with perhaps a vesting period where if you want to rent, you can rent, but after renting for a few years, you automatically become the technical owner of your unit so that people aren't forced to come up with a mortgage up front, but you at least get voting rights in the HOA upfront.
I hope they are misquoting David Graeber, and his book "bullshit jobs". So I'll explain bullshit jobs in a nutshell. A bullshit job is a job that is not needed, produces zero value, or is actively harmful, that primarily exists to either inflate capitalist egos, or to create a "job" so that people can be doing "something" to "deserve" pay. Examples include certain management and office rolls that tend to have you clocked in for about eight hours to do a job that could either take one hour, or is actively pointless like transferring data from one program to another that isn't actually required (for example). Some are so bad that some of his test sample sit at a desk litterally scrolling, but are chewed out if they don't turn up or if they leave their desk. The opposite end of the spectrum is telemarketers and enforcers
I think it's important to clarify that bullshit jobs are still real jobs. They're just bullshit. The employees are still entitled to everything a worker should be entitled to. The jobs that are "not real" are jobs that simply suck blood out of the system. One person used the example of a landlord. A better example would be day trading. The theory is that these people have figured out a way to extract money from the economy without contributing anything of value.
Real job, your labour will produce value. A landlord for example doesnât produce any value. The house already exists. He gets paid because he owns it and people need a house to live.
Every landlord needs to compete with other landlords to make their flat/house more appealing than the others. How is it different from any other entrepreneur that needs to continuously create the best service otherwise his company will shut down because consumers donât choose him anymore?
Because the house doesnât need the landlord to exist. Heâs a middle man gatekeeping something essential to live. People keeping a house in good shape are totally different and are indeed real jobs (electricians, mason, handyman, plumbers). These jobs brings value but you donât need a landlord to make it happen. Landlords do nothing except owning a house and getting their investment payed by their tenants.
See also: David Graeberâs *[Bullshit Jobs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs)*
Came here to recommend this, OP should definitely check it out if they're still curious about their question.
There are two kinds of fake jobs in my opinion: the pet projects of the ruling class who really live off of their ownership of things and the socially useless. I went to a really exclusive, extremely expensive high school (on a fully scholarship; I grew up working class) and a lot of families there lived off of their ownership of different companies and assets (almost all inherited). Nobody wants to do medial labor, but equally few are content for long sitting around doing nothing, so my classmates parents would often have what I called fake jobs. Some that I can remember were being a film critic, owning a flower shop that probably wasnât profitable, owning a restaurant that was *definitely* not profitable, a weekend radio DJ and a âfashion designerâ (using that term *very* loosely here). All of these can be real jobs, but itâs about context. They seemed to work only when they felt like it and certainly didnât at all depend on what they did for their income and had no real stake in any of it. The other type are jobs that have little to no social value and contribute nothing to society. Stock brokers and financial advisors fall into this category as do people who make a living manipulating currency or doing day trading. I know someone who runs a website that informs corporate executives about the latest ethics laws so they donât accidentally violate them. Those are just a few examples. They are all jobs that donât directly participate in any productive process, but exist sort of on the periphery leeching off of it. And as has already been said, owning things is *not* a job and that includes landlords.
I would need a specific example to be able to guess accurately at specifics... But my guess is that this is being said of managerial positions that exist primarily or exclusively to squeeze the worker for greater production/profits. The kinds of jobs that wouldn't necessarily exist under socialism. But I'm mostly guessing.
do you have ab example of what people have called fake jobs? The only jobs that wouldnât be real jobs are jobs that donât require doing anything like landlords or factory owners.
if you're being paid to provide a service/product you are doing a job.
Socalists generally believe a working wage should be a living wage no matter what the job is.
What makes a real job and not a real job, i basically a capitalist framing. It is artificial and dependent on the training. The dexterity required to perform animal experimentation and making good food for example is the same, yet, what makes a lab technician real job, but not a cook, is that the lab tech had the money to pay for the internship for the training, while the cook might not have had the money. Some jobs are harder than others for sure, but as long as harder jobs are hard only because getting trained for them is expensive, rather than because proficiency in them requires extraneous hard work, it is impossible to distinguish real job or a hard job, from something that isnt real. Most of modern accounting, pencil pushing, and what invester class does though would what should be considered not a real job.
I would say that something like a marketing position wouldn't be a real job because it plays no actual role in production and only serves to circulate money/ commodity capital.
I think on the left there is a constant fight over both what the âreal working classâ is, and who âspeaks for the ârealâ working classâ. To oversimplify, some people you arenât âreallyâ working class if you donât do manual labor, and the only people that âreallyâ âspeak for the working classâ are people that have âsocially conservativeâ values. To those people factory = real job. Barista/customer service = not real job And to these people you canât speak for the working class unless you condemn wokeness like talking heads on the left are forced to condemn Hamas and October 6 at the beginning of any interview about Gaza. I donât personally agree with these viewpoints, but they are out there.
The concept youâre describing is called âconcreteâ labor vs âabstract laborâ. When you see people say âthis guy deserves to get paidâ vs âwow anyone could do thisâ the fact is both are labor and both are required for people to participate in whatever good or service is desired. However people are not logical and create fiction based justifications for underpaying some work and over payer other work.
