# so whats all this fuss about the precariat?



## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

Following the bitching on the Libcom thread  that has spilled over to return to the slagging of the Mayday Tesco’s action in London, I’m interested to know why people feel so strongly about the emergence of any discussion of precarity: _the condition_. Ive been involved myself in the Precarity Assembly for a while now (no, im not a womble) and it's clear that willingness to engage in discussion about new tendencies within the capitalist organisation of work (precarity) outside of the PA has been pish poor - bar a bit of lip service. 

So here’s a half-arsed attempt at at least getting a page of sensible points before the trolling/derailing abates it. Before beginning though I want to dispel a few assumptions, challenge a few lazy parodies and burn down some strawmen about what the debate on precarity is (in UK and Europe) and look at the terrain where debate on precarity is _actually_ taking place (apologies in advance for any jargonese, but i make no apologies for the uk-centric position). So firstly:

*Is precarity ‘new’? * 
Course not. A precarious existence within capitalism has always been the situation since the ‘creation’ of the working class. The ‘blip’ if there was one, has been the 50 years of the welfare state, where we have ‘enjoyed’ social democracy and the protections that it affords the working class: upholding of rights, conditions, bargaining, health service, comprehensive education etc. etc.  However you may have noticed that for the last 25+ years social democracy has been in retreat. So where does that leave struggles today that would previously have been mediated by its working class representations: the trade union movement? We are faced with the question of how and where class struggle will re-emerge? What forms will it take, which sectors will it encompass (or stated more controversially) which ‘subjectivities’ will be created? Some of the unions have begun to awaken and see the writing on the wall for their futures and have been attempting recently to reinvent themselves to address these changes.

Capital has recomposed the working class twice over since the war and this coming as a large part of the working class asserting itself and rupturing the logic of the social contact, demanding a better life and for lots of people, attempting to escape its shitty existence. The final moves from manufacturing to a finance base in the UK sealed the fate of the post war working class and has recomposed its sons and daughters – us – into a world where once again we’re left to fight the bare teeth of unfettered capital accumulation. But fight it with less weapons at our disposal it would seem, than our parents. And we have leftists handing out the blunt weapons of a bygone age. Rather like trying to fight heat seeking missiles with Mauser rifles!

*Is there a ‘Precariat’?*
This is the thorny one and one that is at heart I think of a lot of the controversy. Let me nail my colours to the post first… I think that trying to invent a new social category of ‘precariat’ is a doomed misson. It’s flawed both in concept _and_ in strategy… The attempt in some quarters(particularly in Italy) to reinvent operaismo (the workerist tradition) by creating another new social subject, imbued with particular ‘revolutionary’ characteristics, is, in my view, a wrong headed approach and only repeats some of the errors made by certain currents of Italian autonomism. 

We end up being faced then with the question that; if there _is_ a ‘precariat’ what is it in relation to the ‘proletariat’? And, following the operaist schema through, crucially: _who_ does it encompass? So we get problems such as: do creative media workers have the same social experience as minimum wage cleaners? well, on one level it is possible to say they do (its all wage slavery after all), but it would be absurd to extrapolate that out and flatten the experience to a 2-dimensional reality and deny that there might be problems with such a wide conception. 

But on this subject, it is probably worth also pointing out thats there is no one line on this debate within the european precarity networks, rather, there seems to be a fairly healthy and robust debate on the category (and whether _it is_ indeed a category), in fact.

*And what is it we are fighting for?*
Again, another thorny issue… As subjects whose lives are increasingly impinged on by preacarity, where there is no such thing as clocking in and out of work, what is it we want? _Who is_ the ‘*we*’? Are we fighting for _more_ work or _less_ work? Is the fight about making ‘demands’ on a decaying social democracy for the re-establishment of workers’ ‘rights’ or fighting to abolish work and create new realities, new social relationships? 

And following that, does the erosion of social democracy create new possibilities further down the line or should we be fighting to reinvent social democracy for a modern world a return of those safeguards and certainties? These are some of the questions that are being discussed and considered currently within the precarity assembly, with the aim of a better understanding of what exactly the condition means and how as subjects we engage ourselves with our own lives and with collective struggles.

So why has discussion of the condition been trivialised or even discounted here? Can anyone seriously argue that the means that we used to fight capital with can still be used today?


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## Sorry. (Nov 17, 2005)

Firstly: on the narrow point that 'precarity' discussions are ridiculed by many on here - I think you're conflating hostility to the usage of terms (precarity, precariousness, precariat) to an unwillingness to acknowledge the phenomenon. The ridicule on here has been levelled at the activistese that has been used to discuss the topic, rather than at a concern with changing working conditions. 

(and what would I use instead: casualisation, along with specific terms for aspects of the process. Largely because the term is more obviously self-explanatory)

I'll get back to the wider point later on.


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## mk12 (Nov 17, 2005)

What's the "precariat".


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## In Bloom (Nov 17, 2005)

mattkidd12 said:
			
		

> What's the "precariat".


The WOMBLES


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## Taxamo Welf (Nov 17, 2005)

oh don't start   ffs


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> The ridicule on here has been levelled at the activistese that has been used to discuss the topic, rather than at a concern with changing working conditions.
> 
> (and what would I use instead: casualisation, along with specific terms for aspects of the process. Largely because the term is more obviously self-explanatory)


what i neglected to mention in the OP is that discussion of the terminlogy has displaced any discussion of the condition itself    If only it was a simple as replacing 'precarity' for 'casualisation', but the trends in late capitalism are far wider than simply the casualisation of work






			
				Sorry. said:
			
		

> I'll get back to the wider point later on.


Look forward to it


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## mk12 (Nov 17, 2005)

I still don't know what the precariat is.


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

.


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## mk12 (Nov 17, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> .



A link?


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## Pickman's model (Nov 17, 2005)

mattkidd12 said:
			
		

> I still don't know what the precariat is.


have you ever considered using an internet search engine to answer your query?


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## mk12 (Nov 17, 2005)

Google: "Did you mean: precast"





> On the morning of May 1st, the mobilisations of a-typical workers, precarious and cognitarious



[eyes glaze over]


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## gurrier (Nov 17, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> have you ever considered using an internet search engine to answer your query?


Or even your wits? (to mattkid1)

proletariat + precarity.


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## mk12 (Nov 17, 2005)

Oooo...that means I am a member of the precariat. 

By the way, "The great majority of jobs in Britain—92 percent in the year 2000—remain permanent with traditional forms of contract."

Office for National Statistics, Social Trends 2001, Table 4.6, p88.


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## Chuck Wilson (Nov 17, 2005)

Do Tesco's still stock it? Or did the protest get then to remove it from the shelves?


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

mattkidd12 said:
			
		

> Google: "Did you mean: precast"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Matt at the risk of derailing my own thread, how fucking intellectually lazy _are you_, kid?. Here's an example found on a SEARCH ENGINE


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

mattkidd12 said:
			
		

> Oooo...that means I am a member of the precariat.
> 
> By the way, "The great majority of jobs in Britain—92 percent in the year 2000—remain permanent with traditional forms of contract."
> 
> Office for National Statistics, Social Trends 2001, Table 4.6, p88.


and what about those _without_ jobs, for whom social welfare has been rolled back? And while we're at it what those on underpaid part-time _permanent_ jobs. And students... yeah you heard me the first time..._students_? Still, if the ONS says its true, i guess it must. Maybe you can find out and let us know what they have to say on how many people are working class. We can resolve _that_ question this afternoon an all


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## mk12 (Nov 17, 2005)

I was just adding something to the debate...


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

mattkidd12 said:
			
		

> Oooo...that means I am a member of the precariat.
> 
> By the way, "The great majority of jobs in Britain—92 percent in the year 2000—remain permanent with traditional forms of contract."
> 
> Office for National Statistics, Social Trends 2001, Table 4.6, p88.



This is something I am *very* interested in doing research on, so any suggestions on how this is done is very  much appreciated. You are right, the rate of contracting is very low, but the trouble with that statistic is that it can mask other processess (and how big or how widespread these are I don't know) for example

*it doesn't capture the growth of people who are forced to be self-employed and contract their labour back to their original employer (so that the employer doesn't have to pay holiday pay, sick pay etc). For example, I just happen to have occupational data for Ireland before me, and looking at builders there has been a big increase in the category 'employer or own account worker'. Does that mean that there has been an increase in small businesses? Probably not. It probably means that there has been an increase in precarious working conditions among builders who are forced to be "self-employed"

* Also the figure doesn't tell you whether people are working permenantly for the company they work for or permenantly for a job agency, who then leases their labour to a third party.

* It also doesn't tell you anything about how long people on permenant contracts work for  - you could be on a permenant contract but also insecure in that your employer can easily fire you (and on the other end of the scale, you could be on a temporary contract but quite secure because you have skills that are in demand - eg computer programmers in Ireland).

* It doesn't tell you if the nature of their job has changed - is it more intense? Is there more insecurity about the role that is being done?

* Finally the statistic doesn't tell you anything about the risks you face if you loose your job. This is why the precarity debate is about more than just work. You might be permenant, but if you loose your job, you also loose your house, go into massive debt, can't afford healthcare, to care for your aged parents, well then although you are permenant the social costs of loosing your job are very great, hence a sence of insecurity.


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

By the way, [plug, plug]. I wrote an article looking at some of these issues in the last Red and Black Revolution, available at all good bookshops near you (well it should be in Freedom and Housemans).


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## catch (Nov 17, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> what i neglected to mention in the OP is that discussion of the terminlogy has displaced any discussion of the condition itself    If only it was a simple as replacing 'precarity' for 'casualisation', but the trends in late capitalism are far wider than simply the casualisation of workLook forward to it



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. Frankly, if people on here think something is jargonistic and wanky, then it's likely people elsewhere will find it even more jargonistic and wanky. 

For other terms casualisation isn't bad. Yes it mainly describes work, but that's a good thing - people understand what it means and how it works within that context.

There are perfectly good words to describe the attacks on welfare - like "attacks on welfare", or "rolling back the welfare state", or "neo-liberalist reforms of public services" - so why not use those?

Precarity is presented as a unifying concept to describe the totality of certain peoples' experience under late-capitalism in one word (and a crap word at that). By trying to be a catch-all for lots of different things, it ends up meaningless and remote. It's not necessary to use the same word for a table and chair to understand that they're both items of furniture.

It also suggests a movement into an entirely new era of production, which I'd strongly disagree is the case. It divides the working class into the secure and precarious - whether in housing, work or whatever, and as you suggested yourself, lends itself to claims for a return to social democracy, or jobs for life - which not everyone wants even within the confines of capitalism.

I'm happy to talk about casualisation, attacks on benefit, the housing situation - but as you've proved precarity is an obstacle to useful discussions on these subjects or how they're linked.


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## revol68 (Nov 17, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> This is something I am *very* interested in doing research on, so any suggestions on how this is done is very  much appreciated. You are right, the rate of contracting is very low, but the trouble with that statistic is that it can mask other processess (and how big or how widespread these are I don't know) for example
> 
> *it doesn't capture the growth of people who are forced to be self-employed and contract their labour back to their original employer (so that the employer doesn't have to pay holiday pay, sick pay etc). For example, I just happen to have occupational data for Ireland before me, and looking at builders there has been a big increase in the category 'employer or own account worker'. Does that mean that there has been an increase in small businesses? Probably not. It probably means that there has been an increase in precarious working conditions among builders who are forced to be "self-employed"
> 
> ...



why the fuck is this kind of shit news to anyone and why the fuck does it need a new term for it, it was quite clearly covered within the proletariat and in the case of the WOMBLES declasse scum.


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## catch (Nov 17, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> For example, I just happen to have occupational data for Ireland before me, and looking at builders there has been a big increase in the category 'employer or own account worker'. Does that mean that there has been an increase in small businesses? Probably not. It probably means that there has been an increase in precarious working conditions among builders who are forced to be "self-employed"



See this is another problem with it. Another thing that's mentioned on the libcom spat (by me) is the Laing workers at Kings Cross. They were objecting to Laing trying to take them on as employees with a contract, and wanted to remain self-employed - much higher wages, more control over days off, worse working conditions etc.

You mentioned "insecurity" though - what's wrong with that (the word, not the condition)?


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> why the fuck is this kind of shit news to anyone and why the fuck does it need a new term for it, it was quite clearly covered within the proletariat


are these conditions to be mobilised against in your view?


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## montevideo (Nov 17, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> why the fuck is this kind of shit news to anyone and why the fuck does it need a new term for it, it was quite clearly covered within the proletariat and in the case of the WOMBLES declasse scum.



you play computer games for a living. You have your internet friends, your suicide girls, your x-box & no reason to ever leave your bedroom again. You are _*the*_ poster boy for the precarious generation.


