so whats all this fuss about the precariat?

[Top Dog]

I find class composition stuff really interesting - just finished prol-position's newsletter, keep linking to Fictitious Capital and the Transition Out of Capitalism http://libcom.org/library/fictitious-capital-loren-goldner which deals with some of this sort of thing - especially the move into service industries etc. but not many people respond to it

i wonder why?

But seriously, would be interested to discuss this at some point, but on another thread as you say. I saw Loren speaking about this around 3 years ago and he made some convincing arguments. But when challenged from the floor he was unable to draw too many concrete examples to give weight to the central points made in that article (tho to be fair to loren he did get a bit ambushed!)

 

[Rob Ray]

See this seems to be a problem within the left, the distinction between 'accessible' and 'dumbing down'. Trust me I hold no illusions that I'm of more intelligence than anyone else, but I am aware that I spend a lot of time talking about and being involved in situations and contexts which most people aren't.

Do you know what an infraco is in relation to the national railway system? It's the railway shorthand for 'infrastructure company', meaning companies and departments dealing with everything from maintainance of track to replacement of internal power systems. Would you talk about 'infracos' in a general conversation on how badly privatisation has affected the tube? Of course not. It's jargon.

Words are important, particularly in the context of accessible information distro, which is what the left is supposed to specialise in. Words such as 'precarity' have no place there not because of ignorance, but because we should have the common courtesy not to distance ourselves from the everyday way people speak. That's why I'm bothering to argue the point. The word has little to offer us which we can't achieve by using existing language, and we lose out every time we introduce words to the little world of the politico which produce a divide between that clique and wider society.

You sidetracked, not me, I merely said in passing that I thought the word was wank as part of a longer post.

 

[Top Dog]

just found this point

You say in the OP that it's not new - in fact it's the condition of the working class under capitalism, and the precondition for capitalism as a social system. The criticism of "precarity" is the attempt to present it as something new - in part by using a new (to most people) word.

Two things here:

* To anyone born since 1945 these new social realities are new. Its all very well, putting a historical hat on and saying they always underscore capitalsim, but in experiential terms this is unchartered territory to those people living it: the evaporation of social democracy and the fumbling around for redundant (social democratic) tools with which to defend ourselves.

* As i said in the OP I agree that any attempt to 'create' a new social subject to be the vanguard of the class will suffer the same kind of problem as previous attempts have within the italian tradition... and moreover, in a present social context that lacks the general level of class combativity that was smouldering away through the 70s. But that is only one conception of how we might respond to the condition (that is being advanced within some of the groups discussing these things) and it does not go uncontested

 

[davgraham]

See this seems to be a problem within the left, the distinction between 'accessible' and 'dumbing down'. Trust me I hold no illusions that I'm of more intelligence than anyone else, but I am aware that I spend a lot of time talking about and being involved in situations and contexts which most people aren't.

Do you know what an infraco is in relation to the national railway system? It's the railway shorthand for 'infrastructure company', meaning companies and departments dealing with everything from maintainance of track to replacement of internal power systems. Would you talk about 'infracos' in a general conversation on how badly privatisation has affected the tube? Of course not. It's jargon.

Words are important, particularly in the context of accessible information distro, which is what the left is supposed to specialise in. Words such as 'precarity' have no place there not because of ignorance, but because we should have the common courtesy not to distance ourselves from the everyday way people speak. That's why I'm bothering to argue the point. The word has little to offer us which we can't achieve by using existing language, and we lose out every time we introduce words to the little world of the politico which produce a divide between that clique and wider society.

You sidetracked, not me, I merely said in passing that I thought the word was wank as part of a longer post.

It's not a sidetrack -it's about method


If Top dog's thesis is anywhere near reflecting current social reality - then, the people experiencing that current reality are going to need to articulate it.

The argument being made is that the existing terms used, the ones that most people are currently familiar with, are no longer adequate to express the qualitative changes that are and have taken place.

Hence the need for new terms - such terms will gain currency at the same rate as the phenomenon they describe advance. Real social movements create their own language as part of their practice. If it doesn't answer a need then the term will die out.

I wonder for instancen if many on here appreciated Top Dog's use of the phrase 'absolute subsumption' which he contrasted with the period of Fordist working that I grew up in, which clearly to my mind can now be characterised as a period of 'relative subsumption', given some of the tricks we got up to in the 70s and early 80s. I only understood this much after the events themselves.

