A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens

by Guy Standing

Overview

Guy Standing's immensely influential 2011 book introduced the Precariat as an emerging mass class, characterized by inequality and insecurity. Standing outlined the increasingly global nature of the Precariat as a social phenomenon, especially in the light of the social unrest characterized by the Occupy movements. He outlined the political risks they might pose, and at what might be done to diminish inequality and allow such workers to find a more stable labour identity.His concept and his conclusions have been widely taken up by thinkers from Noam Chomsky to Zygmunt Bauman, by political activists and by policy-makers.

This new book takes the debate a stage further-looking in more detail at the kind of progressive politics that might form the vision of a Good Society in which such inequality, and the instability it produces is reduced.

A Precariat Charter discusses how rights - political, civil, social and economic - have been denied to the Precariat, and at the importance of redefining our social contract around notions of associational freedom, agency and the commons. The ecological imperative is also discussed - something that was only hinted at in Standing's original book but has been widely discussed in relation to the Precariat by theorists and activists alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472505750
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/05/2014
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Guy Standing is Professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK. He has previously been Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath, UK, Professor of Labour Economics at Monash University, Australia and Director of the Socio-Economic Security Programme of the International Labour Organization. He is co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network. His recent books include Work after Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship (2009) and Beyond the New Paternalism: Basic Security as Equality (2002).

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Precariat
2. How Rights are Denied – Political, Civil and Cultural
3. How Rights are Denied – Economic and Social
4. Occupational Insecurity
5. A Charter for Liberty
6. A Charter for Fraternity
7. A Charter for Equality
8. The Ecological Imperative