Precariat: Labour, Work and Politics

Matthew Johnson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138803206
• eBook ISBN: 9781317622178
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In his recent work, Guy Standing has identified a new class which has emerged from neo-liberal restructuring with, he argues, the revolutionary potential to change the world: the precariat. This, according to Standing, is 'a class-in-the-making, internally divided into angry and bitter factions' consisting of 'a multitude of insecure people, living bits-and-pieces lives, in and out of short-term jobs, without a narrative of occupational development, including millions of frustrated educated youth…, millions of women abused in oppressive labour, growing numbers of criminalised tagged for life, millions being categorised as "disabled" and migrants in their hundreds of millions around the world. They are denizens; they have a more restricted range of social, cultural, political and economic rights than citizens around them'. This present book explores the nature, shape and context of precariat, evaluating the internal consistency and applications of the concept. Demonstrating the sheer breadth and depth of application, the chapters cover a wide-range of topics, from the relationships between precariat and authoritarianism, multitude (another concept to achieve popular consciousness), and place as well as the nature of precarious identities and subjectivities among those working in immaterial labour. The book concludes with a reply by Standing to reviews of Precariat.

This book was published as a special issue of Global Discourse.

INTRODUCTION
The precariat

In his recent work, Guy Standing has identified a new class which has emerged from neo-liberal restructuring with, he argues, the revolutionary potential to change the world: the precariat. This is ‘a class-in-the-making, internally divided into angry and bitter factions’ consisting of ‘a multitude of insecure people, living bits-and-pieces lives, in and out of short-term jobs, without a narrative of occupational development, including millions of frustrated educated youth who do not like what they see before them, millions of women abused in oppressive labour, growing numbers of criminalised tagged for life, millions being categorised as “disabled” and migrants in their hundreds of millions around the world. They are denizens; they have a more restricted range of social, cultural, political and economic rights than citizens around them’ (Standing 2011b). Like multitude before it, precariat has reached the popular consciousness both because of timely salience and comprehensible articulation. In essence, Precariat taps into increasing discontent and dissatisfaction among a range of groups and stokes in people – particularly educated younger people in Western countries – the hope of connection and collaboration with radically different cohorts from radically different backgrounds – a hope which significantly pre-dates the activities of 1968. Succinctly placing the possibility of praxis within dispiriting global circumstances, Standing has produced a foundation upon which, potentially, a host of academic and political programmes may emerge.

This issue of Global Discourse seeks to explore the nature, shape and context of precariat, evaluating the internal consistency and application of the concept, particularly with regard to: changes in the sociology of class; democracy, participation and representation; the relationship between precariat and multitude; the means by which precariat might become a ‘class-for-itself’; place, migration and globalization; poverty and precarity; the subjective experience of precarity, and forms of resistance. The articles published reflect the extent, both with regard to paradigmatic engagement and site of study, to which the concept has permeated the consciousness of academics and those subject to precariousness (indeed, the former appear increasingly to be included in the latter).

The issue begins with Bill Jordan’s (2013) examination of the political relationship between precariat and authoritarianism, in which he traces, through the course of over one hundred years of policy debates, the development of two approaches – liberal and paternalist – to the treatment of precarious employment in capitalism. Examining the possible role played by basic income provision in these debates, Jordan outlines reasons to be cautious about the potential for radical responses to Europe-wide problems. Daryl Glaser (2013) replies. Ben Trott, with a reply by Tim Murphy (2013), considers the relationship between precariat and multitude, arguing that Standing dislocates his analysis of precarious circumstances from utopian emancipatory praxis, before discussing potential examples of transformative projects which transcend differences and spaces. Next, Joseph Varga (2013) analyses the creation of the precariat within the lower Rust Belt of the US Midwest through the production of anti-union legislation and dissolution of forms of security engendered during the New Deal era. Varga then outlines the effects of this shift from proletariat to precariat in political, social and cultural terms. Angela Wigger (2013) responds, outlining the broader, divisive implications of this process, noting, for example, the contribution of precariousness to, for example, the emergence of the Tea Party.

