One of Ronald Reagan’s sons once remarked to an interviewer that his now-elderly father still went to the office, he just didn’t know why.

It is a feeling that may be familiar to corporate lawyers, LSE professor David Graeber suggests, alleging that corporate law falls into the category of ‘bullsh!t jobs’.

‘It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working,’ the anthropologist writes, with an apparently straight face, in a magazine called Strike!

There is of course a back story here – a school friend who became a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. ‘He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world,’ Graeber writes. But, needing money, the friend headed for law school, ‘the default choice of so many directionless folk. Now he’s a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm,’ Graeber says. ‘He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.’

City readers tiring of the pressure to bill thousands of hours a year may be left wondering how things came to such a pretty pass. Graeber has the answer – left unbusy, corporate lawyers might become quite dangerous: ‘The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger.’  

Needless to say, Obiter would love to hear readers’ reasoned suggestions for other jobs that could be added to Graeber’s list.

 

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