Precarized Society: Social Transformation of the Welfare State [1st ed.] 9783658224127, 9783658224134

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Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien

Rolf-Dieter Hepp · David Kergel Robert Riesinger Editors

Precarized Society Social Transformation of the Welfare State

Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien Series Editors Rolf-Dieter Hepp, Institut für Soziologie, FU Berlin, Berlin, Germany Robert Riesinger, Journalismus und Public Relations (PR), FH Joanneum ­Gesellschaft mbH, Graz, Austria David Kergel, HAWK Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany Birte Heidkamp-Kergel, E-Learning Zentrum, Hochschule Rhein-Waal, Kamp-Lintfort, Germany

Die Zunahme sozialer Unsicherheit und kultureller Verunsicherung in postfordistischen Gesellschaften erzeugt einen Status Quo, in dem Prozesse der Prekarisierung und der „sozialen Entkopplung“ (Robert Castel) verstärkt das Zentrum der Gesellschaft durchziehen. Der Verlust sozialer Garantien führt dabei zur Aushöhlung sozialstaatlicher Errungenschaften. Dadurch werden die Lebenskontexte und das Alltagsleben der Menschen stark verändert. Das sozialwissenschaftliche Netzwerk S.U.P.I. beschäftigt sich auf europäischer Ebene seit Jahren mit den gegenwärtigen Formen von sozialer Unsicherheit, Prekarität und Ungleichheit. Die Reihe, herausgegeben von Mitgliedern des Netzwerks, präsentiert transdisziplinäre Forschungen zu den sozialen und kulturellen Transformationen in den sozialstaatlich geprägten Demokratien. Sie versteht sich als Forum für die Diskussion in nationalen, europäischen und auch globalen Kontexten. Ebenen einer kritischen Analyse aus multidisziplinären und feldorientierten Perspektiven werden dabei initiiert, aufgenommen und unterstützt. Überschreitung und Öffnung dienen programmatisch als Wegmarken für theoretisch-analytische Beiträge und empirisch-angewandte Forschung. The increase of social insecurity in post-Fordist societies effect fundamental societal changes. As a consequence Precarity and Disaffiliation (Robert Castel) affecting increasingly the center of society. The loss of social guarantees leads to an erosion of the welfare state. As a result, living situations and everyday life are deeply changed. The S.U.P.I.-Project (Social Uncertainty, Precarity, Inequality) is an European Research Group established by European and international scholars and experts. The network has been concerned with present forms of social insecurity, precariousness and inequality at European level for years. Edited by members of the network, the book series presents transdisciplinary research on aspects of social and cultural transformations in the democracies which are characterized by the welfare state. The book series opens a discursive space for discussions in national, European and global contexts. The contributions of the book series provide critical analyses from multidisciplinaryperspectives, theoretical-analytical reflections and empirical-applied research.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15037

Rolf-Dieter Hepp · David Kergel · Robert Riesinger Editors

Precarized Society Social Transformation of the Welfare State

Editors Rolf-Dieter Hepp Institut für Soziologie, FU Berlin Berlin, Germany Robert Riesinger FH Joanneum Graz Graz, Austria

David Kergel Medienwissenschaftliches Seminar ­Universität Siegen Siegen, Germany

ISSN 2509-3266 ISSN 2509-3274  (electronic) Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien ISBN 978-3-658-22412-7 ISBN 978-3-658-22413-4  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4 © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Responsible Editor: Cori A. Mackrodt This Springer VS imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien ­Wiesbaden GmbH part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

To Patrizio Di Nicola and Pietro ­­Merli-Brandini

Contents

Precarized Society—Social Transformations of the Welfare State Introduction. Short Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Rolf-Dieter Hepp Social Precariousness and the European Pillar of Social Rights . . . . . . . . 9 Marco Ricceri Social Policy Development in the International Context—Social Investment or a New Social Treatise?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Peter Herrmann Precarity of Employment: A Look at Russia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Vyacheslav Bobkov The Impact of the Crisis on the Labour Market Situation of Households in Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Francesca Della Ratta-Rinaldi, Eugenia De Rosa, Elisa Marzilli and Maria Elena Pontecorvo Integration of the European Roma Minority into the European Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Helgard Kramer and Nicole Horákova The Precariousness of the Young Generation and the Making of Flexible and Employable Workforce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Franz Schultheis

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Inscribed Precarity—Subjectionprocesses and Precarity Togetherness—On Neighboring in Precarious Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Tadeusz Rachwał Understanding Merleau-Ponty’s Concept of Dehiscence in the Context of Precarity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Frank J. Macke Communicology, Antidepressants and Employability—A Critique of the Pathologization of Precarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Isaac E. Catt Precarious Sociality and Pathological Actors—Aspects of the Production of Social Disintegration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Alexander Sieg Precarisation, Exclusion and Social Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Jörg Zeller Bourdieu for Austrians—Des Menschen Herz. Sozialstaatsroman (The Human Heart. A Welfare State Novel). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Egon Christian Leitner Habitation/Housing in the Welfare State. Some Aspects of Living under Precarious Conditions or: Is There a Life after Breakfast?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Sabine Kergel The Freedom of the Precarious. On the Production of Dependency and Lack of Individuality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Rolf-Dieter Hepp Paranoia and Control—A Narrative About the Social Factory. . . . . . . . . 215 Lennart Nørreklit The Suspended: Blind Spots in Society—Social Mobility and Political Psychology of Devaluation in East Germany Since 1989. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Yana Milev Marginality, Ethnicity and Penality in the Neoliberal City: An Analytical Cartography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Loïc Wacquant

Contributors

Prof. Dr. Vyacheslav Bobkov Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia Prof. Dr. Isaac E. Catt  Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA Prof. Dr. Rolf-Dieter Hepp  Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany Prof. Dr. Peter Herrmann  EURISPES Rom, Rome, Italy Dr. Nicole Horákova  University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic Dr. Sabine Kergel  Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Prof. Dr. Helgard Kramer  University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic Egon Christian Leitner  Judendorf-Strassengel, Austria Prof. Dr. Frank J. Macke  Mercer University Macon, USA Dr. Elisa Marzilli  ISTAT, Rome, Italy PD Dr. Yana Milev  University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland Prof. Dr. Patrizio Di Nicola  Census Department, ISTAT, Rome, Italy Prof. em. Dr. Lennart Nørreklit  Aalborg University, Berlin, Germany Dr. Maria Elena Pontecorvo  ISTAT, Rome, Italy Prof. Dr. Tadeusz Rachwał Warsaw School of Social Psychology, Warsaw, Poland Dr. Francesca Della Ratta-Rinaldi  ISTAT, Rome, Italy Prof. Dr. Marco Ricceri  EURISPES, Rome, Italy ix

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Prof. a.D. Dr. Robert Riesinger  S.U.P.I., Berlin, Germany Dr. Eugenia De Rosa  ISTAT, Rome, Italy Prof. Dr. Franz Schultheis  University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland Dr. Alexander Sieg  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany Prof. Dr. Loïc Wacquant University of California, Berkeley, USA and Centre de sociologie européenne, Paris, France Prof. Dr. Jörg Zeller  Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Precarized Society—Social Transformations of the Welfare State

Introduction. Short Remarks Rolf-Dieter Hepp

The concept of hyperprecarization comes from different sources. On the one hand and best known in Germany is the term hyper-morality. Gehlen used it to criticize the claim of left-wing intellectuals. By orienting themselves to Voltaire and the demands of the French Revolution, intellectuals stand for him in contrast to the social realities. According to Gehlen, freedom and equality do not correspond with institutional and social reality. The intellectuals would demand a morality that moves away from the institutions and experiences of the rest of the population. Gehlen’s concept of hypermorality is currently being taken up again by both the left and conservative sides in the context of the refugee problem. Here it can be stated that a potential for social conflict is described that expresses itself both socially and politically. Successes of nationalistically oriented parties and positions can be recorded both in Europe and in the USA. Latour uses Trump to illustrate that the demands for social balance and social equality, which have potentially been anchored in society since the French Revolution, are overridden by nationally oriented politicians. “To be sure, “ordinary people” must not have too many illusions about what comes next in the adventure. Those for whom Trump is working are precisely those tiny elites who had grasped starting in the early r 98os that there would be no room for them and for the nine billion left behind. “Let’s deregulate: let’s rush to pump out bigtime everything that still remains to pump. Drill, baby, drill! We’re going to win in the end, by betting on this nutcase, we’ll get 30 or 40 years of respite for us and our children. After that, the deluge can come; we’ll be dead by then anyway.” R.-D. Hepp (*)  Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_1

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R.-D. Hepp Accountants are quite familiar with entrepreneurs who defraud investors: the innovation of Trumpism is to have the greatest nation in the world take that step. Trump as the country’s Madoff?” (Latour 2018, p. 37)

In a different way than in Gehlen, the prefix “hyper-” theoretically orientates itself on the concepts of Baudrillard, in which hyper-reality is interpreted as detachment from the referent and constitutes new forms of appropriation of reality under the premises of the construction of new ideologies, since meanings float. For Baudrillard, the signs have detached themselves from their meaning and become without reference. This not only results in orientation problems for the actors, but social reality also forms an ideal-typical model for the individual, the specifications of which he cannot catch up with or fulfil. Baudrillard impressively elaborates on the associated implantation of insufficiency in the opposition couple of real women/models. But society passes through infinite ranks, from the opposition couple demanding/promoting to the profit targets in management contracts, so that a production of new forms of the social is achieved through the referencelessness of the signs. With Baudrillard, disorientation or the powerlessness of the actors is the result of the order of simulation within the third order of simulacra. According to Bourdieu, however, the social world is structured in such a way that the “illusio” of the actors crystallises out in their habitus in the social modes of experience on the basis of the fields and structures the social orientation. Thus the production of the social order is maintained, strengthened and guaranteed thanks to the “Illusio”. Following Debord, under the premises of the spectacle, the production of new social configurations can be highlighted, through which the social, technical and artistic approaches to society are reassembled and which direct existence, social relations and everyday life. Here, too, similarities can be discerned to a concept of a new reality in the sense of a “hyperreality”. “The spectacle, understood in its totality, is simultaneously the result and the project of the existing mode of production. It i s not a supplement to the real world, its added decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society. In all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, advertisement or direct consumption of entertainments, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choice already made in production and its corollary consumption. The form and the content of the spectacle are identically the total justification of the conditions and the ends of the existing system. The spectacle is also the permanent presence of this justification, to the extent that it occupies the principal part of the timelived outside of modern production.” (Debord 1970, Paragraph 6)

Introduction. Short Remarks

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The term “hyperprecarization” is intended to draw attention to how precarization subversively penetrates into the social, models and co-aligns it. How precarization eats its way into society, how completely different areas of life and work are networked with each other, and how it is anchored quasi epistemologically in the social structure, is analysed in this volume by scholars from Western and Eastern Europe, as well as from the USA, and highlighted in its various facets. Thus one can speak of a hyperprecarization, since it totalizes itself towards the individuals and multiplies the social conflict levels in society. As early as the 1980s, Boltanski’s study of the “cadres” in the 1980s showed that even for less qualified personnel, the profile is now measured and oriented towards the specifications and demands of the “elites”. As a result, even fewer and unqualified workers are expected to base their work performance on the criteria of efficiency and the company’s profit expectations. However, these actors do not receive the income and social ascriptions that characterise the “elites”, but are instead subjected to forms of social insecurity. Following Ehrenberg, it can be shown how flexibility and autonomy intersect in the new forms of work organisation. “Autonomy means no longer freedom of choice, but is under a dictate of action and competition.” (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 365)

The resulting tendency to anchor conflicting demands in the actors underlines the integration of social conflict potential into society and its anchoring in psychological conflict lines, which are emerging thanks to social structural changes. Here, following Ehrenberg, the increase in corresponding mental illness patterns can be decisively documented on the basis of current disease reports. Dörre’s appreciation of the Hartz Reform highlights how forms of social dismantling are condensed in the labour law and lead to a condensation of psychological pressure on the recipients of aid. Dörre sees the Hartz Reform as a successful reform from the point of view of the reduction of welfare state functions, which, however, would not have contributed to the reduction of unemployment as claimed, but rather to the restructuring of the welfare state. As early as 2016, Sieg highlighted in an article on the manpower entrepreneur how the interaction of different actors and interest groups can increase the pressure on the actors concerned. In doing so, he worked out how the social sciences are integrated into this process.

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R.-D. Hepp “The manpower entrepreneur is, so to speak, a sociological prophecy that first arises from the development of a thesis in a DFG-funded collaborative research centre at a renowned university. The results and theses are included in the Commission’s report as a result of the government commission commissioned by the Commission for Future Issues, which included renowned scientists in senior positions who were also familiar with the DFG project and its results. The demand of the experts was finally elevated to a political programme and successively implemented at the political and administrative level.” (Sieg in Hepp et al. 2016, p. 185)

The increase in social pathological conditions through the establishment of new forms of work organization within society is highlighted as a relevant anchor point by Alexander Sieg. Potential threats of disintegration bring fears of failure to individuals, which are expressed in threats of cuts and cancellations of portions of ALG benefits in law enforcement. Through such measures, the Jobcenter not only assists in the forms of social dismantling, but contributes productively to the tendencies of exclusion. The mass emergence of psychopathologies, or the “deliberate” or accepted expansion of them, brings them into society and implies that these clinical pictures become a constitutive criterion of the sensitivities of larger sections of the population and thus “normalize” in the “Canguihemian sense”. Those who lose their job or suffer from insecure and stressful work contexts are incapacitated and exposed to the processes of intermediate social situations. If actors have to exist under such conditions, they are additionally updated and considered under the premisses of failed social adjustment. A production of social exclusion is thus provided connotatively. A mistrust of the social authorities is thus built up among the actors to whom they are at the mercy of a deviance attribution. This subjectifies adaptation problems to the new neoliberal market order and transposes or transfers them to the focus of individual measures and adaptation problems in order to cope with an increasingly discontinuous professional and private life. Precarisation, which in its many forms includes poverty, unemployment, vulnerability and social exclusion as elements, is a relevant societal problem affecting the social development and cohesion of society as a whole. But the problem contexts reflect the transformation processes of the modern wage labour society when important elements of social protection in the area of labour law are undermined. At the same time, a concept of social and political intervention models is emerging that seems to seek to support a standardized model of career development, but in the preferred approaches potentially shifts

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the forms of precarization to the center of society, but seeks to individualize them and limit them to subjective adaptation problems of particular groups and their “characteristics”. Thus a political form of domination technology emerges that seems to be oriented towards specific aid and support measures, but carries this out under sanction mechanisms and threats of exclusion, which tend to reinforce precarization in society in these forms of support. The dual role of the opposition couple support/sanction, claim/support can be underlined by the reasonableness clause of the Unemployment Benefit II regulations in Germany. David Graeber’s “Debts. The First 5,000 Years” can be used to show how the concept of debt is used to transpose a new form of attribution of the needy, lack and insufficiency, which subsumes the dispossessed under the hegemony of capital and stylizes them into perpetrators by making their inability to possess and accumulate capital the “starting point” of their fall into sin. Instead of a world of multiple prospects and promises, the precarious subject perceives them as a form of threat, vulnerability, intimidation and terror. Maurizio Lazzarato works out how the interplay of guilt and debt is moralized and turned against the actors, how they are treated as bearers of “guilt”. “Debt produces a specific “morality,” at once different from and complementary to that of “labor.” The couple “effort-reward” of the ideology of work is doubled by the morality of the promise (to honor one’s debt) and the fault (of having entered into it). As Nietzsche reminds us the concept of “Schuld” (guilt), a concept central to morality, is derived from the very concrete notion of “Schulden” (debts). The “morality” of debt results in the moralization of the unemployed, the assisted, the users of public services, as well as entire populations.” (Lazzarato 2012, p. 30)

In this way it can be shown how the clinical pictures are subjectified and empirically attached to the actors. By taking their physical states as a starting point, psychopathological clinical pictures are thematized only through the physical properties of the body. The malfunctions of the actor are transferred to the inside of the body as norm deviations. As a second pillar of such treatment strategies, the social conditions are eliminated in order to treat depression only as a medical physiological problem with a corresponding epistemology. Such a structured technical functionalist approach corresponds to a logic of efficiency achieved by ignoring the social by reducing the problem levels to physical forms.

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References Debord, G. (1970). Society of the spectacle. Black and Red Box: Detroit. Ehrenberg, A. (2012). Das Unbehagen in der Gesellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Gehlen, A. (1969). Moral und Hypermoral, Eine pluralistische Ethik. Frankfurt a. M.: Athenäum. Grau, A. (2017). Hypermoral. Die neue Lust an der Empörung. München: Claudius. Latour, B. (2018). Down to earth. Politics in the new climatic regime. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lazzaratto, M. (2012). The making of the indebted man: An essay on the neoliberal condition. Cambridge: MIT Press. Sieg, A. (2016). Der „Arbeitskraftunternehmer“. In R. Hepp, R. Riesinger, & D. Kergel (Eds.), Verunsicherte Gesellschaft. Prekarisierung auf dem Weg in die Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden: Springer.

Social Precariousness and the European Pillar of Social Rights Marco Ricceri

1 Introductory Reflection on the State of the European Union In his speech on the state of the Union, made before the European Parliament on 14 September 20161—a Union marked by the United Kingdom’s exit process following the referendum of 23 June 2016—President Jean-Claude Junker spoke of the “existential crisis” of the European system. “I stood here a year ago and I told you that the State of our Union was not good. I told you that there is not enough Europe in this Union. And that there is not enough Union in this Union […] Our European Union is, at least in part, in an existential crisis […] But never before have I seen such little common ground between our Member States. So few areas where they agree to work together […] Never before have I seen so much fragmentation, and so little communality in our Union […] First of all, we should admit that we have many unresolved problems in Europe. There can be no doubt about it. From high unemployment and social inequality, to mountains of public debt, to the huge challenge of integrating refugees, to the very real threats to our security at home and abroad – every one of Europe’s Member States has been affected by the continuing crisis of our time […] Yes, we need a vision for the long term”. (1)

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COMMISSION: President Juncker’s 2016 State of the Union address: towards a better Europe, Speech/16/3043, Strasbourg, 14 September 2016.

M. Ricceri (*)  EURISPES Rom, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_2

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A vision, added President Junker, whose features will be illustrated in a White Paper, then published on 1 March 2017, as the Commission’s contribution to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the EU’ Treaties.2 A year later, in the subsequent speech on the state of the Union before the European Parliament on 13 September 2017,3 President Junker sought to offer a less catastrophic and more confident interpretation of the European integration process by referring to some positive results recorded during the year: the consolidation of a widespread economic recovery, that now stands above 2% for the Union as a whole and at 2.2% for the monetary area. “Unemployment is at a nine year low. Almost 8 million jobs have been created during this mandate so far. With 235 million people at work, more people are in employment in the European Union than ever before…European banks once again have the capital firepower to lend to companies so that they can grow and create jobs…And we can take credit for having brought public deficits down from 6.6% to 1.6%. This is thanks to an intelligent application of the Stability and Growth Pact”. And again: “We have managed to stem irregular flows of migrants, which were a cause of great anxiety for many. We have reduced irregular arrivals in the Eastern Mediterranean by 97% thanks our agreement with Turkey. And this summer, we managed to get more control over the Central Mediterranean route with arrivals in August down by 81% compared to the same month last year. In doing so, we have drastically reduced the loss of life in the Mediterranean…Even if it saddens me to see that solidarity is not yet equally shared across all our Member States, Europe as a whole has continued to show solidarity. Last year alone, our Member States resettled or granted asylum to over 720,000 refugees: three times as much as the United States, Canada and Australia combined. Europe, contrary to what some say, is not a fortress and must never become one. Europe is and must remain the continent of solidarity where those fleeing persecution can find refuge”. It is on the basis of these and other positive results that the President of the European Commission urged to pursue the course undertaken and to look

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COMMISSION: White Paper on the future of Europe: Avenues for unity for the EU at 27, Brussels, 1 March 2017. The White Paper on the Future of Europe forms the Commission’s contribution to the Rome Summit of 25 March 2017, in occasion of the 60th anniversary of the EU The White Paper sets out the main challenges and opportunities for Europe in the coming decade. It presents five scenarios for how the Union could evolve by 2025 depending on how it chooses to respond. 3EUROPEAN COMMISSION: President Juncker’s 2017 State of the Union Address: catching the wind in our sails, Speech/17/3165, Strasbourg, 14 September 2017.

