The Strike magazine article is a fun read.
Having worked in both small (50 people or less) and large (Fortune 500) companies, along with doing consulting for the government, I definitely agree with Graeber that bureaucracy is by no means limited to government. Many of the companies I have worked for had far easier missions than the government agencies I have worked for and have just as much bureaucracy.
The vast majority of jobs are useless, which has been most of my career:
Auditor? Auditors don't spend enough time at any company to really know if there are issues deep down. They will catch a few glaring things, but rarely anything serious. Plus, they are paid by the very people they are supposed to police.
Accountant? The very basics of accounting are productive. These artificial rules do help us track complicated financial processes. Of course, we couldn't leave well enough alone. We invented governing councils of accounting rules and those councils are populated by people who have specialized for 50 years in only ACCOUNTING! Thoroughly enjoyable people to be around. They assume, they and the overall council, were created for a reason, so they insist on constantly adding rules and changing them for no real benefit. FASB bastards!
Consultant? Please...
Coach? It's was at least fun some of the time and had some minor impact on the lives of a few younger people. Of course, as any good human in the US does they managed to F.. it up. Nothing is fun if you are doing it 80 hours a week, with at least 40 of those hours being wasted.
Some recent stupidity:
Kansas tries to restrict welfare:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStor ... s-30355445
They took something they dislike, because it costs money and is a bureaucracy, and made it more expensive to implement and added bureaucracy? WTF?
Kansas made massive tax cuts:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/201 ... t-do-math/
Of course, the decreased tax revenue impacts education and infrastructure, not the useless jobs:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1210 ... -more-cuts