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" Since the crash of 2008 and during the neoliberal retrenchment known as austerity, many commentators have muttered that the left is dead, watching social democrats in their timidity lose elections and respond by becoming ever more timid and neoliberal. They deserve their defeats. "

Guy Standing

Elections

Watching

Lose

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" The primary value of a basic income would be its emancipatory effect. "

" The Magna Carta was the first class-based charter, enforced on the monarchy by the rising class. "

" 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. "

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

" Think of a public library, worth more for those who cannot afford numerous books. Think of a public waterway or fishing ground. All types of commons have imputed monetary value that together comprise a source of social income. As such, the commons reduces economic inequality and insecurity in society. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Capital is taxed much less than labour; subsidies going to capital, the rich, and middle-income earners greatly exceed the benefits going to the precariat and underclass. "

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

" Chronic insecurity will not be overcome by minimum wage laws, tax credits, means-tested benefits, or workfare. "

" Since all political parties blame the others for the economic mess, it is unfair to attribute unemployment to individual behaviour. "

" Globalisation, technological change, and the move to flexible labour markets has channelled more and more income to rentiers - those owning financial, physical, or so-called intellectual property - while real wages stagnate. "

" 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

" Twentieth-century welfare state capitalism was historically unique in that national income was split between wages and profits, labour and capital. "

" Although the precariat does not consist simply of victims, since many in it challenge their parents' labouring ethic, its growth has been accelerated by the neoliberalism of globalisation, which put faith in labour market flexibility, the commodification of everything, and the restructuring of social protection. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Think of how much time is spent looking and applying for jobs. Some of those who have read my book on the precariat have told me they have applied for thousands of jobs. This is scarcely leisure; it is work. "

Guy Standing

Think

Time