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It's not them. It's the job, the bullshit job. David Graeber has expanded the essay into a book and it is well worth reading. Perhaps at your bullshit job.

Actually, David Graeber has conceded this very point in his original piece on the topic:

Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: ‘who are you to say what jobs are really “necessary”? What's necessary anyway? You're an anthropology professor, what's the “need” for that?’ (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless?

For those few who made it as far as reading the Guardian piece, here's an earlier version of Graeber's argument.

It's a bit of a meme among progressives and the harder left in the US that bullshit jobs were an invention by the capital owning class to tamp down what might otherwise develop into a tipping point of popular pressure to take ownership of the means of production away from them.

But, this gives the Captains of Industry more credit than they're due, because creating jobs is a PITA, and with actual revolutions too far in the past for them to have even heard stories of over cocktails, never mind experienced, I doubt they think there's any practical limit to how much they can screw the rabble (ie. you).

In fact, increased productivity of existing work merely makes nice-to-have stuff enterprises and people couldn't economically justify before affordable. Stuff you didn't even give a second thought about become a handy way to put some surplus coin to use, finally spiraling down to the point where mobile dog groomers, large HR departments, and conservative think tanks are a thing. That's where the bullshit work comes in.

We've been through rapid economic changes before, and the past may well provide a guide to the future. But, which past? The one where farmers became steel and automobile workers? Or the one where steel and automobile workers became Walmart greeters? And not so fast you programmers, escrow agents, insurance brokers, and day traders. When you get automated out of your current job within a matter of a couple of years, or months, then what? Exactly what sort of bullshit work are you , you Ayn Rand-worshipping, it-won't-happen-to-me, automation fodder, going to do, eh? Learn to use a dog brush?

80%+ of work done in first world societies are bullshit jobs and superfluos work. Most of which can be done by robots, better planing or, most of the time, simply left out all together.

Sadly, most of those jobs can't simply be eliminated, at least not spontaneously. I'd classify those jobs as either weapons or parasites. You need a lawyer because the other guy has a lawyer. If you don't advertise, you risk losing marketshare to one who does. All that paperwork is necessary because of millions and millions of laws. You can't just decide not to participate.

Because money improves your quality of life more than extra time does.

Wrong. Beyond 'minimum' needs like food, shelter, health, security, and perhaps some good sex thrown in, income basically is disposable. What humans need beyond that is to feel loved, competent and a sense of enthusiasm for what they strive for. Which all has nothing to do with 'physical' wealth. Money in those latter areas is nothing but a shallow substitute, and mostly a bad one at that. That's why most people are quite unhappy with their lives, even though they're doing well by any outward metric. Depression is the first world disease that comes with that.

By any historic measure we live in times of infinite abundance. 80%+ of work done in first world societies are bullshit jobs and superfluos work. Most of which can be done by robots, better planing or, most of the time, simply left out all together.

I work part time for more spare-time, and while I sometimes moan that because of my compareatively lower income I have the feeling I am - to most women of my social herachy - not suitable for long-term relationship because of that (especially with the values our society to wrongly pursues), I repeatedly run into situations that can only be described as plain an utter envy over my freedom compared to my peers. By men and women alike. I'm only suitably as a dance partner and a lover to most. ... A situation I will probably have to learn to live with. ... And, yes, I'm going to cry you a river now. :-)

Conclusion:
You Sir need to get yourself a copy of the 4 Hour Workweek. Or, better yet, the original: Senecas Letters from a Stoic., read it and get a life (Hint: It is *not* about dependant income-work.) Stoicism: The optimised wester variant of zen-buddhism as you might call it. Get with the programm and start enjoying you life like never before. Welcome to the club.

So we make up pretend jobs. http://strikemag.org/bullshit-...

Relevant topic - http://strikemag.org/bullshit-... Keynes predicted a 15 h work week and, in effect, given the level of time spent doing inessential or paper-pushing non-sense, we have just that. The closer we are to full-automation, the more a concept like basic income is attractive as we have to saturate the market with products and services no one really needs nor, at a certain point, will they want, which places increasing pressure on employment rates as more of the population comes to rely on these jobs. Or in the case of upper middle classes, put asses in seats where they won't do much of anything. Powers that be still demand 40, or suggest even longer hours for people to make ends meet. There's absolutely no need for it. Every year in the West we seem to lose capacity for productivity. Mind you I would go for an alternative to BI like a negative-tax of sorts which would still be very streamlined and cheap but would omit needlessly sending out cheques to those that don't need it.

Sorry about that. I still work part-time at 64, but I've nearly always been a contractor so I don't get plugged into 'new' management 'paradigms'.

I have breakfast with a young friend [she's 50] nearly every Sunday, she a business analyst and tells me stories from her job. Nearly every time, I send her a link afterwards to Dilbert. I really think some of them use that as an operating manual.

For a more general view, see David Graeber's essay: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-... we're pretty lucky as technologists, we actually 'do' in many but not all cases.

... but really? Wouldn't it be better to just work a normal job and not have to screw around like that?

"Normal" jobs are gone. It's all about Bullshit Jobs now (see http://strikemag.org/bullshit-... ). The combination of unchecked greed of the ruling class, the pace of technological innovation, and placation of the peasant masses by shit like "hiding in the basement playing WoW" is resulting in a structural social REMOVAL of what we've been sold as the path to the American dream. The american peasant class (e.g. the 99%) has been systematically screwed for over a 1/3 of a century now. And hardly any of us are paying attention to it...

"I wrote this in a very obscure British lefty magazine called Strike Magazine, going out on the Internet, and within three or four weeks, I think it had been translated into 14 different languages"

Strike Magazine is even more obscure now. See where it's been disappeared from the web and been replaced by a similarly sounding fashion and lifestyle mag.

www.strikemag.org
archived
strikemagazine.co.uk created: 06-Jun-2013

Here's an article that's relevant to your point.

A new technology replacing human labor is nothing new. Mechanization has been "taking jobs away" from humans at least since the industrial revolution. For a large-scale change as you mention, it would more than just a few months, so if driverless vehicles were to take over, fewer and fewer people would become drivers anyway. The scary thing is not technology replacing humans, rather it's how despite technology humans still have bullshit jobs and why that kind of progress systematically benefits those already well-off instead of the masses.