Standing, Guy (2011): Eine Stimme für das Prekariat?, Der Freitag (online), June 7, 2011
In this article Guy Standing gives the opinion, that progressive powers have to address the new class before it is done by the extreme right. The great left parties in Britain and Europe have no progressive agenda, because they lost the basic rule, that each progressive movement is fed by the rage, the needs and hopes of the developing class, which tends to represents the majority. He calls this new class “Precariat.”
Standing describes its appearance with recent protests in Spain, Italy, Greece or the Near East, where especially young people show their frustration and demand for a future with more security and better job perceptivity. Yet, this “Precariat” is not a consistent class, but unified by fears and insecurity. The flexibility of the labour market makes it for the Precariat impossible to feel related to a specific community, which values they share and to which they feel solidary.
On the other hand, there is a rise of the extreme right, which tries to abuse the situation of the new Precariat. An affluent and powerful international elite support such development, that even the social democrats fell for this elite’s charm. Because of such a neo-fascist spectre, the progressive powers must risk a bit utopia. The politics must not longer orientate at a strict work moral of the industrial society, but must recognise the right for economical security and different forms of work and activities. Standing closes, that the Precariat will understand this, but politicians on the left should listen to them.
Link: https://www.freitag.de/politik/1122-wer-gibt-dem-prekariat-eine-stimme
