The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

[unrepentant progress]

However, the precariat is the new dangerous class because all in it reject mainstream political establishments. Many have not been voting. This does not mean they are politically apathetic, merely that mainstream parties and politicians have not understood their needs or aspirations.

The protests since 2011 have been mostly the actions of what historians call primitive rebels, symbolizing a time when the emerging class is more united around what it is against than around what it wants instead. But the protests are helping the precariat move closer to being a class-for-itself. It is ready to move to a struggle for Representation and Redistribution.

Unlike the old socialist project, the struggle will be for a redistribution of resources needed for personal development in an ecologically sustainable society: security, control over time, quality space (including the commons), liberating education, financial knowledge, and capital. All are more unequally distributed than income. The precariat has no security, no control over time, is crowded into impoverishing space and is losing the commons (cause of the Geci Park occupation), is subject to commodifying schooling, lacks financial knowledge, and is denied access to capital.

A counter-movement is taking shape. The precariat is re-engaging in democratic politics. After the neo-liberal dystopia, the Future is back on the agenda. The precariat must be the vanguard of a new progressive era.

Full post: http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/the-precariat-the-new-dangerous-class

Excellent post, but see the first comment there too. Like that commenter I'm not entirely convinced that the precariat can be called a class; that it is too broad. And yet I think the author's three-pronged definition actually leaves out a lot of people who should be in a precariat class such as the disabled and elderly. Nor am I as hopeful that a counter-movement is taking shape.

[1StrongBlackMan]

1. Posted to for later.