[coldtea]

>It’s the second half of the article that contain the real insights - that what are termed “bullshit” jobs, and despised by the people working them, actually do create economic value.

Only there's no proof, just some handwaving. I'd rather trust those actually doing the jobs for their assessment of them.

[sowbug]

An employer profitably exchanges wages for labor. That profit is the economic value. If this weren't true, then all businesses would be bankrupt.

By definition, non-owner employees are insulated from that economic value. It's unclear, then, why you'd prefer their assessment over that of someone looking at the business as a whole.

[TeMPOraL]

Because employers are unavailable for comment. Few would be willing to say out loud that their business is bullshit, but makes money, simply because of negative PR effect.

That someone's willing to pay for it doesn't automatically imply the job is useful on the societal scale, and the latter is IMO a more important concept. There are plenty of businesses that can earn money even though everyone would be better off if those businesses weren't being done.

[sowbug]

My earlier comment assumes that value is measured in dollars. Denominating value in subjective units like "useful on the societal scale" would lead to different conclusions for anyone but the most die-hard capitalist.

[coldtea]

Note that TFA is about "meaningless jobs" not "profitless" ones.

[sowbug]

True, but the comment from danielvf that you replied to narrowed the discussion to economic value.

[Nasrudith]

Technically that only states that employers /think/ they provide value not that they actually do it. It may fit inside their expense margins but that doesn't mean it is valueable only that it is viable from /something/ in it. This is an important distinction - the higher level up means not seeing all of the details and they have their own biases.

To give a deliberately absurd example a rich madman made $5 million per year from his vinyard and winery for personal and spend $1 million on running the place to the highest quality, $0.5 million buying piles of bananas and $2 million on mercenaries paid to beat the piles of bananas with baseball bats so they don't plan a rebellion he would still make $1.5 million a year profit could make $4 million a year profit if he didn't spend so much money on repressing fruit.

Silly example aside it is possible for both employee and employer to be both right or both wrong. An employee might notice low level waste that could be avoided by not repairing defects, and the employer knows that the cost of labor to fix it is more expensive than materials for a new one. Even if the one strategy is right both have a point.

Or in the reverse both employee and employer could think that the new fangled automobile won't be able to compete with horses because of vast fields of grass for free on the plains and even hay being cheaper than gasoline.

[coldtea]

>An employer profitably exchanges wages for labor. That profit is the economic value. If this weren't true, then all businesses would be bankrupt.

The fact that you can have a net profit doesn't mean you operate anywhere near 100% efficiently, or that you don't have tons of BS jobs. After a point of profit, wages are only a tiny part of the cost of a company.

Besides industries and companies get bailed out, VC money pay for tons of useless jobs (and/or indulgences) and then companies crash, etc.

Not to mention: we're not looking for economic value, but to value to society. You can make a good profit in all kinds of leechey businesses too.

[jahaja]

How would one measure each employee's individual profitability?