The Precariat - The New Dangerous Class

School of Social and Political Sciences Seminar Series

Many millions of people, including many across Europe, are entering a global precariat, part of a class structure shaped by globalisation. This presentation, drawing on a recent book, poses five questions.(1) What is the precariat? Why care about it? Why is it growing? Who is most likely to be in it? And where is it leading us?

The brief answer to the first question is that it consists of millions of people in social and economic insecurity, without occupational identities, drifting in and out of jobs, constantly worried about their incomes, housing and much else. It particularly affects youth, many realising that their certificates and degrees are little more than lottery tickets, leading many into status frustration. They and many others are being affected by a process of precariatisation, a slow habituation to a life of unstable labour, quite unlike the old proletariat.

Will the precariat’s growth lead towards an authoritarian politics of inferno, with neo-fascist overtones? Or will a progressive agenda emerge in the squares and cities of protest, responding to Enlightenment values and the aspirations of the educated younger generation being drawn into the precariat?

The presentation will examine the labour market dynamics that underpin the growth of the precariat and outline the nucleus of a new ‘politics of paradise’ taking shape outside the political mainstream across Europe and elsewhere. Biog (MS Word , 24kb)      

(1) G.Standing, The Precariat – The New Dangerous Class (London, Bloomsbury). Also published in Italian as Precari – La nuova classe esplosivo (Rome, Il Mulino).