Brazil’s bizarre — and flat-out bullshit — public jobs

This is Part 3 of The Brazilian Report’s special series on the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s proposal to reform public service in Brazil. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 4. You can also download an eBook including all four parts at the end of this article.

In his best-selling book “Bullshit jobs: a theory,” American anthropologist David Graeber argues that millions of people across the world are knowingly toiling away in pointless, unnecessary jobs. Mr. Graeber considers a “bullshit job”— one in which even the person doing the job can’t really justify its existence, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist. “That’s the bullshit element.”

The description perfectly describes a myriad of positions within Brazil’s public administration. From typists (which were kept even after computers became universal), locksmiths, VCR and telex operators (hello, 1980s), and even DJs, there are thousands of public jobs that seem obsolete, to say the least.

Among its goals, Brazil’s newly-proposed administrative reform aims at...