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with confidence in the future, to “build a more united, stronger and more democratic Europe for 2025” (Ibidem). In the framework of the strategic initiatives proposed to strengthen the unity of the European system, Junker has included what is needed to avoid social fragmentation and social dumping by urging Member States to approve the European Pillar of Social Rights “as soon as possible, and at the latest at the Gothenburg summit scheduled for November 2017…National social systems will still remain diverse and separate for a long time. But at the very least, we should agree on a European Social Standards Union in which we have a common understanding of what is socially fair in our single market” (Ibidem). A previous report on the plans to be followed for the deepening of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) from 1 July 2015 and for its completion by 2025, published on 22 June 2015 by the five presidents, Commission President Jean-Claude Junker, Euro Summit President Donald Tusk, Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, and the President of the European Parliament Martin Schultz—the so-called Five Presidents’ Report4—puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that the strengthening of the convergence process should face with a much greater decision than in the past the serious problems of unemployment and the great and ongoing social disparities in Europe. “It is clear – the text states – that with 18 million unemployed in the euro area a lot more needs to be done to improve economic policies” (EC 2015, p. 4). According to the report, these employment and social disparities are largely attributable to the crisis in recent years, but also to the underlying trends and the inadequacy of policies pursued by several Euro zone member states. The report confirms the value of an ambitious goal already set by Junker at the time of his election as President of the Commission in October 2014 that Europe should get a social triple A rating as much as it is to get a triple A rating in the financial and economic sense. Moreover, according to the report, to earn a social triple A is considered an “economic necessity” (EC 2015, p. 8). “Unemployment – the report by the five presidents states explains – especially long-term unemployment is one of the main reasons for inequality and social exclusion” (EC 2015, p. 8). This means in particular that labour markets and welfare systems need to function well and be sustainable in all euro area Member States. Better labour market and social performance, as well as social cohesion

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COMMISSION: Five Presidents’ Report. Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union, Brussels, 22 June 2015.

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should be at the core of the new process of upward convergence put forward in the report; they give also an essential contribution to a smooth functioning of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). “There is no one-size fits-all’ template to follow – the report states – but the challenges are often similar across Member States: getting more people of all ages into work; striking the right balance between flexible and secure labour contracts; avoiding the divide between insiders with high protections and wages and outsiders; shifting taxes away from labour; delivering tailored support for the unemployed to re-enter the labour market; improving education and lifelong learning, to name but a few. Beyond labour markets, it is important to ensure that every citizen has access to adequate education and that an effective social protection system is in place to protect the most vulnerable in society, including a ‘social protection floor’” (EC Five Presidents’ Report 2015, p. 8).

And again: “To secure EMU’s long-term success we should go a step further and push for a deeper integration of national labor markets by facilitating geographical and professional mobility, including through better recognition of qualifications, easier access to public sector jobs for non-nationals and better coordination of social security systems” (EC Five Presidents’ Report 2015, p. 9).

In addition to that of labor market, there are other areas in which, according to the five presidents report, an urgent action is needed, such as pension and health care systems, in order to address the new needs associated with the aging of the population. According to a Strategic Note issued together with the Five Presidents Report and drawn up by the European Political Strategy Center, the Commission’s think tank,5 “the social dimension of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has too often been neglected, due to the implicit assumption that making EMU more social would somehow hamper the economic performance of the euro area. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not coincidentally, the recent financial crisis proved that countries with more dynamic and inclusive labour markets – as well as a better skilled labour force and interventionist social systems – are more resilient: they better withstand shocks and recover more quickly”. “The social costs inflicted by the crisis – the Note states – continue to weigh heavily on the euro

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COMMISSION, EUROPEAN POLITICAL STRATEGY CENTRE (EPSC) The Social Dimension of Economic and Monetary Union. Towards Convergence and Resilience, Strategic Note, Issue 5, Brussels, 18 June 2015.

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area’s performance and internal cohesion…They also reveal a dramatic divergence between Member States – be it in unemployment rates, which vary from 4.7% in Germany to 23% in Spain, or the share of low-skilled in the workforce, which ranges from 15.1% in Estonia to 56.3% in Portugal. Such divergence is not sustainable in the context of a common currency union and therefore must be urgently addressed” (EC 2015, p. 1). Indeed, according to the Strategic Note the “Economic and Monetary Union is, in and of itself, a social project. Its prime objective is to create conditions for stronger growth, more and better jobs and higher living standards. There is no doubt that by virtue of sharing a common currency, EMU members are tied by a stronger social bond. And the performance of the euro area depends in no small measure on the effectiveness of its members’ social systems. Indeed, social imbalances pose a political and economic threat to the sustainability of the euro area, similar in magnitude – even if different in character – to economic and financial risks” (EC 2015, p. 2). The illustration of these fundamental steps of the current political reflection on the European integration process, its difficulties and its prospects, is useful first of all to understand what relevance is recognized to the social aspects of economic development; and therefore, in this context, to the specific widespread phenomenon of social insecurity and its multiple effects on community life. From the analysis of the political commitments declared and taken by the highest European authorities it is difficult to draw the idea of the centrality that this phenomenon has taken over the years in European society. Despite the emphasis on the need for efficient social services, the word precariousness is never referred to, for example, in the official documents of the Commission we have mentioned above; only once and in a marginal way the term precariousness appears in the Strategic Note of the European Political Strategy Center (EPSC), the Commission’s think tank. This is a peculiarity, a curiosity if we want, which says a lot about how social phenomena are interpreted and evaluated by the Commission and its service structures. Faced with this kind of approach, the ambition expressed by president Junker in occasion of the 2014 settlement speech, already mentioned above, to pursue the goal of a triple social A rating for Europe, in parallel with a triple economic and financial A rating appears little more than a theoretical statement. Even regardless of the contradictory aspects in the assessment of work and employment situation that emerge in these Community documents (high employment, low employment, what kind of employment, what prospects for young people?) the real point to be highlighted concerns the distance between the commitments outlined by the Commission for the revival of a common, sustainable development and its institutional role as guardian of the Treaties as well as of the Union’s interests; and this with reference to the precise provision of the European Treaty which commits the Community

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authorities and the Member States to building a “social market economy“6; that is, to build a specific model of common growth and progress with particular characteristics, a model identified as the only one that could effectively address the widespread phenomena of precariousness, uncertainty and social inequality.

2 Europe and the Future: What Kind of “Social Market Economy”? In fact, the awareness of the strategic importance of the open issues dealing with labor and social promotion and inclusion find a strong and clear acknowledgment in the basic values and principles of Lisbon Treaty (Treaty on European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of European Union, Protocols, 2007). In accordance with the principles of solidarity, subsidiarity, economic, social, territorial cohesion, the Union strives for promoting a sustainable development based on … a highly competitive social market economy aiming at full employment and social progress…the Union fights social exclusion (art. 3, ibidem). The primary tool for achieving this goal is the organization of a single market, in which four fundamental freedoms have to be guaranteed: free movement of persons, goods, services and capitals. The methodological approach, of a high political value, privileges, along with the cooperation among the states, even the dialogue with the social partners. To reinforce this new approach, very attentive to social and labor affairs, a decisive support comes out, in accordance with the Treaty, by the acknowledgment and inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union inside the European law system. By this way, according to article 6 of the Treaty, the principles of the Charter which rules even the social dynamics, came to assume a binding value. Union recognizes the rights, freedoms and principles enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union … It has the same legal value as the Treaties.7 Although European Union since time is living a very difficult and complex political period, besides economic, there is no doubt that the agreement reached with the Lisbon Treaty represents a remarkable improvement in the approach to development policies; the more significant when we consider that it comes after

6EUROPEAN

UNION: Treaty on European Union (TEU): Art. 3, Lisbon 13 December 2007, OJ C306/2, 17 December 2007. 7EUROPEAN UNION: Treaty on European Union (TEU): Art. 6, Lisbon 13 December 2007, OJ C306/2, 17 December 2007.

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the failure of the earlier attempts to adopt a treaty that would lead to a constitution for Europe. In order to possible, proper interventions on the matter of labor and social development, the main innovations introduced by the Treaty are the following: • the reference to an economic model called as social market economy • The combination of these two concepts, “market economy” and “social”, commits EU to assess any pro-market policy with the social effects that such policy can produce; and the assessment is not something limited to a political opinion but, as it is expected even for the goal of full employment, a fact which has to be monitored and measured. In other words, the respect of the commonly called “social clause” becomes a constraint for all EU policies, the new benchmark for assessing and measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of policies for employment and social advancement. • the explicit reference to the goal of full employment • In the previous treaties, the terms used in this regard had a quite different meaning. In fact, there was the reference to “a high level of employment.” In this case, there is a step forwards of great importance because it commits the member states on a very precise objective, measurable in statistical terms. EU and the member states will, in practice, make any effort to minimize unemployment, at most to bring it to zero level. In contrast, the previous expression, “a high level of employment” could not refer to any precise notion, or rather, it referred to a concept that could be interpreted in very different ways. • the reference to the role of social dialogue • The treaty acknowledges openly the importance of the social dialogue. This element was already present in the previous treaty, but with the new Lisbon Treaty has taken a greater relevance. “Union recognizes and promotes the role of social partners … having in mind the diversity of national systems. The Union shall facilitate dialogue between the social partners, respecting their autonomy. The tripartite social summit for growth and jobs will contribute to social dialogue”.8 In practice, under the new Treaty, to achieve the goals of

8EUROPEAN

UNION: Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Consolidated version, 2008. The role of Social Dialogue, Articles n. 151,152,155, Lisbon 13 December 2007, OJ 2008/C 115/01, 9 May 2008 “Art. 151 The Union and the Member States, having in mind the fundamental social rights, such as those set in European Social Charter signed in Turin on 18 October 1961 and in the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of the workers in 1989, have as their objectives the promotion of employment, the improvement of the living and working conditions, to allow their harmonization in the

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full employment and the construction of a social market economy, European Union, on the one hand, is taking as a step backward in its coordination activity, and, on the other hand, relies on the social partners and their active role. In fact, it is up to the social dialogue to produce new elements for the advancement of labor and social policies; it is an opportunity that Union is ready to take, in particular, by recognizing and accepting the results of the agreements among the parties on certain issues. • the lack of any explicit reference to the open method of coordination • Another important innovation of the Treaty is dealing with the fact that the ­so-called “open method of coordination”—that was on the basis of the previous Lisbon Development Strategy 2000–2010—is no longer explicitly mentioned. In practice, it has been abandoned, although several articles of the Treaty highlight the importance of the coordination function performed by the EU. But an explicit reference to the open method of coordination has been deleted. In fact, EU is increasingly oriented to strengthen the coordination’s activity of social and labor policies by adding precise indications, the so-called European signals, as indispensable tools to guide public and private operators. These “signals” when accompanied by indicators and accurate measurement of the performances, are set to become the essential tools for evaluating the effectiveness of national and regional policies as well as the capacity of services to meet the needs of businesses, workers, local communities. If these are the fundamental principles of the European Union, one can legitimately wonder: what consistency exists between the commitment to achieve a social market economy and the current policies that produce deflation and low level economic performance, increasing imbalances among the member states, between North and South of Europe, high unemployment, widespread risk of

progress, a proper social protection, social dialogue, the development of human resources, to enable an high level and sustainable employment, the fight against exclusion” Art. 152. “The Union recognizes and promotes the role of the social partners at its level, taking into account the diversity of national systems. It facilitates dialogue between the social partners, respecting their autonomy. The Tripartite Social Summit for Growth and Employment shall contribute to social dialogue” Art. 155 “1. The dialogue between the social partners at the Union level may lead, if they so desire, to contractual relations, including agreements. 2. Agreements concluded at Union level shall be implemented in accordance with the specific procedures and practices of the social partners and Member States or, … following the joint request of the signatory parties, according to a Council decision on a proposal presented by the Commission. The European Parliament has to be informed”.

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poverty, weakening cohesion of the entire system, with hard consequences even in terms of the political consensus and the role of the same European institutions (as the increasing blame to the Europe of technocrats, widespread Euroscepticism, the massive absenteeism in elections to the European Parliament)? A contribution to find a proper answer to this question may arrive by a reflection about this quotation by Albert Einstein: We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.9

3 The European Pillar of Social Rights Aware of the inadequacy with which the problems of the balance between economic and social growth and thus the social cohesion of the European system have been so far addressed, the Commission has undertaken to build a real European Pillar of Social Rights, starting with the organization of a Union of European social norms, based on a shared vision of what must be fair on the social sphere. The function of the new pillar is to contribute to the strengthening and completion of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the Single European Market; more, it is an integral part of the overall EMU project. In this regard, it is useful to recall that the EMU project, which is intended to give a further, great impetus to the process of economic integration, based on European law rather than on European agreements, is articulated in the development of four well-outlined action plans: (a) the creation of an authority for the competition in the euro area; (b) strengthening initiatives on intervention procedures on macroeconomic imbalances; (c) greater attention to economic and social results; (d) stronger co-ordination of economic policies within a renewed European semester. The project of the European Pillar of Social Rights is essentially part of this context and is functional to the desired success of the EMU initiative, although obviously it is capable of producing important effects on all EU Member States. The related proposal was officially presented by Commission President Junker in his speech on the EU state of affairs before the European Parliament on 9 September 2015, in particular as a means of building a true European common labour market, a genuine fifth priority, according to Junker’s words. “We have to step up the work for a fair and truly pan-European labour market. Fairness in this contest means promoting and safeguarding the free movement of citizens as a fundamental right of our Union, while avoiding case of abuses and

9CF. Albert

Einstein (1879–1955). Quotation in Einstein A.: The world I see it.

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risks of social dumping. Labour mobility is welcome and needed to make the euro area and the single market prosper. But labour mobility should be based on clear rules and principles. The key principle should be that we ensure the same pay for the same job at the same place. As part of these efforts, I will want to develop a European pillar of social rights which takes account of the changing realities of Europe’s societies and the world of work. And which can serve as a compass for the renewed convergence within the euro area… I believe we do well to start with this initiative within the euro area, while allowing other EU Member States to join in if they want to do so”10 Previously, some first proposals on this issue were formulated on 2012 in a specific report, the so-called Four Presidents’ Report “Toward a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union”, elaborated by the presidents of European Council, European Commission, European Central Bank, Eurogroup,11 and in a Commission’s communication “Blueprint for a Deep and Genuine EMU: Launching an European Debate”,12 presented in response to the European Council’s request on June and October 2012,13 to identify a precise road map to the building up of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Further preparatory documents of the proposal on the European pillar of social rights are in a Commission’s analytical note “Preparing for the next step on better economic governance in the euro area” drawn up in cooperation with the presidents of European Council, European Central Bank, Eurogroup and presented to the Informal European Council on 12 February 2015,14 and in the already mentioned five Presidents’ report “Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union“, June 2015 (see note 6). The analysis of these documents that preceded the launch of the proposal concerning the European pillar of social rights confirms that It is precisely the construction of that European Monetary Union (EMU) which, in addition to fiscal and budgetary measures, also calls for structural reforms in the labour markets and national welfare systems.

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COMMISSION: President Juncker’s 2015 State of the Union address: Time for Honesty, Unity and Solidarity, Speech/15/5614, Strasbourg, 9 September 2016. 11EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Four Presidents’ Report, Toward a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union (2012/2151) (INI), Brussels, 26 June 2012. 12EUROPEAN COMMISSION: A Blueprint for a Deep and Genuine EMU: Launching an European Debate, Communication, COM (2012)777 final/2; Brussels, 28 November 2012. 13EUROPEAN COUNCIL: Conclusions, EUCO 76/12, Brussels, 29 June 2012; EUROPEAN COUNCIL: Conclusions, EUCO 156/12, Brussels, 19 October 2012. 14EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Preparing for the next step on better economic governance in the euro area, A analytical Note, Informal European Council, Brussels, 12 February 2015.

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Still in 2015, following a orientation debate on President Junker’s initiative held by the College of Commissioners in Strasbourg on 6 October 201515 both the legal references of the proposal were identified in more precise terms, according to the principles and values mentioned in it and their contribution to the enrichment of the EU legal acquis, both the number and the definition of the rights themselves. The College of Commissioners thus finds 15 main fundamental social rights, which are divided into two lists. A first list concerning the rights substantially related to employment contracts, working conditions and access by the workers to social services. They are: right to minimum wage, minimum rights to trade union representation, minimum rights during the probation period, minimum protection against unfair dismissals, minimum measures to ensure awareness of rights and access to justice, right to fair treatment regardless of the type of employment contract, minimum health and safety rights, minimum rights to protection with regard to the working time. A second list presents social rights of a different nature such as: access to maternity and/or paternity care, lifelong learning and re-training, care and benefits for childhood, unemployment support, active inclusion in employment, the fundamental rights to pensions and health care. Lastly, on 8 March 2016, the Commission launched a wide consultation across Europe, ended on 31 December 2016, which involved mostly academic and research world, trade unions, business associations and civil society organizations in formulating remarks, opinions and proposals16 It is useful to remind that the formal document of the consultation was accompanied and supported by two working documents elaborated by the Commission Staff: the first with a review of the most important aspects of the EU legal acquis on labor and social policies,17

15COLLEGE

OF COMMISSIONER: Debate on the economic and social dimension of the Single Market, Strasbourg, 6 October 2015. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO16-64. 16EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Launching a consultation on a European Pillar of Social Rights, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, and ANNEX 1: First preliminary outline of a European Pillar on Social Rights, COM(2016)127 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016. 17EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Commission Staff Working Document: The EU Social acquis, accompanying the document: EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Launching a consultation on a European Pillar of Social Rights, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2016)127 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016, SWD (2016) 50 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016.

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and the second with a description of the main trends in economy, labor market and society which are at the origin of the new pillar’s initiative18 In particular, the document on the trends of major changes in European society in this historical period (SWD (2016) 51 final) clearly shows a whole series of serious problems that were open even before the severe explosion of the crisis in the years 2007 and 2008, problems related to structural weaknesses of the European system as a whole: “the crisis revealed and accentuated a number of ­pre-existing weaknesses, which had not been tackled” (EC 2016, p. 35). Among these basic trends, the working document highlights, for example, the persistence of a high level of long-term unemployment and the number of young people who are not in education, training, employment, the so-called NEET’s (“the annual cost of the NEET’s in terms of loss of human capital has been estimated at about 1,2% of EU GDP, 153 billion euros” (EC 2016, p. 22), the continuing worsening of economic inequalities between social groups and the fact that about a quarter of the European population, 122 million of people, are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, even though the European system offers the protection of one of the most advanced welfare system in the world. More, the growing fragmentation of the labour market and the persistence of considerable mismatch in labour supply and demand, the effects of technological change and the digitization of the economy that change working conditions, creating ever larger grey areas in which it is difficult to affirm labor rights and have the security of access to social protection (“almost half of editing professions may be partly if not fully computerized and automated in the medium term” (EC 2016, p. 27); the demographic changes, in particular the growing aging of the European population with the resulting pressures on the financial sustainability of welfare systems. Facing to these basic trends, according to this Commission’s working document, there is a need to promote a real convergence of the still today’s highly diversified welfare models that characterize the European landscape (Nordic cluster, Continental Western European cluster, Anglo-Saxon cluster, Mediterranean cluster, the Baltic, Central and South Eastern European clusters), reorganize welfare systems by finding an adequate balance between a social protection

18EUROPEAN

COMMISSION, Commission Staff Working Document: Key economic, employment and social trends behind a European Pillar of Social Rights, accompanying the document: EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Launching a consultation on a European Pillar of Social Rights, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2016)127 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016, SWD (2016) 51 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016.

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function and a social investment function as an essential condition for a economic development able to cope with the challenges of global competition, enhancing at most the social dialogue “which remains a building block of the European social model and of a well functioning social market economy” (EC 2016, p. 5). “Social convergence in the euro area has broken down”, it was written in a very explicit way the previous year 2015 in a strategic note of the European Political Strategic Centre EPSC, the Commission’s think tank: “It must be restored” (EC 2015, p. 3).19 In parallel, a different, more effective and uniform law and contractual regulation of labor market needs to be promoted to deal with the profound changes in employment, the organization of production processes and the same business models. “Given the strong interdependence and possibilities of spillovers between economies – the working document of the Commission Staff continues – the lack of convergence in socio-economic performances to support more resilient economic structures may hamper the functioning and stability of the euro area” (EC 2016, p. 35) The fact to be stressed is that most of these phenomena and trends and their negative effects on common development have long been highlighted by the European Commission’s documents starting with the 2010 strategy for the development of the entire European system, “Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable, inclusive growth”.20 For example, in this document it is clearly stated that demographic changes and population aging will in the foreseeable future cause a decline in the workforce and its productivity levels, with heavy consequences on the capacity of the European system to cope world competition. Similarly, on 5 December 2012, by presenting a specific package of measures to tackle the high level of youth unemployment prevalent in Europe, the Commission openly acknowledges that this level is simply “unacceptable”, destined to have “dramatic consequences for our economies, our societies” and that “the costs of not doing so would be catastrophic”.21 The same expression “unacceptable” was repeated the following year by the President of the Commission, José-Manuel Barroso and the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and

19EUROPEAN

COMMISSION, EUROPEAN POLITICAL STRATEGIC CENTRE (EPSC): The Social Dimension of Economic and Monetary Union: Towards Convergence and Resilience, Strategic Notes, Issue 5/18 June 2015, Brussels, 2015. 20EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable, inclusive growth, COM(2010) 2020, Brussels, 3 March 2010. 21EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Youth Employment: Commission proposes package of measures, MEMO/12/938, Brussels, 5 December 2012.

