Precarity and International Relations by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030510961
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

We cannot ‘dismiss the hunger for “free agency” as a mere product of market ideology; the flexibility it delivers is a response to an authentic employee demand’ (Ross 2008, 38). The idea that work should foster the development of individual potentials is at heart a socialist aspiration that was only gradually, with the passage from industrial to cognitive capitalism, reassembled to serve capitalist ends. This is the skill of capitalism, to remake itself in the image of our struggles, from the innovative impulses of our acts of resistance. Post-Fordist capitalism recognizes our penchant for self-directed work outside capitalist command, but uses it to its own advantage. Our habits and aspirations become clues for ‘tolerable’ ways to reduce labour costs and worker power.

The privilege to work without a boss or a fixed schedule has become the highest earned freedom in modern society, one people would even sacrifice economic security for. ‘So when we think about rebuilding our employment base today, we should not be promoting forms of security that simply entail a guaranteed slot in some sclerotic organizational hierarchy. Nor should we dismiss the choice, for some, of non-standard work as a neoliberal delusion’ (Ross 2010, 95). What should be condemned are the social conditions that make this option a costly and punitive choice available only to a privileged few. How we might create the necessary conditions for more people to enjoy autonomy in work and life is what I turn to next.

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