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> See this is another problem with it. Another thing that's mentioned on the libcom spat (by me) is the Laing workers at Kings Cross. They were objecting to Laing trying to take them on as employees with a contract, and wanted to remain self-employed - much higher wages, more control over days off, worse working conditions etc.



This is very interesting. 




			
				catch said:
			
		

> You mentioned "insecurity" though - what's wrong with that (the word, not the condition)?



you mean, instead of using the word 'precariety"? nothing, I'm not hung up on the words.


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> See this is another problem with it. Another thing that's mentioned on the libcom spat (by me) is the Laing workers at Kings Cross. They were objecting to Laing trying to take them on as employees with a contract, and wanted to remain self-employed - much higher wages, more control over days off, worse working conditions etc.


its horses for courses, catch. Find me someone that is going to voluntarilly_give up_ their wage gains... of course certain kinds of leftist would call _these_ people petty bourgeois


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

Look Revol is a Troll. Why don't we ignore him? He has said on other threads that he has no interest in the anarchist movement, he shows that he has no interest in debates, he does nothing. He did his damn't best to ruin Libcom, until they changed their posting rules. Now he's spreading his bile all over Urban75. This has the potential to be an interesting discussion and he is already doing his best to derail it. I spent 10 minutes or so trying to put forward an argument to respond to someone elses query. He spends 20 seconds to swear and slander. 

DON"T FEED THE TROLLS


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## montevideo (Nov 17, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> Look Revol is a Troll. Why don't we ignore him? He has said on other threads that he has no interest in the anarchist movement, he shows that he has no interest in debates, he does nothing. He did his damn't best to ruin Libcom, until they changed their posting rules. Now he's spreading his bile all over Urban75. This has the potential to be an interesting discussion and he is already doing his best to derail it. I spent 10 minutes or so trying to put forward an argument to respond to someone elses query. He spends 20 seconds to swear and slander.
> 
> DON"T FEED THE TROLLS



apologies.


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## catch (Nov 17, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> This is very interesting.



I thought so - I'd love to be full time on contract at either of my two and a half jobs right now.



> you mean, instead of using the word 'precariety"? nothing, I'm not hung up on the words.


 Er yeah, that's what I meant but it wasn't really directed at you, it was directed at Top Dog but not expressed very well.


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## catch (Nov 17, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> its horses for courses, catch. Find me someone that is going to voluntarilly_give up_ their wage gains... of course certain kinds of leftist would call _these_ people petty bourgeois



Only wankers would to be fair. Fact is, their struggle  - against a full time contract reducing their working conditions and making them _less_ flexible - is the opposite of what most descriptions of precarity are. It's also not very applicable to highly organised groups of workers in the RMT or FBU - yes there's some flexibilisation ( being pushed through, but that's not the only thing that disputes flare up about - and there's plenty of disputes which suggests they aren't out of the picture yet.


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

No sooner do i start the thread than the new issue of my union paper arrives in my tray at work, with a 3 page 'migrant workers special' [sic]






			
				T&G Record said:
			
		

> Migrant Workers are the unseen army in today's workforce. Growing in numbers, super-exploited, victims of racism and employer abuse... but all too often invisible to the rest of the community.
> 
> The T&G has made the recruitment and organisation of these workers from all parts of the world one of its priorities...


...I bet it has. The big 3 unions are all jockeying for position in view of the super-merger in the next 12-18 months. How plausibile does a renaissance of mass industrial unionism or syndicalism sound to you folks?


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## revol68 (Nov 17, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> Look Revol is a Troll. Why don't we ignore him? He has said on other threads that he has no interest in the anarchist movement, he shows that he has no interest in debates, he does nothing. He did his damn't best to ruin Libcom, until they changed their posting rules. Now he's spreading his bile all over Urban75. This has the potential to be an interesting discussion and he is already doing his best to derail it. I spent 10 minutes or so trying to put forward an argument to respond to someone elses query. He spends 20 seconds to swear and slander.
> 
> DON"T FEED THE TROLLS



so you took 10 minutes to make fuck all points, congratu-fucking-lations!

And i've actually posted more serious posts about the complete wank that is the precaritat before on Libcom.

And as far as I'm aware I never ruined Libcom, infact Libcom seems to have gotten better and moved on from stupid debates with primmos and other lifestylists.

and here's my post on the precariat from Libcom, it's in response to RAW.



> Raw, good frames don't hide bad pictures.
> 
> Do I think that there have been substantial changes within capitalism in the last 30 years? Of course, capitalism is an ongoing dynamic relationship, it's very instability is what keeps it afloat, but do I think the term precarity as used by you and other actvists is a very poor attempt to justify substitutionism, by conveniently placing those within your millieu as the "vanguard" of the multitude, the "precariat" straddling the fences between work and play, within the fissures of the new economy, your "social spaces" become a proto commons. The WOMBLEs and other "social movements" become the new grave diggers of capital, as the Maoists proclaimed the peasants and Marcuse proclaimed students before. Revolutionary agency gets taken at face value, the proletariat gets swamped by a mulitiude of activists, causes and issues. The PGA and WSF dig up the corpse of the second international, dress it in retro social democrat chic and try to pass off their depraved necrophilia as an act of sublime beauty, as progress. In truth the PGA and WSF represent nothing but the international disporia of social democracy, huddling together, dreaming of Zion. Sure a few of the elements are a bit uppity but now is not the time for "division", we all want a better world.
> 
> But it takes only a child to point out that these activist movements represent only a minute section of humanity, that this multitude seems more and more like the invention of an Italian academic and an American literature critic. That this "precariat" seems very familiar, and so it should be because it has been stolen off the back of the chicago railway tracks, from the IWW hobos as they lay sleeping under stars, it has been harvested from Andulasian fields whilst the seasonal labourers of the CNT danced in the ruins of theologian whorehouses.


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## cats hammers (Nov 17, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> He did his damn't best to ruin Libcom, until they changed their posting rules.



You obviously don't remember when primmos, activists and other assorted lunatics were able to post there with impunity.


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## revol68 (Nov 17, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> you play computer games for a living. You have your internet friends, your suicide girls, your x-box & no reason to ever leave your bedroom again. You are _*the*_ poster boy for the precarious generation.




you silly fuck do you think I test computer games for a living? You do know that software is a bit wider than games? 

And yes i've got internet mates but none i haven't met in real life.

I don't own an X box (castrated PC's that they are) and my suicide girls access is through my friends, and very nice it is too  (in a self aware post post modern way).

Monte haven't you got racist pickets to be offering solidarity to?


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Only wankers would to be fair. Fact is, their struggle  - against a full time contract reducing their working conditions and making them _less_ flexible - is the opposite of what most descriptions of precarity are.


And i can supply another example to supplement your point... there was a dispute of polish fruit pickers at a cambridgeshire farm in the summer. Several hundred just walked off the job and struck. Their demand? More hours! It was seasonal work and they were here to bang for a buck, save some money and fuck off to the next job or not. The piece rate was too low they felt to be worth their while (although it _was_ the 'market rate' iyswim). Should we have supported their call for more hours? Should we have 'intervened' and suggested they transform the demand to one of upping the piece rate?

You see there are plenty of contradictory positions in relation to the debate and that, i think, is why its currently a very fertile area for research.  whether "flexibility" is _always_ a negative thing? Many say 'No', that workers can _and do_ use it to their advantage. But again, it's about composition (when isnt it?!) the young, the single and the mobile are possibly more disposed to a positive interpretation of the situation, but other groups may only feel the insecure and negative side of it.   



			
				catch said:
			
		

> It's also not very applicable to highly organised groups of workers in the RMT or FBU - yes there's some flexibilisation ( being pushed through, but that's not the only thing that disputes flare up about - and there's plenty of disputes which suggests they aren't out of the picture yet.


Of course. There is no attempt to supplant a new conception of politics or redefine the notion of _class struggle _ here. I think that is what some socialists/comms/anarchs are suspicious of... that its some denial of the essential poles of capitalist relationship > capital vs labour.

But it is about a trend and what capital is currently _doing_ to labour... the tertiarisation of western labour (being one aspect) and about how labour then organises to respond to that. Those are the questions that im interested in exploring

And frankly, like sovietpop, i dont care what the condition is _called _ but i cant see why _that_ seems to always end up replacing the debate about the condition itself.


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## JoeBlack (Nov 17, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> You obviously don't remember when primmos, activists and other assorted lunatics were able to post there with impunity.



I think you'll find that she considers that the period when "assorted lunatics were able to post there with impunity" is only ending and that some of them now seem to be migrating here.  

I know its much easier to see the lunacy in other people than in yourself but if you take a step back you'll realise that many of us consider the sort of behaviour on this thread as exactly the sort of thing a couple of 'assorted lunatics' might do.

Clowns and jugglers are embarrassing but an adult thowing repeated four year old tantrums is very much more embarrassing.  That one or two of his mates think this is 'clever' just shows what a self-isolated sub culture you've constructed around yourselves.


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## Sorry. (Nov 17, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> what i neglected to mention in the OP is that discussion of the terminlogy has displaced any discussion of the condition itself    If only it was a simple as replacing 'precarity' for 'casualisation', but the trends in late capitalism are far wider than simply the casualisation of work



Well, are you saying that the terminology is unimportant? Because there's certainly an argument to be had there. 

- It might be worth unpacking why it is that you think precarity and casualisation aren't interchangeable. Do you mean that beyond the conditions of work, we have attacks on the conditions of the non-working? Where do casualisation and welfare reform overlap, is it to such an extent that we can argue that there are part of the same process?

- Process not trend. A trend suggests a preference and deliberate policy upon the part of several sections of the ruling class. I don't think this is the case, I say process because it has an economic logic, and a social inertia quite apart from ruling class agency.

- What is it? Insecurity at work, welfare reform (as cut backs, as a social control mechanism)

- What are its effects? - social dislocation and atomisation (both as claimants, job seekers, and casualised workers) 

- What is to be done?...


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## revol68 (Nov 17, 2005)

JoeBlack said:
			
		

> I think you'll find that she considers that the period when "assorted lunatics were able to post there with impunity" is only ending and that some of them now seem to be migrating here.
> 
> I know its much easier to see the lunacy in other people than in yourself but if you take a step back you'll realise that many of us consider the sort of behaviour on this thread as exactly the sort of thing a couple of 'assorted lunatics' might do.
> 
> Clowns and jugglers are embarrassing but an adult thowing repeated four year old tantrums is very much more embarrassing.  That one or two of his mates think this is 'clever' just shows what a self-isolated sub culture you've constructed around yourselves.




i think you'll find it's closer to a behavourial problem than a sub culture.

And sorry but some of us just like to vent our spleens on the internet, mostly cos we atleast have the wit to realise that our binary discussions have fuck all impact upon the class struggle bar allowing us to knock ideas around.

Of course you could point out that i don't give alot of ideas the time of day, and you'd be right but thats only cos they tend to be shite.

And if you think that is somewhat elitist perhaps ponder upon the fact youse are the self proclaimed leadership of ideas.


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## montevideo (Nov 17, 2005)

i don't know how 'new' people want to talk about this condition. Here's an interesting article written in 1999.



> All over the world the category of work that is growing most rapidly is precarious, fragile work- flexible work, including self-employment and work with short-term or no contracts.
> 
> I was a member of a German government commission on the future of work. We found that, in Germany in the seventies, only one-tenth of the population were "flexiworkers" in the broadest sense. In the eighties the proportion grew to one-quarter; in the nineties to one-third. If this dynamic continues, then in ten to 15 years' time at least half the employable population in the west will be working under fragile conditions.


http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4426_129/ai_54349305 

For this discussion it seems the main stumbling block is those who don't even want to approach the possibility of a shift in work relations, seeing the very term 'precarity' somehow usurping marx's role in the centre of things so must deny its existence despite them being the living embodiment of it.

Again i think fighting over definitions is a red herring (as is clinging to the eccentricities of an italian theorist) but maybe these are natural birth pangs of an emerging dynamic.


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## revol68 (Nov 17, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> i don't know how 'new' people want to talk about this condition. Here's an interesting article written in 1999.
> 
> 
> http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4426_129/ai_54349305
> ...



no i think the issue is how groups like the wombles interpret the "precariat" as putting squatters and other declasse activist muppets at the centre of the proletariat, instead of substitutionist cocks.


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## Top Dog (Nov 17, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> Well, are you saying that the terminology is unimportant? Because there's certainly an argument to be had there.


