Life Skills and Positive Activities  Officer; Woodfuel Development Officer; Cheerleading Development Officer;  Healthy Walks Coordinator; Play and Communication Worker; Bouncy Castle  Attendant.[i] This is just a small selection of some of the many so-called ‘non-jobs’ cited by the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph in  recent years. No clear definition of non-job has been offered, although  the think tank and pressure group the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), which  has campaigned vigorously on the issue, has described them as “jobs of  dubious value”.[ii]  Essentially, they’re jobs deemed to be completely pointless, and it’s  not hard to see why certain sections of the press love talking about  them. Long lists of peculiar-sounding job titles serve as further  confirmation for many people that Britain’s glory days are behind her.  Once the proud ‘workshop of the world’, inhabited by legions of skilled  craftsmen and engineers, today, too many of this country’s people are  reduced to earning their daily bread in increasingly ludicrous ways,  filling up roles that, rightfully, should not even exist. Non-jobs—you  couldn’t make them up.

It is tempting to simply dismiss this view as just another worn-out  media parable of economic, cultural and moral decline.  However others,  writing from very different perspectives, have also pointed to the  apparent futility of much contemporary work. Just over a year ago, the  anthropologist and activist David Graeber provoked much comment and  interest with a piece published in the radical newspaper Strike! Magazine in which he discussed the rise of what he termed “bullshit jobs”.[iii]  Like non-jobs, these are seemingly pointless roles which needn’t really  exist, but have nevertheless grown hugely in number over recent  decades:

…we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the  “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including  the creation of whole new industries like financial services or  telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate  law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public  relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people  whose job it is to provide administrative, technical, or security  support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of  ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that  only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time  working in all the other ones.[iv]

These two narratives, ‘non-jobs’ and ‘bullshit jobs’, clearly share a  deep misgiving about the apparent growth of pointless, trivial work in  the modern world, which represents not only a tremendous waste of time,  effort and money, but also seems to threaten the well-being of those who  undertake it. But in order for these two negative accounts to truly make sense, there must be a positive  category lurking somewhere in the background. If so much work today is  pointless or nonsensical, as these writers suggest, there must be  examples, or at least an idea, of what work is not  nonsensical and pointless, that is of genuine value or worth. Given the  implication of falsity inherent in the prefixes ‘non’ and ‘bullshit’,  let’s call this positive category ‘real work’: work of an  altogether higher status, of genuine importance, that elevates it above  other examples of its kind. This notion clearly has an ideal, normative  aspect to it, the implication being that ‘this is what work should be like’, yet it needn’t be a mere fantasy: people can (and, as we will see, do) point to actually existing forms of work that they take as their paradigm.

Usefulness and necessity

How then do people conceive of real work? What standards or criteria  do they apply to determine what counts and what doesn’t? A good place to  start thinking about this is with the (closely-related) standards of necessity and usefulness—standards that work is frequently held to. Some might claim that real work  is simply that which leads to the production of things that are  necessary or of genuine use to human beings. Any work that is not  concerned with necessary or useful production is a waste of time—it may look or feel  like work in some ways, but it’s essentially a false, sham form of  work. On the face of it, this seems to be the argument being made in the  ‘non-jobs’ and ‘bullshit jobs’ narratives outlined above. Is a ‘Roller  Disco Coach’ of any actual use to anyone in Windsor and Maidenhead?[v] Do the good people of Lewisham really need a ‘Community Engagement Apprentice’?[vi] This is what the Daily Mail  seems to be asking us. Similarly, Graeber points to the legions of  corporate lawyers and PR people taking up office space and asks us—are  these people really of any use to anyone, except perhaps to a tiny elite  at the top of society? Wouldn’t it be better if they did something  else, or maybe even nothing at all?

