Prekariát

Standing's now-famous book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2012) is the first account of a fast-growing social class that includes people exposed to economic insecurity and condemned to rotate between meaningless and low-paying "jobs" with no opportunity for professional advancement. The author describes the emergence of this class and its growth against the backdrop of the crisis of the globalisation process. The precariat, Standing argues, represents a source of potential social instability, since its internal ambivalence and lack of representation in public decision-making can plunge it into the arms of political extremism and encourage it to attack the weakest and most vulnerable groups. Prevention against these gloomy prospects, according to the author, lies in a fundamental rethinking of the concept of work, in the possibility of active leisure and in the introduction of a universal basic income.

Czech edition