The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class - Tapa dura

A very important book * Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA * Buy Guy Standing's book, The Precariat! Or nick/borrow it! * John Harris, The Guardian * Guy Standing provides an incisive account of how precariousness is becoming the new normality in globalised labour markets, and offers important guidelines for all concerned to build a more just society. * Richard Hyman, London School of Economics, UK * This is an important book. * Citizen's Income Newsletter * This important and original book brings out the political dangers, so clear in contemporary America, of failing to address the insecurities of the Precariat. It also suggests the way forward: a reconstruction of the concept of work. * Eileen Applebaum, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington DC, USA * Over 90% of workers in India are informal, poorly paid, without any economic security. Guy Standing combines vision with practicality in outlining policies that are urgently needed to provide security to workers such as these around the world. * Renana Jhabvala, Self-Employed Women's Association of India * Standing has produced a well-informed and important book investigating, for the first time in a comprehensive way, the direction in which global economic security is moving in the 21st century. The book is packed with statistics presented in a very readable form and drawing on extensive published research. It is a compelling account of economic insecurity... * Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation * [T]here is much in The Precariat to recommend it to labor educators, labor studies scholars, and activists of all sorts...a book that provides a clear and detailed understanding of how the situation of precarious employment affects the lives of the "precariat" individually, collectively, day to day, and over the longer term. This is the book's greatest value. Standing does this with many international examples, even though his main intellectual base is in Britain. His analysis of the impact of precarity, along with the diversity of examples from around the world, makes this the primary book on the topic to date. -- Joe Berry, Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor, Berkeley, CA * Labor Studies Journal * In summary, the analysis and arguments are compelling, for The Precariat brings together and develops many current strands of thought within the (social science) literature, and builds on the materialist tradition which ultimately leads to a rejection of 'neoliberalism'. Standing captures some of the collectivist social policy tradition established by Richard Titmuss, but with more attention to all forms of work and notions of occupational citizenship...The social policy community needs to engage more with issues at stake here, making The Precariat essential reading. -- Chris Deeming * Journal of Social Policy * The most challenging proposal here is probably the one urging states to grant all citizens individually a modest basic income, without conditions or behavioural rules, but Standing provides the most brilliant, succinct and clear-eyed exposition of its economic and social advantages available so far. -- Monica Threlfall, London Metropolitan University, UK * E-International Relations *

This book presents the Precariat - an emerging class, comprising the rapidly growing number of people facing lives of insecurity, moving in and out of jobs that give little meaning to their lives.

Guy Standing argues that this class is producing instabilities in society. Although it would be wrong to characterise members of the Precariat as victims, many are frustrated and angry. The Precariat is dangerous because it is internally divided, leading to the villainisation of migrants and other vulnerable groups. Lacking agency, its members may be susceptible to the siren calls of political extremism.
To prevent a 'politics of inferno', Guy Standing argues for a 'politics of paradise', in which redistribution and income security are reconfi gured in a new kind of Good Society, and in which the fears and aspirations of the Precariat are made central to a progressive strategy.