 But not at the expense of the argument itself 



			
				Sorry. said:
			
		

> - It might be worth unpacking why it is that you think precarity and casualisation aren't interchangeable. Do you mean that beyond the conditions of work, we have attacks on the conditions of the non-working? Where do casualisation and welfare reform overlap, is it to such an extent that we can argue that there are part of the same process?


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. _You_ call it welfare _reform_ _i_ call it workfare ie. having to work for a 'dole' or be left destitute. That is an entirely different conception  to the social democratic versions put out before 



			
				Sorry. said:
			
		

> - Process not trend. A trend suggests a preference and deliberate policy upon the part of several sections of the ruling class. I don't think this is the case, I say process because it has an economic logic, and a social inertia quite apart from ruling class agency.


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...   



			
				Sorry. said:
			
		

> - What is it? Insecurity at work, welfare reform (as cut backs, as a social control mechanism
> 
> - What are its effects? - social dislocation and atomisation (both as claimants, job seekers, and casualised workers)
> 
> - What is to be done?...


well that's what we're trying to address


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## catch (Nov 17, 2005)

> Of course. There is no attempt to supplant a new conception of politics or redefine the notion of class struggle here. I think that is what some socialists/comms/anarchs are suspicious of... that its some denial of the essential poles of capitalist relationship > capital vs labour.



Maybe not from you, but I yes I'd be one of those suspicious people.





			
				Top Dog said:
			
		

> And frankly, like sovietpop, i dont care what the condition is _called _ but i cant see why _that_ seems to always end up replacing the debate about the condition itself.



Because precarity is such a terrible word? Maybe we should start a new thread.

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


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> You see there are plenty of contradictory positions in relation to the debate and that, i think, is why its currently a very fertile area for research.  whether "flexibility" is _always_ a negative thing? Many say 'No', that workers can _and do_ use it to their advantage. But again, it's about composition (when isnt it?!) the young, the single and the mobile are possibly more disposed to a positive interpretation of the situation, but other groups may only feel the insecure and negative side of it.



I think you are rights, where you are in your life course is important. And another interesting non-work aspect to the issue is the issue of housing, and the "disciplining" effect of debt and morgages.

But in terms of whether flexiblity is a choice or not, it is also about relative labour market strength isn't it? Take Computer programmers here,  labour market shortages, demand for their labour, so they can have both flexiblity and security. In fact in the computer industry they're more than happy to offer permanant contracts and various schemes to keep their labour force (share options etc). On the other hand, (to take another Irish example) archaelogical labourers - low skill - weak labour market, flexibility imposed upon them. (I've a friend who has just been offered two contracts; one that ends just before christmas, another that starts just after christmas i.e. his employer wants to avoid paying him over the christmas holiday).


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

Another issue that hasn't been mentioned is the increase in the numbers of women working. And this is something that (AFAIK) is genuinely new and I think its worthing thinking about what the wider implications are here for the field of struggle and areas of potentional conflict. For example in Ireland, affordable childcare is an ENORMOUS issue, and care of the elderly is going to become one in the future.


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## catch (Nov 17, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> Another issue that hasn't been mentioned is the increase in the numbers of women working. And this is something that (AFAIK) is genuinely new



Sorry sovietpop, but although I know what you mean in terms of women in full time work, it's also not new either.


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

ok, I dunno how many women worked during ww2, but shall we say for the sake of argument, excepting that quite short wartime period?


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## Taxamo Welf (Nov 17, 2005)

i think he probably just wanted post the pics SP


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## catch (Nov 17, 2005)

Taxamo Welf said:
			
		

> i think he probably just wanted post the pics SP


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## Raw SslaC (Nov 17, 2005)

So whats 'new' then? Surely we are in the situation of not only flexible work (casualisation) which is at a level on a european scale never before seen, in industries that depend on new communcation technologies and jobs which depend on a variety of un-paid and effectual skills. I think that it is 'new', it may be similar judge in respective contextes of the past but it's surely the context which creates it as 'new'. We are after all arguing about 'form' here as no one disagress that the 'content' of the capital/labour relationship is still the same.


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## sovietpop (Nov 17, 2005)

I'm not sure I understand. Are you staying that the nature of work is new, that is, people are doing different types of jobs, but the conditions of work, the insecurity, has always been a feature of capitalism*?



* excepting that brief post war period


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## Rob Ray (Nov 17, 2005)

I don't think casualised work is at its highest ever levels, certainly when agriculture was a mainstay of many European countries the casualised seasonal workforce was vast, the same was true of the major victorian industries as a result of the massive available workforce and limited number of jobs (and lack of organised resistance). The dockers were perhaps the most famous case in point, until they rebelled.

What is perhaps notable is the _reintroduction_ of mass casualised labour into European markets where the organised working class is now less powerful and able to defend itself, having been systematically undermined by the actions of successive governments desperate to hold on to international capital and driven by the 'success' of Thatcherite ideals/the drive against '1970s working practices'.

The word precarious is a pile of wank btw, needlessly muddies a quite simple issue when presenting it to people who know exactly what casualisation means, but no idea about Euro-jargon.


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## Antrophe (Nov 17, 2005)

Interested in doing some research on this area myself, interestingly I came across an article called "The Power Of Nightmares:  Phantom Job Insecurity and Demoralisation"  that pretty much cuts through some of the main rationale for a discussion on precarity in the UK.  Its interesting, but there are some flaws with it, its overly economistic and denies a more subjective side to work experience, such as the fact that people may very well want to cast off a job after a certain period of time.  Few other things could be said about it as well but haven't the time now.


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## gurrier (Nov 18, 2005)

Rob Ray said:
			
		

> I don't think casualised work is at its highest ever levels, certainly when agriculture was a mainstay of many European countries the casualised seasonal workforce was vast, the same was true of the major victorian industries as a result of the massive available workforce and limited number of jobs (and lack of organised resistance). The dockers were perhaps the most famous case in point, until they rebelled.
> 
> What is perhaps notable is the _reintroduction_ of mass casualised labour into European markets where the organised working class is now less powerful and able to defend itself, having been systematically undermined by the actions of successive governments desperate to hold on to international capital and driven by the 'success' of Thatcherite ideals/the drive against '1970s working practices'.
> 
> The word precarious is a pile of wank btw, needlessly muddies a quite simple issue when presenting it to people who know exactly what casualisation means, but no idea about Euro-jargon.


I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think the word 'precarity' isn't purely about casualisation.  As I understand it, it also applies to other "precarities" that people live under, such as the enormous number of semi-legal or illegal migrant labourers, the pressure of living under debt and so on.  I also don't see the problem with 'precarious' as a word?  It's a normal word in the english language and is both evocatively emotive and widely understood and captures the pressure that people often live under fairly well I think.  Also, just because it's not a new phenomenon and really just a dismantling of the post-war social democracies, there's no harm in coming up with a new and evocative word for it.  

From a marketing point of view, I think 'precarious' is much more powerful than the economistic 'casualisation'.  On the other hand, I'm not at all sure about the using the euro-derivatives such as precarity, and 'precariousness' doesn't slip off the tongue either.  But, when it comes down to it, who cares which exact word is used to market the idea - whichever one is most powerful and resonates with people will predominate (depending on success of course).


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## soulman (Nov 18, 2005)

It's an interesting discussion. Like the OP I don't think precarity is anything new for workers (by that I also mean the unemployed, yet to be employed and those considered past employment). For most people earning enough to get by on has always been precarious. 

The supposed post-war consensus on welfarism, the cradle to the grave welfare state was always a sham - a way of buying off any discontent from returning soldiers and the families of those who didn't return. It was being attacked as early as the 1950's by capitalists who resented for example the idea of social housing or universal education. They were concerned about a comfortable and educated workforce.

It was really out in the open in the 1970's when Keith Joseph and other Tories were openly attacking the idea of universal education, and plotting the destruction of the trade unions which they saw rightly or wrongly as an organised expression of class warfare. They won and we lost. The 80's and early 90's saw the dominance of free market values, the bastards partied, danced and waved their wads of cash as working class communities paid the price in so many ways. 

With the election of a Labour government in 1997 lots of hopes were raised. The laws restricting the unions could be repealed, the destruction of social housing and community could be reversed, the concept of universal welfarism could be saved. The reality has been that the Labour party has continued the planned destruction of welfarism and its replacement with privatised, free market capitalism. 

During this restructuring life has become ever more precarious for workers. Not only those working now but also those who payed into the idea of universal welfare, from the cradle to the grave, and are now being forced through increasingly difficult means tests to recover the benefits they payed for. That's how it is now with a retirement age of 60/65. 

If they get their way the age of retirement from 'work' will increase to meet our life expectantcy. The more I hear about their plans the less inclined I feel to work. The longer we live the more we're expected to make profits for them, even die on the job if need be. 

Bollocks to that and fuck them for even thinking people will accept it.


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## sovietpop (Nov 18, 2005)

Good post.


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## sovietpop (Nov 18, 2005)

Antrophe said:
			
		

> Interested in doing some research on this area myself, interestingly I came across an article called "The Power Of Nightmares:  Phantom Job Insecurity and Demoralisation"  that pretty much cuts .



That's very good, thanks for the link.


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## Top Dog (Nov 18, 2005)

gurrier said:
			
		

> I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think the word 'precarity' isn't purely about casualisation.  As I understand it, it also applies to other "precarities" that people live under, such as the enormous number of semi-legal or illegal migrant labourers, the pressure of living under debt and so on.  I also don't see the problem with 'precarious' as a word?...


agree with all of this gurrier. Whatever the term is called, the effect of the condition is to impose and intensify capital's discipline of the w/c. UK has over a £trillion of personal debt, The idea of social housing for tha many is now a nice memory, the rest of us buckling under mortgages. Pensions crisis - work til you drop dead.

Ive mentioned this on another thread somewhere but what has been noticed is that because of the above, we're seeing the beginnings (very early to call it a trend, i admit) of the pre-war situation of 3 generations to a household. The young cannot afford to move out of the parental home, the older members unable to afford the cost of care etc. I dont see how the anglo-saxon 'casualisation' describes adequately any of the above. It is the _whole_ of life that has been made precarious, because capital has subsumed _every_ area of life. The Fordist experience that capital only seemed to affect you while you were creating surplus value between the hours of 9-5 and then you had some relative autonomy to go home and tend to your vegetable patch is no longer the case for increasingly large numbers of people.


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## Top Dog (Nov 18, 2005)

yep good post soulman


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## Rob Ray (Nov 18, 2005)

But again, I don't think precarity is what you want to be using to describe it if you are using the word in such sweeping terms, and it comes across as yet more leftist jargon (and if there's one thing which alienates the left from its audience, it's jargon no-one else understands). 

If I was talking to people about personal debt, I'd talk to them about personal debt I wouldn't go up them and say 'yeah loads of people are in precarity' because a) I then have to spend time I would be using to agitate to explain what I mean b) I come off as a pretentious tosser. Same thing applies to casualisation of labour, and mortgages. 

It may sound good in leftist circles and be a handy summation, but it would fail a vox pop test (ask ten random people in the street what they think about precarity...), which should fundamentally be the litmus test for any agitprop group aiming to interest people.


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## Top Dog (Nov 18, 2005)

Rob Ray said:
			
		

> But again, I don't think precarity is what you want to be using to describe it if you are using the word in such sweeping terms, and it comes across as yet more leftist jargon (and if there's one thing which alienates the left from its audience, it's jargon no-one else understands)...


These will be my last points about the *word* 'precarity' rather than the *condition* itself - its starting to sidetrack [again] what is actually a more interesting discussion imo

Firstly - i dont know anyone irl (and no one here on urban so far) that has suggested we shouldnt use terms like 'debt' to talk about debt or 'pensions' if we're talking about pensions, so that's a null point. Your choice of language depends on your context, your audience... if one term is particularly unwieldy and confuses rather than enlightens, then you choose another. Its not about being precious over a word. But it sounds almost like you're saying that we should dumb down what are _concepts_ because the _words_ are not familiar? And all for fear of being seen as 'pretensious tossers'!  

Secondly - language is a living thing. It evolves. And English in particular is a mongrel language of many roots, including a large part of latin origin. I'm sure that there were people complaining about terms like 'globalisation' 25 years ago as something that 'yer ordinary folk' would never get their honest, "'ard working 'eads" around. But but it is common currency today. _Proletariat_ is also a 'foreign' word. What else should we throw out of the language that sounds strange or is not used in day to day parlance?

Thirdly - there is a need to understand at a macro level, whats going on with all these changes to our experience... how all the pieces fit together into contemporary capitalism and how our lives are being organised for us from the cradle to the grave - as soulman points out. I dont think there's a problem with political minorities (those geeks like us) who are interested in the minutiae of these problems using shorthand words to refer to over-arching processes


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## Top Dog (Nov 18, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> 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!)