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Inclusion, Làszlò Andor, in his commentary on the political agreement reached by the EU’s Council of Employment and Social Affairs Ministers, 28 February 2013, on the Recommendation introducing the Youth Guarantee. “The numbers of unemployed young people on the EU market are unacceptable – 5.7 million in the EU in December i.e. 23,4% of the workforce under 25”.22 More generally, in these documents it is recognized that the combination between the rapidity of the restructuring of production systems and the increasing difficulties in job search, would exclude more and more people from the labor market by creating a very high long-term structural unemployment. Such statements, which are at the basis of European labor policies, recall the echo of the opinions of a growing number of experts who, in particular in front of the new technological revolution, wonder about a possible scenario: in the next future, shall we have more and more growth without employment, i.e. with less and less job opportunities? Are we facing with the concrete possibility to have a jobless generation? In fact, in these processes—whose gravity, again, the European authorities have long had full awareness—we find the main causes of widespread precariousness and social exclusion and of the profound changes occurred in European society in recent years: no work, no children, is the comment we may read frequently on the newspapers. The parallelism between unemployment, falling birth rate and aging population has long been clearly reflected in the assessments of the reports by the Directorate General for Employment of the European Commission. According to the Commission, the initiative of the European Pillar of Social Rights presented in 2015 should promote as a major correction of this situation full of risks for the cohesion, including political cohesion, of the European system ensuring higher levels of economic and employment growth, thus safeguarding the fundamental characteristics of the European social model. Agreements with a contractual value between the Union and the Member States should ensure the implementation of the related reforms, on the basis of mandatory commitments for eurozone states and voluntary commitments for other Member States, and penalties for non-compliance with the implementation of the consequent action plans. In particular, social parties are required “to play a central role in this process”.23

22EUROPEAN

COMMISSION: Youth Employment: Commission welcomes Council Agreement on Youth Guarantee, MEMO/13/152, Brussels, 28 February 2013. 23EUROPEAN COMMISSION: President Juncker’s 2015 State of the Union address: Time for Honesty, Unity and Solidarity, Speech/15/5614, Strasbourg, 9 September 2016.

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On 23 October 2017, in Luxembourg, at the session of the Council Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO), the Ministers of Labor and Social Affairs of the European Union unanimously approved the text of the inter-institutional proclamation on the European Pillar of Social Rights, only two years after Commission President Junker had presented this idea in the speech on the state of the Union (2015) and six months after the concrete proposal had been presented.24 Among the numerous references mentioned in the document, it is worth recalling for its value the previous resolution of 19 January 2017 endorsed by the European Parliament, which called for the Commission to promote a solid European Pillar of Social Rights such as a condition for producing positive effects on people’s life in the short and medium term and supporting the European construction in the twenty-first century,25 and also to recall the commitment enshrined in the Rome Declaration by Heads of State and Government and the High Representatives of the Community institutions, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of treaties, to work for a social Europe: “We commit to the Rome Agenda, and pledge to work towards […] A social Europe: a Union which, based on sustainable growth, promotes economic and social progress as well as cohesion and convergence, while upholding the integrity of the internal market; a Union taking into account the diversity of national systems and the key role of social partners; a Union which promotes equality between women and men as well as rights and equal opportunities for all; a Union which fights unemployment, discrimination, social exclusion and poverty” (Rome Declaration 2017, para. 3).26 The pillar’s document is divided in a preamble that recalls the principles of the Treaties which define the European social model as well as the European Union and the Member States’ competences for sustainable development, social and employment promotion; therefore presents the 20 fundamental principles and rights set for starting a new convergence process towards better living and working conditions for all citizens based on equity in labor markets and social protection systems. The principles and rights defined by the pillar are divided into

24COUNCIL

OF EUROPEAN UNION: Proposal for an Interinstitutional Proclamation on the European Pillar of Social Rights, Doc. N. 13129, Brussels 20 October 2017 approved by the EPSCO Council, Session n. 3569, Luxembourg, 23 October 2017. 25EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Resolution on a European Pillar of Social Rights (2016/2095 (INI)), Strasbourg, 19 January 2017. 26EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Declaration of the Leaders of 27 Member States and of the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission: The Rome Declaration, Statement 17/767, Brussels, 25 March 2017.

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three main chapters: (a) equal opportunities and access to the labor market, (b) fair working conditions, (c) social protection and inclusion. Below is a list of the 20 principles and rights and the related scope of application as organized in the text approved by the Council (EPSCO) on 23 October 2017 and subsequently discussed, approved and “solemnly” proclaimed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission at the Social Summit for Fair Jobs and Growth that took place on 17 November 2017 in Gothenburg, Sweden.27 Chapter 1—Equal Opportunities and Access to the labor market 1. Education, training and life-long learning 2. Gender equality 3. Equal opportunities 4. Active support to employment Chapter 2—Fair working conditions 5. Secure and adaptable employment 6. Wages 7. Information about employment conditions and protection in case of dismissals 8. Social dialogue and involvement of workers 9. Work-life balance 10. Healthy, safe and well-adapted work environment and data protection Chapter 3—Social protection and inclusion 11. Childcare and support to children 12. Social protection 13. Unemployment benefits 14. Minimum income 15. Old age income and pensions 16. Health care 17. Inclusion of people with disabilities 18. Long-term care 19. Housing and assistance for the homeless 20. Access to essential services

27EUROPEAN

COMMISSION: The European Pillar of Social Rights, Publication Office ­KA-05-17-081-EN-NE, Brussels, 2017.

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The preamble of the document presents important elements that clarify the aims and limits of the initiative. Among the goals, a high political value is the explicit acknowledgment that “economic and social progress are intertwined” and that “the development of a European Pillar of Social Rights should be part of wider efforts to build a more inclusive and sustainable growth model” (EC 2017, point n. 11, p. 7); that “the European Pillar of Social Rights aims “to serve as a guide towards efficient employment and social outcomes when responding to current and future challenges“(EC 2017, point n. 12, p. 8); that “a stronger focus on employment and social performance is particularly important to increase resilience and deepen the Economic and Monetary Union. For this reason, the European Pillar of Social Rights is notably conceived for the euro area, but it is addressed to all Member States” (EC 2017, point 13, p. 8). The preamble also clarifies the aspects concerning the pillar’s legal value. “The European Pillar of Social Rights expresses principles and rights essential for fair and ­well-functioning labor markets and welfare systems in the twenty-first century Europe. It reaffirms some of the rights already present in the Union acquis. It adds new principles which address the challenges arising from societal, technological and economic developments. For them to be legally enforceable, the principles and rights first require dedicated measures or legislation to be adopted at the appropriate level” (EC 2017, point 14, p. 8). We are therefore facing a document of high political value, but not legally binding; a definition of commitment which—it is added for further clarity—does not prevent Member States or the social partners from establishing more ambitious social standards as well as does not entail an extension of the Union’s powers and tasks as conferred by the Treaties: “Delivering on the European Pillar of Social Rights is a shared political commitment and responsibility. The European Pillar of Social Rights should be implemented at both Union level and Member State level within their respective competences, taking due account of different socio-economic environments and the diversity of national systems” (EC 2017, point 17, p. 9). With reference to the specific problem of social precariousness spread throughout the European system, it must be admitted that the entire pillar initiative, with its wide-ranging policy shift, could make a major contribution to effective contrast-action. A concrete, effective implementation of the 20 mentioned principles and rights could open up a new scenario on this front of social privation and exclusion. In this respect it is useful to recall some statements contained in the document. For example, in Chapter II on Fair Working Conditions, the principle n.5 on a “Secure and adaptable employment” affirms the commitment to promote “the transition towards open-ended forms of employment” (EC 2017, point 5a, p. 14). On the other hand, in relation to the much discussed problem

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of the border line between flexibility and precarious work, the document states that “in accordance with legislation and collective agreements, the necessary flexibility for employers to adapt swiftly to changes in economic context shall be ensured” (EC 2017, point 5b, p. 14). But, in parallel: “employment relationships that lead to precarious working conditions shall be prevented, including by prohibiting abuse of atypical contracts. Any probation period should be of reasonable duration” (EC 2017, point 5d, p. 14). Incidentally, it must be added that this is the only time that the new pillar of the European Union refers to and uses the word “precariousness”. Finally, with regard to the problem of impoverishment, which is one of the main causes of social insecurity, in Chapter III of the document on principles and rights relating to social protection and inclusion, the Union’s pillar recognizes, inter alia, the right to a minimum income (“Everyone lacking sufficient resources has the right to adequate minimum income benefits ensuring a life in dignity at all stages of life and effective access to enabling goods and services” (point 14, p. 20), the right to adequate income for a life in dignity in advanced age (“everyone in old age has the right to resources that ensure living in dignity” (EC 2017, point 15b, p. 20), the right of access to essential services (“Everyone has the right to access essential services of good quality … Support for access to such services shall be available for those in need” (EC 2017, point 20, p. 22).

4 Comments: Towards a Radical Change in the Approach to Development Issues? At this point, a comment arises spontaneously: after years in which the European system has generally recognized and entrusted with social policy as a secondary role, for the first time the re-emergence of two key words as “pillar” and “rights” would lead to affirm that we are facing with the emergence of a major political shift in the sense of restoring the true values of the European social model based on a social market economy, according the Lisbon Treaty 2007.28 Of course, many questions remain open, such as the binding and exhaustive character of the document approved by the Social summit 2017 as well as the value of the statement of these rights (is it a mere statement of principles or vice versa, are real rights?). A clarification on these and other key issues, which of course imply important political choices, can greatly help to understand whether the awareness has matured of

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UNION: Treaty on European Union (TEU): Art.3, Lisbon 13 December 2007, OJ C306/2, 17 December 2007.

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the need to give a new direction to European social policy by recovering an essential factor in promoting a truly balanced and sustainable development. It should be added that such a recovery would also enable to take effective provisions against the widespread phenomenon of labor and social precariousness that so many adverse effects is producing in the lives of people and communities. Certainly, we are starting to read in European and international documents very different orientations from those that could be read even just in the recent past. Let’s take, for example, the Commission’s Communication which in 2016 initiated in Europe the consultation on the European Pillar of Social Rights,29 and the introductory part which refers to the importance competitive social market economy as a guiding principle established in the treaty. The document states precisely that in Europe “social policy must also be conceived as a productive factor, capable of reducing inequalities, maximizing job creation and making human capital prosperous” (EC 2016, p. 2). Facing to such statements it is legitimate to recall the fact that for years, those who have operated in the field of social research as well as those who have been committed to promote initiatives aimed at safeguarding and enhancing the European social model, especially and even more in a period of serious economic and financial crisis like the recent one, such scholars, researchers and operators have always been confronted with the prevailing views of public decision makers and primary private players led by a liberal culture, according to which social policy was above all a cost to the community; a cost to be borne, of course, for its intrinsic value, but anyway a cost to bear. Now, the new guidelines adopted by the Commission seem to radically correct this approach and interpretation. Similarly, deep corrections in the Community approach to development policies can be found in the emphasis, in many respects decidedly new, with which the Commission in the same document recalls the need to “strengthen the link between economic, social and environmental” (EC 2016, p. 4), states that “inequalities hold back economic development” (EC 2016, p. 4), recognizes that concerning the concept of flexicurity “it is time to redefine how it can be best applied in practice”, following the crisis and in the light of the changes that took place in the world of work. Similar radical changes in political, scientific and cultural orientations may also be found in the documents of many organizations marking the 29EUROPEAN

COMMISSION: Launching a consultation on a European Pillar of Social Rights, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, and ANNEX 1: First preliminary outline of a European Pillar on Social Rights, COM(2016)127 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016.

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international agenda and which the Commission calls as a framework reference to support its specific initiative: the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development approved from the United Nations in September 2015, the most recent documents of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the International Labor Organization (ILO).30 A significant example of such change in the approach to development issues can be found in an OECD document, “Making Globalisation Work: Better Lives for All”, prepared—and subsequently approved—as a basis for the discussion of the OECD Council at Ministerial level, held in Paris on 7–8 June 2017. Facing the increasingly popular protest and resistance movements in the most industrialized countries in relation to the current globalisation processes, identified as the cause of growing inequalities and social injustice, the OECD presents to the ministers the following need: “We need to replace the ‘growth first, distribute later’ with a more integrated approach in which the low income groups are better placed to contribute to the growth process, and also able to benefit from it. We need to avoid the silo approach with growth policies determined in one place while social issues are handled in another one. It is not only a question of redistribution. It is about providing people with the means to succeed, in line with the Productivity-Inclusiveness Nexus approach developed at the 2016 Ministerial Council Meeting MCM“ (OECD 2017, p. 4).

Even in this case, until recently, the most prevalent approach followed by the major international bodies was completely different, in fact the opposite, as evidenced by such documents, research and studies, because the priority was recognized at the wealth production, as a stage completely separated from that of distribution, to which only in a second moment it would have been provided. It is a fact that the enormous increase in economic and social inequalities, widespread in the world, recorded in recent years, with all the serious even political effects in the relationship between citizens and institutions, has led to a radical change of course and to consider the two moments of production and distribution of wealth as the two faces of the same medal and this with the goal to pursue a

30UNITED NATIONS, UN: 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, New York, 2015; INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION, ILO: The future of work centenary initiative, Geneva, 2015; ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT, OECD: Policy forum on the future of work, Paris, 2016; OECD, IMF, WORLD BANK and the ILO: Income inequality and labour income share in G20 countries: Trends, Impacts and Causes, Paris 2015.

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widespread, balanced, sustainable development. It must be added that the most serious increase in inequality in recent times is the phenomenon in which the processes of equally widespread precariousness, uncertainty and social insecurity are placed. The reference by the European Social Pillar Rights initiative to the strategic role of labor market policies should not make us forget the recommendations provided for some time by important institutions and bodies such as the OECD, the ILO and the World Bank—recommendations expressed in numerous documents, even in occasion of summits such as the G20—about the fact that these policies alone are not capable of solving the problems of structural unemployment unless they are linked to more general growth plans and inserted and coordinated in an institutional cooperation system of a horizontal nature, working with integrated actions in the most diverse areas of economic, social and civil promotion such as education and training, social safeguards, culture, and participation in community life.

5 Social Precariousness and Labor Market Reforms The decisive role of economic development in the fight against unemployment, underlined by the above mentioned recommendations, finds an authoritative confirmation in the conclusions reached by the German foundation Hans Boeckler. In a report prepared with the Institute of Macroeconomic Policy-IWK and presented at a conference on the employment situation in Europe situation promoted on September 2014 by European Trade Union Confederation and its institute ETUI,31 Boeckler Foundation noted that in the last years all Europeans states have approved a large number of innovative laws to reform their own labor markets, well 3567 reforms from 2002 to 2014, and that this commitment has increased just in the period of the crisis. However, overall, the European system has failed to tackle, if not marginally and cyclically, the growing widespread unemployment: “3500 reforms are not enough?” is the question posed by the report. The thesis, supported and demonstrated by an extensive research, is that labor policies are a function of the development and that labor market reform may facilitate the inclusion in the workplace, not create them. The states and regions that will not be able to promote sound macroeconomic growth policies will be in any case destined to continue to record high levels of unemployment (Table 1).

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TRADE UNION INSTITUTE, ETUI: Europe at a crossroads, Conference Report, Brussels, 2014.

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Table 1   Labor market in Europa: “3.500 reforms are not sufficient?” EU 28, number of reforms and innovative laws, selection of states and annuity State

2000 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Austria

14

3

9

16

12

7

8

14

18

Totale 2000–2014 141

Belgium 9

12

9

25

7

18

21

38

34

229

Bulgaria

13

4

16

6

16

9

13

11

117

Denmak

3

2

1

15

5

7

8

12

6

83

Finland

10

6

3

14

12

9

4

14

10

131

France

4

14

9

22

14

3

9

15

19

154

Germany 7

8

7

24

10

4

11

7

8

134

Greece

3

3

25

8

25

26

32

26

184

7

Italy

11

8

25

16

5

15

11

49

21

206

Poland

3

2

16

8

7

5

5

13

18

128

Spain

11

23

19

6

7

15

28

46

25

253

Sweden

7

15

12

8

14

9

4

9

10

128

U.K.

3

EU 28

139

2

12

13

23

8

19

13

15

145

187

280

332

296

273

309

441

385

3567

Source Hans Boeckler Stiftung—IMK, A. Watt, Brussels, 2014.

Specifically, with reference to the labor markets’ structures, according to the indication by the authoritative European Network on Regional Labor Market Monitoring—EN.RLLM (University of Frankfurt, 2014, Website: www. regionallabourmarketmonitoring.net) the main still open question concerns the extension of the traditional functions and intervention’s areas of the services; in other words, their mission. In fact, the nature, the intensity and the extent of the changes underway require the labor market structures to have effective performance to meet the real needs both of businesses and workers; but even more, the changes require to labor services, in particular to the labor market Observatories, to act on the basis of an adequate system of economic and territorial intelligence, primarily by promoting adequate analysis on the elements of qualification of the production factors (business and labor), the real challenge of international competition; then, to connect the collection of data and information (description of the phenomena and trends) to the subsequent moments of knowledge (assessment of the phenomena), decisions and actions (active participation in the choices concerning planning and monitoring activity). In essence, the labor market structures

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are increasingly required to strengthen their theoretical and knowledge heritage; to make it functional to the correction of the imperfections that limit the meeting of supply and demand; to develop and use tools functional to assessment activity (as descriptive indicators) and programming activity (as planning indicators); in essence, to know how to connect the past, the present and the future. With the same goals, that is to promote a radical change in the functions and management modalities of the operational labor market’s structures, the European Council of 28 June 201332 made the decision to approve the Commission proposal of 17 June 2013 aimed at extending enhanced cooperation between member states to their Public Employment Services (P.E.S.).33 This decision, which is part of the measures taken to fight unemployment, in particular with reference to the Youth Guarantee program, was based on a request from the previous European Council of 14 December 201234 and led to the establishment of a permanent coordination structure—European Network of Public Employment Services—with a solid legal basis, very different from the previous informal coordination among experts representing such services that existed since 1997. The new coordination became operational in Brussels on 23 September 2014 and will remain in force until 31 December 2020. The point on which direct our reflection concerns the fact that in the introductory report of the Commission proposal to the European Parliament and the Council of 2013 (EC 2013, p. 3) the value of a document is recalled, a document drawn up and approved in 2012 by the heads of the European network of P.E.S. as a contribution to the implementation of the EU 2020 strategy.35 The document, “Public Employment Services’ Contribution to EU 2020: PES 2020 Strategy Output Paper”, very clearly presents the insufficiencies of traditional labor market policies and goes so far as to state that the current trends in the economy and in production processes have brought an end of such markets. In this situation, employment services will have to be reorganized to manage the new labor markets, defined as “transitional labour markets” (EC 2012, p. 3); to operate as structures able to drive people in welfare systems, no longer only to overcome the work difficulties (“to transform into work focused gateway to

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COUNCIL: Conclusions, D/13/5, Brussels, 28 June 2013. COMMISSION: Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and the Council on enhanced c­ o-operation between Public Employment Services, COM (2013) 430 Final, Brussels, 17 June 2013. 34EUROPEAN COUNCIL: Conclusions, EUCO 205/12, Brussels, 28 June 2013. 35EUROPEAN COMMISSION, DG EMPLOYMENT: Public Employment Services’ Contribution to EU 2020: PES 2020 Strategy Output Paper, Brussels, 2012. 33EUROPEAN

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welfare systems” (EC 2012, p. 2); to organize a labor market governance system closely related to macro-economic governance; to help reducing the uncertainties of political choices, especially those related to their long term activities; to be able to anticipate and influence labor market changes. The extent and scope of these new functions leads the European P.E.S. network document to propose to change the same terminology used so far to identify such services and to use rather the term of Public Employment System, for the complexity of relationships and collaboration that the new challenges of modern progress require to build. “Using the term Public Employment System – explains a note from the document – instead of the Public Employment Service help to transcend various institutional settings of public employment service provision that exist in specific national context. At the same time, the term expresses the idea that the governance of labour markets is not achieved by a single ministry or public agency, but through network formation” (EC 2012, p. 4, Note n. 2). These three references—to the indications of scientific institutions such as the H.Boeckler Foundation and the European Network on Regional Labor Market Monitoring EN-RLMM as well as of operational institutions such as the Public Employment Services’ Network, an official EU body since 2014—have clearly an emblematic value. Faced with the insufficient results achieved so far in Europe on the labor front and that of social inclusion and cohesion, these references are a useful contribution to better understand that there has always been in Europe in recent years the awareness both of the seriousness of the situation created before and after the 2007–2008 crisis, and the need to make radical changes in the setting of economic policies, in order to make them more consistent with the postulates of the European social model. The fact is that the gravity of the current European work and social situation is more and more marked in Europe by the growing centrality of the widespread phenomena of precariousness, uncertainty, insecurity, with its multiple negative effects, at the limit of rupture, on the most diverse areas of civil life, not only of the economy. A study by the European Parliament on the specific issue of “Precarious Employment in Europe”, prepared by the Directorate General for Internal Policy, Policy Department A, Economic and Scientific Policy, published and released in July 2016,36 provides a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon of precariousness in Europe, connected to working conditions.

