• Absurdes et vides de sens : ces jobs d’enfer
    http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/m-perso/article/2016/04/22/dans-l-enfer-des-jobs-a-la-con_4907069_4497916.html?xtmc=bullshit_jo

    c’est un article signé de David Graeber, « Sur le phénomène des jobs à la con », qui avait conceptualisé les #bullshit_jobs. Anthropologue à la London School of Economics, amateur de pantalons en flanelle et de barricades altermondialistes – il est venu à la rencontre des militants de #Nuit_Debout, à Paris, à la mi-avril, et était l’un des piliers du mouvement Occupy Wall Street –, ce chercheur américain affirmait que les progrès technologiques, loin de réaliser la prophétie de Keynes, qui imaginait l’avènement d’une semaine limitée à quinze heures travaillées, auraient à l’inverse permis l’explosion et la prédominance du secteur administratif. « Dans la théorie économique du capitalisme (…), la dernière chose que le marché et l’entreprise sont censés faire, c’est de donner de l’argent à des travailleurs qui ne servent à rien, écrit David Graeber. C’est pourtant bien ce qu’il se passe ! La plupart des gens travaillent efficacement probablement pendant quinze heures par semaine, comme l’avait prédit Keynes, et le reste du temps, ils le passent à critiquer l’organisation, organiser des séminaires de motivation, mettre à jour leurs profils Facebook et télécharger des séries TV. »

    #travail #temps_libre

    http://zinc.mondediplo.net/messages/24442 via BoOz

    • L’automatisation des emplois administratifs soulagerait peut-être les détenteurs de bullshit jobs, conclut The Economist. Mais il y a peu de chance qu’émerge une nouvelle génération de métiers « passionnants et pleins de sens. (…) Il est assez probable que les jobs à la con dans l’administration ne soient qu’une transition entre les jobs à la con dans l’industrie et pas de job du tout. »

      #informatisation

    • L’article de 2013 dans The Economist se trouve là :

      http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour-markets-0?fsrc=rss

      We can’t be certain that the robots are coming for all our jobs. Disemployment in administrative jobs could create new, and perhaps highly remunerative, work in sectors or occupations we can’t yet anticipate. If we’re lucky, that work will be engaging and meaningful. Yet there is a decent chance that “bullshit” administrative jobs are merely a halfway house between “bullshit” industrial jobs and no jobs at all. Not because of the conniving of rich interests, but because machines inevitably outmatch humans at handling bullshit without complaining.

      Et l’article de Graeber est ici :
      http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs

  • Economic history: What can we learn from the Depression? | The Economist

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/11/economic-history-0?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/whatcanwelearnfromthedepression

    Perhaps economic historians can make a better contribution by ensuring the past is not abused in debates about modern-day crises. For instance, putting all the blame on Wall Street for the Great Depression—or on bankers in the current crisis—does not stand up to historical scrutiny. The responsibility may more properly lie in a complex combination of factors, like how global financial systems are structured. But this still needs be interpreted from modern day evidence rather than in over-simplistic “lessons” from the past. As the Irish economic historian Cormac Ó Gráda once wrote, “shattering dangerous myths about the past is the historian’s social responsibility”. Such sentiments should apply to the Great Depression as much as they do any other episode in history.

    #crise_financière #histoire #grande_dépression #1929

  • Economic history: When did globalisation start? | The Economist
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/economic-history-1?fsrc=rss
    http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/blog_sites/_0000s_0009_free-exchange.png?1328719121

    When did globalisation start?
    Sep 23rd 2013, 9:00 by C.R. | LONDON

    “GLOBALISATION” has become the buzzword of the last two decades. The sudden increase in the exchange of knowledge, trade and capital around the world, driven by technological innovation, from the internet to shipping containers, thrust the term into the limelight.

    Some see globalisation as a good thing. According to Amartya Sen, a Nobel-Prize winning economist, globalisation “has enriched the world scientifically and culturally, and benefited many people economically as well”. The United Nations has even predicted that the forces of globalisation may have the power to eradicate poverty in the 21st century.