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## Rob Ray (Nov 18, 2005)

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.


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## Top Dog (Nov 18, 2005)

*just found this point*




			
				catch said:
			
		

> 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


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## davgraham (Nov 18, 2005)

Rob Ray said:
			
		

> 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.
> 
> ...





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


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## Sorry. (Nov 18, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> 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?


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## treelover (Nov 18, 2005)

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.)


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## Top Dog (Nov 18, 2005)

*only got a few minutes here but...*




			
				Sorry. said:
			
		

> 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.
> 
> ...


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


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## Top Dog (Nov 18, 2005)

davgraham said:
			
		

> 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...


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## catch (Nov 18, 2005)

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.


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## montevideo (Nov 18, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> 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...
> 
> ...




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


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## catch (Nov 18, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> * 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).


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## sovietpop (Nov 18, 2005)

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.


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## Rob Ray (Nov 18, 2005)

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...


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## gurrier (Nov 18, 2005)

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.


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## catch (Nov 18, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> 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?)
> 
> ...



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 (Nov 18, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> 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



			
				catch said:
			
		

> 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 (Nov 18, 2005)

gurrier said:
			
		

> 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 (Nov 19, 2005)

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 (Nov 19, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> 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 (Nov 19, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> 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 (Nov 19, 2005)

Raw SslaC said:
			
		

> 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 (Nov 19, 2005)

apologies to everyone else




			
				Raw SslaC said:
			
		

> 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.




			
				rawslacc said:
			
		

> parochial little england anarcho-leftist ghetto.






			
				rawslacc said:
			
		

> 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
> ...



..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
> ...



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






			
				Raw Slacc said:
			
		

> SEARCH on the Internet


----------



## cats hammers (Nov 19, 2005)

> 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 (Nov 19, 2005)

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 (Nov 19, 2005)

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 (Nov 19, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> ..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 (Nov 19, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> 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.






			
				icepick said:
			
		

> 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.






			
				icepick said:
			
		

> 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 (Nov 19, 2005)

*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




			
				montevideo said:
			
		

> 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 (Nov 20, 2005)

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 (Nov 21, 2005)

Rob Ray said:
			
		

> 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??


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 22, 2005)

From my original post:



			
				Top Dog said:
			
		

> And what is it we are fighting for?
> Again, another thorny issue… As subjects whose lives are increasingly impinged on by preacarity, where there is no such thing as clocking in and out of work, what is it we want? Who is the ‘we’? Are we fighting for more work or less work? Is the fight about making ‘demands’ on a decaying social democracy for the re-establishment of workers’ ‘rights’ or fighting to abolish work and create new realities, new social relationships?
> 
> And following that, does the erosion of social democracy create new possibilities further down the line or should we be fighting to reinvent social democracy for a modern world a return of those safeguards and certainties?


So with the above in mind, what do people make of the sentiments and possibilities expressed in this statement apparently being circulated around the tuc? Where does the 'radical' critique engage with this debate?


----------



## montevideo (Nov 22, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> From my original post:
> So with the above in mind, what do people make of the sentiments and possibilities expressed in this statement apparently being circulated around the tuc? Where does the 'radical' critique engage with this debate?



actually, me & others have been a part of this new grouping direction. The t & G have put a lot on money, with the backing of the tuc, into recruiting people from an activist background to engage with 'precarious' workers. Given that union membership is hemorrhaging in traditonal industries it seems a positive tactical shift on their part. Other than that i'd say it still all about figures & signed up members & despite the rhetoric there remains a defined hierarchy that you will always be subordinated to.


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 22, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> actually, me & others have been a part of this new grouping direction. The t & G have put a lot on money, with the backing of the tuc, into recruiting people from an activist background to engage with 'precarious' workers. Given that union membership is hemorrhaging in traditonal industries it seems a positive tactical shift on their part. Other than that i'd say it still all about figures & signed up members & despite the rhetoric there remains a defined hierarchy that you will always be subordinated to.


i was aware of the T&G initiative. I wasnt aware _you_ were involved in it... so when you say you have been part of this new direction, in what ways? What work have you been doing? what was the brief? what 'others' were involved (i know one or two)? how were you 'recruited'? did they apporoach you or you them?


----------



## JoeBlack (Nov 23, 2005)

Probably quite relevant to this thread but a little to your west are two articles we published in RBR on the changing nature of work under capitalism.  They just went online yesterday and are

Work in the 21st century
A number of issues are being discussed in this article. Firstly has the workplace changed fundamentally such that people increasingly are in temporary work rather than permanent work? Secondly is the division between work time and non-work time dissolving, are we spending more of our lives 'in work'? Thirdly are the non-work aspects of life becoming increasingly insecure?
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=1828

and

Chainworkers and Brainworkers in Ireland
Chainworkers means the 'workers in malls, shopping centres, hypermarkets, and in the myriad of jobs of logistics and selling in the metropolis'. Brainworkers means the knowledge workers, the programmers, the creatives and the freelancers. How do these categories pan out in the Irish labour market?
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=1827


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## treelover (Nov 23, 2005)

That's a great article and very thought provoking, but nowhere does it mention those who cannot work, the sick, disabled, etc, in the uk that is many millions..


yeah, i know its an article about workers, but......


----------



## treelover (Nov 23, 2005)

er, sorry it does, duh....




> The elevation of the mass worker, full-time and male, came hand in hand with the marginalising of the experiences of the woman worker, the part-time worker, the woman working in the home, the unemployed, etc.


----------



## Judgedread (Nov 23, 2005)

Wow a really useful thread, congratulations to all for keeping it on track. There’s some interesting articles at Mute magazine’s issue on precariousness: http://www.metamute.com/look/section.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=29&NrSection=10
One of them talks about the very concept of precariousness as teetering and I think it’s when concepts are in this open and unsettled state that they are most useful. Sooner or latter of course all concepts become wooden and dead but it’s in our interests to keep this one open for as long as possible.

The point isn’t whether it’s an accurate sociological analysis or if the concept is well known and therefore useful as a propaganda tool but whether it help us see things differently, draw links between different struggles and help us develop new ways of doing things.

One way precarity does this more effectively than say casualisation is that precarity helps us see the links between increased insecurity in our working lives and the increased insecurity of our “political rights”. 

People might well except that rights have to be temporarily suspended during wartime. Well now we have the “war on terror” which has no possible end and so you have a permanent state of exception.

Just look at how much harder it is for illegal migrants to be politically active with the need to avoid situations where they could be arrested. To a much lesser extent that’s the threat that hangs over everyone. Suspension of our right to enter countries happens often before summit protests. Or look at the bail conditions issued after Gleneagles, which amounted to banning people from the country.

I think that’s some of the thinking behind the demands for rights coming out of some of the European precarity activists. Insecurity was a deliberate tactic adopted by capital to make people less likely to struggle. How do we increase the space people have to set their own agenda and struggle for their own interests? And how do we do all that without letting that space form into limits on people’s demands. That is without letting it form into a new social democracy.


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 23, 2005)

*response to the WSM article*

This is a good article (as i agree with most of the general observations  ). Couple of things relating to it however:






			
				Red & Black Revolution said:
			
		

> One approach to the issue of organising is to try and identify which category of worker will fill the shoes left vacant by the demise of the mass worker. Some focus on the two sectors that have been the fastest growing in Europe, the expansion of those working in the knowledge economy and the rise of the service sector. The difficulty is that, firstly these are sectors that have very different experiences of work, expectations, problems and needs. Beyond the fact that both are paid labourers, it is hard to see what is gained by trying to establish a one-size-fits all strategy that can be applied to both of these groups (or should that read, one size fits nobody)


Precisely. This is one of the points I make further up the thread. But it would be good to discuss some of these differences (or in fact any similarites) in much more detail... it is clear that research, inquiry etc. is an important an element to this.




			
				Red & Black Revolution said:
			
		

> This may seem like a trivial point, but we do need to be aware that there is a political legacy that seeks to identify the 'leading sector' of the working class, a legacy which runs counter to the anarchist ideal of a revolution in which power is exercised and held by all in society. The elevation of the mass worker, full-time and male, came hand in hand with the marginalising of the experiences of the woman worker, the part-time worker, the woman working in the home, the unemployed, etc.


Im assuming, (because the article alludes to this in several places) that you’re referring to the _workerist/autonomist_ legacy? If so I don’t think the above adequately reflects the breadth of the movement and certainly doesn’t acknowledge the work done on exactly those issues by militants such as Federici, Dalla Costa or Fortunati.   




			
				Red & Black Revolution said:
			
		

> Finally, and possibly the factor which has presented the most difficult to us, and has coloured much of what I am going to say below, is that for almost twenty years the major trade unions have participated in social partnership(7). This has resulted, for the most part, in stagnant, conservative unions, who have been incapable of capitalising on our economic growth and have atrophied at the shop-floor or grassroots level


Which returns us to the nub of one of my earlier questions… _if_ we are in agreement on the general tendency of trade unionism to: mediate workers struggles with capital, that is, to dissuade _from_ self activity and instead _towards_ representation, alienation… should we be fighting to rebuild and reinvent social democracy anew? 

I’m approaching this with a genuinely open mind as it is clear that there are many elements in the profound defeat of the old working class and the reorganisiation of the economy > to the service sector, that suggest a renaissance of syndicalism in some form might once again become a viable option, in the medium term anyway. Now Im not a syndicalist, but I can recognise this as a feature that can offer seductive possibilities


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## Top Dog (Nov 23, 2005)

Judgedread said:
			
		

> The point isn’t whether it’s an accurate sociological analysis or if the concept is well known and therefore useful as a propaganda tool but whether it help us see things differently, draw links between different struggles and help us develop new ways of doing things.


  




			
				Judgedread said:
			
		

> I think that’s some of the thinking behind the demands for rights coming out of some of the European precarity activists. Insecurity was a deliberate tactic adopted by capital to make people less likely to struggle. How do we increase the space people have to set their own agenda and struggle for their own interests? And how do we do all that without letting that space form into limits on people’s demands. That is without letting it form into a new social democracy.


i think this is a _really_ important point and one of the 'hinges' on the debate. Welcome to the boards Judgedread!


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## butchersapron (Nov 23, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> actually, me & others have been a part of this new grouping direction. The t & G have put a lot on money, with the backing of the tuc, into recruiting people from an activist background to engage with 'precarious' workers. Given that union membership is hemorrhaging in traditonal industries it seems a positive tactical shift on their part. Other than that i'd say it still all about figures & signed up members & despite the rhetoric there remains a defined hierarchy that you will always be subordinated to.


 This is a joke yes?


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## sovietpop (Nov 23, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> Im assuming, (because the article alludes to this in several places) that you’re referring to the _workerist/autonomist_ legacy? If so I don’t think the above adequately reflects the breadth of the movement and certainly doesn’t acknowledge the work done on exactly those issues by woman such as Federici, Dalla Costa or Fortunati.



True enough, I agree with you. I actually haven't read much of their work - any idea where I should start?



> Which returns us to the nub of one of my earlier questions… _if_ we are in agreement on the general tendency of trade unionism to: mediate workers struggles with capital, that is, to dissuade _from_ self activity and instead _towards_ representation, alienation… should we be fighting to rebuild and reinvent social democracy anew?
> 
> I’m approaching this with a genuinely open mind as it is clear that there are many elements in the profound defeat of the old working class and the reorganisiation of the economy > to the service sector, that suggest a renaissance of syndicalism in some form might once again become a viable form, in the medium term anyway. Now Im not a syndicalist, but I can recognise that is a feature that can offer seductive possibilities



You and I are singing from the same hymn sheet i think. Unions aren't static to my mind, their political approach at any time varies depending on who wins and who looses the battles within them. Sometimes you can push unions in directions you'd like them to go, sometimes you can't. They aren't revolutionary organisations - true enough, but that doesn't mean they can't be very useful organisations.
For me its not really about trying to re-build social democracy, but trying to win some victories, 'cos without a couple of victories under our belt, we ain't got nuttin.


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## Top Dog (Nov 23, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> True enough, I agree with you. I actually haven't read much of their work - any idea where I should start?


its come up the odd time on here, but Dalla Costa's _The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community_ i think is a very good intro (and iirc i think Butchers was scanning this some time back). 

You could also have a look for Fortunati's _Arcane of Reproduction_. Havent read it yet, and much more recent is Federici's _Caliban and the Witch_ is supposed to be very good.


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## butchersapron (Nov 23, 2005)

(I have it scanned, it's in doc for anyone who wants it - it was supposed to go on the class against class site, but for various reasons hasn't - give me a minute to get the link)

Yep, Caliban and the Witch is a great book.