Much of the dockers dispute here was about how we understood this change and how it affected different generations.

Use the term or don't use it - but the actual research into how this is experienced is absolutely essential in my view.

Gra

 

[Sorry.]

Well you've answered you own question. And yes id say they are part of the same process. Casualistation defines only one part of this wider relationship.

I don't think I have answered my own question, because you haven't illustrated the connections between the different phenomena. What is the function of welfare reform/workfare with regard to casualisation at work? Is one necessitated by the other? Where does personal debt come into it?

Explain why these phenomena are more than just the familiar capital attempting to increase the rate of accumulation. The new disciplinary functions it entails, the way different aspects of the same process feed one another.

Well id agree with you here that it is indeed a process - so dont mind being pulled up on this area of terminology However, where we part company is at macro level where it seems to me you are almost suggesting that there is some kind of 'natural' inevitability to it, rather than being a result of a re-planning and restructuring of the economy as a result of the last major waves of class struggle over a generation ago...

A result of the class struggle, or a result of the defeat of the labour movement? Was precarity the weapon or the reward?

 

[treelover]

This is an excellent thread, giving people (like me) insights and knowledge they may not have, we need more like them, (goes away to think of suitable topic.)

 

[Top Dog]

only got a few minutes here but...

I don't think I have answered my own question, because you haven't illustrated the connections between the different phenomena. What is the function of welfare reform/workfare with regard to casualisation at work? Is one necessitated by the other? Where does personal debt come into it?

Explain why these phenomena are more than just the familiar capital attempting to increase the rate of accumulation. The new disciplinary functions it entails, the way different aspects of the same process feed one another.



A result of the class struggle, or a result of the defeat of the labour movement? Was precarity the weapon or the reward?

are they mutually exclusive or something? that's what class struggle is surely...?

>> The w/c asserting its power using whatever forms it finds at its disposal >> working class victories/gains/high period of militancy >> capital reorganises itself, decomposes the w/c and those same forms >> working class defeat/low period of militancy >> w/c recomposes itself, finds new forms of attack >> and so it continues...

Now this is not a formula or a sure fire predicter of future events, nor does it take into account all kinds of external factors that can turn the tide of history towards us or against us... but the above has tended to be what the ebb and flow of class struggle is. Well its one interpretation anyhow This stuff gets played out over generations and so requires a telescope rather than a mircoscope to get a picture of whats going on

So in concrete terms, we have neo-liberalism arising out of the energy crisis of the 70s (among other things) and a massive upsurge of w/c combativity around the world. Cue the monetarists gaining the ear of the powerful and (eg. in the UK) through Thatcher, set about the decomposition of the working class through attacking a number of bastions of w/c power: the miners, printers, steel workers, car workers, anti-union laws etc. etc. From a capitalist point of view the people at fault for the collapse of the mining industry in the 80s were the striking miners in the 70s...

The dismantling of the welfare system is one of the final chapters of the dismantling of the Keynesian model where before it, services, utilities etc. have been returned to private capital. We're faced with circumstances that look not disimilar to the victorian era in many ways: if you're on the dole it'll be provided increasingly through charities/churches or the modern day equivalent of the workhouse: workfare to discipline us.

These 'insecurities' (if you prefer that term) above, are of course linked. They're part of the reorganisation of capital over the last 30 years

 

[Top Dog]

Use the term or don't use it - but the actual research into how this is experienced is absolutely essential in my view.

Gra

yep - totally agree Gra. It may (or may not) be of interest, but just received some info today from one of the euro precarity groups in Copenhagen which has sent out a questionnaire to the rest of the network urging some thought and work to be done in 4 key areas - with the following explanation:

On the recent gathering in Hamburg, it was proposed to set some wheels in motion in regard to an exchange of information and research. The proposal from the Copenhagen Euromayday group was that a first step in this process could be based on what we already know, rather than what we are still about to learn. As such, the idea is not a very ambitious one: We are not in search for an 'objectively true description' of each and every country, based on scientifically rigorous research. Rather, what we would be interested in is an ad hoc, 'impressionist' description by the different groups, based on the underlying question: What is the present day realities in which we operate — what do we see as problems and obstacles, and what do we see as our opportunities?

Our hope is not only that questions such as these, when answered in a short and concise way, can give the groups in other countries an impression of our differences and similarities. As a bonus, we also hope this little project can work as a tool of consciousness-raising at the local level of each and every group. Having to describe one's situation 'from without,' can hopefully make one aware of things that are easily forgotten.