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PARLIAMENT, DIRECTORATE GENERAL FOR INTERNAL POLICY, POLICY DEPARTMENT A: ECONOMIC AND SCIENTIFIC POLICY: Precarious Employment in Europe, Study for EMPL Committee, PE 587.285, Brussels, July 2016.

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In the introduction, the study offers elements of clarity on how to define the precariousness of work. “Precarious work is a concept that does not have a ­universally-accepted definition in Europe. Different EU Member States are faced with different labour market challenges, depending on a number of factors, such as their system of industrial relations, collective bargaining, labour market regulation, economic composition and welfare systems. The conceptual framework suggested by Olsthoorn (2014) is a useful starting point when trying to conceptualise precarious work. Based on an overview of the academic literature on precariousness, he distinguishes between three components of precarious employment: a) Insecure employment (e.g. fixed-term contract, temporary agency work); b) Unsupportive entitlements (i.e. few entitlements to income support when unemployed); c) Vulnerable employees (i.e. few other means of subsistence, such as wealth or a partner with a significant income). Precarious employment can then be defined as the intersection of these three characteristics, i.e. vulnerable employees who have an insecure job and few entitlements to income support. However, it should be noted that precarious employment is always a relative concept, referring to non-precarious forms of employment and a certain threshold as a border line. The exact demarcation is always contested” (EP 2016, p. 20). The study focuses its analysis on the nature of jobs, or employment position, as the key element to illustrate the precariousness of the work (even though other factors such as unsupportive welfare entitlement and the vulnerability of individuals also play a role). “We have also included – the study states – elements of quality in work and awareness of the role of individual choice, as we acknowledge that these factors play a role in determining precariousness” (EP 2016, p. 22). Two are the analytical axes of the research: (a) Employment relations and (b) Individual risk of precariousness. Regarding the first axis, employment relations, the study of the European Parliament analyzes and evaluates all the main typologies of employment contracts spread in Europe: standard’ open-ended, ­full-time contracts; part-time work; (including involuntary part-time work, marginal part-time work and job-sharing), self-employment; temporary work (including ­ fixed-term contracts, temporary agency work; seasonal and casual work, posted work and outsourced or subcontracted work); zero hours contracts; internships; informal or undeclared work. Regarding the second axis, the focus here is on the risk of precariousness for the individual. In this case, the main elements analyzed are the following: in-work poverty and low pay; social security; labor rights; stress and health; career development and training; low level of collective rights. These elements may be present to a greater or lesser degree in many types of contracts and types of work. However, in terms of their contribution to precarity, some carry more weight than others.

34

M. Ricceri “We would argue – the document states – that poverty, which in an employment context means income levels (pay and social security coverage) is one of the most important contributors to precarity. We would therefore weight these indicators as most important. Lack of labour rights is also an important indicator of precarity, linked to factors such as informality and length of service. Some labour rights do not apply to individuals who do not achieve a specific threshold in terms of length of service in a contract, leaving them potentially vulnerable in areas such as protection against unfair dismissal or entitlement to social security or maternity pay and leave. This is also linked to quality of work, as set out above. In this study we have based our analysis on reports of survey data, objective reports and subjective analytical reports and our own analysis of survey data. Lack of access to collective representation could be a proxy for lack of labour rights, as employee representatives inform, advise and guide works on many issues, including labour rights. Finally, quality of work plays a role in precarity. Work that involves a low degree of autonomy and control, low variation of tasks, lack of control over working time, or an inadequate or dangerous working environment can increase the risk of psychosocial problems, such as stress at work, and physical health problems. This can result in employees needing to take time out of their job and even the labour market, which in turn will increase the risk of poverty. Finally, lack of career development and training will add to precariousness, in that individuals will not develop the skills necessary to enable them to maintain their employability, putting them at risk of unemployment in the future” (EP 2016, Chapter 1, Sect. 1.1.3, p. 23).

The application of these indicators makes it possible to highlight very interesting results on which the European Parliament study draws up, in conclusion, the recommendations to the European authorities. Given that, in general, all employment relationships are subject to some risks of insecurity, the study shows that the greatest risks of precariousness for individuals are linked, in order, to in-work poverty, to the insufficiency or lack of social security protection, to the lack of access to labor rights. If we take into account the fact according to the official statistics about a quarter of the European population, about 122 million citizens, are currently at risk of poverty, as we have already mentioned, we can consequently have a precise idea at what level of gravity the phenomenon of precariousness caused by current working conditions has risen in Europe. With reference to the typology of employment contracts, as it is easily to guess, the study confirms that the highest risk of precariousness is found in informal and undeclared work in which according to the Eurobarometer (Survey on Undeclared work 2014) 4% of people are involved, in particular women and immigrants; in the zero hours contracts (equal to 5% of contracts in the UK and in Austria), in temporary agency work (equal to 1.5% of European employment contracts) or in the posted work found in newspapers or websites (almost 2 million workers in 2014 with a trend defined as increasing).

Social Precariousness and the European Pillar of Social Rights

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According to the study, a medium level of risk is instead linked to part-time work (which involves 7% of employed in the European Union) in the specific types of involuntary part-time work (equal to 25% of the total part-time employment) or marginal (equal to 9% of the total part-time employees) with sharply increasing trends in all production sectors; then to fixed-term work and with terms imposed by the entrepreneur to the worker (equal to 7% of the total employed); to temporary work provided by employment agencies (which cover 1.5% of total labor contracts); to self-employment without employees as freelancers (equal to 10% of the European workforce) or with at least one employee (equal to 4% of the workforce). In this regard, it should be noted that half of young Europeans aged between 15 and 24 work either with part-time contract fewer than 20 h per week or on a temporary basis (fixed term or apprenticeships/ trainees); one in two young people are working part-time with more than 20 h per week and on temporary basis. A medium level of risk of precariousness is also recognized for workers aged between 18 and 35 who have completed at least one internship (experience that involves 46% of the European workforce). The lowest level of risk is in open-ended work contracts, both for full-time and for part-time employment, provided that wages are sufficient to ensure a decent standard of living. These contracts cover 59% of the European workforce (in 2003 this level was 63%). Over time, the study emphasizes, this type of contract could become a minority, as is already the case for certain social groups, for example young people, and in certain sectors, such as some service sectors; and the more this trend is growing, the study of the European Parliament adds, the more it is destined to increase the level of risk of precariousness. It is interesting to note that the study of the European Parliament, while identifying the main drivers of precariousness in the world of work, attributes great importance to the financial crisis that in recent years has affected the European system and its consequences, to the austerity policies implemented in the following years, to the shortcomings in the regulation system of the labor market or, better, to the de-regulation processes that have been promoted throughout Europe in particular in the last decade, to the effects of the opening the European markets to international competition and, finally, to the structural changes in the production and service system with the technological and ITC modernization processes and the digitization of the economy. In summary, among the main factors of precariousness the study indicates the guidelines of economic policy that have prevailed in recent years in the European system. In the final recommendations, the study identifies the strategic element of contrast to precariousness in social welfare systems, which calls for a profound reorganization to minimize the impact of poverty and the impoverishment of people, the main effect of the risk of job insecurity: “given the proliferation of potentially

36

M. Ricceri

precarious forms of employment, it will be necessary for Member States to think about how welfare systems can support individuals who, as a result of having worked in precarious forms of employment, do not have adequate social security and pensions coverage. Given that non-standard forms of employment may become the norm in the future, policymakers at European and national level will need to rethink social protection provision in order to avoid poverty traps, in particular with regards to pensions” (EP 2016, Chapter 6, Sect. 6.1, p. 173).

6 A Final Reflection: The Existential Precariousness of European Citizens and Institutions Along with the open problems of the effectiveness of labor market policies, according to the vast majority of experts the fact is that the precariousness caused by medium and long-term structural unemployment, reduced or discontinuous work and increasing inactivity especially among the young people, is related to a complex series of obstacles and barriers that go beyond the issue of the labor market performances. It deals with obstacles and barriers of the most diverse nature destined to profoundly mark the lives of people. For example, as we have seen, in the first place, the obstacles and difficulties linked to the way in which welfare systems, social and economic services of a community are organized and operate (transportation, child care, health services, housing market and household services, vocational training, the guarantees of decent income, the services to support the start up of new enterprises). But, secondly, also the importance of the many cultural and psychological barriers is increasingly recalled, linked to the predominant lifestyles in a community, to its system of social relations and to its capacity to promote and produce human relationships or exclusion, to its cultural integration and solidarity processes, to the concrete prospects of civil progress that a ruling class is able to offer its citizens. They are, in essence, the barriers connected to the way in which a community—be a European, national or local community—faces and lives the modernity of our time, commonly defined as liquid, according to the famous expression coined by the sociologist Zygmunt Baumann. For a growing number of people these cultural and psychological barriers are the cause of phenomena such as the lack of motivation, lack of availability to assume responsibilities, modest aspirations, difficulty or refusal to plan any personal future, difficulty in building one’s own social identity, the tendency to self-exclude oneself from the processes of common growth, isolation, the loss of every orientation compass, the sense of existential uselessness. Such phenomena are well identified and analyzed since long time by scholars, study centers and

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specialized agencies, including those of the European Union. An example for all may be found in the 2017 report on “In-work poverty in the EU” published by European foundation Eurofound37: “Working poor face particular problems: inwork poverty is associated with lower levels of subjective and mental well-being problems with accommodation, as well as poorer relationships with other people and feeling of social exclusion” (Eurofound 2017, p. 1). These are the main obstacles, the real barriers that define the boundaries of the precariousness and social uncertainty widespread in the European context but, as we have already noted above, very rarely mentioned and recognized in the official documents of the Union authorities and the governments of the member states, whose preference is rather for the word flexibility, often used in an ambiguous way. Yet it is a phenomenon, we point out again, that over the years has gradually increased and positioned at the center of the life of contemporary societies, transferring its negative effects from the world of work to the system of social relations and community structures, up to the point of involving the participation in the life of public institutions. The growing and widespread detachment and distrust among people towards public life, witnessed, for example, by the high degree of absenteeism to electoral moments, or rather, by the spread of populist movements, are nothing other than an ultimate effect of the high degree of precariousness, uncertainty, insecurity that is affecting so many citizens and their communities of reference, starting from the family. Forty years ago, in 1977, the American economist John Kenneth Galbraith published the famous book on “The Age of Uncertainty”, referring to international situation created by the great events of that period such as, for example, the oil crisis and the crisis of the international monetary system. Forty years later, the word “uncertainty” is still topical, but has taken on very different meanings, especially for the future of the European system. It is a fact that the uncertainty and precariousness of our time is a structural phenomenon that primarily concerns the values and organization of contemporary society, involves ever more extensive social groups and ultimately takes on the characteristics of an existential crisis. The young precarious, the precarious worker, the family who lives in precarious conditions, end up entering a real crisis that is not hazardous to define as an existential crisis. It is, in a final analysis, similar to the existential crisis of contemporary Europe that the President of the Commission, ­Jean-Claude Junker,

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FOUNDATION FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS, EUROFOUND: In-work poverty in EU 2017, Research Report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2017.

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denounced in the 2016 State of the Union speech.38 The parallelism between the personal existential crisis of many European citizens and the existential crisis of the EU institutions is not at all out of place when we face the problems of precariousness in the contemporary society. It is from such assumption that those who really want to get out of fiction and rhetoric must start again and try to build a civil progress worthy of this name, based, as it is continually repeated, on a fair, inclusive and sustainable development. The ethical and political responsibility of the European system is at stake. In fact, it must be clear that such corrective action of the current working of the European system as a whole recalls not only the need to promote new economic and social policy directions, but also, even more, the exercise of specific ethical, civic, political responsibilities in the broadest sense of the word. There is a possible future to explore that recalls the following question: where are we going? But there is also a future, equally possible, to be built, which recalls another, more important question: what future do we want to build?

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COMMISSION: President Juncker’s 2016 State of the Union address: towards a better Europe, Speech/16/3043, Strasbourg, 14 September 2016.

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European Commission. (17 June 2013). Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and the Council on enhanced co-operation between Public Employment Services, COM (2013) 430 Final, Brussels. European Commission. (12 February 2015). Preparing for the next step on better economic governance in the euro area, A analytical Note, Informal European Council, Brussels. European Commission, European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC). (18 June 2015). The Social Dimension of Economic and Monetary Union. Towards Convergence and Resilience, Strategic Note, Issue 5, Brussels. European Commission. (22 June 2015). Five Presidents’ Report. Completing Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union, Brussels. European Commission. (9 September 2015). President Juncker’s 2015 State of the Union address: Time for Honesty, Unity and Solidarity, Speech/15/5614, Strasbourg. European Commission. (8 March 2016). Launching a consultation on a European Pillar of Social Rights, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, and ANNEX 1: First preliminary outline of a European Pillar on Social Rights, COM(2016)127 final, Strasbourg. European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document. (8 March 2016). The EU Social acquis, accompanying the document: EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Launching a consultation on a European Pillar of Social Rights, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2016)127 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016, SWD (2016) 50 final, Strasbourg. European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document. (8 March 2016). Key economic, employment and social trends behind a European Pillar of Social Rights, accompanying the document: European Commission: Launching a consultation on a European Pillar of Social Rights, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, COM(2016)127 final, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016, SWD (2016) 51 final, Strasbourg. European Commission. (14 September 2016). President Juncker’s 2016 State of the Union address: Towards a better Europe, Speech/16/3043, Strasbourg. European Commission. (1 March 2017). White Paper on the future of Europe: Avenues for unity for the EU at 27, Brussels. European Commission. (25 March 2017). Declaration of the Leaders of 27 Member States and of the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission: The Rome Declaration, Statement 17/767, Brussels. European Commission. (14 September 2017). President Juncker’s 2017 State of the Union Address: Catching the wind in our sails, Speech/17/3165, Strasbourg. European Commission. (2017). The European Pillar of Social Rights, Publication Office KA-05-17-081-EN-NE, Brussels. European Council. (29 June 2012). Conclusions, EUCO 76/12, Brussels. European Council. (19 October 2012). Conclusions, EUCO 156/12, Brussels. European Council. (28 June 2013). Conclusions, EUCO 205/12, Brussels. European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Eurofound. (2017). In-work poverty in EU 2017, Research Report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

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European Parliament, Directorate General For Internal Policy, Policy Department A: Economic And Scientific Policy. (July 2016). Precarious Employment in Europe, Study for EMPL Committee, PE 587.285, Brussels. European Parliament. (19 January 2017). Resolution on a European Pillar of Social Rights (2016/2095 (INI)), Strasbourg. European Trade Union Institute, ETUI. (2014). Europe at a crossroads, Conference Report, Brussels. European Union. (17 December 2007). Treaty on European Union (TEU): Art. 3, Lisbon 13 December 2007, OJ C306/2. European Union. (17 December 2007). Treaty on European Union (TEU): Art. 6, Lisbon 13 December 2007, OJ C306/2. European Union. (9 May 2008). Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Consolidated version, 2008, The role of Social Dialogue, Articles n. 151,152,155, Lisbon 13 December 2007, OJ 2008/C 115/01. International Labour Organization, ILO. (2015). The future of work centenary initiative, Geneva. OECD, IMF, World Bank and the ILO. (2015). Income inequality and labour income share in G20 countries: Trends, Impacts and Causes, Paris. OECD (2017). Government at a Glance 2017. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi. org/10.1787/gov_glance-2017-en. (Retrived on 17.12.2018). Olsthoorn, M. (2014). Measuring precarious employment: A proposal for two indicators of precarious employment based on set-theory and tested with Dutch labor market-data. Social Indicators Research, 119(1), 421–441. Organization for Economic Cooperation And Development, OECD. (2016). Policy forum on the future of work, Paris. United Nations, UN. (2015). 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, New York.

Social Policy Development in the International Context—Social Investment or a New Social Treatise? Peter Herrmann

Bare virtue can’t make Nations live In Splendour. They that would revive A Golden Age, must be as free, for Acorns, as for Honesty. (Mandeville 1705).

1 Introduction For the good or for the bad, social policy1 as we know or understand it today is very much a child of modern times, set up as cure against the illness of the system and also understood as move beyond its remits (Heimann 1929; for a broad overview: Pierson 2001; Pierson et al. 2014). Currently we find frequent debates on varieties of capitalism (Hall and Soskice 2001; also Albert 1991; for the wider debate e.g. Buhr and Frankenberger 2014; Kannankulam and Georgi 2014; Streeck 2010) and pronouncedly since the early 1990s about different welfare regime (Esping-Andersen 1990, 1999;

1Throughout

the contribution the terms social policy/social state and welfare policy/welfare state will be by and large used interchangeably though there are surely major differences between them.

P. Herrmann (*)  Human Rights Centre at the Law School, Central South University, Changsha, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_3

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Todd 1990/1996; Albert 1991).2 However only few considerations on the latter are put forward as genuinely reflecting differences as matter of different capitalisms (Schroeder 2008) though the latter is only vaguely approaching the topic, looking for complementarities instead of genuine integrity of the two. Within all these frameworks we can detect one fundamental shortcoming: all observations remain within the framework of institutionalist and functionalist perspectives. Stating path dependency is the one pillar, and actually refers to varieties of the path to and of capitalism. The functionalist pillar is highlighted by Anton Hemerijck (2011), contending that “[w]elfare institutions fulfill certain functions, such as macroeconomic stabilization, labor market integration, social insurance, poverty alleviation and social service provision, but it is political contestation over these functions what (in part) drives policy change in times of fundamental social and economic restructuring.” (Hemerijck 2011, p. 21) This opens the view on the historical development of social policies, but falls short to allow investigating its historical character, i.e. the fact that capitalist formations are not the only option and that even within this formation the functions themselves take very different meaning. In the following it is argued that this normative shortfall neglects four major shifts of development: (1) We see major shifts in the property structures that are not only a matter of control over resources—instead they go far beyond, showing major consequences for the entirety of the mode or production; broad reference for understanding the latter is made to the French Regulationist school (see Boyer and Saillard 2002; Boyer et al. 2004). (2) This is going hand in hand with not least technologically induced changes that—contrary to perceived wisdom—entail a massive surge towards socialisation—by and large we are witnessing the manifestation of a new stage of bol’shie tsiklys, i.e. major cycles (see for the concept Kondratiev 1926). (3) Thinking these two shifts together requires taking up systematically social and welfare policy as well—not by asking for a normative shift but by analysing the objective moves towards complex human systems. Elinor Ostrom’s seminal work provides in this respect a major general framework (see Ostrom 2010, p. 645; see also Ostrom 2005). (4) This requires subsequently also an analysis of the institutional changes, but taking a wider view and looking at constitutional processes. What had been called in multilevel policymaking within the EU is of much more fundamental meaning, going beyond the EU polity. For Social Policy (analysis) we see distinct arrays outlined in Fig. 1—adding and in part contextualising the discussion on redistributive, developmental and productivist models of social policy as they are elaborated by Ka Lin and Raymond KH Chan (see Lin and Chan 2013): 2There

had been earlier reflections e.g., by Titmuss (1958, 1974) and Wilensky and Lebeaux (1965) coming already then to results that are very similar to many of the later studies.

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Fig. 1   Arrays of social policy. (Own figure)

The core of the argument is that we have three main dimensions of social policy development: (i) as matter of aligning the regulatory welfare system with the accumulation regime, (ii) as matter of aligning the system to institutional changes, and (iii) as matter or adapting the system to the actual economic development. This allows to take a fresh view on social policy analysis in context, not least overcoming the paradigmatic dichotomisation of use value and exchange value and thus allowing to understand the economic sphere as truly socio- and ­political-economic matter. This allows not least understanding social policy in a less functional way as being concerned with the social as outcome of the interaction between people (constituted as actors) and their constructed and natural environment. Its subject matter refers to people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships. In other words, the constitutive interdependency between processes of self-realisation and processes governing the formation of collective identities is a condition for the social and its progress or decline (van der Maesen and Walker 2012, p. 260).

From here we can see social policy development also in its relation to the change of the productive system, going beyond a mere reflection of processes of institutional adaptation and alteration.

