I was unexpectedly devastated to learn of David Graeber’s death as I prepared for an online meeting earlier this week. I was late to the meeting and couldn’t concentrate — I didn’t know Graeber personally, but something about his death, untimely, far-too-soon, cut down before his work was finished, struck me hard, and it took me moment to understand why he had become such an important figure for me.

Like many left-wing writers and teachers, I’ve long been aware of his work and his role in Occupy Wall Street. I had been meaning to write for some time a defense of his most recent book, Bullshit Jobs, a book critiqued as “productivist” by some and lacking economic rigor by others. Since “Graeberism” had become an epithet among a few Marxists with whom I usually agree, I felt past debates with Graeber on other issues prevented a serious engagement with the book’s premise: financialized (or “late”) capitalism has changed the meaning of work in the wealthy world, and the bullshit job is one of its indicators.

As the first world is awash with surplus capital that the bourgeoisie does not want to spend on welfare and development, a “bullshit job” — one that serves literally no purpose — buys off a certain section of the salaried masses: a kind of right-wing, white-collar Keynesianism. This is an argument I think socialists would do well to engage with, with far-reaching consequences for both organizing and educating.