    Others disagree. Globalisation has been attacked by critics of free market economics, like the economists Joseph Stiglitz and Ha-Joon Chang, for perpetuating inequality in the world rather than reducing it. Some agree that they may have a point. The International Monetary Fund admitted in 2007 that inequality levels may have been increased by the introduction of new technology and the investment of foreign capital in developing countries. Others, in developed nations, distrust globalisation as well. They fear that it often allows employers to move jobs away to cheaper places. In France, “globalisation” and “délocalisation” have become derogatory terms for free market policies. An April 2012 survey by IFOP, a pollster, found that only 22% of French people thought globalisation a “good thing” for their country.

    However, economic historians reckon the question of whether the benefits of globalisation outweigh the downsides is more complicated than this. For them, the answer depends on when you say the process of globalisation started. But why does it matter whether globalisation started 20, 200, or even 2,000 years ago? Their answer is that it is impossible to say how much of a “good thing” a process is in history without first defining for how long it has been going on.

    #globalisation

  • Financial markets: The removal of a calming hand | The Economist
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/financial-markets?fsrc=rss

    Free exchange
    Economics
    PreviousNextLatest Free exchangeLatest from all our blogs
    Financial markets
    The removal of a calming hand
    Sep 18th 2013, 15:08 by C.W. | LONDON
    SPECULATION is a dirty word. Market punters are often blamed for pushing securities prices from extreme to extreme, generating crises along the way. New regulations have half-heartedly tried to limit the worst excesses. 

    But some argue that another government force is buoying the speculators. To soothe worried markets, central banks have embarked on an ambitious programme of unconventional monetary policy. Measures such as quantitative easing (QE)—printing money to buy things like government bonds and mortgage securities—are in vogue. 

    Unconventional monetary policy has been attacked for prompting further financial gaming. With piles of cash to play with, the argument goes, investors have bid up prices of equities, bonds, and commodities. Stocks and shares have certainly been on the up. From a low in 2009—just after QE began—World Bank commodity price indices have increased by over 50%. The FTSE 100, an index of stock prices in Britain, has nearly reached its all-time high. 

    But a new paper from the International Monetary Fund suggests that unconventional monetary policies (UMPs) do not encourage speculation. Rather, they dampen it. UMPs reduce “tail risk”, or the odds of extreme market outcomes like hyperinflation or a new Depression. That, in turn, tamps down market volatility, and that reduces the incentive to speculate. When America announces that it will purchase more mortgage-backed securities or government bonds, markets quickly price in lower volatility. Risk measures can drop by 10% after the Federal Reserve makes unconventional monetary policy announcements, according to the IMF paper.

    #Free_exchange
    #Economics
    #Financial_markets

  • Economic history: Did living standards improve during the Industrial Revolution? | The Economist

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/economic-history-0?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/didlivingstandardsimproveduringtheindustrialrevolution

    Did living standards improve during the Industrial Revolution?
    Sep 13th 2013, 13:43 by C.W. | LONDON

    AS WE showed in a previous blog post, Europe went through a period of astonishing growth after about 1760. The level of income that Europe has today could not have been reached without the Industrial Revolution.

    http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width-retina/images/2013/09/blogs/free-exchange/20130921_woc404_580.png

    In fact, people often refer to two revolutions (though historians bicker about terminology). The First Industrial Revolution was about the introduction of machines, often powered with water or steam. It lasted from roughly 1760 to 1850. The Second Industrial Revolution used more advanced technologies, such as the internal combustion engine and electricity. It lasted from roughly 1850 to 1910.

    We know that the Industrial Revolution made Europe rich. But what was it like to live through it? Britain has the most complete historical records when it comes to this kind of thing, so this post will focus on that country.

    #royaime-uni #histoire #économie #révolution_industrielle #visualisation

  • Economic history: What was the Great Divergence? | The Economist
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/economic-history-1?fsrc=rss

    What was the Great Divergence?
    Sep 2nd 2013, 10:13 by C.W. | LONDON

    This post has been updated to include a suggested reading list.

    A better understanding of economic history might have helped the world avoid the worst of the recent crisis. Free exchange continues its discussion of milestones in economic history, showing how they contributed to the development of economic thought. You can read the first entry here.