2 Development of Social Policy Orientations At a very first stage, the orientation is concerned with a constitutional process: the newly (emerging) accumulation system requires that a new regulatory system is established, setting up a new structure that is adequately reflecting the new conditions of modern industrial capitalism—it is a process that we can call Institutional Constitution—presented earlier as matter of aligning the regulatory welfare ­system with the accumulation regime (see Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2   Institutional constitution. (Own figure)

Fig. 3   Institutional adaptation. (Own figure)

Only after such constitutional process we see a shift of narrowing down the scope, now concerning a very limited array of internal adaptation—the basic terms and conditions of the separation of economy and social are defined and there are now two shifts—the Fig. 3 allows showing this fundamental shift that takes place within policy analysis. The mainstream approach—and its importance is not denied—follows even in its critical versions in broad terms the main ideas of economic liberalism and maintains that the functions of social policy are given and policies have to be developed around strategies dealing with the balancing cyclical development of the economy and adaptation of welfare policies to the changing conditions. Fundamental presumptions are the existence of two organisational forms, namely market and state; two types of goods, namely private and public; and one agent, namely the completely rational individual actor (see Ostrom 2010, p. 642 f.). One may add two ‘regulators’, namely the invisible hand and moral sentiments. Such understanding of reality—we may call it the ‘dichotomist model of society’—was feasible as long as it reflected a system that maintained a sufficient integrity of the accumulation regime, understood as “stabilization over a long period of the allocation of the net product between consumption and accumulation [which] implies some correspondence between the transformation of both the conditions of production and the conditions of the reproduction of wage earners” (Lipietz 1986, p. 19) This means as well that such framework for conceptualising social policy

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found unmistakably its roots in a specifically given reality, reducing the debate on the regulatory welfare system (‘social policy’) after its institutional constitution on institutional adaptations. As such, the view is limited on a tiny part of the overall setting, occurring in two variations: the first focuses on an institutionalist perspective, the second on a distributive perspective.

3 Revisiting the History of Welfare Systems The first stage lasted over along period,3 covering the different phases of a Kondratievian wave (major cycle): prosperity, recession, depression and improvement. We can see its reach from the establishment of the social insurance system in Germany to the formation of the NHS in England. Due to, amongst others, the real push of the industrialised nation state occurring at different times, the fundamental questioning of borders and the reshuffling of ­centre-periphery relations of the world order and not least the two world wars this phase of institutional constitution stretches far beyond a major cycle in the Kondratievan understanding.4 Another reason for this can be seen in the fact that the limited ‘dichotomist model of society’, as presented earlier, had been still not been fundamentally questioned by the technological development. So we find an overlap of ongoing and delayed processes of institutional constitution and institutional adaptations across different countries. Though all this is—as always if we work with ideal types and any other typologies—somewhat heuristic and open to interpretation, it may help us to understand better the current changes and challenges that are not taken up. Much of the current debates in the social and welfare policy area are in the present author’s opinion hugely conservative, presenting themselves with two faces. The one is the really conservative, criticising the existing system as characterised by too much state, too little space for private goods and an overregulated system that does not allow the individual actor to act freely and completely rational. The other face is also conservative, though vehemently rejecting the before mentioned position: here the stance is to move back to the status quo ante, re-establishing the ‘welfare system as we know it’. The latter position overlooks at least the following critical points.

3Mind,

this looks only at the countries of the countries of the European capitalist core. said to be 40–60 years.

4Usually

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Actually, the social and welfare state did not have the reach that is usually assumed. The process of industrialisation, as massive and meaningful as it had been, has to be taken with caution when it comes to the quantitative dimension. Marx wrote the Capital, in which he sees the working class as principle historical power, at a time at which the share of those employed in the industry (including the capitalists) made up about 8% of the population England and Wales […] only few more than the share of servants. One year after the writing of the Manifest the share of the workers in Prussia made up 2 to 3%. (Haug 1997, p. 317; translation Peter Herman)

This is, however only one aspect—and also in later phases it had never been the entire population that had been covered. Another aspect is that exclusion had been due to the fact of the underlying principle of nation states as point of reference: leaving the question of competitiveness aside, there had been and is so far always the issue of welfare states of the so-called developed countries being established on the back of other countries not being welfare-states. This is surely a wide area which would deserve detailed investigation—here it is sufficient to mention it as background note, including to point briefly out that the fact as such is cum grano salis also relevant within one of the centres, e.g. the way in which ­non-social-policy is established by forcing the country to austerity-measures of previously unknown scale as it happens with Greece, Spain and other member states of the EU. Finally it deserves mentioning that all systems are based in the principle of GDP-growth and related activities as ultima ratio, with this maintaining the principle of employment as ultimate point of reference. Karl Polanyi’s work on processes of disembedding (see Polanyi 1944) can be translated into the thesis that disembedding is not least about externalisation of costs, also by constituting external mechanisms as social and welfare policies as distinct mechanisms, reflected in the European Commission’s Communication on Social Investment, according to which “[w]elfare systems fulfil three functions: social investment, social protection and stabilisation of the economy” (European Commission 2013, p. 3). Throughout the history of modern welfare regulation there had been always a tension between different strands: (i) some investment orientation, securing the supply of ‘quality labour power’ (ii) some protective function, based in humanitarian and legitimising notions and requirements, and (iii) some kind of social investment of second order, dealing with new risks. (iv) We find social investment of third order, that it is oriented towards new opportunities.

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4 From Dichotomist Model of Society to Dealing with Complex Human Systems At least on the programmatic level, emphasis is currently put on social investment of first and second order, though by and large it is left open what exactly is understood by it—thus it is also difficult to exactly locate the strategy within the suggested framework. First and foremost, it is important to underline that the concept is by no means new. The OECD brought highlighted it already in the second half of the 1990 (see e.g. Pearson and Scherer 1997), and it received another push with the publication of a document issued by the European Commission and discussing the costs of non-social policy—though it had not been specified as political strategy (see Fouarge 2003) Since then we find a permanent debate on the issue, highlighting that social spending is not detrimentally affecting economic growth. Frank Vandenbroucke, Anton Hemerijck and Bruno Palier provide an overview, stating that “[s]ocial investment is not a new idea. It emerged gradually as a social policy perspective in the 1990s in response to fundamental changes in our societies. The social investment perspective was developed with the dual ambition of i) modernizing the welfare state, so that it would better address the new social risks and needs structure of contemporary societies; and ii) ensuring the financial and political sustainability of the welfare state, while upholding a different, knowledge-based, economy” (­Vandenbroucke et al. 2011, p. 5)

However, it is a bit like carrying owls to Athens: It is very frequent that actual policymaking seems to be incapable (or unwilling) to actually implement the programmes. Not least, it has to be considered that social investment may be seen as strategy aiming on simply boosting economic growth, following and strengthening a given path; being taken as means of innovation, adapting to societal and economic changes; or it may be seen as ‘driving force’ to boost wider changes, all captured due to the lack of a clear definition. Leaving the lack of a generally accepted definition aside, we can say that the main body of the argument in the EU-mainstream debate is presented in the statement from the European Commission’s Communication: Social investment involves strengthening people’s current and future c­apacities. In other words, as well as have having immediate effects, social policies also have lasting impacts by offering economic and social returns over time, notably in terms of employment prospects or labour incomes. In particular, social investment helps to ‘prepare’ people to confront life’s risks, rather than simply ‘repairing’ the

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P. Herrmann c­ onsequences. Modernisation of social policies requires systematic introduction of ­ex-ante result orientation in financing decisions and a systematic approach of the role social policies play in the different stages in life: from education via work/ unemployment to sickness and old-age. (European Commission 2013, p. 3)

And the question asked in the document: ‘What is needed?’ is answered by orienting on a “[f]ocus on simple, targeted and conditional social investment” (ibid. p. 8). The European strategy proves to follow again a utilitarian approach, premised by prioritising economic progress, furthermore by a very limited understanding of social policy itself, namely its definition as variable, depending on changing demographics. The aims are set on ‘efficiency gains in social policies’, ‘private and third sector resources to complement public efforts’ and ‘the need to invest in human capital throughout life and ensure adequate livelihoods’; the means seem to be clear; it is especially about mobilisation of ‘private and third sector resources to complement public efforts’ and the ‘need to invest in human capital throughout life and ensure adequate livelihoods’. Here the specific understanding of social investment of the UK deserves special mention: In principal emerging from the ‘Big Society’, the understanding of social investment is solely understood as vehicle to foster non-statutory/non-market solutions in the social policy area (see Government UK, ongoing). The fundamental confusion exists between investing in the social, i.e. ‘in people’s interrelated productive and reproductive relationships’ as one orientation and the orientation on ‘utilising social investment’ for stimulating economic progress. But when we look at the actual policy orientations, it seems to be clear that investment aims on making changes in order to secure the existing foundation. This is getting especially clear in a paragraph on gender issues, that is in actual fact only dealing with the position of women within the core of the economic system: Taking this into consideration, women’s total earnings gap can be estimated to be more than 40% below those of men on average. As gender inequality runs through an individual’s entire life and its negative effects cumulate over time, this results in for instance lower GDP, lower social security contributions and higher poverty among older women, with 18% of women of 65 years and over being at risk of poverty, compared with 13% of men. Having a disadvantaged background or belonging to an ethnic minority compounds these gender inequalities. (ibid. p. 8)

Without the slightest doubt, these are important issues. Nevertheless, some crucial questions are overlooked. (i) There is not much in this about gender, only the socio-economic position of women is addressed—and even this is reduced on

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labour market issues. (ii) This reflects more the needs of sustaining social security systems and there is only little in it from the perspective of everyday’s life of women and men, for instance in terms of a genuine so-called work-life balance. (iii) This implies that, though there is general agreement on the need to look at better life (see e.g. OECD n. d. a) instead of simply looking at higher GDP, there is little or nothing said about activities that are not in the strict sense relevant in terms of GDP. (iv) Finally, though without aiming on a comprehensive gathering of relevant issues, a relevant issue is in this context the need to have a new look at productivity. The standard figures provide a relatively clear picture. The OECD highlights that ‘[p]roductivity is about ‘working smarter,’ rather than ‘working harder,’ and reflects the ability to produce more output by better combining inputs, thanks to new ideas, technological innovations and new business models.’ (OECD n. d. b). There we read as well that the problem is diffusion of innovation, evidenced by referring to the gap between a productivity growth in advanced firms and a slow down and even stagnation in other firms (see Fig. 4). However, such calculation is rooted in the paradigm that had been presented as ‘dichotomist model of society’. It does not allow assessing overall productivity, let alone allowing us analysing the potential destructiveness of the development. The latter is of special relevance in the present context. Fundamental changes cannot only and not even primarily be found in demographic moves. To name other and more sea-changing matters, only a few will be put forward:

Fig. 4   Solid growth at the global productivity frontier but spillovers have slowed down— Labour productivity; index 2001 = 05. (Figure OECD 2015b, p. 46)

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Fig. 5   Four types of goods. (Figure: Ostrom 2010, p. 645)

• The shift to the knowledge-based society needs to be investigated in the light of its meaning of a new major cycle—this had been done in some respect, but most of these analyses had been limited to the technological and investment perspective. Urgently needed is to determine what this means as matter of establishing a new accumulation regime. Due to their strongly behavioural bias, the traditional answers (Post-Fordism, Individualisation) are barely sufficient. A valuable point for further analysis had been presented by Bob J­ essop, confronting the Keynesian Welfare National State with the Schumpeterian Workfare Postnational Regime (see Jessop 2000).5 • Seen in this light, the shift to the knowledge-based society allows overcoming the dichotomist model of society, talking up Elinor Ostrom’s strive ‘to develop a fuller understanding of complex human systems’. Of special interest at the moment is the orientation on four types of goods, presented in Fig. 5. • Seeing this in connection with the thesis that disembdding and thus in the context of externalisation of costs, we have to look also at new strategies of overall socio-economic integration—at least the carrying pillars of the modern welfare state can be seen as being under structural pressure: the nation state, standard employment/factory work, state bureaucracy and traditional charitable welfare. This will be elaborated later. The core of the argument is that we cannot remain in the old framework of insisting on a linkage between productivity, income (wage) and social security: productivity is not least depending on work executed in precarious and non-standard framework, feeding into the official economy, but not (adequately) gaining from it. Before briefly elaborating this, we will return to looking at the EUstrategy, the before mentioned allowing us to assess the ­policies more systematically.

5Taking

this together, we link the two methodological points mentioned earlier, i.e. the reference to the theory of long waves and the theory of regulation. Important is to elaborate this as matter of accumulation regimes, modes of regulation, living regimes and modes of life.

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5 Social Investment—Wrong Strategy or Wrong Aims? The social investment strategy does not take up the challenges mentioned. Instead, it orients on some form of re-establishing the traditional system, the means being the orientation the increase of its effectiveness. Investment is obviously directed towards economic stabilisation and consolidation. The ‘simple, targeted and conditional social investment’ as mentioned in the Commission’s communication, translates into the demand that any new “fiscal compact must be balanced with growth and social cohesion enhancing measures, if the European project is to survive” (Hemerijck 2012, p. 3). The study of national policies, looking at long-term care, characterises “the concept of social investment in the field of long-term care […] [by] some key objectives and promotes specific social policies: prevention from disabilities and rehabilitation on the one hand, improvements in the quality of care staff on the other hand” (Bouget et al. 2015, p. 30). The overall orientation leads to four pillars: (i) labour market integration (ii) opening the labour market commodification of services (iii) charitabilisation, commercialisation, communitarisation and voluntarisation as four different forms of privatisation and finally (iv) and increasing effectiveness (see in this context Herrmann 2011). There is not much wrong with the individual items as such. The problematique has to be seen in the specific interplay that constitutes social investment as tool for increasing economic performance and for increasing the internal functioning of the regulatory social and welfare system. Obvious is that the lack of conceptual clarity frequently veils the actual character of the relevant policies and the lack of it. In this respect the national reports, brought together in the referenced study of national policies 2015 show two remarkable patterns: (i) we find an overall increase of the interaction between elements of policy areas, i.e. a more integrated approach in areas as (a) early childhood development (b) parent’s labour market participation and (c) labour market exclusion (these are the area evaluated in the report); (ii) “However, many experts […] highlight that a significant weakness in their countries’ approach to social investment is its piecemeal development and the lack of attention being given to interaction or complementarity between different policy measures.” (Bouget et al. 2015, p. 10; see also European Social Policy Network 2015, in particular A3 and A4) It is in particular obvious that on the one hand there are several measures which are merged under (a), (b) or (c), on the other hand such allocation is actually arbitrary. Taking ‘Maternal/paternal/parental leave schemes’ as one example, it is surely a matter supporting parent’s labour market participation but equally

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relevant in the other areas. This can be taken as clear evidence that social investment is—if taken account of—is centrally seen as matter increasing effectiveness and enhancing the functioning of the regulatory welfare systems whereas genuine welfare policies are strategically subordinate. If any truly investment oriented policies, especially when focusing on investing in the social instead of enhancing the effective functioning of social policy instruments, are envisaged they will surely have to be long-term oriented and will by definition require investment, i.e. they demand spending money. It is obviously showing the structural shortcoming that “a key factor in their countries that has limited and in some cases actually lead to a decline in the development of a social investment approach has been the impact of the economic crisis and a policy environment dominated by fiscal consolidation policies whose primary aim is to reduce public budget deficits” (Bouget et al. 2015, p. 12)—So it is the old tune: when the greatest need prevails, the performance is lowest. In addition to this, it is obvious that the strategy is hugely status quo oriented. An adaptation to the fundamental challenges in terms of a needed institutional constitution is not issued. Looking at least briefly at the missions of the Commissioners (­European Commission n. d.) gives obvious insight. Though admittedly there is no easy way of assignment, the current assignments do not reflect the fundamental shift of the accumulation regime. Though Digital Economy plays a role and is linked to Society, which can be welcomed, a combination of Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness is questionable as it is also questionable to see the Digital Economy separated from it and also to see the distinction between Jobs on the one hand and Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility on the other hand.

6 Conclusion To summarise, the social investment strategy, as much as it does exist as relevant social policy practice, it is still very much confined by the Beveridge-orientation on the five giant evils (squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, disease). Social investment in this light, without completely denying the need for such orientation, it should also be criticised as principally conservative: it aims on maintaining and improving mechanisms of social administration and securitisation, though it refrains from answering the more fundamental challenges of an overall changing socio-economic constellation. In this light, the conclusion is that social investment should take its remit serious: instead of focusing on five giant evils, it is time to look at five giant tensions: the overproduction of goods and the turn of

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goods into ‘bads’; societal abundance versus inequality of access; abundance of knowledge and its misdirection towards skills; the individualisation of problems and their emergence as societal threat; the complexity of government and the limited scope of governance. The reply on these challenge as given so far by the social investment strategy is extremely limited—without denying successes in single areas, the overall picture seems to be bleak. For instance, both, the OHCHR and the ILO highlight again and again the increasing limitations of social policy measures in the traditional frameworks (see e.g. OHCHR 2013; ILO 2012). Hironori Tohyhama highlights the need to “examine [.] whether welfare states may need to make cuts under the increasing competitive pressure in globalized economies and, accordingly, investigates the relationship between globalization and social spending.” (Tohyama 2015, p. 51) Instead of seeing any kind of upward spiral, we face an extremely contradictory picture: the price for any improvement is extremely high, though we may talk of growing wealth in some ways, we have to see that this is fundamentally based on globally and nationally increasing inequalities, being much more severe than the current debate on inequality suggests (for the current debate e.g. Piketty 2013; Wilkinson and Picket 2009; Drekonja-Kornat 2005; Glyn and Miliband 1994; OECD 2015a). If we want to move further in searching for social investment strategies, we have to think more about the overall changes that allow us overcoming a prevailing narrow understanding of economic development. Talking about common pool resources in the suggested understanding, we have to consider in particular the so-called Knowledge-Based Capital, i.e. intangible assets based in experience, information and knowledge. This implies not least the need to look beyond traditional employment patterns and property structures. It is important to go beyond Ostrom’s understanding of common pool resources—the difference is that the difficulty of excluding potential beneficiaries gets an additional slant: it is about the difficulty of ‘excluding oneself from benefitting’. This is obvious in many emerging areas of technology, where exit is at least something ‘one has to pay for’.6 At the same time it means that we are dealing increasingly with precarity as normal pattern (see in this context for instance Kowalsky 2015; Mandl et al. 2015; ­European Commission 2015).

6It

should be highlighted that this is leaving the property question aside. In her further discussion and when “combining the term ‘property’ with ‘resource’”, Ostrom contends that ‘a common-pool resource can be owned and managed as government property, private property, community property, or owned by no one’ (Ostrom 2010, p. 650).

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Looking at what had been said earlier about the gap between a productivity growth in advanced firms and a slow down and even stagnation in other firms (see Sect. 5), requires to recognise that much of the success of the advanced firms is based on the work that is undertaken outside of the traditional and still mainstream setting—we face a similar problem as the one that traditionally characterises social policy, namely the tension between SMEs and large companies. However, as much as this is about economics, it is fundamentally about the parameters of societal integrity. As said, the boundaries of traditional social and welfare policies—nation state, standard employment/factory work, state bureaucracy and traditional charitable welfare—have to be reconsidered. With this, investment policies have to take drastic measures in order to overcome the ‘dichotomist model of society’, based on two organisational forms, namely market and state; two types of goods, namely private and public; and one agent, namely the completely rational individual actor. This means not least that social investment has to be understood as matter of socialisation, including a strong orientation on public services and as such entailing public forms of production—saying public may well include forms of social enterprises. In such understanding, but only then, social investment may stand at the core of a New Social Treatise.

References Albert, M. (1991). Capitalisme contre Capitalisme. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Bouget, D., et al. (2015). Social investment in Europe. A study of national policies 2015; Brussels: European Commission. Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Directorate D, Europe 2020: Social Policies. Unit D.3, Social Protection and Activation Systems. http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=13805&langId=en. Accessed 10 July 2015. Boyer, R., & Saillard, Y. (Eds.). (2002). Régulation theory. The state of the art. London: Routledge. Boyer, J., et al. (2004). Large-scale exploration of growth inhibition caused by overexpression of genomic fragments in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Genome Biol, 5(9), 72. Buhr, D., & Frankenberger, R. (2014). Spielarten des inkorporierten Kapitalismus. In A. Nölke, C. May, & S. Claar (eds.), Die großen Schwellenländer. Ursachen und Folgen ihres Aufstiegs in der Weltwirtschaft (pp. 61–84). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Drekonja-Kornat, G. (2005). Brasilien: Boom der Ungleichheit. Blätter der Deutschen und Internationalen Politik, 2, 407–409. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Esping-Andersen, G. (1999). Social foundations of postindustrial economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Precarity of Employment: A Look at Russia Vyacheslav Bobkov

The notion of employment precarity is about instability of employment. Such employment and work force reproduction bring about social-labour relations that are imposed on and unfavourable for employees. Such relations involve: Reduction of the sphere of employment based on open-ended employment contract with a standard work week and expansion of the sphere of labour based on fixed-term, civil-law and other employment relations; Expansion of the sphere of informal employment in formal economy; Informal employment in hidden production and in illegal economic activity; As well as temporary unemployment. According to official estimates informal employment in Russia stands at approximately 20 million (26% of the economically active population).1 Only 10% of the informal employees work in the formal economy and the major part (90%) work in the informal (shadow) economy of the country. Informal employment leads to essential cutting social guarantees for population reducing tax revenue. Thus the 1Press

conference by OV Golodets, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government, to the Ministers of Labour and Employment of the G20 in July 2013.

