Science is for sale. Who is going to pay for rigorous scientific studies attempting to prove Graeber’s thesis? Of course he had to rely on personal testimonies — he’s not a billionaire.

You use a study of European employees to shoot down a theory born and bred in the US? Unlike Americans, Europeans can’t be fired on a whim, have real health and retirement benefits, at least a month off each year, solid educational opportunities, and a more meaningful lifestyle (usually limited to a humane number of hours each day and week). What a transparent effort to spin the truth.

You seem to confuse the legal field and the financial industry in your counter example. Sure, banks and brokerage firms engage lawyers in their businesses. They also engage maintenance personal, but both groups are a minority of the financial, sales, marketing, compliance, and clerical staff that make up the majority of employees in the financial industry. And lawyers, not to put too fine a point on it, are paid hundreds of dollars per billable hour. Why not ask the janitors, middle managers, and clerks what they think.

Finally, you assert: “Moreover, the key question of whether a job is “pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious” can be objectively assessed, so Graeber’s thesis doesn’t need those anecdotes.” And that is similarly bullshit. What commercial enterprise, what manager, whether middle or senior level, would say yes to that characterization? Of their direct reports? Nor would their employee’s who are one and all living a precarious existence just trying to survive.