    A FEW centuries ago it would have been difficult to tell Europe apart from the rest of the world—in economic terms, at least. Indeed, half a millenium ago Europe might justly have been considered a laggard. The three inventions which, in the words of Karl Marx, “ushered in bourgeois society” were not invented in Europe. Gunpowder, the compass and the printing press were probably all invented in China.

    But by the 19th century, things were rather different. Western Europe and parts of North America had become fabulously wealthy. Almost everywhere else was horribly poor. Economic historians refer to this as the “Great Divergence”.

    The timing of the divergence is hotly debated. Some think that it really took off around 1800. Others reckon that it was earlier. Such debates will probably never be resolved with much precision, given the unreliability of the evidence. But the question of what caused the divergence might be of more interest.

    Cultural factors are a popular explanation for European ascendancy. Max Weber, a German sociologist, thought he had the question nailed. In his book “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, published in 1905, Weber argued that religious factors were crucial for spurring European economic growth. Weber’s view centred on Calvinism—a branch of Protestantism—and argued that it encouraged Europeans to be thrifty, rational, and concerned with material gain. Such values did not exist outside Europe where, according to Weber, material wealth was not revered and entrepreneurship was seen as subversive.

    Similar arguments have emerged since Weber. Thomas Sowell, at Stanford University, points to the British as responsible for no less than the invention of freedom. In Mr Sowell’s view, the British were a shining light of economic development, which other countries gradually learnt to imitate. (Fascinating new research explores a similar theory: that learning best practices from others is essential to growth and becomes harder the greater the cultural distance from economic leaders.)

  • Emplois foireux
    http://www.lagrottedubarbu.com/2013/08/20/emplois-foirreux-bullshit-jobs-par-david-graeber

    Dans les années 30, John Maynard Keynes avait prédit que, à la fin du siècle, les technologies seront suffisamment avancées pour que des pays comme le Royaume Uni ou les Etats Unis envisagent des temps de travail de 15 heures par semaine. Et pourtant cela n’est pas arrivé. Au lieu de cela, la technologie a été manipulée pour trouver des moyens de nous faire travailler plus. Source : via La Grotte Du (...)

    • C’est comme si quelqu’un inventait des emplois sans intérêt, juste pour nous tenir tous occupés. Et c’est ici que réside tout le mystère. Dans un système capitaliste, c’est précisément ce qui n’est pas censé arriver. Dans les inefficaces anciens états socialistes, comme l’URSS, où l’emploi était considéré comme un droit et un devoir sacré, le système fabriquait autant d’emploi qu’il était nécessaire (une des raisons pour lesquelles il fallait trois personnes pour vous servir dans les supermarchés un morceau de viande). Mais, bien sûr, c’est le genre de problème que le marché compétitif est censé régler. Selon les théories économiques, en tout cas, la dernière chose qu’une entreprise qui recherche le profit va faire est de balancer de l’argent à des employés qu’ils ne devraient pas payer. Pourtant, cela arrive en quelque sorte.

      Alors que les entreprises s’engagent dans des campagnes de licenciement, celles ci touchent principalement la classe des gens qui font, bougent, réparent ou maintiennent les choses, alors que à travers une alchimie bizarre que personne ne peut expliquer, le nombre de salariés “pousse-papier” semble gonfler, et de plus en plus d’employés se retrouvent, au contraire des travailleurs de l’ex URSS, travaillant 40 ou 50 heures par semaine, mais travaillant de façon réellement efficace 15 heures, comme Keynes l’avait prédit, passant le reste de leur temps à organiser ou aller à des séminaires de motivation, mettre à jour leur profile facebook ou télécharger des séries télévisées.

    • Le fonctionnement concurrentiel ayant intégralement envahi l’entreprise, il n’est pas surprenant de constater ce phénomène. Le pouvoir, dans le monde capitaliste, c’est ce qui permet de vivre aux dépens des autres, d’être nourri par les autres. On se comporte à l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur de l’entreprise : en prédateurs, même si ça va à l’encontre de l’intérêt de l’entreprise, les actionnaires ferment les yeux tant que eux mêmes sont confortables.

