Features of the Precariat

Members of the precariat are many and varied, but they have a few features in common. Extracts from Guy Standing's 'A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens'
So what defines a person as part of the precariat?

1. Distinctive relations of production

"The precariat consists of people living through insecure jobs interspersed with periods of unemployment or labour-force withdrawal (misnamed as 'economic inactivity') and living insecurely, with uncertain access to housing and public resources. They experience a constant sense of transiency.

The precariat lacks all seven forms of labour-related security that the old working class struggled to obtain, and that were pursued internationally through the International Labour Organization (ILO). Of coarse, there have always been workers with insecure conditions. That alone does not define today's precariat. But the precariat has distinctive relations of production because the new norm, not the exception, is uncertain and volatile labour. Whereas the proletarian norm was habituation to stable labour, the precariat is being habituated to unstable labour. This cannot be overcome by simply boosting economic growth or introducing new regulations.

Labour instability is central to global capitalism. Multinational capital not only wants flexible insecure labour but can also obtain it from any part of the world."

2. Distinctive relations of distribution

Second, the precariat has distinctive relations of distribution, or remuneration. Rather than compressing income into capital (profits) on the one hand and wages on the other, the idea of 'social income' (Standing 2009) aims to capture all forms of income that people can receive - own-account production, income from producing or selling to the market, money wages, enterprise non-wage benefits, community benefits, state benefits and income from financial and other assets."

"This is a structural change. The precariat lacks access to non-wage perks, such as paid vacations, medical leave, company pensions and so on. It also lacks rights-based state benefits, linked to legal entitlements, leaving it dependent on discretionary, insecure benefits, if any. And it lacks access to community benefits, in the form of a strong commons (public services and amenities) and strong family and local support networks. This has been under-emphisized in labour-process analysis."

"Another distinctive aspect of the precariat's relations of distribution is that it has no access to income from profits or rent, whereas groups above it have been gaining capital income in some form or another...This is a greater source of inequality than commonly appreciated, since it provides higher-income earners with a share of global capital income."

3. Distinctive relations to the state

"A third feature of the precariat is it's distinctive relations to the state. The state is not the same as government. It consists of the institutions and mechanisms that determine how society is ordered and how income and assets are distributed. As will be argued later, the precariat lacks many of the rights provided to citizens in the core working class and salariat.

The word precarious is usually taken as synonymous with insecure. But being precarious also means depending on the will of another. It is about being a supplicant, without rights, dependent on charity or bureaucratic benevolence.

The precariat is confronted by neo-liberal norms, in state institutions, conventional political rhetoric and utilitarian social policy, which privilege the interests of a perceived 'middle class', alongside the plutocracy. The state treats the precariat as necessary but as a group to be criticized, pitied, demonized, sanctioned or penalized in turn, not as a focus of social protection or betterment of well-being.

While we might say that political parties of the right look after their middle class, as consisting of the salariat and proficians, along with parts of the plutocracy they wish to cultivate, social democratic parties look after their middle class, as consisting of the lower rungs of the salariat and the proletariat, along with liberal members of the elite. It has served the interests of both sides to ignore or disparage the predicament of the precariat, as long as it was a small minority. This will change."

4. Lack of occupational identity

"A fourth feature of the precariat is lack of an occupational identity or narrative to give to life."

I think that speaks for itself.

5. Lack of control over time

"A fifth feature of the precariat, again distinguishing it from the proletariat, is that it's members must undertake a great deal of work that is not paid labour. They are exploited and oppressed by a squeeze on time unlike the past. We may call it 'tertiary time' to distinguish it from 'industrial time', the underpinning of industrial capitalism. The precariat cannot demarcate life into blocks of time. It is expected to be available for labour and work at all times of the day and night...[they are] hired without specified hours of labour, but are required to be on standby for moments of activity. Others are expected to flit between activities, to network constantly, wait, queue, retrain, fill in forms, do a little of this, a little of that. It all goes with the precariatized mind, a feeling of having too much to do at almost all times. It is corrosive, leaving people fatigued, stressed, frustrated and incapable of coherent action."