These writers are not, of course, the first to write about the  importance of basic usefulness in work. In the late nineteenth century,  William Morris wrote on the subject of ‘Useful Work versus Useless  Toil’. For Morris, far too much of the back-breaking work that the  industrial working class of his time engaged in was wasteful and  pointless, directed for the most part towards either the production of  trifles and luxuries for the rich, or low-quality, adulterated goods for  the poor. In his view, “…labour, to be attractive, must be directed  towards some obviously useful end”.[vii] Such ‘useful ends’ are commonly conceived of in terms of physical things—goods  that human beings require in order to stay alive and lead decent lives.  David Graeber certainly seems to place great value on physically  productive work and those who engage in it, praising “…that class of  people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things”,[viii] in  contrast to his city-slicker bullshitters. We could quite happily live  without these so-called high-flyers, so the reasoning goes. But take  away the farmers, the mechanics, the builders, the bin-men, and we’d  quickly find ourselves in a whole lot of trouble.

It doesn’t take long, however, to spot the gaping hole in this  argument. As Graeber himself understands, any notion of ‘real’ work  restricted to the provision and servicing of our basic material needs is  a very dessicated one indeed. Teaching is one example Graeber cites as  work of genuine value, yet teachers (generally speaking) don’t make  anything useful in the sense that we could eat it, wear it, or  live in it. They don’t keep the streets clean or provide us with a fresh  water supply. Rather, they help fashion and develop the young minds  essential to the future of our civilization. But perhaps more  controversially, Graeber also cites science fiction writers and ska  musicians as workers of value, at least, of more value than the bullshit  types he rails against. Again, like teachers, these people don’t  furnish us with anything tangible that we really need to  survive—we could get by without them—but his argument is that, through  their particular art forms, they give depth and meaning to our lives.  Most people would probably agree that, while survival without teachers  is technically possible, a world without them would be a pretty terrible  one. But a great many would also agree that humanity could not only  survive, but flourish without science fiction writers and ska musicians.  For Graeber, it all boils down to which types of work contribute to  what he terms “social value” and which do not. But what this actually  constitutes may be, in many cases, little more than a matter of personal  preference: “There can be no objective measure of social value.”[ix]

So what then of the anti-‘non-jobs’ brigade? Is there a concept of  real work lurking behind the invective and indignant headlines? Reading  through many of the stories in the Mail, Telegraph and the website of the TPA, it’s not always as clear what kinds of work they’re for as much as what they’re against.  Certainly, the emphasis is very much on exposing wasteful work that  they believe to be unnecessary or of no obvious use to anyone, although  we might well challenge some of the examples they pick and ask if  they’re not in fact of greater value than their stories claim. One  example cited in a Daily Mail story from April 2011 is of an  advert for a ‘Family Lifestyles Officer’ in Rugby. The job description  states: “Reduce childhood obesity in various ways including the  provision of evidence-based structured nine-week family-based workshops  promoting the benefits of exercise and nutrition.”[x]   But we might well argue that this job in fact sounds like rather an  important one, given the near-constant warnings from scientists and  health practitioners about the prevalence of childhood obesity and the  problems this can cause later on in life.

Moreover, while some of the examples of non-jobs cited seem more  likely to be peculiar anomalies (‘Bouncy Castle Attendant’ probably  being one of these), certain types of job crop up again and again in  various articles, such as jobs relating to equality and diversity,  climate change and the European Union.[xi]  Again, it might be countered that, far from being non-jobs, Diversity  Officers and Climate Change Officers do very important work within local  authorities, perhaps making sure councils comply with legislation  relating to these areas. Going further, it might even  be argued that  newspapers like the Telegraph and the Mail single out  these types of job because the issues they relate to—equality, climate  change, the EU—are the major bugbears of the right.  This argument would  seem to be strengthened by the London Mayor Boris Johnson’s attack on  “politically correct” non-jobs in the Telegraph.[xii]

But while we can (and must) debate the value or usefulness of  particular jobs, this doesn’t help us get to the bottom of what’s really  going on here. What exactly is it about non-jobs that riles these  commentators so much and what would they prefer in their place? The most  important point to note is that the ‘non-jobs’ these newspapers discuss  are to be found solely in the public sector, most often in local  government. They are contrasted (unfavourably) with so-called  ‘frontline services’, which, like non-jobs themselves, are not clearly  defined but denote supposedly more useful roles, including people from library staff to lollipop ladies, depending on which article you read.[xiii]  The impression is given of a bloated and profligate state, wasting  bucket-loads of taxpayers’ money on pointless non-jobs, when its focus  should be solely on the genuinely essential, the useful, the  front-line—on the real work, we might say.

