Excerpt: /311/ Reading Club: The Precariat

Jan 6, 2023

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Is there a new 'transformative' class?

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We close of the 2022 Reading Club, and the final section on 'Neo-Feudalism', by discussing how class is changing. Through readings by Guy Standing and Ruy Braga, we ask if the precariat are the new serfs in a supposed feudal-ish social formation.

It's clear the old Fordist arrangements have broken down, so what does the working class look like today? Is it still a class in the old sense? Braga argues we are witnessing 'class struggle without class'. But why then do the precariat's revolts only target state political authority, and not property relations?

Readings:

A return of class struggle without class? Moral economy and popular resistance in Brasil, south Africa and Portugal, Ruy Braga, Sociologia & Antropologia
The Precariat: Today's Transformative Class?, Guy Standing, GTI