...from acorns and all that...

 

[catch]

just before I get to the last few posts. In terms of how debt has been used to discipline the working class - I was reading this today (only half way through so don't know how it turns out), and it covers a lot of ground up to the mid-'90s. Like Rob Ray, I don't see any reason why 'debt', needs to morph into 'precarity' to link these ideas to casualisation or welfare cut-backs - the article does mention 'precarious' though.

The Politics of Debt:
Social Discipline and Control [1]

Werner Bonefeld
http://libcom.org/library/politics-debt-werner-bonefeld

edit: it almost directly answers that e-mail above as well - up until '95 anyway.

 

[montevideo]

are they mutually exclusive or something? that's what class struggle is surely...?

>> The w/c asserting its power using whatever forms it finds at its disposal >> working class victories/gains/high period of militancy >> capital reorganises itself, decomposes the w/c and those same forms >> working class defeat/low period of militancy >> w/c recomposes itself, finds new forms of attack >> and so it continues...

Now this is not a formula or a sure fire predicter of future events, nor does it take into account all kinds of external factors that can turn the tide of history towards us or against us... but the above has tended to be what the ebb and flow of class struggle is. Well its one interpretation anyhow This stuff gets played out over generations and so requires a telescope rather than a mircoscope to get a picture of whats going on

So in concrete terms, we have neo-liberalism arising out of the energy crisis of the 70s (among other things) and a massive upsurge of w/c combativity around the world. Cue the monetarists gaining the ear of the powerful and (eg. in the UK) through Thatcher, set about the decomposition of the working class through attacking a number of bastions of w/c power: the miners, printers, steel workers, car workers, anti-union laws etc. etc. From a capitalist point of view the people at fault for the collapse of the mining industry in the 80s were the striking miners in the 70s...

The dismantling of the welfare system is one of the final chapters of the dismantling of the Keynesian model where before it, services, utilities etc. have been returned to private capital. We're faced with circumstances that look not disimilar to the victorian era in many ways: if you're on the dole it'll be provided increasingly through charities/churches or the modern day equivalent of the workhouse: workfare to discipline us.

These 'insecurities' (if you prefer that term) above, are of course linked. They're part of the reorganisation of capital over the last 30 years

fuckin hell, you're on fire at the moment. Topdog for president!

 

[catch]

* To anyone born since 1945 these new social realities are new. Its all very well, putting a historical hat on and saying they always underscore capitalsim, but in experiential terms this is unchartered territory to those people living it: the evaporation of social democracy and the fumbling around for redundant (social democratic) tools with which to defend ourselves.

sorry mate that doesn't cut it. Baby milk is new to babies, schooling is new to 5 year-olds. The only thing that's unchartered in terms of these developments is the implementation of specific technologies (like the ones that allow money capital to move instantly, or people to scab from home or other countries without even seeing the workplace they're scabbing on). But then rapid technological change isn't new either. Your last post makes a lot of sense - we need to look at these things in their historical context, identify how things are developing through time - it's impossible to understand the current situation without undergoing that process first - casualisation itself suggests a move away from job security, a process rather than a fixed/subjective condition (although of course it's that as well on the micro level).

 

[sovietpop]

Just two points

a) does it matter if it is new or not? To my mind its important if you are an academic and or a journalists because being "new" is what gives your interest in the subject some legitimacy (ifyouknowwhatImean). But is it important to revolutionaries (genuine question?)


b) Somethings might be new - the technology used (as you said yourself), the types of jobs being done, the numbers of women working.

 

[Rob Ray]

Well yes it does if you're intending to formulate some sort of plan to fight it. Divorcing debt/casualisation now from its historical roots means you are more likely to make the same mistakes in your tactics to fight it as were made then, and the enemy - Capitalists - are not going to be ignoring those lessons if and when they feel they have something to be worried about.

One thing I would be interested in hearing from our more learned friends on this subject (many are certainly more so than me) is what the failings were in earlier renditions of this particular situation, and thoughts/proposals for more effective tactics for this time around...

 

[gurrier]

Also, I'm pretty sure that personal debt is at levels not seen since the days of drakos and to my mind, personal debt is one of the major things used to discipline the working class and very successful it has been too. Long strikes are becoming almost impossible to sustain, for example, since most people (imo) are rarely more than a couple of pay-cheques away from potential repossession / eviction from their homes.

