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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Guy Standing

Insecurity

Today

Strong

" I don't see basic income as a panacea, but we must have a new income distribution system. The old one has broken down irretrievably. "

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

" If I care for an elderly relative without payment, it is not work, is not counted in national income, and, as it is not labour, is not counted as work. Should my neighbour pay me to do precisely the same tasks, it would contribute to economic growth. "

" People in the precariat rely very heavily on money wages. "

" In the interests of competitiveness in a globalizing world economy, governments of all complexions introduced labour-market reforms that promoted flexibility but accentuated the precariat's insecurities. "

" The World Bank and others have been converted to conditional cash transfers (CCT). These provide poor people with cash on condition they send their children to school and for medical treatment. "

" 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. "

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

" Using political power, the elite can induce local authorities to facilitate enclosure and privatisation of land, water, and other hitherto public amenities. And they can pressurise public administrations to cut taxes, reducing financial resources for maintaining the remaining commons. "

" Every progressive movement has been built on the anger, needs, and aspirations of the emerging major class. "

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

" 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

" 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. "

" We need a new model of social protection. Let us accept that jobs are not the magic solution - and that in a globalised market, job guarantees are a false promise. Let us accept flexible labour, too. But in return, let us have a society in which everybody has a right to basic security and a more equal access to other insurance-based schemes. "

" 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. "

" The precariat faces chronic uncertainty about what to do, about what incomes to expect, about state benefits that might be their due, about their relationships, their homes, and about the occupations they can realistically expect. "

" 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. "

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

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

" The IP system is an artificial construct that excessively rewards owners of intellectual property, granting them monopolies over inventions and ideas that, in many cases, are the product of generations of thinkers and/or publicly funded research. "

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

" 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 rich and diverse commons lowers the cost of living for those who use it. And throughout history, it has been those on low incomes who gain most from the commons. "

" Every time a government minister or spokesman lauds Magna Carta, let us boo or hiss. Shame them. And let us celebrate what it really means to our history: the ability of an emerging class to make demands against the state for new liberties and rights. "

" Magna Carta only came into being in 1217, when the wording had been changed and parts of the original were extended in the Charter of the Forests. This complementary charter covered liberties granted to the common man, including rights to the commons, grazing, fishing, water, and firewood, and was perhaps the first ecological charter in history. "

" The precariatised mind is one without anchors, flitting from subject to subject, in the extreme suffering from attention deficit disorder. But it is also nomadic in its dealings with other people. "

" The evidence shows if you give people security, they become better people. They develop their talents. They become better citizens. "

" Successive governments in the U.K. have worked to create a more flexible labour market, which also meant labour insecurity. They allowed wages to drop and non-wage benefits to shrivel, creating worse inequality than statistics reveal. "

Guy Standing

Inequality

Statistics