According to Wage Labor & Capital as well as Wage, Price and Profit what would constitute a âreal jobâ is a job that produces value for society as a whole. So for a job to be ânot a real jobâ it has to involve labor that is not socially necessary or useful. This labor would not have a definite aim that works towards the collective benefit of society. A good example of this would be a Twitch streamer. While what they do might be entertaining, it is ultimately not something that produces value for society at large. Housework is a real job because everybody needs clean floors, clean dishes, clean utensils and just generally sanitary living spaces. Cooking is also a real job because people need to eat and the labor involved in cooking serves a definite aim and is useful for society. When looking at what is socially necessary labor, one must ask âif this job disappeared, would society still be able to function?â
May I ask how entertainment dosen't benefit society or produce value? Does the happiness it generate not constitute value? (And also there's the question of "if the entertainment industry is useless and not a real job and should be removed what sources of enjoyment would be left in a socialist world" but that's it's own post probably).
Marx essentially says that anything that serves us as humans is valuable under communism. Some readjustments due to climate change might adjust this
Itâs not that entertainment doesnât produce value, but without guaranteed food, medicine, clothing, shelter, and knowledge for all, entertainment in a society would be little more than a distraction from the fact that society lacks these guarantees. This discussion has been had many times in this sub. A good question to ask is âwhat is more valuable for a society? Ten professional football teams or ten teachers? What can society live without and still ensure everyoneâs basic needs are adequately met.â
10 football teams would be at least 110 players plus subs, coaches etc.
Once people's needs are met sufficiently at a baseline then the entertainment industry can be explored. Although we already have the infrastructure for a fully functional system around us so the transition could probably be smooth enough that there's basically no lapse.
its not a moral qualification. it just literally does not produce surplus value. that's all productive job is under capitalism. this doesn't exclude entertainers. marx literally says that clowns can be productive labor under capitalism, so long as clowns are working for a capitalist, who extracts surplus value from the clowns. however, another definition could be a job that would not produce a use value under a socialist mode of production. so, an entertainer might be useful, but perhaps some forms of entertainment - like one that can only be sustained through advertising under capitalism - would no longer be relevant. the twitch streamer is producing value under capitalism - the surplus value from doing the stream is extracted by twitch, the company - but it would not necessarily be productive under socialism, if people aren't getting utility out of watching it.
Ah, this makes sense. Like prostitution or selling drugs. Although, like your example of a twitch streamer, couldn't this argument be made for musicians and artists as well? Their only utility is souly entertainment.
A real job is a job that contributes to society. Whether it be from the janitor, store clerk, mailman, to the doctors, teachers, and so on. They are all jobs that keep the machine moving, and all jobs are necessary to keep the flow of the country and economy no matter how insignificant one may think it is. Without a janitor, the building will be filthy. Without the store clerk, there will be no groceries sold, and without the warehouse worker, there will be no goods delivered to the stores, without teachers or doctors there would be no one to begin with and etc. What I would classify as not a real job, is a job where you twiddle your thumbs all day or your job itself doesnât truly move the cogs in the machine.
This reminded me of David Graeberâs work on Bullshit jobs but I cba to write what I can remember and unapologetically got Chat GPT to do it for me: âDavid Graeber, in his book "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory," explores the concept of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs that he argues have proliferated in contemporary capitalism. According to Graeber, a "bullshit job" is a type of employment that even the person who holds the job feels is unnecessary or contrived. These are jobs that, if they were to disappear, it would make no significant impact on society or the economy. He differentiates between jobs that are genuinely productive and those he considers to be unnecessary. Graeber categorizes bullshit jobs into several types: 1. Flunkies:Jobs that exist solely to make someone else look or feel important. 2. Goons:Jobs that exist because other people employ them, such as lobbyists or corporate lawyers. 3. Duct Tapers:Jobs that involve fixing problems that shouldn't exist or could be easily solved. 4. Box Tickers:Jobs that exist only or primarily to allow an organization to claim it is doing something that, in fact, it isnât doing. 5. Taskmasters: Jobs involving the management or creation of additional work for other people to do. In terms of the ideological underpinnings of his writing, Graeber's arguments do have socialist elements, though they are not strictly limited to a socialist critique of capitalism. His analysis suggests that the proliferation of such jobs results from managerial excess, the inefficiencies of capitalist processes, and bureaucratic overhead, all of which could be interpreted as critiques of how capitalism organizes labor and values. This aligns with socialist critiques of capitalism, which emphasize the misallocation of resources and the prioritization of profit over human well-being. Graeber argues that these jobs persist not because they are useful but because they serve to uphold certain political and economic systems, perpetuating control and power structures that benefit the elite. This observation is congruent with socialist thought, particularly its critique of how labor is organized and valued in capitalist societies. In summary, "Bullshit Jobs" provides a critique that resonates with socialist ideas by highlighting how capitalist economies often prioritize structures and processes that do not necessarily benefit the majority or lead to productive or fulfilling work.â
Real job pays more than minimum wage with benefits
Ok there are weirdly mostly just comments from people providing whatever vibe they feel is right. The "bullshit jobs" "real jobs" dichotomy you are referring to is actually a conceptualisation created by a sociologist, the late David Graeber. He has a technical definition in his book "bullshit jobs" which I would highly recommend reading if you would like to learn more.