A class-y view on After Capitalism

Move aside proletariat. A precariat is emerging as a potential new class to the lead the transformation to an emancipated, egalitarian society. Guy Standing describes the Precariat as a class-in-the-making, why it’s emerging, and what must be done to move it – and the rest of us – to a more just future in his book: A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens. It is difficult to capture the precariat in a single definition. For instance, the precariat:

• is having rights associated with citizenship whittled away
• is characterized by chronic insecurity
• lack access to non-wage perks
• lack an occupational identity or narrative to give meaning to life
• must undertake a great deal of work that is not paid labor
• has a life built around queuing, form-filling, providing extensive documentation, frequent reporting for interviews, answering ‘trick’ questions, etc.
• and so on….

He suggests three varieties of precariat:

• People bumped out of working-class communities and families…typically blame the ‘other’ for their plight
• Traditional denizens – migrants, Roma, ethnic minorities, asylum seekers in limbo
• The rapidly growing variety of the educated (often young – 20s and 30s) plunged into a precariat existence.

Sound like some folks you know? He notes, however, that the precariat is divided to such an extent that one could describe it as a class at war with itself.

The book makes a nice contribution to rethinking class structure. This breakdown makes good sense to me:

• elite or plutocracy consists of a tiny number of individuals who are really ‘super-citizens’; they reside in several countries and escape the obligations of citizenship everywhere while helping to limit the rights of citizens almost everywhere. They are not the 1 per cent depicted by the Occupy movement
• salariat consists of those in long-term employment or with contracts that promise permanency, if they adhere to conventional rules of behaviour and performance
• proficians, consisting of a growing number of people, often youthful, who are mobile self-entrepreneurs, wary of salaried employment, flitting between projects and occupational titles.
• proletariat, what’s left of the old working class, still calling for ‘more labour’ and ‘full employment’
• precariat consists of people living through insecure jobs interspersed with periods of unemployment or labour-force withdrawal and living insecurely

A key different between the proletariat and precariat is that the proletarian norm was habituation to stable labour, the precariat is being habituated to unstable labour. Put bluntly, the proletariat’s representatives demand decent labour, lots of it; the precariat wishes to escape from labour, materially and psychologically, because its labour is instrumental, not self-defining. Interesting distinction! And it fits right into a key agenda item argue for here, and in many of the works we’ve been exploring: the guaranteed basic income.

My favorite part of the book is his insights around the pernicious effects of utilitarianism. He sets up that there are two great traditions of thinking about social policy: utilitarian (or majoritarian) and progressive (or egalitarian). In the globalization era, utilitarianism triumphed. In utilitarianism there are winners and losers. And the latter must be convinced that losing is their fault (italics are mine!) Losers are failures, worthy of help as long as they show gratitude and earnest endeavor. Moralizing is based on blaming the victims as responsible for their unemployment or poverty. The poor are not seen as our brothers or sisters but as subjects for reform, for treatment, retraining or therapy. Utilitarianism has given the political mainstream a narrative to justify taking away social rights from the precariat. The tendency of utilitarian politics is to create minorities, each targeted for denial of rights, transformed into denizens, and painted in some way as ‘undeserving.’

Read the paragraph again. Yikes! But does it not get right to the heart of the matter? It reminds of Meadow’s brilliant article Ways to intervene in a system that suggests that changing the paradigm is the most effective, but most difficult way to change a system. As we explore ways to transform out of capitalism it is this paradigm of winners and losers that must be confronted. And I hope some of you are saying, that sounds like the Modern worldview…yup, but every worldview has its good and bad expressions, so to speak. The “bad” expression of modern is this dog-eat-dog approach. This is far too prevalent today.

To wrap up, there is an extensive agenda for change called the Precariat Charter with 29 articles. Good solid stuff. I’ll highlight a few of my favorites, as the post is already too long:

• Article 1: Redefine work as productive and reproductive activity
• Article 23: Decommodify education
• Article 25: Move towards a universal basic income
• Article 26: Share capital via sovereign wealth funds
• Article 27: Revive the commons

Brilliant job by the author Guy Standing!  — Andy Hines

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