This is the inverse of the question that David Graeber begins his book Bullshit Jobs with, namely: John Maynard Keynes, in 1930, predicted that a 15-hour work week would be possible by the end of the 20th century. Technologically his predictions were spot-on, so what on earth is being done with all those excess labor hours?

In other words, given that the average person works 47 hours per week (with 39% working 50+ hours per week), what the fuck are those people doing all day? Sure, in certain places like Japanese, work culture ('Salarymen') gets caricatured as being paid to stand around all day and 'look busy', but isn't capitalism supposed to prevent such a thing from happening? Surely, work culture in the West is different?

His research concludes that possibly up to 40% of Americans believe their jobs are utter bullshit and contribute nothing to the world. The kicker is that most of these bullshit jobs to tend be the high-paying ones (Corporate Lawyers) whereas most essential workers are paid like shit and treated like shit.