      A chaque strate de l’entreprise, le pouvoir que l’on a va pouvoir être exploité pour vampiriser le travail de ses subordonnés. Je serais d’autant mieux payé que j’ai réussi à optimiser le rapport valeur ajoutée / masse salariale de l’équipe que je chapeaute.
      Je vis aux dépens des gens que je pressurise au niveau inférieur, sans dépense d’énergie, pas besoin de m’agiter, c’est mon poids hiérarchique, mon pouvoir, qui suffit à me nourrir...

    • Yves Smith, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-jobs.html

      I disagree with almost all of this discussion.

      First, if you look back historically, the idea that the lower classes needed to be kept busy for their own sake was presented in moralistic terms but was in fact ruthlessly economic. The whole point of making the peasants work instead of faff around and drink was to enable them to be exploited by the newly-emerging entrepreneurial class.

      (...)

      In other words, a big part of the capitalist exercise is to find or create workers to exploit. Graeber has the story backwards. The moral fable (idleness is bad for the perp and putting him to work is thus a moral undertaking) was not, as Graeber suggests, because lazy people are proto-insurrectionists. It is that people who are self-sufficient and have time on their hands on top of that drove the early capitalists nuts. They were exploitable resources lying fallow, no different to them than a gold vein in the next hill that the numbnick farmer/owner was unwilling to mine because he liked the view and was perfectly content grazing sheep.

      A second problem with Graeber’s discussion is (...)

      ...

    • One thing that the historical record makes obviously clear is that Adam Smith and his laissez-faire buddies were a bunch of closet-case statists, who needed brutal government policies to whip the English peasantry into a good capitalistic workforce willing to accept wage slavery…

      Yep, despite what you might have learned, the transition to a capitalistic society did not happen naturally or smoothly. (...)…

      Faced with a peasantry that didn’t feel like playing the role of slave, philosophers, economists, politicians, moralists and leading business figures began advocating for government action . Over time, they enacted a series of laws and measures designed to push peasants out of the old and into the new by destroying their traditional means of self-support.

    • Le texte de David Graeber est agréable à lire, son auteur sait présenter un sujet sérieux sur un ton provocateur avec des chutes marrantes, mais le contenu de son article reste sur le niveau du "common sens" et ne nous apprend rien de nouveau par rapport aux drôleries de Douglas Adams dans Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy

      http://www.ebooktrove.com/top_ten/DouglasAdams_TheHitchhikerTrilogy_5Books1ShortStory.pdf

      The first officer was just standing there holding the drinks tray and smiling benignly.
      “Bodies?” said the Captain again. Ford licked his lips. “Yes,” he said, “All those dead telephone sanitizers and account executives, you know, down in the hold.”
      The Captain stared at him. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed. “Oh they’re not dead,” he said, “Good Lord no, no they’re frozen. They’re going to be revived.”
      Ford did something he very rarely did. He blinked. Arthur seemed to come out of a trance. “You mean you’ve got a hold full of frozen hairdressers?” he said.
      “Oh yes,” said the Captain, “Millions of them. Hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, management consultants, you name them. We’re going to colonize another planet.”
      Ford wobbled very slightly.
      “Exciting isn’t it?” said the Captain.
      ...
      “Well,” said the Captain, picking his way through the words carefully, “I think as far as I can remember we were programmed to crash on it.”
      "Crash?" shouted Ford and Arthur.
      “Er, yes,” said the Captain, “yes, it’s all part of the plan I think. There was a terribl y good reason for it which I can’t quite remember at the moment. It was something to with ... er ...”
      Ford exploded. “You’re a load of useless bloody loonies!” he shouted.
      “Ah yes, that was it,” beamed the Captain, “that was the reason.”

      Pas grave, mais le Professeur Graeber se trompe sur un point essentiel :

      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 precisely what is not supposed to happen.

