Precariat: Labour Work and Politics

<p>In his recent work Guy Standing has identified a new class which has emerged from neo-liberal restructuring with he argues the revolutionary potential to change the world: the <i>precariat</i>. This according to Standing is ‘a class-in-the-making internally divided into angry and bitter factions’ consisting of ‘a multitude of insecure people living bits-and-pieces lives in and out of short-term jobs without a narrative of occupational development including millions of frustrated educated youth… millions of women abused in oppressive labour growing numbers of criminalised tagged for life millions being categorised as disabled and migrants in their hundreds of millions around the world. They are denizens; they have a more restricted range of social cultural political and economic rights than citizens around them’. This present book explores the nature shape and context of precariat evaluating the internal consistency and applications of the concept. Demonstrating the sheer breadth and depth of application the chapters cover a wide-range of topics from the relationships between precariat and authoritarianism multitude (another concept to achieve popular consciousness) and place as well as the nature of precarious identities and subjectivities among those working in immaterial labour. The book concludes with a reply by Standing to reviews of <i>Precariat</i>.</p><p></p><p>This book was published as a special issue of <em>Global Discourse</em>.</p>