The precariat : the new dangerous class

209 Pages·2011·4.762 MB·English

by  Standing, Guy

The Precariat
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The Precariat
The New Dangerous Class
Guy Standing
B L O O M S B U R Y A C A D E M I C
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First published in 2011 by
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY, UK
and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
Copyright © Guy Standing 2011.
This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence.
You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the
copyright holder and the publisher. For permission to publish commercial versions please contact
Bloomsbury Academic.
CIP records for this book are available from the British Library and the Library of Congress
ISBN (hardback) 978-1-84966-352-6
ISBN (paperback) 978-1-84966-351-9
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-84966-456-1
ISBN (ebook PDF) 978-1-84966-454-7
This book is produced using paper that is made from wood grown in managed, sustainable
forests. It is natural, renewable and recyclable. The logging and manufacturing processes conform
to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group, Bodmin, Cornwall
Cover designer: MP
Cover image: Construction Workers at Kings Cross by Colin Gray www.CGPGrey.com
CC licensed
www.bloomsburyacademic.com
Contents
Preface vii
List of Abbreviations ix
1 The Precariat 1
2 Why the Precariat Is Growing 26
3 Who Enters the Precariat? 59
4 Migrants: Victims, Villains or Heroes? 90
5 Labour, Work and the Time Squeeze 115
6 A Politics of Inferno 132
7 A Politics of Paradise 155
Bibliography 184
Index 191
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Preface
T
his book is about a new group in the world, a class-in-the-making. It sets
out to answer fi ve questions: What is it? Why should we care about its
growth? Why is it growing? Who is entering it? And where is the precariat
taking us?
That last question is crucial. There is a danger that, unless the precariat is
understood, its emergence could lead society towards a politics of inferno. This
is not a prediction. It is a disturbing possibility. It will only be avoided if the
precariat can become a class-for-itself, with effective agency, and a force for
forging a new ‘politics of paradise’, a mildly utopian agenda and strategy to
be taken up by politicians and by what is euphemistically called ‘civil society’,
including the multitude of non-governmental organisations that too often fl irt
with becoming quasi-government organisations.
We need to wake up to the global precariat urgently. There is a lot of anger
out there and a lot of anxiety. But although this book highlights the victim side
of the precariat more than the liberating side, it is worth stating at the outset
that it is wrong to see the precariat in purely suffering terms. Many drawn into
it are looking for something better than what was offered in industrial society
and by twentieth century labourism. They may no more deserve the name of
Hero than Victim. But they are beginning to show why the precariat can be a
harbinger of the Good Society of the twenty-fi rst century.
The context is that, while the precariat has been growing, globalisation’s
hidden reality has come to the surface with the 2008 fi nancial shock. Postponed
for too long, global adjustment is pushing the high-income countries down as
it pulls the low-income countries up. Unless the inequalities wilfully neglected
by most governments in the past two decades are radically redressed, the pain
and repercussions could become explosive. The global market economy may
eventually raise living standards everywhere – even its critics should wish that –
but it is surely only ideologues who can deny that it has brought economic
insecurity to many, many millions. The precariat is in the front ranks, but it
has yet to fi nd the Voice to bring its agenda to the fore. It is not ‘the squeezed
middle’ or an ‘underclass’ or ‘the lower working class’. It has a distinctive
bundle of insecurities and will have an equally distinctive set of demands.
In the early stages of writing the book, a presentation of the themes was
made to what turned out to be a largely ageing group of academics of a social
democratic persuasion. Most greeted the ideas with scorn and said there was
nothing new. For them, the answer today was the same as it was when they
were young. More jobs were needed, more decent jobs. All I will say to those
respected fi gures is that I think the precariat would have been unimpressed.
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viii PREFACE
There are too many people to thank all of them individually for helping in
the thinking behind the book. However, I would like to thank the many groups
of students and activists who have listened to presentations of the themes in the
sixteen countries visited during its preparation. One hopes their insights and
questions have fi ltered into the fi nal text. Suffi ce it to add that the author of a
book like this is mainly a conveyor of the thoughts of others.
Guy Standing
November 2010
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Abbreviations
AARP American Association of Retired Persons
AFL-CIO A merican Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial
Organizations
BBVA Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria
BIEN Basic Income Earth Network
CBT Cognitive behavioural therapy
CCT Conditional cash transfer
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CRI Crime Reduction Initiatives
EHRC Equality and Human Rights Commission (UK)
EU European Union
GCSE General Certifi cate of Secondary Education
IMF International Monetary Fund
LIFO Last-in, fi rst-out
NGO Non-governmental organisation
NIC Newly industrialising country
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
RMI Revenu minimum d’insertion
SEWA Self-Employed Women’s Association of India
UKBA UK Border Agency
UMP Union pour un Mouvement Populaire

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