The thing that I like about 'precarite' - as it's used in France anyway where I'm most familiar with the term - is that it creates an emotive response that seems to resonate with a lot of people who are experiencing the various pressures that are the consequence of the multi-fronted capitalist attack.

 

[catch]

Just two points

a) does it matter if it is new or not? To my mind its important if you are an academic and or a journalists because being "new" is what gives your interest in the subject some legitimacy (ifyouknowwhatImean). But is it important to revolutionaries (genuine question?)


b) Somethings might be new - the technology used (as you said yourself), the types of jobs being done, the numbers of women working.

I think it matters if it's presented as entirely new - because imo this is an obstacle to placing it in the historical context that's so important to an understanding of capital - Keynes/Ford is as important to understanding the last 35 years of capitalist reorganisation as Thatcher/Reagan are. It's part of an ongoing process, loosely the cycle of struggles that Top Dog outlined above, and the newnessness of presentation easily leads to an ahistoricism - and like you point out makes it easy fodder for journalists and academics to market. It also leads to arguments about whether it's new or not

Some manifestations of the process are new, some aren't - so what matters is not whether it's new or old, but that the initial conception of the idea is as an ongoing process - not an ahistorical condition, trend or fashion - presenting it in this way places an immediate block in the path of anyone trying to understand the condition and how it relates to revolutionary history and praxis.

For an example of this newnessness in terms of presentation, I hesitantly refer again to precarity.info. There's the beginnings of a much more useful discussion going on, so sincere apologies to bringing it back to this point and I hope this doesn't distract from it. This statement is by no means the worst example I could have chosen (the worst example would be the middlesex declaration).

Precarity is the most widespread condition of labour and life in Europe
today. It affects everyone, everyday, in every part of life: whether chosen
or imposed, precarity is a generalised condition experienced by the majority
of people.

all encompassing - "everyone" - either a denial of class society, or an attempt to reframe it as existing outside capital

Precarious people are now the corner-stone of the wealth production process.

So not everyone any more, but a new social subject?

Notwithstanding this, we are invisible and count for nothing in the
traditional forms of social and political representation or in the European
agenda.

New social subject needs new forms of organisation, of course. "traditional forms" either includes previous revolutionary movements, or it ignores them. Either way they're consigned to the dustbin of history.

As precarious of Europe -- flex, temp and contortionist workers, migrants,
students, researchers, unmotivated wage slaves, pissed off and happy
part-timers, insecure temps, willingly or unwillingly unemployed

here's the social subject expressed as a catch all list, of paradoxically quite limited occupational categories - ignores the debt, housing and other issues discussed on this thread which contribute to 'precarity' and moves from "everyone" to "majority" to these fairly ill-defined social categories.

-- we are
acting so as to grasp the moment/our time and struggle for new collective
rights and our individual and collective possibility to choose our future.

"our time"? - "new collective rights" looks like social democracy again

This is why we are building a public space on a European level to catalyse
new forms of social cooperation, and maximize the sharing of skills,
experiences and resources: to construct and bring to life a new social
imagination.

 

[Top Dog]

I think it matters if it's presented as entirely new - because imo this is an obstacle to placing it in the historical context that's so important to an understanding of capital - Keynes/Ford is as important to understanding the last 35 years of capitalist reorganisation as Thatcher/Reagan are. It's part of an ongoing process, loosely the cycle of struggles that Top Dog outlined above, and the newnessness of presentation easily leads to an ahistoricism - and like you point out makes it easy fodder for journalists and academics to market. It also leads to arguments about whether it's new or not

Some manifestations of the process are new, some aren't - so what matters is not whether it's new or old, but that the initial conception of the idea is as an ongoing process - not an ahistorical condition, trend or fashion - presenting it in this way places an immediate block in the path of anyone trying to understand the condition and how it relates to revolutionary history and praxis.

nothing i disagree with in any of this

here's the social subject expressed as a catch all list, of paradoxically quite limited occupational categories - ignores the debt, housing and other issues discussed on this thread which contribute to 'precarity' and moves from "everyone" to "majority" to these fairly ill-defined social categories.



