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" Across Europe, not just in the U.K., the old Beveridge and Bismarckian variants of the welfare state have been dismantled. In their place has been erected a mish-mash of means-tested, behaviour-tested social assistance, with a growing tendency to force young unemployed into workfare schemes, which are helping to depress real wages. "

Guy Standing

Force

Place

Young

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" Think how modern economics presents work. Only labour that contributes to growth counts. "

" In the old 20th-century income distribution system, the shares of income going to capital, mainly in profits, and labor, in wages and non-wage benefits, were roughly stable. But that system is no more. "

Guy Standing

Wages

Old

" The precariat is today's mass class, which is both dangerous, in rejecting old political party agendas, and transformative, in wanting to become strong enough to be able to abolish itself, to abolish the conditions of insecurity and inequality that define it. "

" In 1936, John Maynard Keynes predicted the 'euthanasia of the rentier' before the end of the 20th century. It did not happen. "

" Growth in village economies is often ignored. It should not be. "

" Many low-income people in the U.S.A. charged with a crime opt to plead guilty to a lesser offence because they cannot afford to go to trial. "

Guy Standing

Because

Crime

" What distinguishes a commons is that it is not private property, does not have a price, and is oriented towards 'use value' rather than 'exchange value.' It does not exist to generate profits. "

" A primary justification for a basic income is social justice. "

" If you had a basic income, it would mean that everybody would have a base on top of which their earned income would be taxed at the standard rate of tax. That would increase the incentive to take low-wage jobs. "

" The precariat has been losing cultural rights in that those in it feel they cannot and do not belong to any community that gives them secure identity or a sense of solidarity and reciprocity, of mutual support. "

" A multi-tier social protection system must be based on a modest basic income so as to enable the precariat to build lives involving a balance of different types of work, not just labour in jobs. "

" What we need is a slow time movement to gain control over time and an overhaul of work statistics to give a better perspective on all the work being done and how much of it is undesirable, unnecessary, and demeaning. "

" A person looking after a frail former lover is not working and not contributing to economic growth. But if he or she stopped, the state would probably have to take over, thereby adding to growth. So, to increase growth, we should stop looking after our loved ones. Could anybody explain to a passing Martian how this makes sense? "

" Sanctions and workfare make it easier for employers to impose insecure practices on desperate people. "

" People, in general, want to improve their lives and the lives of their children and other loved ones. "

" Chronically insecure people easily lose their altruism, tolerance, and respect for non-conformity. If they have no alternative on offer, they can be led to attribute their plight to strangers in their midst. "

" People in the precariat find themselves in the situation where the level of their education and qualifications is almost always higher than the sort of labour that they're going to be able to obtain. "

" Politicians should reflect on the well-documented fact that fearful, insecure people lose their sense of tolerance and altruism. "

" If the scale of gas is anything like the claims made by its advocates, it has major implications for the economy and British society. Besides its worrying environmental aspects, it could have adverse effects on income distribution. "

Guy Standing

Economy

Society

" The precariat consists of a growing proportion of our total society. It is being habituated to accept a life of unstable labour and unstable living. Often they're unable to say what their occupation is, because what they're doing now might be quite different from what they were doing three months ago. "

" People want to work, but they don't want to necessarily want to do labour. "

" Most existing national capital funds have been built up from royalties from oil and other minerals. They need not be limited that way. Most are anything but democratic. That could be changed. "

" Globalisation began what should be called the Great Convergence, creating a globalising labour market in which wages in emerging market economies slowly converge with wages in rich economies, generating a steady drop in real wages across Europe. "

" The precariat can be divided into three further groups - atavists, who look back to a lost past; nostalgics, who look forlornly for a present, a home; and progressives, who look for a lost future. "

" Means-tested benefits have one incredible feature in that they impose huge poverty traps. "

" Retraining for the precariat is stressful and demoralising; often, they learn new tricks only to find them obsolescent or unwanted. "

" If schooling becomes little more than preparation for the job market and consumption, it cannot produce socially responsible and altruistic citizens. "

Guy Standing

Preparation

Responsible

" Public social services, infrastructural policies, and so on are vital. But a basic income should be part of a package of reforms. "

" If you're healthier, you tend to have a lower demand for health services. "

" Nobody should be allowed to fund political parties unless they pay at least 30% tax on all income above the median wage. If that rule applied, the Tory party would be bankrupted overnight. "