David Graeber over at Evonomics:

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is exactly what is not supposed to happen.

Please do me a favor and go read the whole thing.

I went to college because the most meaningful work I’ve ever done in my life (building houses) didn’t provide enough of a future in the eyes of the world around me. College taught me how to “manage” that work, and thus ruined it. I went to seminary because I felt there was meaningful work to be done in communities of faith but the work that North American churches seem to value is mostly bullshit management in disguise…

This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment.

The culture of work that we participate in and perpetuate is nothing more than a new form of feudalism.

Beware the Arrow Of Time.