Right click and save here (Doc link warning, it's fine though):

http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/Subversion_of_Community_complete1.rtf


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## newbie (Nov 23, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> But it would be good to discuss some of these differences (or in fact any similarites) in much more detail... it is clear that research, inquiry etc. is an important an element to this.




Judgedread said "Insecurity was a deliberate tactic adopted by capital to make people less likely to struggle." That's true for the service workers: but the knowledge workers have been demanding flexibility because in fast moving industries the freelances make the most money.

This has been a very good thread, and I hope it doesn't get derailed, but for me it's been missing the recognition that increasing numbers of people expect to be able to run their lives on their own terms, with potential for success or for failure.  

Whilst being, in some ways, victims of malign forces well beyond control many people actively seek the rewards of meritocratic individualism. Juggling money/time work/life, and marching to the beat of your own drum are attractive life choices, but only for those who want them (in much the same way as a job for life is attractive, but only for those it wouldn't send completely spare). Part of the impulse that been driving this trend towards casualisation has come from the bottom up, as people have demanded control over their own lives.


_Both_ these experiences are important: those who are purely victims of insecurity and those seeking the rewards of flexibility, they're two sides of the coin.


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## catch (Nov 23, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> (I have it scanned, it's in doc for anyone who wants it - it was supposed to go on the class against class site, but for various reasons hasn't - give me a minute to get the link)
> 
> Yep, Caliban and the Witch is a great book.
> 
> ...



now here for rtf hatas

http://libcom.org/library/power-women-subversion-community-della-costa-selma-james


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## butchersapron (Nov 23, 2005)

Cheers catch. (I'd still like to know if that post by Monte was a pisstake or not as well).


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## sovietpop (Nov 23, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Right click and save here (Doc link warning, it's fine though):
> http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/Subversion_of_Community_complete1.rtf



What a service! Thank you very much. 
One of my comrades is reading Caliban at the moment, I'm next on the list to get it. But it does sound like a very arkane topic - but she's enjoying it.


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## catch (Nov 23, 2005)

> "Insecurity was a deliberate tactic adopted by capital to make people less likely to struggle."



Capital isn't a person, nor is it a group of people, and it therefore can't do things deliberately. And newbie points out that the move towards flexibility is a result of class antagonism from both directions.


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## Judgedread (Nov 23, 2005)

_Both_ these experiences are important: those who are purely victims of insecurity and those seeking the rewards of flexibility, they're two sides of the coin.[/QUOTE]

Yeh spot on newbie, although a lot of people probably fall into both categories. After all, the struggles of the sixties and seventies in the west were all about going beyond the job for life, welfare settlement of the post-war period. People wanted more flexible lives and didn't want work as a life sentence. Perhaps part of the reason people were able to push struggles in that direction was the relative security of the time. The expansion of higher education meant lots of students with time on their hands and getting sacked from a job isn't such a big deal if there's another to walk into. Then again you can also see anarcho-punk of the early eighties as a tactic to take advantage of the expansion of unemployment to regain time and flexibility.

One of the advantages of precarity as a concept is that you don't have to look back at the welfare state with rose tinted (NHS) glasses; you can also see the potential in precarity. Hence that slogan on a banner at the ESF march in London "Against precarity, Reclaim flexibility" alright not that catchy but you get the idea.

One of the things I'm interested in is the role social centres could play as a space for things to coalesce when work places are smaller, people change jobs more often and there’s no public space anymore. The problem then becomes how do we stop social centres becoming subcultural and the like. It’s no coincidence that a lot of this precarity stuff comes from social centre experiences in Italy and Spain.


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## Judgedread (Nov 23, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Capital isn't a person, nor is it a group of people, and it therefore can't do things deliberately. And newbie points out that the move towards flexibility is a result of class antagonism from both directions.



Of course, Catch, capital is a social relation. Although sometimes to save time people might talk of capital as one pole of that relationship. You know I occasionally slip into that myself. It would have been more accurate of me to say that the re-introduction of insecurity/precariousness was a strategy that a group of people deliberately devised and tried to create a hegemony around. (Some of those people used to meet in the Carlton club in the early seventies). They were so successful at it and neo-liberalism became such an orthodoxy that it almost appears that capital had deliberately decided on that strategy. But again you are right they were pushing against an open door because some people within some social movements had already been experimenting with more flexible lives and struggling against the bureaucratic nature of the welfare state. They were only successfull and the strategy made sense to the monetarists because of the state of class struggle at the time.


----------



## catch (Nov 24, 2005)

Judgedread said:
			
		

> Of course, Catch, capital is a social relation. Although sometimes to save time people might talk of capital as one pole of that relationship. You know I occasionally slip into that myself.



Me too, but I thought it worth picking up on.


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## newbie (Nov 24, 2005)

Judgedread said:
			
		

> After all, the struggles of the sixties and seventies in the west were all about going beyond the job for life, welfare settlement of the post-war period. People wanted more flexible lives and didn't want work as a life sentence.



Yes.  The very act of creating cradle to grave collective provision gave rise to wave after wave of young people determined to demand their individuality.  

Now that choice and self-determination are almost taken for granted it's becoming apparent that flexible individualism works well for the successful young, dynamic and well-educated.  It can work for other groups, of course, but that's who predominantly benefit, partially because that's who has the skills most in demand and partially because those are the people who can self-exploit most easily.  A freelance lifestyle, however precarious, can lead to plucking the fruits of this society.

This means that painting precarity in a purely negative light will never chime properly with popular perception, because we can all look around us and see how beneficial _it can be_.

However as age, family commitments, or waning success (always someone younger and hungrier snapping at the heels) begin to bite the drawbacks of a precarious lifestyle look far less positive.  Living by the sword can also mean early burnout with precious little team player, corporate prospects (to mix metaphors without mercy).  Name your own price freelancing is a bit different from make ends meet, minimum wage casual work.

The persuasions which tempt the young and fleet of foot towards being freelance and away from PAYE security are far less positive for lowskilled workers or those who are older or with language, family commitment or other inhibitors. 

So it's easy to view precarity, in opposition to job-for-life security, as a negative experience: over the course of a lifetime only a very few will have an entirely positive outcome from freelancing..  The trouble is, as they look around, most people won't believe you, because graphic designers and computer contractors are much, much more visible than those washing up or temping as security guards, or the ex-freelances sheltering in a call centre while they try to wheedle their way into a decent, secure, team player job..


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## Top Dog (Nov 24, 2005)

newbie said:
			
		

> A freelance lifestyle, however precarious, can lead to plucking the fruits of this society.
> 
> This means that painting precarity in a purely negative light will never chime properly with popular perception, because we can all look around us and see how beneficial _it can be_.
> 
> ...


some interesting points newbie. 

However id be cautious of drawing _too optimistic _ a picture of the + long term possibilities (say of freelancing) as new sectors of the economy (the _creative_ industries) are _not so new _ anymore and are increasingly saturated. Reduction of core costs (wage bill, contractors fees) employers will argue is the only viable means to keep their businesses solvent... And these days _everyone's_ a web designer, solutions are increasingly _software_ focused (deskilling the techies the aim), the sector has been laying people off, the advertising market has been on its uppers for a long while now and all this in a time of supposed growth and consumer spending... In short these industries will see/are seeing wages pushed down and job / long term security is i think becoming more of an issue. 

<puts crystal ball back in drawer>


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## newbie (Nov 24, 2005)

I agree entirely that that's the projected reality, but the perception of freelance/contractor flexibility bringing rewards will take a long time to dispel.

In any industry where a flexible workforce gains an upper hand, or even a particularly strong one, capital will fight to reassert itself- just look at computer contractors during the Y2K bug frenzy which was followed almost immediately by the near collapse of the sector through IR35 and outsourcing to India etc.  

The difficulties and illusions that surround precarious working practices apply almost as much to those taking immediate rewards as to those who are more obviously victims. But concentrating only on the latter, as much of this thread has, creates theory which ignores both the demand for and the benefits of flexible lifestyles.  That's at odds with observation: personally I expect theory to describe reality without ignoring inconveniences which don't fit.


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## Top Dog (Nov 24, 2005)

newbie said:
			
		

> But concentrating only on the latter, as much of this thread has, creates theory which ignores both the demand for and the benefits of flexible lifestyles.  That's at odds with observation: personally I expect theory to describe reality without ignoring inconveniences which don't fit.


well i didnt outline the condition in terms of 'victimhood' in the OP, in fact what _interests_ me are the ambiguities that the situation poses within and between sectors; and to look at strategies to deal with it as part of the discussion. 

So as its taken til now for someone raise the issue of precarity as a +ive("reclaim flexibility"), im just as happy to investigate this


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## newbie (Nov 24, 2005)

I hope what I wrote didn't read as a dig, that wasn't intentional if it did.


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## catch (Nov 24, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> So as its taken til now for someone raise the issue of precarity as a +ive("reclaim flexibility"), im just as happy to investigate this



I mentioned the term "flexicurity" a page or so ago.

not positively though of course.


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## sovietpop (Nov 24, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> So as its taken til now for someone raise the issue of precarity as a +ive("reclaim flexibility"), im just as happy to investigate this



yeah, I don't know quite where you end up investigating the"+"ve of flexiblity . Actually what I think you'd end up is showing that the imagined posititives were short lived and turned into a negatitive - except for the very few who become the exception that everyone aspires to be.

I did some research a couple of years ago on IT workers, during the computer boom in Ireland. And I think  I unconciously decided to look at them because I reckoned that if you are going to find examples of workers using their labour market strength anywhere, you'll find it there. And I did find lots and lots of examples of employees using flexibility in their own interests and winning back their time. Actually one of the most interesting things that came up was the amount of people who had plans to escape work altogether (to make music, to write a book, to become a gardener, to do nothing).

But now looking at these same people a couple of years later? They haven't escaped work*, in fact they are working harder. They all are on pretty good incomes in Irish terms, but almost all working to pay off huge mortgages- only those in relationships with two incomes can actually afford the mortages in the first place.  Perhaps some of them feel they were sold a pup, and are bitter, but there isn't a sense of very much power or control over their lives (or at least that's my impression).

So I don't know, are there any other angles I'm missing? Who is it that both desires flexiblity and benefits from it?

* in fact someone joked to me recently that every electonic dj and producer in Ireland in the 1990s now seemed to be training to be a systems administrator.


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## newbie (Nov 24, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> But now looking at these same people a couple of years later? They haven't escaped work*, in fact they are working harder. They all are on pretty good incomes in Irish terms, but almost all working to pay off huge mortgages- only those in relationships with two incomes can actually afford the mortages in the first place.  Perhaps some of them feel they were sold a pup, and are bitter, but there isn't a sense of very much power or control over their lives (or at least that's my impression).
> 
> So I don't know, are there any other angles I'm missing? Who is it that both desires flexiblity and benefits from it?




well from your own example, people who seek pretty good incomes so that they can pay off huge mortgages. Or to put it another way, those that reckon they can buy a bigger, better house if they take risks, work hard and grasp opportunities.  

The alternative, which may mean working less hard and may be more secure, is a steady job.  They know the job won't enable them to buy _that_ house, drive _that_ car and take _that_ holiday.  Add to that the understanding that no job is really secure, many involve large amounts of (unpaid?) very hard work, and rely on the promise of career advancement which may never be delivered.  

So faced with the choice of rewards now or promises of milk and honey in years to come, many opt to trust their own abilities and live on their wits.


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## sovietpop (Nov 24, 2005)

newbie said:
			
		

> well from your own example, people who seek pretty good incomes so that they can pay off huge mortgages. Or to put it another way, those that reckon they can buy a bigger, better house if they take risks, work hard and grasp opportunities.
> 
> The alternative, which may mean working less hard and may be more secure, is a steady job.  They know the job won't enable them to buy _that_ house, drive _that_ car and take _that_ holiday.  Add to that the understanding that no job is really secure, many involve large amounts of (unpaid?) very hard work, and rely on the promise of career advancement which may never be delivered.
> 
> So faced with the choice of rewards now or promises of milk and honey in years to come, many opt to trust their own abilities and live on their wits.



except, except, except. The milk and honey they dreamt of was getting out of work altogether and pursuing their dreams, not getting a house, a car and a holiday. And the houses they bought aren't the big houses, but the  small house in suburb they can afford ( or a big house with a one and a half hour commute) (same goes with the cars and the holidays - these people aren't the ones in BMW, jetting off to goa).  

I just wonder is the idea of a positive spin on flexibity more the internalisation of a logic that suits capitalism, than something that many people actually experience in their own lives. I really don't know. That's why I was looking for other examples.