But this still isn’t quite the whole picture. The non-jobs argument  cannot be considered a simple one about useful versus useless work,  because it is only talking about a specific and comparatively small  proportion of the total work undertaken in the country. Those at the Mail, The Telegraph and the TPA who write about non-jobs make virtually no mention of work in the private  sector. It’s as if we can take it for granted that the work that goes  on there is valid and important and that we do not need to keep an eye  out for wasteful employment in the same way as we do for the public  sector. These writers would probably argue that, although there may be  something akin to non-jobs in the private sector too, it’s simply no one  else’s business what line of work private individuals select, or whom  they choose to employ. By contrast, what goes on in the public sector is  all of our business, because it’s us who pay the taxes that pay for  these workers. As such, so the argument goes, the state has a duty to  spend money well and efficiently, and to employ only those people that  we really need.

But I also think there’s another assumption hidden in these arguments: a belief in the effectiveness and legitimacy of the market  as an arbiter of the value of work. If you choose to sell your labour  on the open market as, say, a farmer, you might produce nutritious  life-sustaining food for thousands of people—an undeniably useful and  worthwhile line of work, we might all agree. But, equally, if you choose  to sell your labour as a private roller disco coach, that’s fine too.  If you can find a market out there to sustain your business, then fair  play to you, you’re a success, you’ve found a gap in the market and who  am I to question your value to humanity? Just don’t expect the local  council to employ you to do the same thing, because the moment you sign  on the state payroll, we’ll start asking difficult questions about how  useful you really are. In other words, the non-jobs critics only apply  the standard of direct usefulness to the public sector, not to the private. In the latter realm, it’s the market that decides what work gets done.

Money and exchange

In trying to tease apart this argument, it’s important to state that I’m not necessarily saying  there’s anything wrong with it (I might think that there is, but that’s  irrelevant right now). I certainly won’t be writing to my local council  anytime soon asking them to take on more bouncy castle attendants. What  I am saying though, is that it’s worth looking more closely at many of  the things people say about work in order to understand what’s actually  being said. What may seem like common sense arguments about getting rid  of silly, useless jobs actually reveal deeper and more complex  assumptions about what work is important or worthwhile, what work isn’t  and how we go about making these judgements in the first place.  Moreover, as we have seen, categories like ‘usefulness’ and ‘necessity’  are far from as straightforward as they might at first seem.

The key point underlying all of this is that we don’t live in an  idealized, self-contained medieval commune, where the butcher, the baker  and the candlestick maker have their clearly-defined roles to provide  for the community’s clearly-defined basic ‘needs’. We live in a vast,  modern exchange economy, where money is king. The game is to sell a type  of labour that is in high demand and commands the largest possible cash  returns. Many individuals may choose not to play this game, instead  choosing a type of work that they find personally fulfilling, or that  allows them greater free time outside of the workplace. But scaling the  whole issue up, most states definitely do want to play this  game—they want to develop the types of industries, and hence, the forms  of work, that will help move them up the value chain towards a higher  level of economic development. This seems to be a point that is missing  in Graeber’s analysis. While he derides corporate law and public  relations as ‘bullshit’, the countries which contain more of these sorts  of workers tend to be the richer, more materially developed ones, while  those which concentrate on the fulfilment of more rudimentary needs,  e.g. subsistence farming, tend to be poorer. Generally speaking, states  want to move beyond these more basic types of primary and secondary  production to more sophisticated, knowledge-intensive services and  high-end manufacturing. They don’t really care in any higher sense how useful  this is to humanity, although it must be said that being a rich country  seems pretty ‘useful’ in all sorts of ways: richer countries tend to  have higher life expectancies, as well as better education and  healthcare systems.

