A Precariat Charter
Tony Weekes is stimulated by some radical thinking
Do not be content to accept things as they are,
but keep an alert and questioning mind.
Seek to discover the causes of social unrest,
injustice and fear; try to discern the new
growing-points in social and economic life.
This brief extract from Quaker faith & practice (23.01) offers us a challenge. Guy Standing, in his new book A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens, offers one way of meeting that challenge. The word ‘precariat’ refers to members of a large and growing body of people, worldwide, who are, in Guy Standing’s own words, ‘living through insecure jobs interspersed with periods of unemployment or labour-force withdrawal… and living insecurely, with uncertain access to housing and public resources’.
The membership of the precariat is diverse: young people, migrants, the elderly and those with long-term illness or disability are all represented. And any of us – however secure we might presently feel – could find ourselves in its ranks. Its members face continuing uncertainty over the basic needs of existence: housing and an adequate diet, for example. Their lives are plagued by debt and ill-health. They feel disempowered; in consequence, they are easily led by political extremists to see other members of the precariat as the source of their own misfortunes. The existence of a precariat, and the apparent unwillingness of politics to address the needs of its members, present serious threats to the creation of a just and compassionate society.
The book is written with deep and unconditional compassion. Guy Standing steps clear of the trivial and conventional. He does not mince words in his condemnation of where the neoliberal paradigm has brought us. He is scathing about the way politics and the media seek to divide us into ‘hard-working taxpayers’ and ‘scroungers’. The book is best read as a provocative ‘think piece’. Read it with that in mind. See it as a ‘wake-up’ call. Is this the world we want? Can anything be done?
Each of the chapters deals with a particular theme. The first chapter makes a necessary distinction between ‘work’ and ‘a job (or paid employment)’, a confusion that is all too prevalent in political debate. The chapter also reminds us of rights: social, civil, cultural and economic. Much, if not all, of what the author has in mind is already expressed in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – a document whose aspirations are now overshadowed by five years of austerity.
The second chapter offers a brief socioeconomic history of the period from 1980 – with the rise (among others) of globalisation, the dismantling of social solidarity and the commodification of education – to recent times, with the age of austerity and further growth of the precariat.
The third chapter offers a catalogue, with commentary, of the causes and consequences of the growth of the precariat: the instability and uncertainty of paid employment; the growing levels of inequality; the increasing conditionality of state benefits; homelessness and personal debt.
The fourth chapter offers rebuttals of the divisive language, such as the ‘scrounger/striver’ distinction that is so often used by politicians and the media. It also reminds us that social justice must recognise ecological limits.
The final chapter sets out ‘a precariat charter’, a proposal with twenty-nine principles, which begins with a redefinition of work as distinct from paid employment. Among the other principles are the necessity for collective bargaining, a demand to stop demonising the disabled and the need for a Basic (or Citizen’s) Income. Each is justified with conviction and compassion.
A Precariat Charter ends on a note of cautious optimism. There is much to be debated. Constructive disagreement is both necessary and desirable.
A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens by Guy Standing, Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN: 9781472510396, £16.99.