[there were two exceptions, two blokes who did become very wealthy, but strangely neither of them had the dreams of escape and being a computer programmer is/was very central to their sence of identity]


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## newbie (Nov 24, 2005)

I don't know about 'very wealthy' but I know plenty of people who've done reasonably well out of grafting on their own account, rather than working for the man.  

For your contractors have contemporaries, with similar education and skills, working in similar industries, but in more secure, traditional employment.  Doubtless dreaming of giving up work, too, with much the same probability    They also probably work harder than they used to, don't drive BMWs or have huge houses, don't get to Goa, but comparatively... well if the freelances aren't earning more, and with more control, then they're struggling (or they're all young enough to still be dreaming).


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## montevideo (Nov 25, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> i was aware of the T&G initiative. I wasnt aware _you_ were involved in it... so when you say you have been part of this new direction, in what ways? What work have you been doing? what was the brief? what 'others' were involved (i know one or two)? how were you 'recruited'? did they apporoach you or you them?



aye, strings & bows & all that. One of the full time organisers (who's leaving) wanted to get a team behind her before she left. Word got round, through mutual friends, she was looking for politically committed hands-on people, & some of us were invited to an informal gathering at her house. It was very informal (although felt slightly contrived) getting to know other organisers, trainee organisers, & other interested people.  We'd be full time fully paid organisers for the t & g.

We left with the invitiation to go out with some organisers one night (trying to recruit the tube cleaners at the minute) to get used to the role, find out what exactly the jobs entails, our responsibilites & expectations etc. She was trying to get across the concept of bringing an "activist mentality" into organising (& recruiting) those who work in fragmented, fractured employment as a way of getting them a) to engage with the unions & b) organise themselves collectively.

The idea sounds fine in principle & i think it was deliberately pitched that way to appeal to us, although how much influence the union will have over our activities was neatly avoided. 

I imagine you know our northern correspondence getting involved with the polish workers up there?


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## Top Dog (Nov 25, 2005)

*some observations on positives of 'flexibility' and escaping work*




			
				sovietpop said:
			
		

> I just wonder is the idea of a positive spin on flexibity more the internalisation of a logic that suits capitalism, than something that many people actually experience in their own lives. I really don't know. That's why I was looking for other examples.


*Apologies before i begin as im going to go a little abstract on y'all for a minute... * 

the thing we're really talking about here is the capacity for small groups of proletarians to find the means to subtract themselves from producing value... there are several things about this:

1) self evidently we _cannot_ abolish work until we've abolished capitalism - so in a sense there always exists in these tendencies the danger that they are simply peripheral to capital and accomodated within capital... we know well the problems of marginalisation, ghettoisation, recuperation of struggles & social experiments, etc. etc. However;

2) if we agree that revolution is not encapsulated in an _event_ but is a _process_ (we are not leninists) then it is clear that redefining and reconstructing social relations - communist social relations - is central to this process. Marxists and Anarchists have to some degree absented themselves from addressing this question: how do we at once _transform_ our social relationships whilst simultaneously _waiting_ for the 'masses' to rise up (where we bide our time by issuing agit-prop as _our_ form of activity) For _it is_ the case that without a significant section of working class won over to the idea of a better life, the danger is that it we amount to no more than that in point 1 above. But this is only a partial truth. Its a circular problem... and this roadblock creates inertia on creative thinking for those interested in such things

3) the strategy of the refusal (of work) in the 70s was an attempt to break this circularity. As has been mentioned already this strategy grew in use across italy and elsewhere and reflected the desire to break away from the post war consensus, to be free from work, to live rather than to exist, to get their jam today and fuck waiting for tomorrow. Some will describe such strategies as elevating vanguardist notions of struggle > priveleging certain workers with revolutionary potential because of the work they do, rather than the working class as a whole. 

4) the lessons from this strategy (and more to the point this movement) leave us with with an understanding of the dangers of what happens when it gets detached from its base (when autonomia was no longer a _part_ of the class, but separated _from it_) Whether it started with vanguardism is a moot point, but there can be little argument that thats where it ended up by the end of the 70s... 

5) But for me what is clear is that the escape from work must once again form part of any strategy aimed at escaping capitalism. It would seem inevitable that this stuff will begin in small groups and among individuals - people like us, minorities. What we need to keep in constant check is that we are not marginalising ourselves, that we are a 'big voice' in the community and we keep things open and fluid. So initiatives like social centres, physical spaces that offer support and solidarity, places where people can meet and arrange their lives without exchange are all positive moves. We cannot _invent_ class war where there is none but we can try to reconstruct how are lives are organised in the here and now with such means and be a public space already established if, and when, ever larger numbers of people find such places useful in themselves or as beacons by which we advance our interests, personal or collective.

6) What this is basically saying is that those who will critique others looking for ways to escape from work often leap to rather crass generalisations ("its activist-y", "its hippy", its not authentically "working class" "its vanguardist" and so on). In doing so they would appear to be dazzled by the _form_ and so they miss the _content_ of these desires... which for me is the part that is most useful, the only important part really


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 25, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> The idea sounds fine in principle & i think it was deliberately pitched that way to appeal to us, although how much influence the union will have over our activities was neatly avoided.






			
				montevideo said:
			
		

> We'd be full time fully paid organisers for the t & g.


Think you've answered your own question there


Notwithstanding the lessons of what happens to previous militants on 'working from within'...

Greenpeace and WDM lead the NGO's that would recuperate the _idea_ of direct action in its campaigns and media work. Cant you see that this is exaclty what the T&G would have you do?


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## montevideo (Nov 26, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> Think you've answered your own question there
> 
> 
> Notwithstanding the lessons of what happens to previous militants on 'working from within'...
> ...



it's a job. I am very skeptical about their sincerity but getting paid to encourage workers to go on strike can't be all that bad. How far i go with it depends to how much i can useful ly use the position. No illusions though.


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## Top Dog (Nov 26, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> getting paid to encourage workers to go on strike can't be all that bad.


and you reckon that's what the union are going to pay you to do?


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## rednblack (Nov 26, 2005)

sounds like jobs for the boys to me - doesnt sount that different to the communists in the thirties


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## Chuck Wilson (Nov 26, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> aye, strings & bows & all that. One of the full time organisers (who's leaving) wanted to get a team behind her before she left. Word got round, through mutual friends, she was looking for politically committed hands-on people, & some of us were invited to an informal gathering at her house. It was very informal (although felt slightly contrived) getting to know other organisers, trainee organisers, & other interested people.  We'd be full time fully paid organisers for the t & g.
> 
> We left with the invitiation to go out with some organisers one night (trying to recruit the tube cleaners at the minute) to get used to the role, find out what exactly the jobs entails, our responsibilites & expectations etc. She was trying to get across the concept of bringing an "activist mentality" into organising (& recruiting) those who work in fragmented, fractured employment as a way of getting them a) to engage with the unions & b) organise themselves collectively.
> 
> ...




Sweet baby jesus! Let me get this right , you are now a union organiser in the T&G!!! Not elected , not accountable to the membership but appointed by the trade union machinery to boost its ratings in a membership war . Well, I''ll go to Shields.


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## montevideo (Nov 26, 2005)

Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> Sweet baby jesus! Let me get this right , you are now a union organiser in the T&G!!! Not elected , not accountable to the membership but appointed by the trade union machinery to boost its ratings in a membership war . Well, I''ll go to Shields.



yep. Got any advice, you seem to have gone through a lot of unions yourself?

Ps no not a organiser yet (if i ever get that far)


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## rednblack (Nov 26, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> yep. Got any advice, you seem to have gone through a lot of unions yourself?
> 
> Ps no not a organiser yet (if i ever get that far)



i've got loads of advice mate jeezus fucking christ!

don't do it! unless you're only doing it for the money in which case fine - there are much worse ways to make a living,good luck to you...

i really can't see the t&G helping the furtherance of working class self organisation, self defence, and militancy - the best you will be able to do is sign up members of a very vulnerable section of the workforce to some basic union protections (which imo is a good thing) i really don't see how that fits into your ideas as i understood them though...


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## Chuck Wilson (Nov 26, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> yep. Got any advice, you seem to have gone through a lot of unions yourself?
> 
> Ps no not a organiser yet (if i ever get that far)



Monty, work is work as far as I am concerned but I get the feeling that what attracted yiu to this was more than just work. All that stuff about them wanting a more activist style seems to have entrapped you. I don't think you are going to be able to treat this just as a job and with no connection to your politics. One or the other is going to change.
How does this all square with all the stuff you have trotted out on here.


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## Top Dog (Nov 26, 2005)

yep - agree with RnB


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## newbie (Nov 27, 2005)

Is there a word to express the opposite of precarity?  


This article claims that General Motors "has more than 400,000 North American retirees, and $1,500 of the showroom sticker price of each of its vehicles goes towards meeting that financial burden."  They are cutting 30,000 jobs in an attempt to compete with Toyota, who have only 1000 US pensioners 'to look after'.

Is it any wonder that capital seeks a casual workforce, if this is the logic of  <opposite of precarity> working practices?


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 27, 2005)

newbie said:
			
		

> Is there a word to express the opposite of precarity?


security?


----------



## newbie (Nov 27, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> security?



I rejected that because it's as narrow as 'casual'- it covers part of the concept but not the whole of it. IMO


----------



## Thora_v1 (Nov 27, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> security?


Flexicurity?


----------



## davgraham (Nov 28, 2005)

newbie said:
			
		

> Is there a word to express the opposite of precarity?
> 
> 
> This article claims that General Motors "has more than 400,000 North American retirees, and $1,500 of the showroom sticker price of each of its vehicles goes towards meeting that financial burden."  They are cutting 30,000 jobs in an attempt to compete with Toyota, who have only 1000 US pensioners 'to look after'.
> ...




It's the unravelling of 'business unionism' and the 'Keynesian consensus' on which it was predicated.

Of course there is still a debate to be had to find out if even a majority of workers in the developed countries actually benefitted from this - somebody made the point that some kind of 'precarity'  has always existed, its merely its degree that has changed - over time, and by sector of the workforce. Would need some real research to establish the exact truth of this.


gra


----------



## newbie (Nov 28, 2005)

Truth is a bit different in hindsight than at the time.  I suspect that contemporary analysis would always show a substantial portion of the workforce in such a precarious position that no-one could suggest that workers were truly secure.  Capitalism depends on a pool of unemployed and a fear for the future amongst the employed.

Hindsight is different, if only because a lot of evidence is lost or forgotten.

Having said that there was a postwar job-for-life generation, now drawing final salary based occupational pensions, for most of whom precarity was a bit distant.  That they had to go through world war to get from 30s destitution to that level of security is not worth emulating, IMO. 

Their legacy leads to a $1500 per car price loading for a current generation being threatened with everything from environmental collapse to wholesale job transfer to China.  ie, that model wasn't sustainable.


----------



## sovietpop (Nov 28, 2005)

I haven't read all this thead but it looks interesting. It's about the split in the US trade-unions and is relevant to this discussion I think.

the future of the USA labor movement


----------



## montevideo (Nov 30, 2005)

just so happens i'm reading harry braverman's 'labour & monopoly capital' (published in 1974) which is utterly prescient in its outlook & would have the negriphobes running shitless in their desire to retain a fragment of awareness.

Sometimes i wonder just who we are talking to about what...


----------



## davgraham (Nov 30, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> just so happens i'm reading harry braverman's 'labour & monopoly capital' (published in 1974) which is utterly prescient in its outlook & would have the negriphobes running shitless in their desire to retain a fragment of awareness.
> 
> Sometimes i wonder just who we are talking to about what...




Uh? do you not mean negri_philes_? I've followed Negri's evolution from a thinker within a mass movement - a movement that developed its own terms like 'mass worker' which he added real meaning to - to an academic whose categories are now so bland and so amorphous as to be devoid any real life and possibly - meaning.

Braverman, despite the obigatory reference to his MR colleagues Baran and Sweezy, remains solidly rooted in a material reality. It is a real pleasure to go back to his work, despite his Trot leanings.

Labour and Monopoly Capital was required reading for many in Autonomia after it was published - 1974 I think. Not sure about the 'prescience' you refer to - care to elaborate?

Gra


----------



## montevideo (Dec 5, 2005)

davgraham said:
			
		

> Uh? do you not mean negri_philes_? I've followed Negri's evolution from a thinker within a mass movement - a movement that developed its own terms like 'mass worker' which he added real meaning to - to an academic whose categories are now so bland and so amorphous as to be devoid any real life and possibly - meaning.
> 
> Braverman, despite the obigatory reference to his MR colleagues Baran and Sweezy, remains solidly rooted in a material reality. It is a real pleasure to go back to his work, despite his Trot leanings.
> 
> ...



as braverman says in his book he was attempting to document the 'transformation of work in the modern era'. Two significant chapters under the heading of 'the growing working class occupations' - clerical workers & service occupations (retail trade), gives a indication that these types of employment would have a significance in the labour market in years to come (as you say labour & monopoly capital was published in 1974 when manufacturing was king & heavy industry still hadn't lost its influence & impact on workplace struggles).