6. Detachment from labour

A sixth  feature underlines why the precariat should not be seen solely as victim or vulnerable, terms taken too much for granted. Those in the precariat are more likely to have psychological detachment from labour, being only intermittently or instrumentally invested in labour, and not having a single labour status - often being unsure what to put under 'occupation' on official forms. This makes them less likely to develop the false consciousness that the jobs they are doing are dignifying.

They are more than likely to feel alienated from the dull, mentally narrowing jobs they are forced to endure and to reject them as a satisfying way of working and living. Do not tell me I am being a responsible citizen in doing this lousy job of packing shelves, serving drinks, sweeping floors or whatever it is today! Detachment in this sense is potentially liberating. Do not say my job must be satisfying or a route to 'happiness'. I do it for the money. I will find my life and develop outside it."

7. Low social mobility

A seventh feature is one the precariat shares with many in the proletariat, though not with the salariat and proficians. It emphisizes why it is unhelpful to compress all 'workers' into a single 'working class'. It is that the precariat has a very low probability of social mobility. The longer a person is in it, the lower the probability of escape. In most of Europe and North America, social mobility has declined, alongside growing income inequality, since the start of the globalization era. Ironically, this has emerged during a period in which governments have claimed to be promoting meritocracy and social mobility."

8. Over-qualification

An eighth feature is over-qualification. For the first time in history, the mainstream worker - or what Marxists call 'labour power' - is over-qualified for the labour he or she is expected to undertake. As a society, we have yet to come to terms with this, and so far the political response seems to be the wrong one.

In early industrial capitalism, most workers were expected to learn a trade that conformed to the skills practised in their labour. Today, it is rare for people to use more than a fraction of their skills or qualifications in a job. 'Credentialism' rules. Having high-level qualifications is just enough to enter the labour market lottery. For many jobs, candidates must have either a well-connected parent or qualifications greater than could possibly be used by the job in question. This leads to an epidemic of status frustration and to stress from 'invisible underemployment', having underemployed skills. For the precariat today, there is nothing invisible about it.

9. Uncertainty

"With uncertainty (as distinct from risk), a person cannot calculate the probability of an adverse event. Today there are far more spheres of uncertainty, due largely to economic liberalization and a market system based on competition and created scarcity. The probability of adverse shocks and hazards is higher, the cost of adverse events is greater, and the ability to cope with and recover from them is lower. This is more worrying than suggested by the term 'risk society'. And not only is the precariat exposed to more sphere of uncertainty than the other groups, it is also less resilient, having fewer resources to deal with them. So the impact of adverse events is more severe.

9. Poverty and precarity traps

This leads to the tenth feature of the precariat, which no other group experiences - a combination of poverty traps, exploitation and coercion outside the workplace, and precarity traps that amounts to a tsunami of adversity.The welfare state, in all it's variants, was built for and by the proletariat. It was based on national or social insurance, with benefits tied to regular contributions by or on behalf of regular employees. As the precariat has grown, this model has decayed. All welfare states have moved towards means-tested social assistance, supposedly targeting help on 'the poor'...As there is no incentive to take low-paying jobs, poverty traps have led predictably to state coercion in the form of 'workfare', whereby youths and others are obliged to take low-wage jobs or do unpaid 'work experience' [Work for the Dole in Australia], on the pain of being penalized and demonized as 'scroungers', 'skivers' and the like...The state requires the precariat to undertake a lot of work to try to gain entitlements to benefits, through numerous steps of personal action, each a barrier to be overcome, a trap for the unwary, nervous, ignorant, frail or short-tempered. Life is built around queuing, form-filling, providing extensive documentation, frequent reporting for interviews, answering 'trick' questions, and so on. The process becomes harder, more humiliating and prolonged. Taking a low-wage job that could end at any moment would risk being back at the 
beginning of this benefit-claiming process within weeks. No rational person would take such a job in these circumstances. Yet the precariat are being forced to do so."

Thanks, for reading. I still have to proof-read this one. I apologise for any errors.