"our time"? - "new collective rights" looks like social democracy again

but as i made a point of saying in the OP (and subsequently) there is no one single 'euromayday' line on these questions. In fact one or two of the more 'energetic' people in italy and elsewhere, who imo, have been espousing basically a carbon copy of the "social-worker" for the 21st century have been picked up on the whole basis of their conception and for attempting to articulate this for everyone... the debate is wide open and for once in a very long time, i find this a refreshing situation

Down to brass tacks catch, there's more than one axis to the debate on precarity than the negri-social democratic one you're presenting. But thats a problem for the networks to resolve because in a way these one or two voices have been producing what, to put it kindly to them, id say are "clumsy" statements... (though to give a little balance, they do appear to be agit-calls for participation rather than a manifesto for action). So if the problem is anywhere it has been in the european groups not articulating their own specifics and needs, which instead have been made public by one tendency. But we're still getting up to speed here (in the uk anyhow), so things need a little time to develop and we find out if its a go-er or not

 

[cats hammers]

Long strikes are becoming almost impossible to sustain, for example, since most people (imo) are rarely more than a couple of pay-cheques away from potential repossession / eviction from their homes.

And this wasn't the case when exactly?

 

[sovietpop]

well now your getting into the "is it new, is it old" debate which isn't as interesting as the what is happening debate, IMHO.

But if we are going to talk about what is new, one thing that has changed in Ireland in the last ten years are the levels of personal debt. Nationaly 2003 (or there abouts) was the first year in which personal debt has outstripped income. Insecurity has always been a feature of life in Ireland, for decades, emigration was the norm. Almost all the people I went with to school were forced to emigrate. In fact there was a while in the early 90s where it felt like everyone I knew had left the country. These days forced emigration isn't a part of the Irish landscape, but that insecurity has been replaced by one based on debt (a large part of which is due to housing).

Another thing that is changed, is that back in the days of mass employment, it was fairly easy to get the dole, housing benefit and the cost of housing was lower. Now there are more and more restrictions on welfare.

So as I said in an earlier posts, the cost of job loss now is different from what it was only a couple of years ago.

[edited to add: Another thing that has changed is that morgages are based on two couples working rather than one - which adds insecurity- and also adds extra cost/pressure in terms of childcare and care of the elderly - and these costs and pressures are being shouldered by the individual. So actually when I think about it, there is quite a lot that is new about insecurity in Ireland]

 

[catch]

Down to brass tacks catch, there's more than one axis to the debate on precarity than the negri-social democratic one you're presenting. But thats a problem for the networks to resolve because in a way these one or two voices have been producing what, to put it kindly to them, id say are "clumsy" statements... (though to give a little balance, they do appear to be agit-calls for participation rather than a manifesto for action). So if the problem is anywhere it has been in the european groups not articulating their own specifics and needs, which instead have been made public by one tendency. But we're still getting up to speed here (in the uk anyhow), so things need a little time to develop and we find out if its a go-er or not

Look, for what it's worth, your posts on this subject bear no relation I can see to the bollocks I've seen posted elsewhere. I'm very up for discussing the stuff around it, as long as I don't have to use that word, and since the thing thats tying most of this discussion together seems to be debt, how about one of us starts a thread on that?

 

[Raw SslaC]

Look, for what it's worth, your posts on this subject bear no relation I can see to the bollocks I've seen posted elsewhere. I'm very up for discussing the stuff around it, as long as I don't have to use that word, and since the thing thats tying most of this discussion together seems to be debt, how about one of us starts a thread on that?

Thats because your looking for a definitive answer or idea where there is none. The EuroMayday Network Managed this year to mobilise over 200,000 people in 18 cities across Europe. There are many different and diverse political and non-political viewpoints, mainly because it is trying to mobilise on an issue which is as different and as diverse as the people participating! But I think it just shows the isolation that you have with "other politics" across Europe, and there does seem to be some people stuck in a parochial little england anarcho-leftist ghetto.

And no I'm not neccesarily supporting the "middlesex declaration" text, it was put out initially by mistake (publically) then changed, then somehow accepted as a "call" rather than a "statement" for the Euromayday Network meeting in Berlin. If you bothered to SEARCH on the Internet you'll find literally hundreds of articles, analysis, research...etc on the subject. Your feteshism on one mans text speaks volumes.

You might also want to attend the Class Composition and Immaterial Labour Conference in Cambridge next April where PRECARITY (ha ha) will be mentioned ad nuseaum

I agree with TOP DOG Btw, seems sound enough his points.

raw

 

[cats hammers]

You might also want to attend the Class Composition and Immaterial Labour Conference in Cambridge next April where PRECARITY (ha ha) will be mentioned ad nuseaum

Why on Earth would anyone want to do that?

