SOAS Research Online

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Abstract

In this ground-breaking book, Guy Standing offers a new perspective on work and citizenship, rejecting the labourist orientation of the 20th century. Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation marked the rise of industrial citizenship, which hinged on fictitious labour decommodification. Since the 1970s, this has collapsed. Work and labour are being revolutionized by a Global Transformation that has seen the emergence of a new class structure, including a global 'precariat', alongside unsustainable inequalities and insecurities. Guy Standing argues against paternalistic policy responses in favour of an egalitarian strategy to build occupational citizenship, founded on full freedom and basic income security in which all forms of work can flourish. The book also explores a phasing out of labour law and a re-orientation of collective bargaining towards 'collaborative bargaining', to reflect the new realities in which relationships between groups of workers are as or more important in people's working lives as those between workers and capital.