Reddit reviews The Middleman Economy: How Brokers, Agents, Dealers, and Everyday Matchmakers Create Value and Profit

A lot of these so-called "bullshit jobs" exist because we are now in a fast-moving service / information economy, and that type of economy creates a ton of complexity that someone has to wrangle with. This is why the internet created so many new jobs that involve squishy humans acting as the glue between one service and another.

Sure, plenty of these jobs are the digital equivalent of ditch-digging. Maybe you spend your days updating spreadsheets that are read by some ancient program. But since when has one's occupation been the de-facto path to personal fulfillment? That is a very recent idea, in the timeline of human history. Most people work in order to survive (if low-income), or else to find fulfillment in their spare time (if higher-income).

> The intention of Graeber’s book is to highlight the problem of “bullshit jobs”; he explicitly rejects talk of “solutions”.

...and this is where all of these authors fall flat on their faces. It's easy to point out all of the ways in which the current mixed-market system is unfair, exploitative, etc... but when asked to offer alternatives, they will hand-wave it away with unproven ideas like UBI, rent control, etc.

In cases of market failure, you can find compelling arguments from the Socialist and the Libertarian side of things, pointing to either business or government as the 'greater evil' in the situation... but the solutions are never as simple as "Implement UBI!", or "just let market forces work!"