Guy Standing's book: bad book

[Die Neue Zeit]

Despite all the sensationalist reviews of Guy Standing's The Precariat, I just found out today how much worse the contents of his book are:

http://www.columbia.edu/event/work-after-globalization-building-occupational-citizenship-48381.html


Guy Standing argues against paternalistic policy responses

Not so fast. What follows next is worse.


This would be based on a universal right to basic income security and institutions enabling all forms of work, including care work, to flourish. The book also explores a phasing out of labour law and a re-orientation of collective bargaining towards 'collaborative bargaining', recognising the importance of relationships between groups of workers and citizens as well as between workers and capital.

Unlike stakeholder co-management, collaborative bargaining does not stress management and seeks to close conflicts between stakeholders.

[Zanthorus]

Hold on a second, you only found out today what the contents of the book were on the basis of a page on the internet? So you've been harping on at us about the 'precariat' on the basis of a book you haven't even read and are reliant on internet reviews for info on?

[Die Neue Zeit]

See my links on the "precariat," none of which mention Guy Standing. They range from Japan commentary to Libcom.

I've read earlier papers on his re. basic income, so I know the main content of the book. I just didn't expect shit like collaborative bargaining and reviving craft unionism.

[RED DAVE]

Unlike stakeholder co-management, collaborative bargaining does not stress management and seeks to close conflicts between stakeholders.Why, one more time, would you use a term borrowed from bourgeois politics, stake-fucking-holders, to describe the situation after a proletarian revolution. The situation after the revolution will involve classes, not stakeholders. (Unless, after the revolution, we all get to hold a piece of grilled stake? :D)

Are you scared of the notion of workers power? Why else would you have been attracted to Standing's bullshit in the first place? It certainly seems so, considering that on your official European Organization for Sustainaility website, there is not one single reference to the working class.

http://www.eoslife.eu/

RED DAVE

[Gorilla]

If I were the kind of communist who went around making mental lists of who's going into the labor camps after the revolution, I'd make a little note for everyone I caught using the word "stakeholder".

[Jose Gracchus]

Hold on a second, you only found out today what the contents of the book were on the basis of a page on the internet? So you've been harping on at us about the 'precariat' on the basis of a book you haven't even read and are reliant on internet reviews for info on?

DNZ has regularly admitted he carves a lot of his stuff purely out of whatever Google Books gives him, not the actual volume read as a whole. I mean, I don't think that's really sound methodology, but since he said it openly I didn't think others thought otherwise.

DNZ, why do you think this guy would get great reviews from within the heart of the bourgeois academic establishment for a mainstream economic book. Why, without reading - from that alone - betting odds are on your side if you put your money on "lauding apologism for cutting away the gains of the working class". They love his bullshit precisely because its another clever way (to be surely implemented, if it ever is, by the liberals of the purported nice guy side of capital) to fuck the working class. Makes sure that even the mainstream ideology that labor bureaucrats may turn to in response to the outright assaults of austerity will further fuck them. They are the sappers under the walls; austerity is the battering ram at the front gate.

[Die Neue Zeit]

DNZ has regularly admitted he carves a lot of his stuff purely out of whatever Google Books gives him, not the actual volume read as a whole. I mean, I don't think that's really sound methodology, but since he said it openly I didn't think others thought otherwise.

There are key points that can be made depending on what is available on Google Books. Chapter 1 of Lih's book has much more relevance to movement-building today than, say, the chapter on the "Russian Foes of Erfurtianism." The chapter on the "A Feud Within Russian Erfurtianism" deals with Boris Krichevskii, and though Trotsky isn't mentioned, Krichevskii's line of grow-political-struggles-out-of-labour-disputes carried through to Trotsky.

Not all pages in a chapter are available, obviously, and some books have really limited preview options.


DNZ, why do you think this guy would get great reviews from within the heart of the bourgeois academic establishment for a mainstream economic book. Why, without reading - from that alone - betting odds are on your side if you put your money on "lauding apologism for cutting away the gains of the working class". They love his bullshit precisely because its another clever way (to be surely implemented, if it ever is, by the liberals of the purported nice guy side of capital) to fuck the working class. Makes sure that even the mainstream ideology that labor bureaucrats may turn to in response to the outright assaults of austerity will further fuck them. They are the sappers under the walls; austerity is the battering ram at the front gate.

Indeed.

Actually, most reviews of his work pertain to the "precariat" as a social phenomenon. He's just popularizing a word used in more radical circles, but that's to his credit nonetheless. The only policies mentioned in those reviews are the unconditional basic income scheme (already questionable) and tying this to civic participation, but it is his interviews with politically questionable websites that allowed me to find his collaborative bargaining and craft unionism shit, which I'm sure can be found alongside equally or less-but-nonetheless unpalatable policies in his book.

[Jose Gracchus]

What a scum bag with a stupid name.

[Dimentio]

Why, one more time, would you use a term borrowed from bourgeois politics, stake-fucking-holders, to describe the situation after a proletarian revolution. The situation after the revolution will involve classes, not stakeholders. (Unless, after the revolution, we all get to hold a piece of grilled stake? :D)

Are you scared of the notion of workers power? Why else would you have been attracted to Standing's bullshit in the first place? It certainly seems so, considering that on your official European Organization for Sustainaility website, there is not one single reference to the working class.

http://www.eoslife.eu/

RED DAVE

Seriously, I am the one who is a member of EOS. DNZ is non-affiliated with EOS.

[RED DAVE]

Seriously, I am the one who is a member of EOS. DNZ is non-affiliated with EOS.My bad :crying:

RED DAVE

[Revolutionair]

:D:D

[Dean]

Well that got a lot accomplished didn't it

[Popular Front of Judea]

Clearly Standing is clearly far over in the reformist side of the ledger. So who with a radical analysis and agenda is organizing the precariat, the unemployed and the "prematurely retired"? Extra points: Who is doing this in the United States?

[Popular Front of Judea]

I just got notice that my copy of Standing's book should be arriving Friday. I thought a book on the subject of the precariat merited reading it in full. I will give my thoughts on it shortly.

[Popular Front of Judea]

I finished reading Standings book. All the usual caveats apply. Let's get this out of the way first: No the precariat is not a class in the Marxist sense, any more than say skilled tradespeople are a class. That said the precariat is a distinct, growing strata of the proletariat. Also yes Standing is a fan of co-determination. The word 'stakeholders' may rub people the wrong way here but it simply means all impacted parties not just labor and management. Any good reason why representatives of the community shouldn't be at the table? Or say in a non-profit setting clients?

This is one of the few books of a socio-political nature that I have read recently that I find relevant to my life. It turns out I was a member of the precariat before the word was coined. I was a member of the precariat in my twenties and I am now a member in my forties. I found his discussion of how much unpaid labor the precariat is subject to be spot on. Whether you are rewriting your resume yet again or submitting yet more paperwork for assistance it's work. And then there is workfare, internships and volunteering. A lot of unwaged busywork.