A Precariat Charter From Denizens to Citizens 05/12/14
The precariat, consisting of millions facing insecurity, unstable labour and loss of rights, is alienated and angry.
Throughout history, class-based revolt has led to charters of demands, from the Magna Carta to South Africa’s Freedom Charter. It is time for a Precariat Charter.
Reviews from his most recent book:
‘Guy Standing has elaborated a brave and imaginative program that could bring protection to the denizens of the world and save us all from the destructiveness of neoliberal capitalism.’
– Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley, USA
‘His call for “social empathy” in politics offers an important corrective to decades of neoliberalism, while his demand for rethinking the nature of work rightly seeks to undo centuries of damaging thought.’
– Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales
‘The only way for politicians to get ahead of the curve is to consider such ideas seriously. We must dare to give a real meaning to human rights and the concept of economic democracy in the twenty-first century.’
– Laszlo Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Guy Standing is Professor of Economics at SOAS, University of London, and was previously Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath and Professor of Labour Economics at Monash University in Melbourne. Before that, he was Director of the ILO’s Socio-Economic Security Programme (1999-2005) and Director of the ILO’s Labour Market Policies Branch.
An economist, with a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, and a Master’s Degree in industrial relations from the University of Illinois, he is a founder and co-President of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), an NGO promoting basic income as a right, with members in over 50 countries. He has been adviser and consultant to many international agencies, including the UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, European Commission and DFID, as well as many governments and trades unions. In 1995-96, he was research director for President Mandela’s Labour Market Policy Commission, when he co-authored, with J.Sender and J.Weeks, Restructuring the Labour Market – The South African Challenge.
Recent books are The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Bloomsbury, 2011), Social Income and Insecurity in Gujarat (Routledge, 2010), and Work after Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship (Elgar, 2009). The Precariat has been translated into ten languages, including Italian (published by Il Mulino).
He is currently working on a large-scale pilot basic income scheme in India, and has been working for 15 years with SEWA, the union representing women ‘informal’ workers across India. His latest book, published in April 2014, is A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens (Bloomsbury).