We don’t have to like any of this and we certainly need to question  why certain types of work are valued in the way that they are. It’s also  important not to abandon questions about the fundamental usefulness of  the work that we do, even though we must recognise the complexity and  difficulties of such a category. But nor do I think it wise to rush head  first down the ‘sack all the corporate lawyers and replace them with  mechanics’ route and assume that this would solve all our problems. Like  it or not, many economies now depend on professions like these to keep  the GDP levels up and the tax receipts flowing in. This is not to  abandon hope for a different kind of economy, just a recognition of  where we are.

The non-jobs of the Mail and David Graeber’s bullshit jobs are  just two examples that cast light on the idea of ‘real’ work.  Ironically, the more we pursue this essentialist notion, the more we  become aware of the plurality and diversity of potential versions or  accounts of it—the less we feel there is actually any such thing as real  work ‘out there’ to discover. Some people might continue to cling to  the belief that they know what work is really all about, that they know  the true criteria for judging its worth. But I think the idea is best  understood as a way of thinking, or a set of assumptions that we hold  (consciously or unconsciously) about work and its meaning. These ways of  thinking may be complex and rigorous, or little more than simple  prejudices; they may be related to broader worldviews, ideologies and  religions, or they may stand alone. But I think the idea of real work  holds an attraction or allure for so many of us because such a large  proportion of our adult lives is spent on activities we call ‘work’ and  we want to know that our time is spent well on something truly  worthwhile. Nor should we discount human beings’ seemingly endless  desire to rise above and look down on their fellows. Feeling like you’re  leaving the house every morning to do something truly worthwhile and  important while the guy next door is wasting his energies on some  pointless, silly project makes us feel good about ourselves (sadly).

Why real work and why now?

As we have seen, such debates about work are by no means new. People  of all sorts and all stations in life have debated the value of work for  centuries. But there have been enormous changes over the course of the  last hundred years or so that have served to intensify these debates.  The growth of the state, with its attendant powers to employ people—in  effect, to create work—has spawned arguments, like that over ‘non-jobs’,  about the value and necessity of that which has been created. More  recently, the transformation many Western societies have undergone from  being industrial manufacturing economies to post-industrial  service economies has drastically changed the nature of the work the  great majority of people engage in. From standing on production lines or  hewing rock down coal mines, most people’s experience of work in a  country like Britain today is more likely to be standing behind a shop  counter, or sitting at a desk gazing into a computer screen. While some  might celebrate the decline of hard physical labour, arguably one of the  prices we have paid for this change has been greater uncertainty and  anxiety about the ultimate worth of the work we do, partly due to the  fact that clear outcomes seem harder to come by. In his book The Case for Working with Your Hands,  the philosopher Matthew Crawford describes quitting his well-paid job  as Head of a Washington think tank to set up shop as a motorcycle repair  man: “I was always tired, and honestly could not see the rationale for  my being paid at all—what tangible goods or useful services was I  providing to anyone?”[xiv]

Running closely alongside this shift to the post-industrial economy  has been the rising participation of women in the labour market and an  attendant decline of the traditional distinction between ‘men’s work’  and ‘women’s work’. In many instances, this latter sphere of work,  confined largely to the home, was not only unpaid but completely  undervalued in any sense—relegated to an altogether lower status than  the supposedly ‘real’ work engaged in by men, despite the fact that such  work could be just as back-breaking. The changing position of women in  society and their experience of work has raised a whole host of  different responses, ranging from those who completely deride the notion  of housework and urge women to seek fulfilment in the labour market, to  those who urge greater recognition for women (and indeed men) who  decide to stay at home to raise children.[xv]

The task of mapping all the contours of real work and exploring the  multiple versions and permutations of the concept is a considerable  project, which this short article can only hope to introduce. What I  believe, though, is that a great many of us cling to our own ideas about  what’s worthwhile and valuable in work, perhaps with sincerity and  conviction, or perhaps, more depressingly, because we feel a deep need  to justify our own existence to ourselves and those around us in an era  when our needs, wants and how we fulfil them seem like increasingly  complex issues. What this brief analysis hopefully does show is that the  concept of real work is worth exploring, and plays a greater role in  our individual and collective lives than we often realise.