Next, Susan Banki (2013), using illustrations drawn from the lives of Burmese migrants in Thailand, attempts to introduce a new concept of precarity of place to describe the experiences of non-citizen living, which is distinct from, but to be considered in conjunction with, precarity of labour. In replying, Wanda Vrasti (2013) interrogates the concept further, noting possible characteristics of disadvantage, with regard to race, class and gender, which may make precariousness all the more arduous. Hanna-Mari Ikonen (2013) complements the focus on place through her examination of the relationship between entrepreneurship and employment, exploring strategies for surviving in precarious circumstances and emphasising the importance of place to achieving permanence. Jeremy Morris (2013) replies critically, considering the identities at play in Ikonen’s empirical work, suggesting that Ikonen’s use of entrepreneurship does ‘violence to the notion of craft, of the socially-dwelt-in meanings of work that still exist for such people’, while emphasising the need for working class studies to engage fully with the concept of precariat.

Emiliana Armano and Annalisa Murgia (2013) then consider the lives of young, educated knowledge producers, seeking to explicate the ways in which this cohort understands and deals with their precariousness, particularly with regard to self-identification, self-exploitation and experience of misalignment. In her reply, Nancy Ettlinger (2013) considers, among other things, the exploitative and deleterious aspects of crowdsourcing, arguing that collective refusal to engage in such activities may be one means of opposing precariousness, with a greater emphasis on bottom up activities needed. Finally, Mauro Turrini and Federico Chicchi (2013), with a reply by Heather McLean (2013), examine the subjective experience of precarity among performance artists, whose lives they regard as being especially instructive insofar as they ‘are in many ways a laboratory of job flexibility, where innovative contractual arrangements and professional trajectories have been developed’. Using rich empirical data from quantitative and qualitative research, they note the ways in which performance artists escape from the confines of wage labour to achieve outbursts of professional autonomy, only then to have that autonomy constrained in new ways by precariousness.

In the final part of the issue, there are symposia on Mark Purcell’s The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy, with reviews by Mark Edward (2013), Stuart Elden (2013) and Ian Buchanan (2013) and a reply by Purcell (2013), and Guy Standing’s The Precariat, with reviews by Catherine Lawlor (2013), Jörg Wiegratz (2013) and Jo Grady (2013) and a substantive reply by Standing (2013) himself. The issue concludes with Juliana Bidadanure (2013) speculating on the future development of precariat as a concept.

I wish, at this point, to place on record my gratitude to Guy Standing for his support of the issue, advice on its development and participation in the review symposium. I hope that the issue will stimulate further discussion of the concept.

References

Armano, E. and Murgia, A. 2013. “The Precariousnesses of Young Knowledge Workers: A Subject-oriented Approach.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 486–501.

Banki, S. 2013. “Precarity of Place: A Complement to the Growing Precariat Literature.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 450–463.

Bidadanure, J. 2013. “The Precariat, Intergenerational Justice and Universal Basic Income.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 554–560.

Buchanan, I. 2013. “The Down-deep Delight of Democracy, by Mark Purcell. Review.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 529–532.

Edward, M. 2013. “The Down-deep Delight of Democracy, by Mark Purcell. Review.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 525–527.

Elden, S. 2013. “The Down-deep Delight of Democracy, by Mark Purcell. Review.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 527–529.

Ettlinger, N. 2013. “The Production of Precariousness and Implications for Collective Action: A Reply to Emiliana Armano and Annalisa Murgia.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 502–506.

Ikonen, H-M. 2013. “Precarious Work, Entrepreneurial Mindset and Sense of Place: Female Strategies in Insecure Labour Markets.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 467–481.

Jordan, B. 2013. “Authoritarianism and the Precariat.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 388–403.

Glaser, D. 2013. “Reply to Bill Jordan’s ‘Authoritarianism and the Precariat.’” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 404–405.

Grady, J. 2013. “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, by Guy Standing. Review.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 543–546.

Lawlor, C. 2013. “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, by Guy Standing. Review.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 536–538.

McLean, H. 2013. “A Reply to ‘Precarious Subjectivities are Not for Sale: The Loss of the Measurability of Labour for Performing Arts Workers’ by Mauro Turrini and Federico Chicchi.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 522–524.

Morris, J. 2013. “Precarious Work, Entrepreneurial Mindset and Sense of Place: Female Strategies in Insecure Labour Markets: A Response to Hanna-Mari Ikonen.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 482–485.

Murphy, T. 2013. “Self-nomination and Autonomy: A Reply to Ben Trott.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 426–429.

Purcell, M. 2013. The Down-deep Delight of Democracy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,

Purcell, M. 2013. “The Down-deep Delight of Democracy, by Mark Purcell. Managing Ourselves.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 532–535.