 

[catch]

apologies to everyone else

Thats because your looking for a definitive answer or idea where there is none.

I've been reading a fair amount about casualisation, post-fordism, immaterial labour, and yes some of this includes the word 'precarity' which I can excuse if it's people translating different languages into English. I've by no means been simply slagging the whole idea off, I'm very interested in the subject but just dispute the choice of terminology - which just about everyone on this thread apart from you has agreed is a useful discussion to have as far as it goes.

parochial little england anarcho-leftist ghetto.

ANY debate on a comradely level, ....very sad as only thru debate can ideas develop..but anyhow

If you bothered to SEARCH on the Internet you'll find literally hundreds of articles, analysis, research...etc on the subject.

Like I said, I'm reading 'round related stuff, and have been especially the past couple of weeks - as has been clearly stated earlier in the thread. I'm well aware that there's some good stuff about casualisation around, however a google search for precarity or precarity uk brings up:

the wikipedia page - which is cut and pastes from precarity.org
precarity.org
a european commission report
adbusters (spits)
wombles.org.uk
dublin mayday
precaripunx

The only stuff in the first couple of pages that isn't activist call outs is the EU report (which crashed adobe reader ) and a green pepper interview with Alex Foti c&ped on the wombles site.

That green pepper interview:

GP: You have been organising around the theme of precarity. Yet here in the
Netherlands we do not really know of this concept. The idea of precarious
labour – ie, dangerous working conditions - is somwhat popularly circulated,
but the idea of precarity in itself and the precariousness of life has not
yet reached northern Europe......

GP: One of the things that I noticed in the manifestos that were circulating
throughout EuroMayDay this year were new words that we do not know in
Northern Europe - like flexicurity.

..parochial little nederlander anarcho-leftist ghetto?

Alex foti -

It is a
post-class discourse, if you like...
I personally think
that Anarcho-Green is our output and destination. I think that now that the
cold war is officially over on the European continent, we can merge
Libertarian, anti-Racist, and Transgender social activism together to create
new radical identities that can bring Eastern European and Western brothers
and sisters into a new political project capable of opposing fascist Bushism....

AF: We started trying to merge subvertising (as a way of communication) with
traditional forms of anarcho-syndicalism - that is, the picketline, the
direct action, from breaking the chainstore glass to blockading the delivery
vans that run to the fastfood joints, handing out flyers on the motorways and
at every autogrill. We thought that since young workers were taking the brand
of the neoliberal rules of work or the ‘new flexibility’ so to speak, and
they have no memeory of class struggle, we have to make it attractive.....
So we built a
website, we created merchandising, we have a board game called Precariopoly

Yes, these are out of context, but apart from some very basic observations of social trends, most of what he says boils down to this stuff.

fuck me, here's another one:

adbusters:

Sure. Yomango is a different gesture. It is an act of magic that takes place in transnational territory

SEARCH on the Internet

 

[cats hammers]

It is a post-class discourse, if you like... I personally think that Anarcho-Green is our output and destination. I think that now that the cold war is officially over on the European continent, we can merge Libertarian, anti-Racist, and Transgender social activism together to create new radical identities that can bring Eastern European and Western brothers and sisters into a new political project capable of opposing fascist Bushism....

 

[blamblam]

Sorry but I can't be bothered to read the first few pages of this thread... I'm sure I can imagine them pretty accurately.

I don't think "precarity" is a new condition. I think the name for it is silly, and its best to speak in terms people are familiar with rather than politico jargon (and yes I'm consistent - I think a lot of other things should be included here: revolution, communism, anarchism, and to some extent, class). If anything rather than being "new" it just seems a bit retro - as workers we have lost a lot of our power over the last 20-odd years, this is just a reflection of that.

For most people today their situation is far less precarious than it was in the past over much of the west - thanks to the efforts of workers' organisation over the past 150 years (and beyond).

As a concept it is of course very interesting - particularly for me cos I've been stuck in shit casual/temp work for over 5 years. (and for any who think i might "fetishise" it - no i don't, I fucking hate it!!)

