Guy Standing In The Precariat

According to Guy Standing in The Precariat: the new dangerous class, there are two ways in which one can define the precariat. The first way is to define it as a “distinctive socio-economic group”. This is a useful term and allows us to use what Max Weber called and ‘ideal type’. We may also claim that the precariat is a class-in-the-making, if not yet a class-for-itslef, in the Marxian sense of that term. There is a debate over whether or not the working class has come to an end, but Standing feels the solution is new terminology that proper reflects todays modern class relations in the global market system. This modern social hierarchy is broken down into seven groups: (from top to bottom) the elite, the salatariat, the proficians,

The salatariat, which is one class below and maintains stable full-time employment as well as paid holidays and benefits is often concentrated in large corporations, government agencies and public administration. The proficians, described as “the equivalent of yeomen, knights and squires of the Middle Ages,” but lacking the “impulse for long-term, full-time employment in a single enterprise.” Standing believes that the proficians are whats left of the old working class, and that underneath them lies the precariat, a growing class made up of “unemployed and socially ill misfits living off the dregs of

The first is self-production, the food, goods and services produced directly, whether consumed, bartered or sold. Second, there is a monetary income received from labour work. Third, there is the value of support provide by family or one’s community. Fourth thee are enterprise benefits that are provided to many groups of employees. Fifth, there are state benefits and finally, private benefits derived from savings and investments. The precariat does not feel as if they are part of a solidaristic labour community. This intensifies a sense of alienation and instrumentality in what they have to do. Their actions and attitudes tend to lean towards opportunism as “there is no ‘shadow of the future’ hanging over their heads. They lack an occupational identity, even if some have vocational qualifications. Standing does note that some people prefer to be nomadic so not all who make up the precariat are victims; however most find their insecurity uncomfortable, without reasonable prospect of improving their