The author of the article hereby express their gratitude to the Department of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of Moscow for its assistance in conducting the research of the problems of youth employment in the city of Moscow. The article is published with support of the RSF grant, Project “Fluctuating Unemployment in the Russian Federation: the Status and the Ways of Reduction” #16-18-10140. V. Bobkov (*)  Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_4

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sphere of informal labour relations is a fully formed independent segment of the labour market with a considerable number of employees. Below is presented some results of researching the informal employment in the registered organizations in Moscow from June to August 2015. Questioning was done on the Superjob electronic portal with 10,000 inhabitants and 700 employers taking part. 16% of the respondents in question haved regular work without formal labour relations and 17%—temporary work without formal labour relations. All of them got wages without taxes and insurance premium paid. As concerning effectiveness of main directions to cut the number of unregistered organizations and individual entrepreneurs it received following suggested by the respondents (the estimates of effectiveness have been given within the points from one to five). The respondents have considered legalizing the self—employment as the most effective direction to cut the number of unregistered organizations and individual manufacturers (3.3 points). The second effective direction is legalizing such spheres of activity as construction, trade and transport well represented in the structure of employment in Moscow today. Verification of one’s job placement data while getting public services was the third effective direction. The respondents were represented groups of effective measures in fight against illegal employment and shadow pay (percentage of the respondents): changing the taxation system—54%, toughening checks and fines—22%, economic measures—5%, other measures—7%, and no measures—12%. As concerning the age differentiation of the respondents in question: workers in the age group from 26 to 35 are mostly represented in informal employment. Instability of employment results from an objective conflict between enhancing flexibility of employment and its being precarious for employee. Enhanced flexibility of employment is to respond to the challenge of accelerating structural changes in the economy and demand for raising efficiency. Flexibility of employment characterizes new economic and organizational-technological conditions of employment on employer’s side. Instability of employment is a social-economic price that employee often has to pay for enhanced flexibility of employment. This is an issue of economic and social injustice of present-day employment with respect to employee. Precarization of employment features a higher level of risk and changed structure of its distribution in employment relations—from employer over to employee, as well as reduced stability of employment and the level of its economic and social protection. Such employment not only reduces its quality, but also affects social institutions (family, trade associations, political parties, etc.), reducing the stability of reproduction of social-economic relations. Problems with getting jobs and precarization of employment generate social ­

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v­ ulnerability and society instability. Employment precarity is now on a huge scale and is an acute economic and social issue for employees, their households and societies in most developed and developing countries. Despite the fact that the notion of “precarization of employment” is increasingly used internationally, its definition can hardly be called exhaustive. In recent years, the Russian government has taken a number of major measures to limit the economic and social effect of precarization of employment on employees. At the initiative of trade unions, RF President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning contracted (agency) work. The law contains measures preventing employers from making employment contracts using agency work arrangements or other ways. According to the law, hire agencies “shall have no right to make employment contracts with job seekers, with a goal of transferring (providing) them to other organizations or individual entrepreneurs for the use of their personal labour”. The law provides that employment agencies shall not provide workers for hazardous operations or use them to replace workers taking industrial actions or workers who suspended work because of non-payment of wages. The law specifically provides that pay level for workers provided by employment agencies shall not be lower that the pay level of workers of the recipient organization, who perform the same labour functions and have the same skill level. The law is to come into effect on January 1, 2016. A Federal law (FZ №60 of April 5, 2013) introduced regulation of the work of distant workers. Based on FZ №60, Chapter 49.1 was added to the RF Labour Code, to regulate the work of distant workers. The scope of labour legislation and other acts having norms of labour law were thereby extended to cover distant workers, taking into account specific features of their employment. Specific features of making and changing employment contracts with distant workers were spelled out, as well as work and rest schedule, organization of their work and occupational safety. A Federal law (FZ №412 of December 28, 2013) provides for administrative liability for employer’s evasion or improper making of an employment contract or making, instead of an employment contract, of a civil-law contract de facto regulating employment relations between employer and worker. The Federal law “On Special Assessment of Work Conditions” (FZ №426 of December 28, 2013) introduced a mandatory assessment of work conditions once in 5 years to identify hazardous and dangerous factors of production environment and work process and to implement measures to remove them, improving workers’ occupational safety. No matter relating to changes in the current labour legislation or adoption of new labour provisions is put forward for discussion or adopted without taking into account the opinion of the Russian Tripartite Commission. It is this body

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that serves as the main integration forum of government and society in regulating social-labour relations. The Federal law of May 1, 1999 (FZ №92 “On The Russian Tripartite Commission on Regulation of Social-Labour Relations” (RTC)) provides that the main goals and tasks of the Commission are to draft a General Agreement, to conduct consultations on matters relating to drafting federal laws and other normative legal acts of the Russian Federation, in the sphere of social-labour relations, federal programmes in the sphere of labour, employment, work force migration, social security, to disseminate social partnership experience, to study international experience in application of international legal norms, etc. One should recognize that large-scale effort to improve labour legislation in this country is still lagging behind employment precarization. We are witnessing accelerating structural changes in the economy, its globalization and resulting interdependence of economic development. The world has entered a stage of deterioration of international relations. All this is combined with employers’ desire to increase profitability of their business, and quite often, to survive through staff cost optimization. The integral effect is ever-new ways and forms of employment precarization. Employment precarization is an acute issue for Russia. Research carried out among hired workers, who account for over 92% of the economically active population, shows that three groups are to be identified, based on the acuteness of employment precarization. The first group has the highest level of employment precarization. It comprises 6% of hired labour, who work in the formal sector, but with no formal employment relations. They constitute the core of employment precarization in the formal sector. The second group of hired labour has such features of employment precarization as inadequate pay level (below 2/3 of the average pay in the economy), low level of social rights and guarantees, and social exclusion. The group comprises 50–60% of the total size of hired labour. This group is often faced with such features of employment precarity as an irregular duration of the work week, an irregular form of employment contract, etc. The third group of hired labour is characterized by peripheral forms of employment precarity. The group comprises up to 85% of hired labour with limited (down to 0) possibility of mid- and ­long-term planning and investment by a hired worker and her family. The size of this group of labour is a sign of high level of precarization of Russian society. Youth is more subjected to precarization than other social-demographic groups. Russian youngsters, as a rule, begin their work life going through such risky forms of labour relations as casual, temporary, part-time, civil-law employment, as well as informal and undeclared employment. Economically active people aged 15–30

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have a nearly 50% probability of finding themselves in a situation of precarious employment. This is much higher than the respective number for the entire economically active population and is a major economic and social issue. Young people who are not able to get a stable or satisfactory work immediately, spend a lot of time searching for it: they change jobs because they are either unsatisfied with it or spend too much time looking for it. Other reasons for this tendency are: unemployment, unpaid family business or inactivity. In the younger group (15–19) of economically active youth 27.2% started their career as self—employed or unpaid workers in family business. And this type of employment is characterized by instability and by infringement of workers labour and social rights. As to employed young people, the instability of their employment is connected with types of their employment contracts. For example, more than 10% of young people did not have official employment contracts. And about 8% of these people worked only on the basis of oral agreement. The share of this category of working young people was twice as high as compared to the general working population. The results of School-to-Work Transition Survey (STWS) international research, which carried out in 2011, showed that in the Russian Federation only about 50% of young people, who completed their studies, could find a stable and satisfactory job immediately after finishing school or university. About 14% were changing their jobs. In other words, they were in the transition period. And about 30% of graduates even did not start their transition from studies to work. The transition period for young people who have completed their transition from studies to stable and satisfactory work (the average length of transition from studies to work including direct transition) took them about 2 years (23.6 months). By men it took about 26 months, by women it took less—about 22 months. If we exclude direct transition, then the length of transition increases twice. It means that average young people look for their job for about four years (45.2 months), by men—about 47.7 months and by women—about 42 months. During the transition period an average young person was at least once unemployed or involved in the temporary employment or was self—employed. The period of unemployment for these an average young person lasted for about 16 months. By men it took about 19 months, by women it took less—about 13 months. The period of temporary employment lasted for about 15 months and the period of self—employment for much longer period of time, for about 3 years (35.4 months). As we can see in the Russian Federation for than 50% of young people who have completed their transition from studies to stable and satisfactory work the length of time between the exit from education to the entry into work is very long. However, it is not still all. The transition for the young people who remaining in the transition average lengh of the about 6 years (50.7 month). By men it took

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about 46 months, by women it took more—about 55 months. The national youth exit of the instability state (precarization) of employment can not be effectively implemented without reforms of the national labour market. At first, the balance between the flexibility of employment and instability of youth employment should be found through the increase of efficiency of the state regulation of employment. At second, it is important to include the above—listed indicators of the transition in state statistics. And, of course, use them in order to decrease the precarization of youth employment. And last but not least. The special attention of the Government, parents and society, as a whole, should be paid to the younger age group (15–19); Because it is this age group that suffers most from the precarisation of employment. The employment precarization phenomenon is increasingly manifesting itself globally as a structural feature of the present historical era. This phenomenon is drastically changing people’s lives and is accompanied by a number of effects, including: (1) mass labour migration changing work conditions of dozens of millions; (2) unemployment destroying human resources; (3) social and cultural disintegration involving stratification of society, social inequality, and millions of people finding it impossible to plan their lives, etc. The global balance between labour market flexibility and employment precarization can be struck: a) by taking due account of objective processes enhancing flexibility of labour markets; b) by building sound international relations and adequate social policies prioritizing not the economic and political interests of international and domestic corporations, but the interests of labour; c) by pooling the efforts of governments and societies to limit the scale, forms, and economic and social consequences of employment precarization.

Further Readings «Aktual’naya tema: neustojchivost’ zanyatosti». Uroven’ zhizni naseleniya regionov Rossii», №3 (193), 2014 g, ss. 7–69. Bobkov, V. N. (2013a). Impact of employment instability on socio-economic position of employees [Teкcт]/Bobkov V. N., Veredyuk O. V.//Ekonomika regiona (Economy of Region). №4 (36). C. 35–41. Bobkov, V. N. (2013b). Neustojchivost’ zanyatosti kak sovremennaya problema i issledovatel’skaya kategoriya/V. N. Bobkov, Veredyuk O. V.//ZHurnal Uroven’ zhizni naseleniya regionov Rossii. № 6. S. 43–51.

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Bobkov, V. N. (2014). Neustojchivost’ zanyatosti v Rossii i Kazahstane: sushchnost’, masshtaby, posledstviya./Institut ehkonomiki Komiteta nauki Ministerstva obrazovaniya i nauki Respubliki Kazahstan (EHlektronnyj resurs). http://astanaforum.org/2014/ru/ events/kazakhstan-2050-in-the-age-of-ten-global-challenges-of-xxi-century. Accessed 21 June 2014. Bobkov, V. N., Veredyuk, O. V. (2012). Neustojchivost’ zanyatosti kak makroehkonomicheskaya problema: podhody k kolichestvennoj ocenke masshtabov v Rossii. Materialy mezhdunarodnoj nauchnoj konferencii «Social’naya politika dlya sovremennoj Rossii: celi i izmereniya», posvyashchennoj pamyati A.YU. SHevyakova (18 oktyabrya 2012 g., g. Moskva)/Otv. red. Lokosov V.V. – M.: EHkonomicheskoe obrazovanie. Bobkov, V. N., & CHernyh, E. A. (2014). Vliyanie neustojchivosti zanyatosti na perekhody molodezhi na rynke truda. Uroven’ zhizni naseleniya regionov Rossii. № 3, ss. 23. Bobkov, V. N., & Veredyuk, O. V. (2013). Social’naya uyazvimost’ rabotnikov i obshchestva kak rezul’tat neustojchivosti zanyatosti. Uroven’ zhizni naseleniya regionov Rossii, №6(184), ss. 7–11. Bobkov, V. N., Chernyh E. A., Aliev U. T., & Kuril’chenko E. I. (2011). Neustojchivost’ zanyatosti: negativnye storony sovremennyh social’no-trudovyh otnoshenij//Uroven’ zhizni naseleniya regionov Rossii. № 5. Bobkov, V. N., Veredyuk, O. V., & Alijev, U. (2013). Risks of society stability and precarity of employment: A look at Russia. International Journal on Social Quality, 3(1), 21–43. Bobkov, V., Csoba, J., & Herrmann, P. (Eds.). (2014a). Labour market and precarity of employment: Theoretical reflections and empirical data from hungary and Russia. Bremen: Wiener Verlag fuer Sozialforschung. Bobkov, V. N., Veredyuk, O. V., Kolosova, R. P. & Razumova, T. O. (2014b). Zanyatost’ i social’naya prekarizaciya v Rossii: vvedenie v analiz: Monografiya/ – M.:TEIS, 96 s. Bobkov, V. N., Kolot, A. M., & Veredyuk, O. V. (2014c). Transformaciya intituta zanyatosti v Rossii i na Ukraine: Problema neustojchivosti zanyatosti. V Perspektivy skoordtnirovannogo social’no – ehkonomicheskogo razvitiya Rossii i Ukrainy v obshcheevropejskom kontekste. Tr. Vtoroj mezhdunarodnoj nauchn. – prakt. Konf./RAN. INION. Otdel nauchnogo sogtrudnichestva i mezhdunarodnyh svyazej; otv. Red. YU.S ­Pivovarov.- M. Ss. 23–29. Bizyukov, P. V. (2013). Praktiki regulirovaniya trudovyh otnoshenij v usloviyah neustojchivoj zanyatosti. – M.: ANO «Centr social’no-trudovyh prav». Doklad Byuro MOT po deyatel’nosti v interesah, trudyashchihsya (AKTRAV), podgotovlennyj k prohodivshemu v 2011 g. simpoziumu «Politika i zakonodatel’noe regulirovanie v bor’be s neustojchivoj zanyatost’yu». MOT, 2011. Federal’nyj zakon o 1 maya 1999 goda №92 –FZ «O rossijskoj trekhstoronnej komissii po regulirovaniyu social’no – trudovyh otnoshenij». Federal’nyj zakon ot 5 aprelya 2013 goda №60 «O vnesenii izmenenij v otdel’nye zakonodatel’nye akty Rossijskoj Federacii». Federal’nyj zakon ot 28.12.2013 N 412-FZ (red. ot 23.06.2014) “Ob akkreditacii v nacional’noj sisteme akkreditacii” (28 dekabrya 2013 g). Federal’nyj zakon Rossijskoj Federacii ot 28 dekabrya 2013 g. N 426-FZ “O special’noj ocenke uslovij truda”.

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Social’naya politika, uroven’ i kachestvo zhizni: slovar’. (Zanyatost’ neustojchivaya. ss. 90–91)/pod obshch. Red. V.N. Bobkova. 2-e izd., dopolnennoe i pererabotannoe.Moskva: VCUZH »Rusaki»,2014. – 409 s. Vives, A. (2010). «A multidimensional approach to precarious employment: measurement, association with poor mental health and prevalence in the Spanish workforce», dissertation, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Vives, A., Amable, M., Ferrer, M., et al. (2010). The Employment Precariousness Scale (EPRES): Psychometric properties of a new tool for epidemiological studies among waged and salaried workers. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 67(8), 548–555.

The Impact of the Crisis on the Labour Market Situation of Households in Italy Francesca Della Ratta-Rinaldi, Eugenia De Rosa, Elisa Marzilli and Maria Elena Pontecorvo

1 Introduction The recent economic recession had a major impact on the Italian labour market, expanding the risk of exclusion and areas of vulnerability and disadvantage, only barely recovered by recent improvements in labour market. Statistical analysis has increasingly focused on individuals, while less attention has been paid to the distribution of work within and between households (EC 2012; Mocetti et al. 2010). The traditional individual employment and unemployment indicators do not allow to show different degrees of family disadvantage or risk of exclusion from the labour market, which may vary a lot considering the employment status of all household adult members. The presence of unemployed or inactive people and/or precarious jobs within the family can be faced differently if one or more components can still rely on a ‘guaranteed job’, while conversely redundancy of one of the member can cause more difficulties if others have a precarious job or are unemployed too. The aim of this article is to assess whether the job loss and worsening of working conditions due to the crisis (della Ratta and Pintaldi 2015) as well as F. D. Ratta-Rinaldi (*) · E. De Rosa · E. Marzilli · M. E. Pontecorvo  ISTAT, Rom, Italy E. De Rosa e-mail: [email protected] E. Marzilli e-mail: [email protected] M. E. Pontecorvo e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_5

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the progressive de-standardization of labour, started since 1990s, affected the distribution of work in Italy at households level. Focusing on the Italian context, the analysis has been conducted using the national Labour Force Survey (LFS) data from 2008 to 2015, that was the first year with a significant improvement in Italian labour market. Data from the Labour Force Survey, the largest household sample survey in Italy, make it possible to explore both individual and households dynamics. This article is divided into two main parts: in the first one data are analyzed at individual level, in the second at household level. Section 2 describes changes from 2008 to 2015 in traditional indicator of labour market at individual level. Section 3 investigates to what extent the crisis affected the quality of job. Section 4 provides evidence on the effects of the crisis on the distribution of paid work among families; in Sect. 5 the quality of work within families is investigated by means of an original index (the badjob index). Finally, Sect. 6 offers some conclusions.

2 The Italian Labour Market: The Strong Crisis and the Recent Recovery As in the European Union, also in Italy since 2014 there were some improvement in the labour market. More in detail in 2015 the employed rose by 186,000 units (0.8% higher than 2014) and the employment rate 15–64 aged rose to 56.3%, 0.6 points on a year-on-year basis (Table 1). In 2016 the employment growth was by 293,000 (+1.3%) and the employment rate rose to 57.2. However, compared to 2008—the first year of the recession—in 2016 333,000 employed still missing (−1.4%) and the employment rate is lower than 1.4%age points. Moreover, very large gaps characterize the Italian labour market: first of all the territorial ones, with the employment rate 15–64 aged higher than 20 points in Central-northern compared to Southern regions. Concerning gender, if during the crisis the strong decrease of male employment reduced the historical gap, the 2015 employment growth was mainly concentrated among men (+1.1% compared to +0.5 of women), expanding again gender differences: almost 20 points in employment rates(65.5% men and 47.2% women). Conversely the fall in young people employment was attenuated. Although the increase in employment in 2015 continues to be of interest to only employed aged 50 and over (increased by 4.5%), the reduction of employees aged 15–34 years and 35–49 years is lower than in last years and the employment rate slightly increase (respectively 0.1 and 0.3 percentage points for people aged 15–34 and 35–49, compared to 1.5 points of ­people aged 50–64). In 2016 there were the first growth in employment of 15–34

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Table 1   Employment rate 15–64 aged and employed people (15 and more aged)—Years 2008, 2014 and 2015 (percentage values, differences in percentage points, absolute values in thousands. Source: Labour Force Survey, Istat; Eurostat, Labour Force Survey) Emplo yed (15 years and mo re)

Emplo yment rate (15-64 aged) Values 2015

Variatio ns

Values 2015

2008/2015

2014/2015

65.5 47.2

-4.6 -0.1

0.8 0.3

No rth Centre So uth and Island

64.8 61.4 42.5

-2.1 -1.3 -3.5

CITIZENSHIP Natio nal No n natio nal

56.0 58.9

A GE CLA SSES 15-34 years 35-49 years 50 years and mo re

39.2 71.9 56.3

GENDER M en Wo men

Variatio ns 2008-2015

Variatio ns 2014-2015

A bso lute

%

A bso lute

%

13,085 9,380

-736 110

-5.3 1.2

139 47

1.1 0.5

0.5 0.5 0.8

11,664 4,851 5,950

-232 88 -482

-1.9 1.8 -7.5

52 40 94

0.4 0.8 1.6

-2.1 -8.1

0.6 0.4

20,106 2,359

-1,295 669

-6.0 39.6

121 65

0.6 2.8

-11.1 -4.2 9.2

0.1 0.3 1.5

5,008 10,043 7,415

-1,954 -511 1,839

-28.1 -4.8 33.0

-27 -108 321

-0.5 -1.1 4.5

A REA S

IT A LY

5 6 .3

- 2 .3

0 .6

2 2 ,4 6 5

-626

- 2 .7

18 6

0 .8

UE 2 8

6 5 .7

- 0 .2

0 .8

2 2 0 ,7 0 6

- 2 ,17 0

- 1.0

2 ,4 2 2

1.1

Ue m

6 5 .8

- 1.4

0 .6

14 3 ,5 2 0

- 3 ,2 3 9

- 2 .2

1,4 6 1

1.0

aged (+0.9% and +0.7 percentage point in employment rate). Again, however, this not recovered the heavy losses recorded during the crisis: the employment rate of 15–34 aged drops more than ten points since 2008, settling at 39.2% (39.9 in 2016); the 35–49 aged falls of 4.2 points, reaching 71.9% (72.5 in 2016). During the crisis, the dramatic reduction in the number of employees corresponded by a sharp increase in the unemployment rate (Fig. 1). Despite the first decline registered between 2014 and 2015 (−1.9 percentage points) the value of the unemployment rate remains very high (11.9%), especially among young people aged 15–34, and in the Southern regions (around 20%). Overall, unemployed people down to about 3 million (6.3% lower on a year-on-year basis, but remain 1.4 million more than in 2008). The Italian labour market is also characterized by a strong presence of people who say they are interested in working, despite not actively seeking a job (or not available to work immediately), the ‘potential labour force’. These are people who, though not included in the statistical unemployed definition, express a job

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Fig. 1   Number of employed (left scale) and unemployment rate (right scale) in Italy. Adjusted quarterly data 2008–2015 (absolute values in thousands and percentage values, Source: Labour Force Survey, Istat)

offer that the economic system does not fit. This aggregate grew during the crisis and also in 2015, and is composed by about 3.5 million people. Summing the unemployed and the potential labour force, there are about 6.5 million people who would like to work. To give an account of this group, the ­non-participation rate1 is calculated to provide a broader measure of the labour offer. The non-­participation rate comes in 2015 to 22.5% (from 22.9% of 2014), a value very far from that of the EU average (12.7%). In the Southern regions both the unemployment and the non-participation rate is more than double than in the Center-­northern ones. Moreover, in Southern region, the problem of women non-participation is particularly widespread, so much so that the indicator comes to 46.8% (Istat 2016). The high incidence of those who would actively participate in the labour market is the other side of the main Italian labour market problem (Gallino 2014), namely the reduced capacity of the national system to create new job opportunity. 1The indicator, referred to the population between 15 and 74 years, puts the unemployed and inactive people who are not seeking work but available to work in the numerator and these latter plus the whole workforce (employed and unemployed) in the denominator.

