zlacker

>I think the "duck-tapers" Graeber describes in his book are a bit different from what you understand currently. He's mostly talking about the people who are doing tedious cleanup work because of reasons that can obviously and trivially be fixed but the higher-ups in the organization are not doing it for various reasons (mostly politics).

No, no different - this sounds like every bit the same phenomenon I thought I was addressing.

It's a fake distinction because every job can be framed in a way that puts it on either side of the divide.

And lack of understanding of other peoples' jobs is clearly at the core of the issue.

The "higher ups being stupid because of politics" can never be really definitely false, but it never, ever, is an explanation that shows understanding or justifies calling something trivial.