      Mais si, « élémentaire, mon cher Watson », c’est précisément ce qui est nécessaire pour sauver le capitalisme de sa crise de surproduction actuelle. On n’explique pas des "bullshit jobs" avec des "bullshit theories". Depuis le début le capitalisme n’est pas trés rationaliste tout comme les théories qui justifient son existence. Rien de nouveau ici non plus. L’idéologie cachée derrière ces théories a été démasquée il y a 150 ans déjà.

      http://www.rote-ruhr-uni.com/texte/elbe_charaktermaske.pdf

      Charaktermasken sind so als Ausprägung von Individualitätsformen auf dem Boden der Verdinglichung und Versachlichung gesellschaftlicher Verhältnisse zu begreifen. Die Individuen repräsentieren und personifizieren hier gesellschaftliche Dinge: Waren, Geld, Kapital usw. In den unterschiedlichen Formen sozialer Praxis nehmen sie verschiedene Charaktermasken an: Im Zirkulationsprozess handeln sie als Käufer/Verkäufer oder Gläubiger/ Schuldner, im Produktionsprozess treten sie sich als Arbeiter und Kapitalist gegenüber, legen plötzlich völlig andere Verhaltensweisen an den Tag.

      La définition du Charaktermaske explique trés bien pourquoi tous ces bullshit jobs sont essentiels pour le fonctionnement du capitalisme avancé. Outre la nécessité de gérer le système d’exploitation planétaire chacun de ses fonctionnaires est une incarnation de son idéologie. Karl Marx le dit beaucoup plus simplement que la majorité de ceux qui on essayé de l’interpréter :

      Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Werke, Band 23, "Das Kapital", Bd. I, Siebenter Abschnitt, Der Akkumulationsprozeß des Kapitals, S. 589 - 604, Dietz Verlag, Berlin/DDR 1968 http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me23/me23_589.htm

      Die ökonomische Charaktermaske des Kapitalisten hängt nur dadurch an einem Menschen fest, daß sein Geld fortwährend als Kapital funktioniert.

      Pour Karl Marx et Friedrich Engels les acteurs du capitalisme ne sont qu’un "Charaktermaske", l’homme de paille du système qui est quotidiennement trempé dans le bain idéologique de son exercice professionnelle. N’empêche en situation de crise même l’élite souffre de son travail déshumanisé et commence à mettre en question quelques éléments de sa situation. Tout d’un coup la réalité du "entfremdete Arbeit", du travail aliéné s’étend visiblement au delà du monde prolétaire et touche les intellectuels et les petits bourgeois jusqu’ici épargnés. C’est à ce moment précis qu’ils commencent à se poser des questions, exactement comme Karl Marx l’a déjà observé à son époque.

      La popularité de l’Article sur les "bullshit jobs" est le résultat de ce malaise, mais il n’en explique pas les mécanismes. Donner cette explication n’est vraisemblablement pas le rôle d’un professeur d’université payé par ceux qui se trouvent plus haut que lui sur la chaîne alimentaire capitaliste.

      #capitalisme #crise #ideologie

  • Emerging markets : The submerging economies | The Economist

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/emerging-markets

    Le graphique est spectaculaire...

    A FEW weeks ago we identified an ongoing “Great Deceleration” across the emerging world. A new Bridgewater Associates analysis seconds our conclusions, and finds that a remarkable and somewhat surprising growth hand-off seems to have occurred. The Wall Street Journal reports:

    #crise #finance #économie #visualisation

  • The euro crisis: Stick with the Germans? | The Economist

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/04/euro-crisis-2?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/stickwiththegermans

    MOST of Germany’s political leadership continues to state unwavering support for euro zone. And perhaps if push came to shove and an economy truly were on the brink of exit, the German government would accept quite significant sacrifices to forestall that possibility. One wonders, though. For now, many prominent Germans seem to believe that discomfort should be shunted onto the periphery to the greatest extent possible. Today Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, had this to say:

    “There is much money in the market, in my view too much money,” Schaeuble said in an interview for the German economic weekly Wirtschaftswoche released on Friday.

    #europe #crise #allemagne #euro
    “If the ECB tries to use what leeway it has to reduce this great liquidity a little I would welcome that,” he said, adding that the ECB had done well to bring inflation below 2 percent.