I think braverman 'empirical' assessment compliments negri's more theorectical flights of fancy. Which is why i think those terrified of negri's current turn would be unhappy with what braverman had to say way back in 74.


----------



## Top Dog (Dec 5, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> as braverman says in his book he was attempting to document the 'transformation of work in the modern era'. Two significant chapters under the heading of 'the growing working class occupations' - clerical workers & service occupations (retail trade), gives a indication that these types of employment would have a significance in the labour market in years to come (as you say labour & monopoly capital was published in 1974 when manufacturing was king & heavy industry still hadn't lost its influence & impact on workplace struggles).
> 
> I think braverman 'empirical' assessment compliments negri's more theorectical flights of fancy. Which is why i think those terrified of negri's current turn would be unhappy with what braverman had to say way back in 74.


i dont see how you make the leap from the one to the other... unless your argument is that braverman identified the multitude as a category while the 'social' worker was still the currency of the day? is that what you're saying?


----------



## montevideo (Dec 5, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> i dont see how you make the leap from the one to the other... unless your argument is that braverman identified the multitude as a category while the 'social' worker was still the currency of the day? is that what you're saying?



i think the complimentary aspect is braverman is wrestling with the idea that the factory worker (the traditional industrial proletariat), no longer plays the central role within the conflict of capitalism. Yes, to him the working class exists (as a class), but it is in the process of transformation - clerical labour (as he calls it) is largely the product of monopoly capitalism. So braverman identifies clerical labour (or immaterial labour in the negrian sense) & service industries as a 'new' form of capitalist relations, that will become dominant given 'the completion by capital of the conquest of goods-producing activities'. 

I think the key word is _compliments_ rather than concrete or direct comparisons.


----------



## revol68 (Dec 5, 2005)

nothing to add other than Negri's theory of the multitude and his fascination with immaterial (which is impossible) labour says much much more about his own past of fetishing the factory worker than it does about present day social relations.


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## catch (Dec 5, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> i think the complimentary aspect is braverman is wrestling with the idea that the factory worker (the traditional industrial proletariat), no longer plays the central role within the conflict of capitalism.


People were saying that long before 1974, Bookchin for a start.



> So braverman identifies clerical labour (or immaterial labour in the negrian sense) & service industries as a 'new' form of capitalist relations,


What's new about clerical labour in 1974? It'd been going on for long time up to then.


----------



## revol68 (Dec 5, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> People were saying that long before 1974, Bookchin for a start.
> 
> 
> What's new about clerical labour in 1974? It'd been going on for long time up to then.



oh shut the fuck up about the senile ole cunt!


----------



## catch (Dec 5, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> oh shut the fuck up about the senile ole cunt!


I can't help it


----------



## Top Dog (Dec 5, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> i think the complimentary aspect is braverman is wrestling with the idea that the factory worker (the traditional industrial proletariat), no longer plays the central role within the conflict of capitalism.






			
				catch said:
			
		

> People were saying that long before 1974


Quite. In fact isnt that what Negri et al had been formulating in their conception of the end of the _mass_ worker and the arrival of the _socialised_ worker prior to 1974? 

And as for clerical labour... thats not an interchangeable term for immaterial labour... it is still entirely possible to be producing value as a clerical worker for a start


----------



## revol68 (Dec 5, 2005)

sorry but Negri doesn't hold that the immaterial doesn't produce value so i fail to see your point.

Infact the one good thing i take from Negri is that he decentres value production away from individual occupations/points in production into a generalised social factory.


----------



## sovietpop (Dec 5, 2005)

yeah I thought immaterial labour refered to a type of work ie knowledge work or work based on the production of symbols or work based on emotional labour and affect. 

but I could be wrong and I'm not going all the way upstairs to check.

(and if I'm right I think its too big a catagory to be useful)


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 5, 2005)

or he _did_ anyway. Hasn't he abandoned that as well now, and gone for this "multitude" thingy?


----------



## montevideo (Dec 5, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> Quite. In fact isnt that what Negri et al had been formulating in their conception of the end of the _mass_ worker and the arrival of the _socialised_ worker prior to 1974?
> 
> And as for clerical labour... thats not an interchangeable term for immaterial labour... it is still entirely possible to be producing value as a clerical worker for a start



the point being negri's rests in the theoretical zone, braverman's very much in the empirical zone. 

Which maybe become clearer after you've read labour & monopoly capital.


----------



## Top Dog (Dec 6, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> sorry but Negri doesn't hold that the immaterial doesn't produce value so i fail to see your point.


this is true... the point i dashed off at great haste, and made a spectacular balls up of, was that immaterial labour greys the whole area of what constitutes 'work' in the formal sense... (what _i_ called 'producing value'  was intended only to differentiate 'work' of the fordist factory - of which there were also great armies of clerical workers - from the immateriality of free time/work time, brain work etc. that is all a continuum of production _beyond_ the factory gates

The point i was responding to (and which still holds), being that clerical work is _not_ the same thing as immaterial labour - it is not a type of job, or a job sector, but a condition that has subsumed all of life... hence i dont think monte's description of braverman as 'prescient' of the multitudes or whatever holds any water. He was the contemporary of a 70s negri, not in advance of a 21st century negri imo


----------



## montevideo (Dec 6, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> this is true... the point i dashed off at great haste, and made a spectacular balls up of, was that immaterial labour greys the whole area of what constitutes 'work' in the formal sense... (what _i_ called 'producing value'  was intended only to differentiate 'work' of the fordist factory - of which there were also great armies of clerical workers - from the immateriality of free time/work time, brain work etc. that is all a continuum of production _beyond_ the factory gates
> 
> The point i was responding to (and which still holds), being that clerical work is _not_ the same thing as immaterial labour - it is not a type of job, or a job sector, but a condition that has subsumed all of life... hence i dont think monte's description of braverman as 'prescient' of the multitudes or whatever holds any water. He was the contemporary of a 70s negri, not in advance of a 21st century negri imo



hang on don't put words in my mouth. I haven't mentioned 'multitude'. Read it again. Plus i say clerical labour & do not compare clerical _work_ with immaterial labour. 

"Clerical labour is largely the product of the period of monopoly capitalism".  Thus he makes explicit clerical labour is a 'new' phenomenon.  (Naturally clerical workers have been around since the emergence of capitalism but it has taken on a new form which braverman is exploring). His chapter on clerical workers goes into great detail, from its composition, recomposition to present day formation, he uses to the term 'pure clerical industries'; banking corporations that produce nothing - & this is where clerical labour takes on the mold of immaterial labour (in the nergrian sense) - it is the organisation of information, people are paid not to produce goods, but to produce 'knowledge', as he himself says clerical labour is a result not a cause of surplus value.

Braverman is prescient because in exploring 'the transformation of work in the modern era' he chooses clerical workers & service industries as the forefront of that transformation (nothing to do with 'the multitude') given this was pre-thatcher & reagan i'd say that was pretty prescient wouldn't you.


----------



## Top Dog (Dec 6, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> hang on don't put words in my mouth. I haven't mentioned 'multitude'. Read it again. Plus i say clerical labour & do not compare clerical _work_ with immaterial labour.


No thats true you dont mention that word. What you say is: 






			
				montevideo said:
			
		

> Which is why i think those terrified of negri's current turn would be unhappy with what braverman had to say way back in 74.


So maybe you better expand on what you mean by his *current turn* if its not in multitudes?




			
				montevideo said:
			
		

> Braverman is prescient because in exploring 'the transformation of work in the modern era' he chooses clerical workers & service industries as the forefront of that transformation (nothing to do with 'the multitude') given this was pre-thatcher & reagan i'd say that was pretty prescient wouldn't you.


except that it was in the socialised worker (also pre-thatcher & reagan) that a similar attempt to identify a new social subject was developed - putting a sector of the proletariat at the 'forefront', as you say - and so a lot of what braverman was saying here was contemporary with the areas autonomia were examining

That said, Im not saying that Braverman does not have some interesting stuff to say, (tho its been a good 5 years or so since i picked up _Labour & monopoly capitalism_...) so maybe its time to revisit him


----------



## montevideo (Dec 6, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> No thats true you dont mention that word. What you say is: So maybe you better expand on what you mean by his *current turn* if its not in multitudes?



Immaterial labour being the hegemonic form of labour.

All that said braverman says things that would make the hardest of negriphiles shudder. And all the better for it.


----------



## catch (Dec 6, 2005)

> Immaterial labour being the hegemonic form of labour.


Do you think that then?


----------



## revol68 (Dec 6, 2005)

well it's hegemonic in that management, hiring, firing, finance and accounting organise the production process. Of course we could always point out that such planning takes place within very material limits eg time, space, labour intensity blah blah.


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## catch (Dec 6, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> well it's hegemonic in that management, hiring, firing, finance and accounting organise the production process. Of course we could always point out that such planning takes place within very material limits eg time, space, labour intensity blah blah.



Hegemonic in that sense (and since when hasn't management/hiring/firing organised the production process), isn't the same as a "new proletarian subject". According to Aufheben, Negri includes immaterial labour as smiling at the supermarket checkout, factory workers talking to each other - none of which are management by any means. This also makes it an ahistorical category since any talking at all becomes immaterial labour since it's all value producing whether directly or not.


----------



## revol68 (Dec 6, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Hegemonic in that sense (and since when hasn't management/hiring/firing organised the production process), isn't the same as a "new proletarian subject". According to Aufheben, Negri includes immaterial labour as smiling at the supermarket checkout, factory workers talking to each other - none of which are management by any means. This also makes it an ahistorical category since any talking at all becomes immaterial labour since it's all value producing whether directly or not.



well in a foucaultian analysis could be seen as internal management, bio power. which i think is one of the more interesting aspects of Negri though like Foucault it ends up so sweeping that it becomes somewhat impotent as a conceptual tool.


----------



## butchersapron (Dec 6, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Do you think that then?



I think this sort of crude technological determinisn is dealt with and dealt with very well in Steve Wright's The Limits of Negri's Class Analysis which unfortunately no longer seems to be on the aut-op-sy website - is a is still a chapter on his book though.. Phrase mongery basically, not connected to real research - the _workers inquiry_ bit.


----------



## catch (Dec 6, 2005)

> t ends up so sweeping that it becomes somewhat impotent as a conceptual tool.


What's the point of categories, or for that matter words at all, if they can mean anything you want them to mean? I don't think it really deals with the production of value satisfactorily either.

butchers, thanks for the pointer, I'll keep an eye out for that article.


----------



## Redstar (Dec 6, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> i think the complimentary aspect is braverman is wrestling with the idea that the factory worker (the traditional industrial proletariat), no longer plays the central role within the conflict of capitalism. Yes, to him the working class exists (as a class), but it is in the process of transformation - clerical labour (as he calls it) is largely the product of monopoly capitalism. So braverman identifies clerical labour (or immaterial labour in the negrian sense) & service industries as a 'new' form of capitalist relations, that will become dominant given 'the completion by capital of the conquest of goods-producing activities'.
> 
> I think the key word is _compliments_ rather than concrete or direct comparisons.



 Is it really that new as a form of Capitalist relations? I've worked in factories producing physical goods and in service industries - at the moment I work for BT as a diags advisor repairing Broadband faults. What strikes me is that BT are forever trying to simplify the diagnostic process by hiving different parts of it off to different groups of people, breaking it down into a more simplified, reproducible process which anybody can pick up. Where there was some degree of art to the job, the corporate scientists have broken it down to simple lego-brick components that even a child could pick up. 

 Capitalism as a process is reductionistic. It's forever trying to break down and simplify working processes so that it can reproduce them easily elsewhere. But it's also alienating. I've noticed more and more of my colleagues complaining about how boring the job has become, when initially it was quite interpretive and required some degree of intuition. There's a qualitative side to it too. But the same process that Henry T Ford pioneered some 80 years ago is at work in my workplace - so what's the real difference?


----------



## sovietpop (Dec 7, 2005)

I think what Braverman was doing, that was different, was saying that this same process was also occuring in  clerical work (and that work would increasingly be in the clerical and service sector). He was also arguing against the idea that we are all becoming middle class because we work in offices.

at least I think thats what he was saying, poor memory gets the better of me. monty?