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3 The Decline of the Quality of Work and the Increase of Non-Standard Jobs The crisis narrowed the already low number of employed and reduced also the quality of existing jobs. The regular and permanent jobs declined, while ­non-standard jobs increased. Combining information on working time arrangement (full time or part time) and kind of employment (permanent or temporary) it is possible to identify three groups of employees: those who have a standard job, a partially standard, or an atypical one. The area of standard jobs, involving in 2015 less than three-quarters of employed, includes both full-time employees with a permanent contract and full-time self-employed. Partially standard jobs (covering 14.5% of employment in 2015) instead include part time workers, either permanent employees or self-employed. The name adopted for this group is due to the still relatively unusual nature of part-time in the Italian labour market, which continues to be characterized by the prevalence of full-time workers. Finally, temporary jobs are called atypical, both full-time or part-time (the 12.2% of total employed in 2015). So, the area of non-standard jobs identifies a larger group of employed, group in with by the lack of some standard job elements: the permanent employment and/or a full-time job (Istat 2009). The progressive standard employment erosion increased with the crisis, when especially part-time component grew. In fact, one of the strategies chosen by the Italian companies was the reduction in working time, so much so that the increase involved mainly involuntary part-time (and the incidence of involuntary part-timers on the total came in 2015 to 63.9%, from 40,2% in 2008). More fluctuating was instead the trend of atypical job, which was affected to a greater extent in the economic cycle: grown strongly before the crisis, also because of some legislative actions that facilitated the use of fixed-term jobs, the atypical workers were firstly damaged at the beginning of the crisis. Temporary work is then began to rise again in 2011 and 2012 but fell again in 2013, in correspondence with a further deterioration in labour market conditions (Fig. 2). In 2015 there was a turnaround, with an employment growth reflected on all labour market figures: including standard employed, growth by 65 thousand units on annual basis (+0.4%). Compared to 2008, however, the standards employed decreased by 1.3 million, and their incidence rose from 77% in 2008 to 73.4% in 2015. The partially standard workers continued to grow: between 2008 and 2015 permanent part time employed rose by 687,000 units (26.8%), 45,000 in the 2015 (+1.4%). It also continued the new growth of atypical employment, but it involved almost exclusively very short jobs (with contracts of less than 12 months): overall more than half of the atypical workers has a contract with

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Fig. 2   Employed aged 15 years and more by kind of job. Years 2009–2015 (percentage contributions to the year-on-year employment trend, Source: Labour Force Survey, Istat)

a duration of less than 12 months and less than 20% have a one-year contract. However for 19.5% of atypical workers precarious condition continues over time (534,000 atypical workers doing the same job for at least five years). Atypical jobs are widespread among young aged 15–34, but this kind of work also affects adults and people with family care: in 2015 one third of atypical workers was aged 35–49 and the 41.7% of female atypical workers is a mother. The increase in the weight of non-standard jobs in a labour market in which the main welfare measures continue to be designed for standards employees (Gallino 2014) involves a higher degree of vulnerability among employed. This vulnerability becomes more evident considering some aspects of non-standard workers weaknesses, which have less probability to be employed in the following year (from the first quarter 2014 to the first 2015, the 82.1% of atypical workers is still employed, compared with 90.6% among partially standard employed and the 95.6% of standard employed). Economic, obvious disadvantage for part-time employees in terms of hourly pay is also strong for atypical employees, that earn the 25.7% less than standard employees (1,494 vs. 1,125 Euros), considering only the full-time segment. This is the reason why among atypical workers the percentage of those who are looking for a new or an additional job is higher (13.3% against 9.3% and 2% of partially standard and standard ones), and that in most cases such research is carried out because of the job deadline or the fear of losing it. However, during the crisis, the feeling of insecurity is spreading even among

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standard workers, so that among the reasons that lead them to search for a new job, those related to the fear of losing job goes from 11.3% in 2008 to 27.0% in 2015. The recent Bes report (Istat-CNEL 2015) confirms that even permanent employees are not exempt from the fear of losing their jobs, even in a slightly percentage than atypical workers (4.5% against 37.5%). Reading this information on a familiar basis, as developed in next paragraphs, can enrich the analysis giving a more complex perspective of changes occurred during the crisis. To better understand the dynamics it could be more useful to consider data in three relevant years: 2008, 2013, one of the worst moment of the crisis and the 2015, the first year in wich a significat improvement is registered.

4 The Effect of the Crisis on the Distribution of Paid Work Among Families: Single Person and Family Households Analysis of changes in the labour market can be improved analyzing data in a family perspective, since the involved dynamics act differently on families according to their type and composition. Data from Italian Labour Force Survey allowed to analyze changes in the distribution of paid work among different kind of families. The following analysis concerns households with at least one active member (aged 15–64), estimated in 2015 in 18,9 million, that means 73.1% of all Italian resident families (over 25,5 million- Table 2). In comparison to 2008, in 2015 the number of families without any job income or job pension (jobless)2 increased: in 2015 they were 2,2 million that means 11.8% of the total (they were 7.8% in 2008 and 11.2% in 2013). In most cases we can assume that jobless families were the weakest ones. The increase concerned especially young families than adult ones3: among young households the jobless incidence increased from 2According

to The LFS definition of ‘population in jobless households’ (an EU Structural Indicators) we assume as ‘jobless’ households in which no member is in employment, i.e. all members are either unemployed or inactive. However, unlike the LFS definition that treat ‘working-age’ as ranging from 18 to 59 excluding students aged 18 to 24 (Watson et al. 2015), our aggregate is composed by all families with at least one active member from 15 to 64 years including students and excluding retired person. Other definitions are used in the literature to define jobless such as SILC indicator of household joblessness, based on the concept of ‘very low work intensity’. Work intensity refers to the proportion of available time that working-age adults in the household spend in employment. 3The young families are those where the head of household was born after 1970, these represent 37% of the total. The adult families are those where the head of household was born before 1970.

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Table 2   Households with at least one member aged 15–64 by presence of pensioners, family composition and participation to the labour market—Years 2008, 2013 e 2015 (absolute and percentage values, Source: Labour Force Survey, Istat) HOUSEHOLDS AND PARTICIPATION TO THE LABOUR MARKET

Absolute values

For 100 households of the same type

Percentage

2008

2013

2015

18,068

18,873

18,854

WITH AT LEAST ONE PENSIONER

3,978

3,677

3,279

22.0

19.5

17.4

Single person households

316

278

204

1.7

1.5

1.1

6.2

Men

147

123

87

0.8

0.7

0.5

2.6

HOUSEHOLDS WITH AT LEAST ONE MEMBER 15-64 AGED

Women Fam ily households One pensioner and no employed persons One pensioner and at least one employed person One or more pensioners WITHOUT PENSIONERS

2008

2013

2015 100.0

169

155

117

0.9

0.8

0.6

3.6

3,662

3,399

3,076

20.3

18.0

16.3

93.8

969

998

951

5.4

5.3

5.0

29.0

1,790

1,497

1,393

9.9

7.9

7.4

42.5

902

903

732

5.0

4.8

3.9

22.3 100.0

14,090

15,197

15,575

78.0

80.5

82.6

Single person households

2,975

3,793

3,960

16.5

20.1

21.0

25.4

Employed

2,341

2,859

2,979

13.0

15.1

15.8

19.1

Men

1,444

1,682

1,769

8.0

8.9

9.4

11.4

Women

897

1,177

1,211

5.0

6.2

6.4

7.8

No employed

634

934

981

3.5

4.9

5.2

6.3

Men

264

483

505

1.5

2.6

2.7

3.2

Women

370

451

476

2.0

2.4

2.5

3.1

Unemployed

118

299

294

0.7

1.6

1.6

1.9

Inactive

516

635

687

2.9

3.4

3.6

4.4

11,115

11,403

11,615

61.5

60.4

61.6

74.6

772

1,185

1,235

4.3

6.3

6.6

7.9

263

571

559

1.5

3.0

3.0

3.6

Fam ily households Without employed persons w ith at least one unemployed w ith all members inactive

509

614

676

2.8

3.3

3.6

4.3

With one employed

4,153

4,506

4,568

23.0

23.9

24.2

29.3

Men

3,319

3,324

3,321

18.4

17.6

17.6

21.3

835

1,181

1,247

4.6

6.3

6.6

8.0

6,190

5,713

5,812

34.3

30.3

30.8

37.3

Women With tw o or more employed

HOUSEHOLDS WITHOUT MEMBERS 15-64 AGED TOTAL

2015

100.0 100.0 100.0

6,005

6,645

6,934

-

-

-

-

24,073

25,518

25,789

-

-

-

-

The Impact of the Crisis on the Labour Market Situation …

77

Fig. 3   Households with at least one member aged 15–64 by participation to the labour market, and geographical area- Years 2008 and 2015 (percentage values, Source: Labour Force Survey, Istat)

8 to 13%, while among the adult ones from 7.6 to 11%. More generally this trend was stronger in Italian Southern regions, where jobless households, already great in number in 2008, exceeded 20% in 2015 (Fig. 3). At the same time, the strongest families,4 those with two or more employed people, decreased: in 2015 they were estimated in 5,8 million, this means 30.8% of the total (they were 34.3% in 2008). However they slightly increased in the last period, from 30,3 to 30,8%. Also in this case the situation in the South of Italy was worst: this value, already low at the beginning of the crisis, strongly decreased from 25.1 to 21.7%. Moreover, also families with a pensioner and at least another job income (or job pension) decreased from 14.9% in 2008 to 11.3%. An important distinction is between single person households and family households. Overall, in 2015 person living alone and supported by a job income/ pension were 3,2 million, and in most cases these were single person employed; the latter, from 2008 to 2015, increased both among men and among women, rising from 13 to 15.8% of households with at least one member aged 15–64. By contrast retired single persons decreased. In order to consider both the quantity and the quality of employment the following analysis is limited to the homogeneous subset of households without 4For

us the ‘strong nature’ of this kind of family is intended in terms of level of participation to the labour market.

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retired people (15,6 million, increased of nearly half a million since 2008), single person and family households. Between 2008 and 2015 households with at least one component aged 15–64 and no pensioners increased by about a million (+10.5%), amounting in 2015 to 15,6 million. A quarter of these consisted of single person households and the remaining 74.6% was composed of multi-component ones. The increase in the number of households involved both types but especially single person ones5 (+33.1% versus +4.5%). In light of these changes, the analysis of the distribution of paid work among families during the crisis will be carried out by distinguishing between single-person households and family households. This allows to take into account both of the impact of the crisis on the employment status and changes occurred in the household structure. The single-person households In recent years the number of single-person households deeply grew. In 2015 it was about 4 million and accounted for 25.4% of households without pensioners and with at least one member aged 15–64 (compared to 21.1% in 2008). In the period 2008–2015 the working condition of single person considerably changed with a reduction in the percentage of employed people and an increase of people out of work. The decrease in the incidence of employed single-person households between 2008 and 2015 is a synthesis of a decrease of the quota of men (from 48.6 to 44.7%) and an increase of the one about the women (from 30.1 to 30.6%). In addition, people living alone have a less steady employment situation than in the past: the proportion of singles with a standard job fell from 82.7 to 77.9% (for the young single person households from 81.9 to 75.4%, for the adult ones from 84,0 to 80.8%). At the same time there was an increase in the percentage of both the partially standard (from 7.9 to 12.3%, from 6,7 to 11.6% for the young single person and 10.1 to 13.1% for the adults one) and atypical jobs (from 9.5 to 9.8%, from 11.4 to 13.0% for the younger and from 5.9 to 6.1% for the older). Instead, the proportion of unemployed single-person households increased, above all during the hardest period of the crisis (2008–2013) and slightly decreased between 2013 and 2015, while inactivity increased (from 16.7% in 2013 to 17.4% in 2015). Overall single-person households without a job (jobless) grew to one million: the incidence of jobless households on the total of

5In

Italy, as well as in many European countries, in the last decades there was a decrease in the number of extended families and an increase of singles (Zanfrini 2011) with a change in the family structure and a variety of forms of families (Eurofound 2014).

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79

Fig. 4   Single-person households with at least one member aged 15–64 by participation to the labour market and sex. Years 2008, 2013 and 2015 (percentage values, Source: Labour Force Survey, Istat)

s­ingle-person households increased from 21.3% in 2008 to 24.8% in 2015 (Fig. 4). Family households Being jobless is a state of vulnerability also for households with two or more members. Among family households, those with all members of the family not in employment in 2015 are 1 million 235 thousand (almost half a million more than in 2008), accounting for 10.6% of multi-component households (6.9% in 2008— Fig. 5). About two thirds of these families lived in the South and Island, where this condition affected about 20% of the multi-component households. In over half of cases, these were represented by couples with children, while in the other territorial areas the 40% of jobless families were lone parent female ones. Within jobless multi-component families, the weight of households with at least one unemployed person rose from 34 to 45.3%, and took dramatically off between 2008 and 2013. In particular, in the 13.1% of jobless multi-component households all members of working age were looking for a job (it was 9% in 2008). An intermediate potential degree of ‘vulnerability’ between jobless households and families with all working age members employed could be found in

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Fig. 5   Family households by number of employed people and sex. Years 2008, 2013 and 2015 (percentage values, Source: Labour Force Survey, Istat)

­ ulti-component households with only one employed person6: in 2015 they m were about 4,5 million, and they increased of +414 thousand compared to 2008, accounting for 39.3% of the total multi-component families. This increase included both adult (+666 thousand) and young families headed by only one employed woman (+111 thousand), and compensated for the decrease of young families headed by only one employed man (−362 thousand). The majority of multi-component single-income households in 2015 were made up of national families, where all members had Italian citizenship (3,8 million); 10.7% were migrant families and only 6.2% mixed families. The decrease in employment during the years of economic crisis led to an increase in the number of families with only one wage-earner from employment (+10% in the years 2008–2015), a value which had slightly fallen in 2008 (pre-crisis). In particular, the number of families with a single wage-earner woman increased. As pointed out in literature, one of the strategies to deal with husband/partner’s job loss or job reduction was the activation and the search for employment by the wife or partner, the so-called ‘added worker effect’ (Ghignoni and Verashchagina 2012). In 2015 the sole income from employment in a family was in about three out of four cases still from a male wage earner, over 70% of these men were

6In

2015 the average number of family members was 3.2.

The Impact of the Crisis on the Labour Market Situation …

81

in a ­couple with children. But compared with 2008, women breadwinners had increased (+49.4%). The increase was more pronounced among the ‘adult families’; and in fact it was especially strong among women breadwinners living in a couple, with or without children. The presence and growth of families with a single earner from employment was not uniform over the whole of Italy. From 2008 to 2015 the incidence of this type was higher in the Southern regions (46.9% in 2015), as was the proportion of jobless. Moreover, in Central-northern regions, the increase of female breadwinners was associated with a slight increase of male breadwinners, especially between 2008 and 2013, but in the South the increase in female earners (from 7.2 to 10%) corresponded to a net decrease in male breadwinners (from 41.1 to 37.6%). As well as the increase in families with only one employed person, it is worth noting a worsening of work conditions, in part due to the greater flexibility of labour market. In the seven years 2008–2015 the number of families supported by a only one wage-earner in non-standard employment increased from 6.6 to 11.5% of total breadwinner families, especially households headed by a part-time permanent employee. The number of families where the only job income derived from atypical employment also rose; this type in 2015 was 10.8% (in 2008 the incidence was 9% of total single-earner households). The situation of about 150 thousand families where employment was part-time as well as fixed-term was particularly critical (3.3% of total single-earner households). At the same time there was a fall in the number of families relying on one standard employment. The number of families where the only job income derived from a permanent full-time job fell from 84 to 77.7% in 2015. Migrants had the hardest hit (De Rosa and Marzilli 2016); migrant families relying on a single standard income from employment fell from 82.3% in 2008 to 67% in 2015, while for Italian families the percentage decreased from 84.6 to 79.1%. To compare different situations, we used the household ‘employment density’, the ratio between the number of employed persons and the number of household members; the ‘economic dependency’ indicates the situations in which this ratio is lower than one. By definition a multi-component household with a sole breadwinner is economically dependent on the breadwinner. In 2015 families where one income from employment supported three or more other household members were 71.1%; they were mainly supported by a male breadwinner (77.8% male and 53.3% female) and were mainly located in the South of Italy (79.8%). Families that are potentially in a better situation are those that can rely on two or more incomes from employment.7 In 2015 these families decreased of

7In

2015 the average number of components in this type of family was 3.4.

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378 thousand comparing to 2008 (−6.1%) and they accounted for 37.3% of the total households with no pensioners (the incidence fell to 21% among migrant families) and the half of family households (39.2% among migrant families). Six out of 100 households with two or more employed people were migrant families and just over 3 were mixed one. While for Italian families the decrease of households with two or more employed people was limited to the period 2008–2013, for migrant families it slightly continued even in the last two years. Among Italian households, the incidence of those with more employed people on the total of ­multi-components decreased of about 5 points only during the crisis (2008–2013), and then grew again in the following two years (2013–2015). Overall, there were wide geographical disparities: in 2015 the incidence of families with more employed people on the total of multi-component is higher in the North (61.1%) than in the South of Italy (33%). Even if these families are potentially in a stronger position in the labour market, they can also face critical issues related to the quality of employment and the household ‘employment density’. In the same way as families with only one employed person, also for families with more than one employed person the number of those in which all members have a standard occupation decreased (−431 thousand in comparison to 2008, −13.1%). If in 2008 they accounted for 53.1% of total families with more than one employed people, in 2015 their incidence fell again and reached 49.1%. The decrease involved above all migrant families among which the share of households with all employed people with a standard job fell from 38.4% in 2008 to 29.2% in 2015. On the contrary, the number of families in which all incomes derived from a mix of combinations of not standard occupations increased, as for example those with part-time/atypical jobs (+113 thousand, +43.4%). The quota of the latter on total families with more than one employed people grew respect to 2008 (it was 4.2%), reaching 6.4% (7.6% among ‘young families’) in 2015. In about a quarter of them at least one of the employed people was looking for another job or an additional one. Also in this case the increase mainly occurred during the period 2008–2013 (+1.6 percentage points) and continued in in the following years (+0.6 points). Focusing on the economic dependence in 2015 the share of households where all members were employed was 26% of the total. Economic dependence appears in presence of children and gradually increases with the increase of the gap between the number of the employed people and the number of household members. Overall in 2015 in about 3 out of 4 households (4,303,000) there was a situation of dependence, because the number of the components was higher than that of the employed. This condition involved especially Italian families resident in the South (82.7%).