Standing, G. 2011a. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academics.

Standing, G. 2011b “The Precariat - The New Dangerous Class.” Policy Network, Accessed January 21 2014. http://www.policynetwork.net/pno_detail.aspx?ID=4004&title=+The+Precariat+%e2%80%93+The+new+dangerous+class

Standing, G. 2013. “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, by Guy Standing. Where’s Howard?” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 546–553.

Trott, B. 2013. “From the Precariat to the Multitude.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 406–425.

Turrini, M. and Chicchi, F. 2013. “Precarious Subjectivities are Not for Sale: The Loss of the Measurability of Labour for Performing Arts Workers.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 507–521.

Varga, J. J. 2013. Breaking the Heartland: Creating the Precariat in the US Lower Rust Belt. Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 430–446.

Vrasti, W. 2013. “Some Thoughts on ‘Precarity of Place’: A Reply to Banki.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 464–466.

Wiegratz, J. 2013. “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, by Guy Standing. Review.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 538–543.

Wigger, A. 2013. “Breaking the Heartland: Creating the Precariat in the US Lower Rust Belt: a Response to Joseph J. Varga.” Global Discourse 3 (3–4): 447–449.

Matthew Johnson

University of Lancaster

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Authoritarianism and the precariat

Bill Jordan

Social and Public Policy, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

This article traces present-day policy debates on precarious employment to the nineteenth century. Liberal and paternalist versions of state authority emerged as responses to early capitalist development, and precariousness was an issue that contributed to the differentiation between them. The author argues that these connections with the bases of state power help explain why radical alternative approaches to today’s challenges find it so hard to get a hearing in mainstream political circles.

This article identifies two forms of authoritarianism and analyses how they have handled the phenomenon of precariousness. In the justification of state power under capitalism, the issue of people without regular work played a role in arguments for both these forms, but they engaged with it in very different ways. I examine the implications for state authority of shifts in the dynamic between precarious and secure employment, and contrast the responses of these two types of regime.

Since industrialisation began, peasants, day labourers and women from rural regions have moved to towns, for the sake of higher-paid, higher-productivity work, and this eventually gave rise to better employment contracts and conditions, as well as better social provision. The shift from precariousness to security was never complete, especially for women, but billions of people have ultimately benefited from this process, and are still doing so in the South and East Asia, Latin America and Africa.

In the 1970s, this dynamic changed in the affluent economies. With reserves of rural labour depleted, immigrants were drawn in from developing countries; but numbers of secure, full-time, industrial employments started to shrink, and short-term, part-time or occasional ones, mainly in services, to increase. Governments’ responses to this shift reflected the trajectory of their political development during the period of their industrialisation.

I shall argue that the long history of social control through a disciplinary regime for those on the margins of the economy influences these responses. Where political power shifted to capitalists and the urban middle class during the nineteenth century, as in the UK and USA, deterrent and punitive Poor Law administrations focused on the most vulnerable among them. Rootlessness and unruly behaviour justified harsh criminal justice systems. I shall examine the legacy of these forms of discipline for present-day policies.

In countries where the traditional landowning aristocracy and the military retained political power, such as Germany, a more paternalistic type of authority prevailed. The urban middle class and organised labour were included in social insurance schemes, but as an alternative to effective democratic politics. This tradition used the construction of the state’s machinery to shape and steer society as a hierarchy of status groups with reciprocal duties (Dyson 1980). It too casts a long shadow over developments in this century, and – through the creation of the Eurozone – this spreads right across the Continent. When demonstrators in Spain and Italy brandish posters to protest the power of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, they might more appropriately paint a Bismarck-style walrus moustache on her photogr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Introduction: The precariat
• 2. Authoritarianism and the precariat
• 3. From the precariat to the multitude
• 4. Breaking the heartland: creating the precariat in the US lower rust belt
• 5. Precarity of place: a complement to the growing precariat literature
• 6. Precarious work, entrepreneurial mindset and sense of place: female strategies in insecure labour markets
• 7. The precariousnesses of young knowledge workers: a subject-oriented approach
• 8. Precarious subjectivities are not for sale: the loss of the measurability of labour for performing arts workers
• 9. Book Review Symposium: The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy By Mark Purcell
• 10. Book Review Symposium: The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class By Guy Standing
• 11. Conclusion: The precariat, intergenerational justice and universal basic income
• Index