One development I think is interesting at the moment is potential conflicts between temp agencies and employers. There is a conflict here cos obviously employers want workers for as little money, and the agencies want as much as possible. one place where I work now (in a "government department" - which I've been slagged off on here by some people who claim to care about precarity [this is one reason I have no intention of ever going to any "precarity" events/conferences, etc.]) the employer is very large. It has used this to negotiate a very good contract with one temp agency. Whereas previously I've worked in places where if I get say £7 an hour, the agency has got £5-10 on top of that. Now the agency only get £0.30 an hour. On the plus side for us employees, instead of having 20-30 agency employers, there are now hundreds of us, again with just one boss (plus the employer).

I'd like to see info from places where agency work is more ingrained, like Spain, to see how this has progressed, and what space it has opened up for building workers' organisation in these places, and also stuff like trends in agency work, the rate of exploitation, and whatnot. Anyone got any links/info?

Apart from the more minor issue of the actual attitudes of many key people in the "precarity" stuff here (looking down on people who work), I just cannot see the point of it. The only people I can see it's worth my time and effort bothering with are people in a similar condition to me, in the places where i work. This has benefitted both me and my co-workers (recently a couple of us won some owed back-pay, have collectively doctored timesheets, unnofficially reduced our working hours, etc.). Going to meetings with patronising, petty, gossipping, introverted, navel-gazing, backstabbing, politically moronic anti-socials I don't see as part of a project to live a truly joyful, fulfilling existence, where instead of life just having its moment, life can really be a long sequence of moments, one after another.

That's my 2c. Don't want to get in the way of the slagging though of course.

 

[catch]

fwiw there's some non-troti stuff here, but I had to look pretty hard to find it.

http://journal.fibreculture.org/issue5/index.html

 

[montevideo]

..parochial little nederlander anarcho-leftist ghetto?

maybe one reason the dutch have yet to preceive 'precarity' is there unique position in europe. Not only do they have the lowest umemployment rates (3%) they also have the shortest average work hours of any industrialized nation (according to the oecd). Beyond that the dutch government have made a concerted effort, in collusion with the unions, to intergrate flexibility (essentially in the workplace) as part of their progressive attempt to fend off what seems to be happening across the rest of europe. The dutch cannot conceive of 'precarity' as something new because it has been fully institutionalised already.

Temporary employment agencies play a larger role in the Dutch economy than they do in any other European nation. In 1983, 5.8% of the Dutch workforce were employed by a temporary employment agency, increasing to 7.6% in 1990, which by 1994 had swollen to 10.9%. Most of the time, this involves short-term assignments... It is interesting to note that about a quarter of the job seekers who are successfully placed by temporary employment agencies belong in the "hard-to-place" category. As such, these agencies increasingly fulfil roles traditionally carried out by public employment offices.
http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/1997/11/feature/nl9711144f.html

In 1999 they introduced the Flexibility and Security Act, changing one set of labour laws to another: It has made "fixed" employment more flexible and has increased the security of flexible employees.
http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/1999/01/feature/nl9901117f.html

"Over the last 10 or so years, the Dutch labour market has been characterised by increasing flexibility and fragmentation. There is greater variety and flexibility with respect to working time, pay, job descriptions, the location of work and the term and type of employment contracts. Part-time work has, for example, become very popular in the Netherlands. More than one in every three Dutch employees (mainly women) has a part-time job, in contrast to an average of one in seven for the EU as a whole. There are also various types of contract flexibility, such as temporary work, freelance work, on-call employment, homeworking and teleworking. Whilst the percentage of flexible employment contracts stood at 7.9% of the working population in 1987, by 1995 it had increased to 10% (Arbeidsverkenning 1987/94. CBS (Central Statistics Bureau) (1995)). Nowhere else in Europe does temporary work (through private temporary employment agencies) flourish as it does in the Netherlands. Temporary workers constitute about 3% of the total available labour supply".
http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/1997/06/feature/nl9706116f.html


Interestingly there was a paper written for the 4th international research conference on social security in antwerp (2003) called 'dutch "flexicurity" policy: flexibility and security for dutch workers?' It makes for interesting reading.
http://www.issa.int/pdf/anvers03/topic3/2vanoorschot.pdf

From this, then, it looks like the dutch state is ahead of the game in terms of the conditions of 'precarity' & is attempting to ease the transformation. Whether the dutch have heard of 'precarity' or not is immaterial, what is clear is they are beyond its emergence.

This, i'm sure you'll agree, is a little different from those defending the gospel according to saint marx by putting their fingers in their ears & going 'LA LA LA' at an increasing volume.

Food for thought.

