The Precariat: The X Factor

In “The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class”, Standing defines what a precariat is. He says it is an emerging class, comprising the rapidly growing number of people facing lives of insecurity, moving in and out of jobs that give little meaning to their lives. The precariat is not an underclass. He described it as a “class in the making, rather than a class in itself” (p.vii). “The precariat is in the front ranks, but it has yet to find the voice to bring its agenda to the fore. It is not ‘the squeezed middle’ or an ‘underclass’ or ‘the lower working class’. It has a distinctive bundle of insecurities and will have an equally distinctive set of demands”(p.vii). Through Standing’s book, he argues that precariat class is producing instabilities in society. Although it would be wrong to characterize members of the precariat as victims, many go through the four A’s as Standing mentioned, which are anger, anomie, anxiety, and alienation. The precariat is dangerous because it is internally divided, leading to the stigmatizing of migrants and other vulnerable groups. In this essay, the precariat lacks the main assets of the production and distribution system of the time because of the struggle for the redistribution of the key assets needed for a good life from education and employment. Also, they need to move beyond the primitive rebel stage and become enough of a class¬ for itself to be a power for change and get their rights as a class in the making.

I came to America with a suitcase and a dream, but little did I know that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. After my family and I worked our whole lives to come to the land of opportunity we faced problems in the cities and workplaces, in the environment, problems in politics, and in society.

Part a Globalization The global world has changed rapidly in recent decades. The world has entered into a new era of advanced technology and development by using most of the resources that are available. All the economies have internationally integrated by the interchange of capital, investments, world views and technology. Countries and people respond to globalization in many different aspects and degrees.

Imagine what it’s like to step through a door into a new world, known as the land of opportunities. To many people, America is a paradise filled with the best of the best. Immigrants from all over the world left everything behind to start new, but is it really like paradise. People migrate to the US with nothing but the hope of freedom and a better life. But, why do they give up everything just to live here. Why do people migrate to the US and what problems do they face? Immigrants migrate to the US for a brighter future, hoping that they would fit in, but are faced with problems that makes life here not as great as it seems.

As time has passed, a large number of foreigners have entered into this nation, the United States still keeps an inviting demeanour towards new immigrants. The famous American politician James lankford states “Our nation stands at the crossroads of liberty. Crushing national debt, rampant illegal immigration, insane business regulations and staggering national unemployment are pushing our nation into unchartered territory.”(Lankford, April 2017). Rushing to this nation, by the thousands immigrants over a wide span of time have travelled to this nation to live “The American Dream”. The America is known to have the concept of “Life, Freedom and Pursuit of Happiness. Desperate to be a piece of the blasting American culture, thousands upon thousands

Since America’s departure from the British Empire in 1776, it has held the position of the world’s champion of freedom and opportunity. It has on many occasions set the standard of liberty for other nations of the world to follow. Many throughout history have migrated to America to seek shelter from persecution based on religion, ethnicity, and other factors. It is also a world-renowned “land of opportunity,” where every individual has an equal chance at rising to a high-quality lifestyle. Although America has never been a perfect and faultless country, it represents to me a land where people can pursue their goals without fear of oppression.

Immigrants created America, a nation that has embraced immigration. Throughout the years, America developed its “American Dream” concept, which states that anyone can succeed in the United States as long as that person works hard and does gives up. That concept, hope or dream attracts thousands of individuals, many of which leave their native countries with their hearth full of hope and the illusion of reaching and living the “American Dream.” However, the wonderful dream in many occasions has become nothing but a horrible and unbearable nightmare. They arrive to “the land of opportunity” that they thought was awaiting for them with fortune and instead encounter a divided society, in which some people understand their plight and sympathize with them while other look at them with anger, resentment, and even hate as if they are anything but human beings.

The world is not a large and strange place anymore. The world is a place that is interconnected and intertwined. The world has become from a place that each country and their peoples are separate and isolated to a place that each country and their peoples are part of a global network. Thanks to globalization this is occurring. Globalization is the ‘international integration” or ‘de-bordering’ – “a number of highly disparate observations whose regular common denominator is the determination of a profound transformation of the traditional nation-state” (Von Bogdandy 2). Globalization is connecting different people from different cultures and backgrounds together. More and more corporations are entering new foreign markets to sell their

The United States of America, as people know it today, was built on a bundle of moving pieces to ensure that citizens would live in complete freedom and peace. America’s history illustrates to others the secret to becoming successful is based on fixing and overcoming failures. The United States of America has not always been “The American Dream” due to many controversies among its citizens. The government of the United States of America handles conflicts between different parties that often oppose others beliefs, the citizens will always be protected by certain rights and liberties that construct a feeling of safety and support one’s life.

The systemic, cyclical nature of precarity for women in the labour market as described above creates significant negative consequences for individuals, families, and society. Though the consequences are numerous, a handful are presented here for illustrative purposes of how endemic this issue is.

Answer: The world economy has shifted dramatically over the past 30 years. We have been moving away from a world in which national economies were relatively self- contained entities, isolated from each other by barriers to cross- border trade and investments; by distance, time zones, and language; and by national differences in government regulation, culture, and business systems.

Many historians and sociologists have identified a transformation in the economic processes of the world and society in recent times. There has been an extensive increase in developments in technology and the economy as a whole in the twentieth century. Globalization has been recognized as a new age in which the world has developed into what Giddens identifies to be a “single social system” (Anthony Giddens: 1993 ‘Sociology’ pg 528), due to the rise of interdependence of various countries on one another, therefore affecting practically everyone within society.

I argue that what Guy Standing calls the ‘precariat’ is a new phenomenon, unlike any other class that has existed before (Standing, 2016). Precarious workers are a new class in our capitalist, neoliberal society, due to workers dependence on precarious work; which is forcing people into part time, temporary contract and insecure employment positions and further proving the partition and disparity among the classes (Frase, 2013; Standing, 2016). In this essay I attempt to refute Palmer and Munck’s arguments on the precariat being a mere extension of the proletariat class (Munck, 2013; Palmer, 2013); while simultaneously addressing the issues of: the differences between the precariat class and the proletariat class, how the precariat class is a class in itself and if shifts to a class for itself, can lead to class consciousness, the kind of activities that could increase their class consciousness and transform them into a class for itself, how this new class is dangerous in our current society and finally the allies this class needs in order to generate change for all lower working class people (Gray, Lecture 5; Frase, 2013; Standing, 2016). The ‘precariat’ is not only a new phenomenon developed and present in capitalist neoliberal society today, but is a entirely new class due to its dependence on precarious work, and absent full-time employment benefits or security, such as traditionally seen with the proletariat class. Due to this, I believe the precariat class is an ever

“Globalization is not just one impact of the new technologies that are reshaping the economies of the third millennium” (Thurow 19-31). When speaking of globalization, most people will not have a complete understanding as of what it actually means or what aspects of the world it affects. Globalization promotes free trade and creates jobs. The capital markets attract investors, resort cheap labor, and leads to job losses in some areas of higher wage. While all of this is happening, the world economy is being effected: economically, culturally, socially, and politically.

“Globalization is today's reality. Like it or not, the move to a world economy is a fact of life. At some point in the 1990s the process achieved critical mass and people started to sit up and take notice. Many were apprehensive.