Precariat

{{Short description|Class of wage-earners in a tenuous job situation close to unemployment}}

In sociology and economics, the precariat ({{IPAc-en|p|r|ɪ|ˈ|k|ɛər|i|ə|t}}) is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau merging precarious with proletariat.F. Lunning (2010).[https://books.google.com/books?id=5d0Q9fdinQUC&q=precariat+proletariat%27%27&pg=PA252 Mechademia 5: Fanthropologies'']. University of Minnesota Press. p. 252. {{ISBN|081667387X}}.

Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labor to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labor and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings.

Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call").

The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.Guy Standing (May 24, 2011). [http://www.policy-network.net/articles/4004/-The-Precariat-%E2%80%93-The-new-dangerous-class "The Precariat – The new dangerous class"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191208094106/http://www.policy-network.net/articles/4004/-The-Precariat-%25E2%2580%2593-The-new-dangerous-class |date=2019-12-08 }}. Policy Network. The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.Lorna Fox O'Mahony, David O'Mahony and Robin Hickey (eds), [http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415740616/ Moral Rhetoric and the Criminalisation of Squatting: Vulnerable Demons?] (London: Routledge, 2014), {{ISBN|0415740614}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=qyIcBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 p. 25].{{cite journal |title=Marginality, ethnicity and penality in the neo-liberal city: an analytic cartography |author=Wacquant, Loïc |author-link=Loïc Wacquant |journal=Ethnic and Racial Studies |url=http://www.loicwacquant.net/assets/Papers/MARGINALITYETHNICITYPENALITY-Article-ERS.pdf |date=2014 |volume=37 |issue=10 |pages=1687–1711 |doi=10.1080/01419870.2014.931991 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151010112131/http://www.loicwacquant.net/assets/Papers/MARGINALITYETHNICITYPENALITY-Article-ERS.pdf |archive-date=2015-10-10 |citeseerx=10.1.1.694.6299 |s2cid=144879355 }}

Overview

Some theorists suggest that the young precariat class in Europe has become a serious issue in the early part of the 21st century.{{cite web|last=Smoczyński|first=Wawrzyniec|title=Youthful members of the full-time precariat - VoxEurop (English)|url=https://voxeurop.eu/en/youthful-members-of-the-full-time-precariat/|date=15 September 2011|website=voxeurop.eu|language=en-US}} This has been linked with major mass political developments including the Brexit referendum{{cite news|url=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-populism/|title=The rising precariat and left-transformation: an examination of the Five Star Movement and Corbyn's Labour Party|author=Seren Selvin Korkmaz & Alphan Telek|date=2018-04-02|publisher=Open Democracy}}{{cite web|url=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/lies-of-global-capitalism-guy-standing/|title=The 5 biggest lies of global capitalism|author=Guy Standing|date=2016-12-12|publisher=World Economic Forum}} in the United Kingdom, and the first presidency of Donald Trump in the United States.{{cite web|url=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-populism|title=Meet the precariat, the new global class fuelling the rise of populism|author=Guy Standing|date=2016-11-09|publisher=World Economic Forum}}{{cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/after-macrons-win-france-is-divided-in-four/article34915063/|title=After Macron's win, France is divided in four|author=Thomas Guénolé|date=2017-05-07|publisher=Globe and Mail}} The global COVID-19 pandemic has particularly exacerbated food insecurity in the United States.{{cite news|last=LeBlanc|first=Adrian Nicole|date=September 2, 2020|title=How Hunger Persists in a Rich Country Like America|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/magazine/food-security-united-states.html|issn=0362-4331}} A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations discovered that only one third of Germans and one quarter of Italians and French had enough money remaining at the end of the month for discretionary spending.{{cite news|last1=Butler|first1=Patrick|first2=Mark|last2=Rice-Oxley|date=2019-05-15|title=Cash, credits and crisis: life in the new European 'precariat'|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/15/cash-credits-and-crisis-life-in-the-new-european-precariat|access-date=2019-10-20|issn=0261-3077}}

The British economist Guy Standing has analysed the precariat as a new emerging social class in work done for the think tank Policy Network and the World Economic Forum. In his 2014 book entitled A Precariat Charter he argued that all citizens have a right to socially inherited wealth.Guy Standing. A Precariat Charter. Bloomsbury Academic. 2014.{{cite web|last1=Crocker|first1=Geoff|title=The Economic Necessity of Basic Income|url=http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/by-date/the-economic-necessity-of-basic-income.html|access-date=23 November 2015|archive-date=24 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170724184412/http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/by-date/the-economic-necessity-of-basic-income.html|url-status=dead}} The latest in the series is titled The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/01/voice-for-emerging-precariat "Who will be a voice for the emerging precariat?"], The Guardian, June 1, 2011. where he proposed basic income as a solution for addressing the problem.

The analysis of the results of the Great British Class Survey of 2013, a collaboration between the BBC and researchers from several UK universities, contended there is a new model of class structure consisting of seven classes, ranging from the Elite at the top to the Precariat at the bottom.{{cite web|author=|date=April 3, 2013|title=Huge survey reveals seven social classes in UK|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22007058|access-date=2021-05-03|website=BBC}} The Precariat class was envisaged as "the most deprived British class of all with low levels of economic, cultural and social capital." This was contrasted with "the Technical Middle Class" in Great Britain in that instead of having disposable income but no interests, people of the new Precariat Class have all sorts of potential activities they like to engage in but cannot do any of them because they have no money, insecure lives, and are usually trapped in old industrial parts of the country.

The precariat class has been emerging in societies such as Japan, where it numbers over two million.Machiko Osawa and Jeff Kingston (July 1, 2010). [http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/359fa9a8-8545-11df-9c2f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1Y0hvtoZ1 "Japan has to address the ‘precariat’"]. The Financial Times. Both in the West and in Japan, a similar group of people are called NEETs.

References

External links

[https://chomsky.info/20120508/ "Plutonomy and the Precariat"] Noam Chomsky in the Huffington Post
[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/04/precarious-labor-strategies-union-precariat-standing/ We’re All Precarious Now]. Jacobin, April 20, 2015.
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/15/cash-credits-and-crisis-life-in-the-new-european-precariat Cash, credits and crisis: life in the new European 'precariat'] The Guardian, May 15, 2019

Category:Precarious work

Category:Economic sociology

Category:Neologisms

Category:Social classes

Precariat

Overview

See also

References

Further reading

External links