 

[Raw SslaC]

Apart from the more minor issue of the actual attitudes of many key people in the "precarity" stuff here (looking down on people who work), I just cannot see the point of it.

Going to meetings with patronising, petty, gossipping, introverted, navel-gazing, backstabbing, politically moronic anti-socials I don't see as part of a project to live a truly joyful, fulfilling existence, where instead of life just having its moment, life can really be a long sequence of moments, one after another.

That's my 2c. Don't want to get in the way of the slagging though of course.

Don't worry theres no one from Libcom at the meetings

 

[The Black Hand]

Good thread.

Originally Posted by Top Dog
are they mutually exclusive or something? that's what class struggle is surely...?

>> The w/c asserting its power using whatever forms it finds at its disposal >> working class victories/gains/high period of militancy >> capital reorganises itself, decomposes the w/c and those same forms >> working class defeat/low period of militancy >> w/c recomposes itself, finds new forms of attack >> and so it continues...

Now this is not a formula or a sure fire predicter of future events, nor does it take into account all kinds of external factors that can turn the tide of history towards us or against us... but the above has tended to be what the ebb and flow of class struggle is. Well its one interpretation anyhow This stuff gets played out over generations and so requires a telescope rather than a mircoscope to get a picture of whats going on

So in concrete terms, we have neo-liberalism arising out of the energy crisis of the 70s (among other things) and a massive upsurge of w/c combativity around the world. Cue the monetarists gaining the ear of the powerful and (eg. in the UK) through Thatcher, set about the decomposition of the working class through attacking a number of bastions of w/c power: the miners, printers, steel workers, car workers, anti-union laws etc. etc. From a capitalist point of view the people at fault for the collapse of the mining industry in the 80s were the striking miners in the 70s...

The dismantling of the welfare system is one of the final chapters of the dismantling of the Keynesian model where before it, services, utilities etc. have been returned to private capital. We're faced with circumstances that look not disimilar to the victorian era in many ways: if you're on the dole it'll be provided increasingly through charities/churches or the modern day equivalent of the workhouse: workfare to discipline us.

These 'insecurities' (if you prefer that term) above, are of course linked. They're part of the reorganisation of capital over the last 30 years

fuckin hell, you're on fire at the moment. Topdog for president!

Have to agree with most of this - sounds like my PhD in places

A Couple of small points though, the business and right wing think tanks started wanting to get rid of welfare initially due to an event in 1968 in America, when one of the top four companies lost a strike and discovered workers got welfare to help them win the strike. Hence welfare had to go, and a similar lesson was learned by the right in Britain in the early 1970s, the (Nicholas) Ridley report (1978) ensured they organised militarily and used welfare against the miners in 1984 too. In Britain Keith Joseph was important but he wasn't the only one, Rhodes-Boyson published a small book called "Down with the poor" (I kid you not) in the early 1970s, and that had chapters covering their plans for much of social policy e.g. housing, for the Thatcher years. Your analysis of the end of welfare is nearly 100%, and would be if you used the term "Diffused workhouse" - this is a description of the new control that is exerted to impose work discipline from different agencies in different places in different ways, segregated by age, experience etc. Those autonomists among you will recognise a new use of the phrase from the 'diffused factory'.

Precariousness is a good term to describe the overall experience of the multitude, and a more precise term for describing income options (gathered from different jobs/welfare/informal economy) is "Income mixes". There was a good paper on 'precariousness, the informal economy and class composition' at the alternative ESF too wasn't there?

 

[catch]

Monte, those would all be fair points, if Green Pepper hadn't clearly stated "Northern Europe" as opposed to "The Netherlands" in the quotes I referenced. They quite accurately stated that these words (cf. flexicurity) aren't well known in Northern Europe. Do you dispute their statement?

Interesting information about their economy though anyway.

 

[sovietpop]

Well yes it does if you're intending to formulate some sort of plan to fight it. Divorcing debt/casualisation now from its historical roots means you are more likely to make the same mistakes in your tactics to fight it as were made then, and the enemy - Capitalists - are not going to be ignoring those lessons if and when they feel they have something to be worried about.

One thing I would be interested in hearing from our more learned friends on this subject (many are certainly more so than me) is what the failings were in earlier renditions of this particular situation, and thoughts/proposals for more effective tactics for this time around...

Good point, I'd agree, and good question. I suppose for the answer we'd have to look back at the history of the early syndicalists and the trade union movement around the turn of the 20th century??