Well, the book is about the global transformation we're experiencing, we're at a particular
crisis point, and we have to understand historically why the crisis is producing a new class structure.
And essentially what happened was back in the 1980s the neoliberals took command of
the economic policy and strategy and they have led to a global market system taking
shape. And in the process what's been happening is that we've expanded the global labor market,
put huge downward pressure on our living standards in Europe, and produce a new class
structure. That's the background. The class structure is not the 99% 1% that occupy movement
and indignados like to focus on. It's more complex than that. We've got a plutocracy
at the top of a disgustingly rich and powerful billionaires and multi-billionaires. A long
way below that you've got a salariat as I call it, people who've still got employment
security and so on. The old working class the proletariat is shrinking and it's the
prokaryat that is growing. And the prokaryat is a dangerous class in the sense that it
rejects the old political ideologies of the 20th century. And you can define the prokaryat
as a combination of factors. There are millions of people, young and not so young, who are
having three factors. One is that they are being habituated, subject to pressures, to
accept a life of unstable labor and unstable living in which they are expected to have
casual jobs in and out of jobs and unemployment. But more importantly, without any occupational
identity, any occupational narrative to give to their lives. And they have to do a lot
of work that doesn't get counted. A lot of that is unpaid, it's a form of exploitation.
And at the same time they find that their level of education is above the level of labor
that they have to do. So that's one characteristic. The second characteristic is that they have
to rely mainly on money wages. They don't get any benefits. They don't get any rights
based benefits, state benefits. And they're living on the edge of debt, unsustainable
debt. One mistake, one little mishap, and they're out and homeless and so on. And the
third thing that is very important is that this is a first class that is losing rights.
Losing the ordinary rights of a citizen and they're being turned into supplicants, asking
for favours, having to satisfy bureaucrats, always being under control. And the combination
of circumstances is producing what I call the 4As, anomy, a sense of despair, alienation,
a sense that they can't do what they would like to do and have to do a lot of things
they don't want to do, a sense of anxiety, and a sense of anger. And this anger is very
transformative potentially because it's a new dangerous class in that it rejects the
old social democracy, labourist agendas of the 20th century, but is not wanting to accept
the neoliberalism. It is rejecting both and looking for an alternative. And the interesting
thing since 2011 is that the precariat has now suddenly becoming a class for itself.
And what that means is millions of people, instead of seeing themselves as failures,
instead of seeing themselves as having deficiencies, they are suddenly seeing the structures out
there and are recognising themselves as part of the precariat. And they can stand up and
say I am proud, I belong to precariat, I have nothing to be ashamed about, that is the system
wanting me to be like this. I am not an underclass, I am not a member of the underclass, and that
is important because only when millions of people become aware that they are part of
a class can they come together and start forging a new politics, what I call a new politics
of paradise. And I think we are in that stage now where suddenly millions of people are
identifying themselves as the precariat and the political energy is transforming it into
a new dangerous class that is threatening the state. And that I think is a very important
phase in the counter-attack. That is why we are seeing new political movements like Podemos,
like Sarisa, like the Sinistra Ecologica Libertà in Italy, like various social movements that
are coming up. These movements are shaping a new progressive politics. So in the next
few years there will be mistakes, there will be false steps, but you are seeing an agenda
and I am trying to articulate what a charter of demands on behalf of the precariat would
look like. But just as all of us who are social scientists and people who are listening and
analysing it, I am an economist so I see the economic issues, our job is to supply the
ammunition, supply the ideas for giving security and reviving a sense of future, a sense that
we can have a good society, that we can have more freedom, we can have more equality and
we can have solidarity back. And that is the agenda that we have to forge and it is up
to the new politicians, the political activists to articulate that agenda and that is basically
what the two books are about. I am often asked whether the new political movements like Podemos,
Sarisa and a number of other movements can succeed against the Troika, against the neoliberal
agenda. And the answer is we must try. And the important thing is that the precariat
must become a class for itself and it is important for the new politicians in the progressive
sphere of society to use a concept that can describe us as the people. And in doing so
they will forge a unity of purpose and only when there is a unity of purpose will that
vital change take place. Fear will change sides. For the last 30 years fear has been
on our side, we have been fearful and we have made concessions and the neoliberal hegemony
has continued. Now only if we become a united social force for change saying sa sufi enough
is enough and demand change will fear change sides again. And that I think is where we
are and why it is so vitally important to see this in international terms. Collectively
we have strength if we make the people who are the plutocracy and the elites making all
this money in the financial markets and elsewhere make them realize that they have to change.
They have to move away from things like quantitative easing which is a way of enriching the financial
markets and the trillion euros that is going to be spent a little bit will trickle down
perhaps. But the incomes in the financial markets will be boosted. They have to start
realizing that they cannot spend the money like that and not face social consequences.
And the social consequences will be that we get angrier and angrier not become revolutionary
in an infantile sense but be demanding changes in such a way that they will have to start
making concessions. And it is about time because the inequalities are grotesque. The insecurities
are grotesque. They are unacceptable and they are unsustainable for the reasons I mentioned
earlier including the fact that this neo-fascist movement out there is growing in strength
and is a threat to all of us. So I think we do have to realize that what movements like
Podemos and Syriza are doing is setting out on a journey in a sense that they of course
will make mistakes but we must support such movements because they are breaking the acceptance
which has been too long part of social democracy, labor parties and so on. They have accommodated
to the neoliberal agenda without confronting it and this is now a point where we must confront
it.