----------



## davgraham (Dec 8, 2005)

Redstar said:
			
		

> Is it really that new as a form of Capitalist relations? I've worked in factories producing physical goods and in service industries - at the moment I work for BT as a diags advisor repairing Broadband faults. What strikes me is that BT are forever trying to simplify the diagnostic process by hiving different parts of it off to different groups of people, breaking it down into a more simplified, reproducible process which anybody can pick up. Where there was some degree of art to the job, the corporate scientists have broken it down to simple lego-brick components that even a child could pick up.
> 
> Capitalism as a process is reductionistic. It's forever trying to break down and simplify working processes so that it can reproduce them easily elsewhere. But it's also alienating. I've noticed more and more of my colleagues complaining about how boring the job has become, when initially it was quite interpretive and required some degree of intuition. There's a qualitative side to it too. But the same process that Henry T Ford pioneered some 80 years ago is at work in my workplace - so what's the real difference?





This - in two paragraphs is the essence of Harry Braverman's book . . . . and it is still a very pertinent question

Gra


----------



## Top Dog (Dec 27, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> Immaterial labour being the hegemonic form of labour.


Steve Wright has a very good article on this up on Metamute






			
				Steve Wright said:
			
		

> Continued assertions that, today, we live in a knowledge economy or society raise many questions for reflection. In the next few pages, I want to discuss some aspects of these assertions, especially as they relate to the notion of immaterial labour [...]
> 
> According to this view of the world, a quite different kind of labour is currently either hegemonic amongst those with nothing to sell but their ability to work – or, at the very least, is well on the way towards acquiring such hegemony [...]
> 
> Is one sector of class composition likely to set the pace and tone in struggles against capital, or should we look instead towards the emergence of ‘strange loops … odd circuits and strange connections between and among various class sectors’ (as Midnight Notes once suggested) as a necessary condition for moving beyond ‘the present state of things’?


----------



## The Black Hand (Jan 14, 2006)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> Think you've answered your own question there
> 
> 
> Notwithstanding the lessons of what happens to previous militants on 'working from within'...
> ...



And 'working from without' has done what? 

Perhaps they do want to try new methods to recruit to the unions, it appears so on their website, but as Dave Douglass says other things ARE possible within structures. When you are at work you can change your hat, especially in those that allow some degree of autonomy, official one minute, unofficial another in official time. As you have said yourself, it is stealing time and putting it to better use. I wouldn't write it off in advance before it has been tried, especially in jobs that encourage consciousness and struggle, that would seem to me to be a somewhat mechanical Marxist position and certainly it is not a dynamic one.


----------



## Top Dog (Jan 14, 2006)

*this is pretty easy stuff to lay to rest but...*




			
				Attica said:
			
		

> Perhaps they do want to try new methods to recruit to the unions, it appears so on their website, but as Dave Douglass*** says other things ARE possible within structures.






			
				Solidarity said:
			
		

> Recuperation, of course is nothing new. What is perhaps new is the extent to which most "revolutionaries" (whether they be demanding "more nationalisation" more "self management" or "more personal freedom") are unaware of the systems ability to absorb - and in the long run benefit from - these forms of "dissent". Class society has a tremendous resilience, a great capacity to cope with "subversion", to make icons out of its iconoclasts***, to draw sustenance from those who would throttle it. Revolutionaries must constantly be aware of this strength, otherwise they will fail to see what is happening around them. If certain sacred cows (or certain previous formulations, now found to be inadequate) have to be sacrificed, we'd rather do the job ourselves...






			
				Attica said:
			
		

> I wouldn't write it off in advance before it has been tried, especially in jobs that encourage consciousness and struggle, that would seem to me to be a somewhat mechanical Marxist position and certainly it is not a dynamic one.


you're caricaturing again attica


----------



## The Black Hand (Jan 15, 2006)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> you're caricaturing again attica



And so are you. All struggle of ANY sort can be absorbed prior to the global revolution. Look at Paris May 1968. I think you and others are chasing a pure holy grail that doesn't exist! Apart from being patronising to Douglass, as if he/me are not aware that the system reproduces itself in many ways. Even situationism itself has been recouperated to an extent, and that is the ideology par excellance that would warn against issues such as the one you/we are talking about. I really don't see how you can have struggle of any sort which doesn't reproduce the [false in my opinion] dangers you are emphasising.


----------



## Top Dog (Jan 16, 2006)

Attica said:
			
		

> Apart from being patronising to Douglass, as if he/me are not aware that the system reproduces itself in many ways [...]
> 
> I really don't see how you can have struggle of any sort which doesn't reproduce the [false in my opinion] dangers you are emphasising.


Its not patronising at all, its worse than that!  I know both you and Dave have been around long enough to know the arguments for and against. And you take your choice and decide that a path on the union payroll can be conducted with some kind of political independence.  
Your line of rebuttal, that essentially, being critical of this strategy amounts to 'purism', from high up in some ivory tower doesnt wash either. Currently Im getting involved with a network of people in London that are making practical links with tube cleaners (as is monte, i think) and the lower echelons of the T&G are trying to get them organised... however, we (the group) recognise that it is important to maintain an independence... to feed in to the process where we are able and welcome people working here into ours. But that is a very different strategy to _direction_ from the union itself. And also i recognise that the _only_ reason the union are prepared to engage with 'outside tendencies' is because of their own relative weakness in this sector particularly, and in their 'market share' of the workforce generally.

Perhaps its true that these discussions are slightly abstract due to the low levels of class combativity... But I'd like to think if i was living through an explosion of class antagonism (like before or after WWI) that these essential strategic questions would not be blurred or that i would be seduced into a mediating role. Like Guy Aldred who 





> gradually fell out with the Freedom Anarchists...Their Anarchy was merely Trade Union activity which they miscalled Direct Action. Their anger knew no bounds when I insisted that Trades Unionism was the basis of Labour Parliamentarianism."


Closer to home (yours actually!) lets also remember militants like Will Lawther, Durham miner and syndicalist, who helped set up an anarchist club in his pit village and helped organise a large anarchist conference in Newcastle before WWI. He later became President of the miners union and by 1947, during a srtike:


> Mr Lawther, [...] told the strikers they were "acting as criminals at this time of the nation's peril". He actually invited the Coal Board to prosecute: "Let them issue summonses against these men, no matter how many there may be. I would say that even though there were 100,000 on strike."(Daily Mail, 29/8/47) [...] What some of the miners think of these swollen-headed gentlemen may be judged by the words "Burn Will Lawther" painted up at the entrance to the Grimethorpe colliery...


No one is above the dangers of being seduced into a mediation role.


----------



## The Black Hand (Jan 16, 2006)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> Its not patronising at all, its worse than that!  I know both you and Dave have been around long enough to know the arguments for and against. And you take your choice and decide that a path on the union payroll can be conducted with some kind of political independence.
> Your line of rebuttal, that essentially, being critical of this strategy amounts to 'purism', from high up in some ivory tower doesnt wash either.
> 
> Currently Im getting involved with a network of people in London that are making practical links with tube cleaners (as is monte, i think) and the lower echelons of the T&G are trying to get them organised... however, we (the group) recognise that it is important to maintain an independence... to feed in to the process where we are able and welcome people working here into ours. But that is a very different strategy to _direction_ from the union itself. And also i recognise that the _only_ reason the union are prepared to engage with 'outside tendencies' is because of their own relative weakness in this sector particularly, and in their 'market share' of the workforce generally.
> ...




Reply to paragraph 1;
I think you misunderstand our line, I am not arguing a job on the union payroll is necessary, I look at it in a big picture (totalising) point of view. The individual is part of organised and political collective decision making beyond the union that determines strategy, and where political accountability is practiced and judged (revolutionary minority to use your lingo). 

I think your pov can be purism (and it DOES wash) if you are using your argument without practice. As you have practice you are allowed an opinion    but if you are operating outside of ordinary members orbit you can be isolated from the struggles. Now if you succeed good, but if it is outside of the debates/movement/action, then I don't see it as relevant as it has abandoned the field of struggle. Also, what accountability does unofficial organising have, if it succeeds in struggle great, but I don't see practical examples on an everyday level, or even on a rare level... DO please post up links, I do have an open mind you know.

Reply to para 2; I don't see anything here (unions at relatively low ebb argument) which necessitates a reply - if you could clarify I would be grateful.

Reply to Para 3; Then Lawther was acting as an individual with changed politics then (he sold out). This is not a criticism of the position Douglass and I hold. And we do know that unions can be shit, and are not all the same as the NUM, the point is to change it as the great man said.


----------



## Top Dog (Jan 17, 2006)

Attica said:
			
		

> Reply to paragraph 1;
> I think you misunderstand our line, I am not arguing a job on the union payroll is necessary


 i know, not _necessary_, but you were defending the idea that you could both be paid (as a union organiser) to do your job: *recruit,* and that you could go much further and if you like _subvert _ the role for which you're being paid and pursue political objectives that might run counter to your own job security/personal interests. _That_ was the basis of your challenge



			
				Attica said:
			
		

> DO please post up links, I do have an open mind you know.


its very early days and the less said on an internet forum, the better. I can PM you details if you like



			
				Attica said:
			
		

> Reply to para 2; I don't see anything here (unions at relatively low ebb argument) which necessitates a reply - if you could clarify I would be grateful.


I was simply drawing some kind of parallel with your own argument


----------



## The Black Hand (Jan 17, 2006)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> i know, not _necessary_, but you were defending the idea that you could both be paid (as a union organiser) to do your job: *recruit,* and that you could go much further and if you like _subvert _ the role for which you're being paid and pursue political objectives that might run counter to your own job security/personal interests. _That_ was the basis of your challenge
> 
> its very early days and the less said on an internet forum, the better. I can PM you details if you like
> 
> I was simply drawing some kind of parallel with your own argument



Para 1 - yes, I do think it is possible, after all the working class must want to NOT BE working class, and hence will be operating against its own rational economic (from a bourgeois pov) interests.

Para 2 - OK


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## treelover (Nov 29, 2010)

Professor Guy Standings book is out soon in paperback, 'The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class' as he says , students particulalry recognise themselves and maybe their future when they hear his arguments


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Precariat-New-Dangerous-Class/dp/1849663513

http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2009/05/18/workafterglobalisation/


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## gawkrodger (Jan 15, 2016)

Just read the Guy Standing book - bit shit ain't it, unless I've missed something?

'Watch out, the proles have lost all discipline from Fordist work-structures etc. We must paternalistically bring 'em back to proper behaviour before they are marching up and down in jackboots.' + lack of distinction between those who have nearly always been impacted by 'precarious' work and those white m-c people only know being impacted


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## butchersapron (Jan 15, 2016)

gawkrodger said:


> Just read the Guy Standing book - bit shit ain't it, unless I've missed something?
> 
> 'Watch out, the proles have lost all discipline from Fordist work-structures etc. We must paternalistically bring 'em back to proper behaviour before they are marching up and down in jackboots.' + lack of distinction between those who have nearly always been impacted by 'precarious' work and those white m-c people only know being impacted


This is what i wrote on him last week and have been telling people for years - he's not one of us. too many people see the word precariat and think he's some kind of Negri type:



> Standing takes the position that the 'precariat' are a potential fascist block of human dust waiting to happen, He confuses things like underclass (leaving aside the use of that term for now, i'm just using it to stand for un/underemployed in sink estates, low-income areas with little or no possibility of moving 'upwards', facing increasing absolute poverty, policed by the social security policy measures and no longer (or never) socialised by work (ugh)) with the precariat (skilled people on temp contracts, having to pay themselves to upgrade skills etc, often choosing to work min hours in lieu of high wages+fighting over relatively high rates of pay on individual basis). By confusing the two he ends up arguing that the former must be 'brought on board' with the serious moral society that people like him represent before they bring us all down - and that basic income may be one way to try and do this. It's paternalist top-down state-led nonsense rather a class imposition on capital and i would suggest those coming at it from the latter perspective (of it a moment of our power) use him very warily.


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## J Ed (Jan 15, 2016)

gawkrodger said:


> Just read the Guy Standing book - bit shit ain't it, unless I've missed something?
> 
> 'Watch out, the proles have lost all discipline from Fordist work-structures etc. We must paternalistically bring 'em back to proper behaviour before they are marching up and down in jackboots.' + lack of distinction between those who have nearly always been impacted by 'precarious' work and those white m-c people only know being impacted



I haven't actually read anything by Standing but I get a real sense from his lectures of an attitude of 'well it was alright when these stump-speech-away-from-being-fascist-thickos were suffering from exploitative labour conditions but now that middle-class people are suffering from unemployment things are getting serious'.


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## gawkrodger (Jan 15, 2016)

good to see I'm not the only one to have read it this way!


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