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5 Job Quality Aspects: The Badjob Index In addition to the employment structural features, it is useful to explore some qualitative and subjective job aspects, which allow us to better characterize the most disadvantaged households among those with at least one employed. In order to examine job quality, a specific index (named badjob)8 was built to summarize three unfavorable dimensions: over-qualification; dissatisfaction; insecurity. Some of these data are available only from 2013, so the analysis will consider only the evolution of the most recent period, allowing to highlight the overall improvement occurred in the labour market, and to investigate some significant differences between various employment forms. In 2015 families with at least two elements of disadvantage, namely ‘badjob families’, are about one million (about 6% of total): approximately 160 thousand between employed single person households (5.4%), 261 thousand between family households that have only one job income (5.7%) and 551 thousand between family households that have more than one job income (9.5%). Overall, the aggregate amount decreased compared to 2013, while remaining significant. About two-thirds of employed single person households (63.7%) don’t complain of any unfavorable situation, with a slight increase (1.4 percentage points) compared to 2013, generalized by gender and type of job and higher among women who have a partially standard job. Also among family households that have only one job income there was a slightly increase of those without any kind of unfavorable situation (from 63.7 to 67.2%). The absence of unfavorable elements is widespread especially in families where the man is the only employed person (68.8%) and in those families where employed persons have a standard job (the absence of unfavorable elements reaches 72.7%, increased compared to 2013, when it was 68%). In family households with two or more employed, instead, the absence of unfavorable elements concerns less than half of the families (46.9%): increasing the number of employed is, in fact, more likely that at least one of them could experience an

8In

particular, the badjob index is a combination of three indicators: to be over-educated (employed persons who have a higher qualification than that mostly held to exercise a certain profession); to feel unsatisfied with work (employed persons who express an average satisfaction between 0–5, on a scale of 0–10); to feel unsure about work (employed persons who, in the following 6 months, consider it is likely they lose their job and it is not at all or a little likely that they find another similar job). Badjob index ranges from 0 (absence of occupational disadvantage indicators) to 3 (the presence of all three indicators of occupational disadvantage). Two of the three indicators used are only available from 2013.

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unfavorable element.9 In most of case (43.6% of total family households with two or more employed) it is a single element, while families who report two or more unfavorable elements are around 10%; the latter percentage is five times higher among families in which all employed persons have an atypical/part-time job (23.5%) than families in which all employed persons have standard jobs (4.7%). On the opposite, ‘fully satisfied’ families exceed 56% when all employed persons have a standard job (increased compared to 2013, when they were 52.5%), while they are 26.5% (they were 24.3% in 2013) among families in which all employed persons have atypical/part-time jobs. Therefore, despite the slight improvement in recent years, the analysis shows that even among strongest families—families supported by several job incomes—there are often unfavorable situations where employed persons say they are not fully satisfied by their jobs and concerned about their working future.

6 Conclusions The recent labour market recovery observed at individual level, with the increase of the employment rate and the decrease of the unemployment rate, isn’t clearly visible at household level. In fact jobless families in Italy, the most vulnerable, continue to grow. The recovery of the past two years involved only some types of families. This results in a polarization between families with all working age members employed (+99 thousand; +1.7%) and jobless households, as observed in the ­pre-crisis period (Di Laurea and Righi 2005). The analysis of the labour market dynamics at household level shows a change in the distribution of paid work between families during the period 2008–2015 with an increase of some forms of inequalities. In particular inequalities from generation to generation becomes more evident: more young families are in a position of labour market vulnerability and/or with more often non-standard jobs. More and more families are affected by the labour market flexibilization and by the increase of precarious jobs; in fact, the incidence of households in which two or more employed persons have atypical/part-time jobs continue to grow. These types of jobs, are not only instable works, but more often are associated with a lower job satisfaction or quality of work. Considering the one million of badjob

9The

badjob index, for these families with two or more employed, assumes the value of the employed person with the highest number of unfavorable elements.

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families, the majority is composed by households with at least one family member with a non-standard job. However there are some improvements in the quality of work: from 2013 to 2015 the incidence of badjob families decreases from 9.9 to 7.3%. Contemporary, it becomes less widespread the household working pattern with all members employed in standard jobs, whose incidence falls below 50% of total households with more than employed family member.

References European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound). (2014). Third European quality of life survey—Quality of life in Europe: Families in the economic crisis. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. European Commission (EC). (2012). Jobless households—The link between employment and poverty. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European. della Ratta-Rinaldi, F., & Pintaldi, F. (2015). Lavoro in Italia: vecchie debolezze e insicurezza crescente, Italiani Europei, n. 3. http://www.italianieuropei.it/it/italianieuropei-3-2015/item/3594-lavoro-in-italia-vecchie-debolezze-e-insicurezzacrescente-l%E2%80%99impatto-della-riforma-del-lavoro.html. De Rosa, E., & Marzilli, E. (2016). Lavoratori e famiglie straniere in Italia negli anni della crisi: profili di rischio e divisione di genere del lavoro. Mondi Migranti, 3, 131–154. Gallino, L. (2014). Vite rinviate. Lo scandalo del lavoro precario. Bari: Laterza. Ghignoni, E., & Verashchagina, A. (2012). Added versus Discouraged Worker Effect during the Recent Crisis: Evidence from Italy. Istat. (2009). Rapporto annuale 2009. La situazione del Paese. Roma: Istituto Nazionale di Statistica. Istat. (2015). Rapporto Bes 2015. Il benessere equo e sostenibile in Italia. Roma: Istituto Nazionale di Statistica. Istat. (2016). Rapporto annuale 2016. La situazione del Paese. Roma: Istituto Nazionale di Statistica. Mocetti, S., Olivieri, E., & Viviano, E. (2010). Banca d’Italia, Le famiglie italiane e il lavoro: caratteristiche strutturali e effetti della crisi. Questioni di Economia e Finanza, n. 75. Righi, A., & Di Laurea, D. (2005). Polarizzazione e distribuzione del lavoro tra le famiglie: Aspetti teorici e tendenze empiriche. Economia & lavoro, 1, 1000–1020. Watson, D., Maître, B., & Russell, H. (2015). Technical Paper on the Measurement of Household Joblessness in SILC and QNHS, 2004–2012: An Analysis of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC) and the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS). Dublin: Department of Social Protection. Zanfrini, L. (2011). Sociologia delle differenze e delle disuguaglianze. Bologna: Zanichelli.

Integration of the European Roma Minority into the European Union Helgard Kramer and Nicole Horákova

“All minorities are “different”, and all are rejected”, was in 1944 a resume on the pretest of a questionnaire for the empirical Studies in Prejudice of one of the researchers on anti-Semitism and racism of the exiled Institute of Social Research in the United States.1 The statement holds still in today’s 21. Century Europe especially for the Roma who traditionally, and in every Western European survey of the last decades, bring up the rear of the least liked minority. Our planned on social science research project is aiming at building an infrastructure to take care of Roma families and individuals who are trying to flee from extremely poor, often violence ridden conditions in their countries of origin into countries like Germany as well as in countries where Roma have been living for centuries and constitute since long a marginalized group although they have full citizenship and speak the majority language like in the Czech Republic. The project is oriented to provide health care, education and vocational training to them: cooperating on the one hand with Roma self-help organizations and the

1Anti-Semitism

among American Labor. Report on a Research project conducted by the Institute of Social Research Frankfurt, 1944–1945, p. 490, Archives of the Institute of Social Research Frankfurt.

H. Kramer (*)  Ostravská Univerzita V Ostravě, Frankfurt/Main, Germany e-mail: [email protected] N. Horákova  Ostravská Univerzita V Ostravě, Ostrava, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_6

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political authorities on the communal, regional and central level of the respective countries, on the other hand with universities and students of the social sciences, who will be trained in research seminars to talk to locals of the majority population in the respective areas to facilitate acceptance of the Roma minority. Different models of how to build up these institutions are available in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and in Berlin, Dortmund, Duisburg, Frankfurt a.M. and Göttingen in Germany. We will start our project in Germany together with Roma organizations in Göttingen and Frankfurt a.M. and in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Germany: All over Western Europe the Roma minority is perceived by Rightextremist parties and movements as illegitimate refugees driven by poverty from the East and Southeast into the welfare systems of the Western part of the European Union. Since the genocide of “gypsies” was part of the Holocaust, the FR Germany has a special political responsibility for the European Roma minority. Germany does not belong to those European countries where many European Roma live or come through, since less than 5% of the Roma are still living a nomadic life nowadays. After January 1, 2014, when Rumanian and Bulgarian citizen got the freedom of movement by European law it was assumed that Roma from these countries might go West into Germany since families with children were eligible for children’s allowances—a right which was soon restricted. The specialist in migration, Klaus Bade, did research on the question how many Rumanian citizen tried to “abuse” Germany’s welfare system and found all in all 12 persons in the Bavarian system.2 But as soon as the so called “refugee crisis” started to dominate political and public discussions in 2015 the new scapegoat became Roma from the Balkan countries. To reduce the number of legitimate refugees Roma from the Balkan countries have been ripped of their right to apply for political asylum in Germany although their parents and grandparents were victims of Nazi persecution and they have to suffer from discrimination in their countries of origin. The Göttingen Roma Center is since 2015 providing a service center for young Roma mainly from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia Herzegovina which will function as one of the agencies of this applied social science research project: “As part of the program “Democracy Live! Active against right-wing extremism, violence and human rights hostility” of the Federal Ministry for Family

2See: Digital vernetzte Neonazis: https://www.noz.de/deutschland-welt/politik/artikel/ 81766/migrationsforscher-klaus-bade-warnt-vor-rassismus-im-internet Osnabrücker Zeitung 12.03.2013. and http://www.scharf-links.de/46.0.html?&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=5542 3&cHash=9ef8c8cc36 on the situation in 2013 and 2014.

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Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), the Roma Center Göttingen started in 2015 the project “Roma antidiscrimination Network” (RAN): “As one of 54 pilot projects group related to phenomena misanthropy (GMF) and democracy strengthening in rural areas, the “Roma antidiscrimination Network” (RAN) project over a period of five years by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) is encouraged. The project envisages the establishment and professionalization of an anti-discrimination office and will test innovative approaches, working for the chance expansion of Roma children and adolescents. By building the Roma antidiscrimination network structures are created to actively work against xenophobia and discrimination and to promote tolerance and diversity. (www.ran.eu.com). This year Roma from Rumania and Bulgaria started a self help organization in the West of Berlin, the Foro Romano, Kaiser-Friedrich-Str., which we will contact for our project. Initiated by Prof. Theda Borde3 students of social work at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Science Berlin started in 2015—when the so called refugee crisis began in Germany—a 2-semester project of questioning the residents of Kastanienboulevard in the East of Berlin about the living conditions in their neighborhood and their wishes and complaints; analyzing the data of 158 interviewees they found out that ca. 80% were native Germans, about 20% were born abroad, and of these about 10% were refugees, mainly from Syria and Iraq. After evaluating the results Theda Borde and her students organized a festivity on Kastanienboulevard and gave a feedback to residents, producing ideas and plans to improve the neighborhood. We think that this procedure is a model for dealing with the problems of Czech Roma and the majority population in Ostrava, and we will start an analogous project in the upcoming fall semester at the Sociology Department of the University of Ostrava. Czech Republic, Ostrava Since the middle of the 19th century the Ostrava metropolitan area had developed into the booming North Moravian industrial center of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire: coal mining, steel- and iron smelting and chemical industry attracted many workers.

3See

f.e. Werner Bergmann & Rainer Erb, Antisemitismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Wiesbaden: vhs-Verlag 1991; Renate Kröcher, Ausmaß und Formen des heutigen Antisemitismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, [1986] p. 10. In cooperation with Prof. Stephan Pinkau of the Anhalt University of Applied Science.

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First for the coal miners and their families there were built so called factory colonies—that means settlements with single-story houses and small gardens for growing vegetables and fruits. During the 1920ies and 1930ies more and more apartment buildings with an improved infrastructure of baking and smoking houses—and after 1945: washing houses—and also kindergardens, schools, medical stations, meeting rooms for coal miners, employees of the railway, and for the workers of the steel-and iron industry and their families were constructed but also simple accommodations for singles and casual workers.4 During the Soviet system the Ostrava industrial agglomeration had turned into the single biggest heavy industry center of Central and Eastern European countries. Forced labor participation exerted on the Czech and Slovakian Roma like on every other citizen in the Soviet system had meant equality as workers for the Roma minority.5 After the end of the Soviet system with the introduction of a capitalist labor market the old mechanism of ethnic discrimination reoccurred immediately, and the Roma as a group were excluded from the labor market using the same markers of ‘laziness, criminality, thieves’ as before 1947.6 Since 1990 the Ostrava region has undergone a process of deindustrialization comparable to that of the Ruhr area in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since a couple of years the European steel industry is under heavy prize pressure, and we have to expect eventually another loss of the remaining jobs in the Ostrava steel industry and an intensified competition for jobs in the local labor market. A situation like this usually leads to stronger racialization of ethnic differences. About 20% of the 300.000 people living in Ostrava are Roma, and their chance to improve their labor market position now—more than 90% of the Czech Roma are unemployed—equals zero. During boom times in the 1950ies and 1960ies stable working class people preferred to move from the old worker’s colonies into panel flats,

4Pavelčíková,

Nina (2014): Romové v oblastí Slezska a Severní Moravy. [Roma in Silesia and North Moravia]. http://www.moderni-dejiny.cz/clanek/romove-v-oblasti-slezska-a-severni-moravy/ (accessed: 7.7.2016). 5This is not to say that Roma were not discriminated at all during the Sovjet system, f.e. some Roma women were forced to undergo sterilization, and Roma children were—similar to West-Germany during the 1950ies to the 1970ies—sent to schools for children with learning disabilities on a regular basis. 6This is not a Czech specialty: in August 27, 2017, a representative of the Berlin director of the Central Police Forces in the Ministry of the Interior gave a speech on theft prevention where he called Roma in general “criminal clans and thieves” leading the Central Council of Sinti & Roma to protest.

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Fig. 1   Slums: former colonies in the metropolitan area of Ostrava (from: Nicole Horaková, Bergarbeiterkolonien im Wandel der Zeit: Erinnerungstücke an “alte Zeiten” in heutigen sozialen Brennpunkten? [Miner colonies in changing times—memorials of the old time in nowadays slums?] power point presentation, Kosice, 14./15. 10.2013

so into several of the empty colonies moved Czech and Slovakian Roma families. After 1990 more Roma moved in. Four of the 12 old colonies turned into slums or Ghettos (see Fig. 1). Although the Roma are an officially recognized national minority in the Czech Republic, the attitudes of the Czech majority population towards the Roma minority are negative and for long have been hostile—exactly like in the rest of European countries. Surveys report 70% of respondents as having a negative stance on Roma. Just 5% say that they have positive social relations to Roma. During the last twenty years these findings did not change at all: the majority population’s perception of the Roma minority was and is still negative. A survey from 2015 is showing similar results: 36% of interviewees find living together in the neighborhood “rather good” or “very good”. But two thirds see living together critical. Living in a city/place with Roma “very bad”; 47% find Roma and ­non-Roma living together “rather bad, 13% say” “rather good”, and only 1% of respondents find living together “very good”. If people know each other because they are living together in the same neighborhoods, this perspective of the majority population turns a bit more positive but a negative judgement is still prevailing: about one third of interviewees find living together in the neighborhood “rather good” or “very good”. But two thirds see living together c­ ritical.7 Starting in 2012 again a negative trend in the evaluation of living together has

(2011): Vztah české veřejnosti k Romům [The relation of the Czech public to the Roma group] https://www.stem.cz/vztah-ceske-verejnosti-k-romum-1844/ (accessed 07.07.2016).

7STEM

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been measured on the local level in the Czech Republic. The values of 2015 are the worst since this survey has been yearly undertaken, probably because in the political sphere the Roma minority has been used as a scapegoat by different populist politicians—quite some careers of Czech members of parliament have successfully been started with a harsh and hostile stance against the Roma minority. Best example might be the career of the former major of the city of Vsetín in Moravia, Jiří Čunek. In a populist action he had six Roma families—about 70 persons—deported from Vsetín to the economically more deprived area of Jeseník. These families for whom there was supposedly “no more space in Vsetín and the surrounding area” had been chosen by the city administration because of their “potential to cause conflicts” meaning the ascribed “bad character” of “gypsies”, as the researchers sum it up. Positioning himself as a hardliner against the Roma minority made Jiří Čunek well known even outside the district of Vsetín, and as a chairman of the conservative party KDU-CSL, he rose to the position of minister for city development and Vice Premier in the government of Miroslav Topolánek (ODS) from January 2007 to May 2009.8 But there is also a positive example of dealing with the situation in between majority and Roma minority in Ostrava: originally founded in 2002 the Catholic Diocese Charita Ostrava-Opava and the NGO Life together organized a village consisting of 10 Roma families, 10 families of the Czech majority population, and 10 mixed families: “Vzajemne souziti or Life Together is a registered Czech-Roma NGO working in the Czech town of Ostrava to strengthen mutual confidence and co-operation between the marginalized Roma and the majority Czechs, and improve the living standards of the Roma. A team of 55 Roma and Czech workers and several volunteers offer a range of services from humanitarian aid, free educational programs, social work, community work to strengthen the position of the Roma in the ghettos vis à vis local institutions. We strive to defend the rights and dignity of individuals, resolve conflicts, strengthen democracy and community participation, and encourage a culture of non-violence and understanding. Our work is financed by a basket of local, national and EU funds.” (http://kumarvishwanathan2.tripod.com/)

8see:

Vomastková, Klara (2011): Vystěhování Romů ze Vsetína na Jesenicko a Prostějovsko: Popis a analýza dopadů vystěhování na romské rodiny, práci obecních úřadů, krajské samosprávy a NNO působících v regionu [The resettlement of Roma from Vsetín into the areas of Jesenik and Prostějovsko: Description and Analysis of the outcome of resettlement for the Roma families, the work of the municipal offices, local government and the NGOs working in the region]. Brno. www.socialni-zaclenovani.cz (accessed: 04.07.2016).

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Concluding Remarks We want to collect examples and models of good practice in different European states and try to adapt them in cooperation with Roma organizations to the respective conditions.9 In short we want to establish the import and export of good ideas, and by this improve the living and working situation of Roma in certain localities.

Further Readings Bade, K. J. (2000). Migration und Integration in Deutschland seit dem 2. Weltkrieg. NLPB. BIS. (2014). Zprava o situaci v oblasti vnitřní bezpečností 2013. https://www.bis.cz/ vyrocni-zprava6c8d.html?ArticleID=1096#Ochrana. Accessed 6 July 2016. Bogdal, K.-M. (2011). Europa erfindet die Zigeuner. Eine Geschichte von Faszination und Verachtung. [Europe inventing the Gypsies. A story of fascination and contempt]. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung. Centrum pro výzkum veřejného mínění (CVVM). (2015). Romové a soužití s nimi ocima ceské verejnosti—duben 2015 [Living together with Roma from the perspective of the Czech public]. http://cvvm.soc.cas.cz/vztahy-a-zivotni-postoje/romove-a-souziti-s-nimiocima-ceske-verejnosti-duben-2015. Accessed 7 July 2016. Dijk, T. A. v. (2002). Discourse and racism. In D. Goldberg & J. Solomos (eds.), The blackwell companion to racial and ethnic studies (S. 145–159). Oxford: Blackwell. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). (2014). Roma survey—Data in focus. Luxembourg: Publications office of European Union. Homoláč, J., Karhonová, K., & Nekvapil, J. (Eds.). (2003). Obraz Romů v středoevropských masmédií po roce 1989 [The image of Roma in the Middle European mass media after 1989]. http://ulug.ff.cuni.cz/projekt/romove. Accessed 7 July 2016. Horáková, N. (2014). „Sozialschwache“, „blutrünstige Meute“ „Zigeuner-Phänomen“: Zur rassistischen Darstellung von Roma in tschechischen Medien analysiert an zwei aktuellen Fällen.[„Socially weak“, „bloodthirsty pack“, „gipsy phenomenon“: the racist presentation of Roma in the Czech media]. In B. C. Schär & B. Ziegler (eds.), Antiziganismus in der Schweiz und in Europa. Geschichte, Kontinuität und Reflexionen (p. 111–122). Zürich: Chronos. Kramer, H. (2011). The epistemological fate of the authoritarian character studies of the Frankfurt school: A legacy for the study of racism, anti-semitism and fascism? In D. Harry (ed), The diversity of social theories, current perspectives in social theory (Bd. 29, p. 3–32). Melbourne: Emerald Publishing.

9We

are following the advice of the EU commission to the EU parliament, the European Economic and Social Organzations, based on research of Bulgaria; Czech Republic, Greece, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. See: http://eur-lex-europa.eu/legal-content/ de/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0173.

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Křížková, M. (2013). Analýza mediálního zobrazení Romů v českých médiích od začátku července 2011 do konce května 2012 [Analysis of the media appearance of Roma in the Czech media, July 2011 to May 2012]. www.socialni-zaclenovani.cz. Accessed 6 July 2016. Pavelčíková, N. (1999). Romské obyvatelstvo na Ostravsku (1945–1975) [Roma population in the Ostrava area (1945–1975)]. Ostrava: Filozofická fakulta Ostravské univerzity. Pavelčíková, N. (2004). Romové v českých zemích v letech 1945–1989 [Roma in the Czech countries from 1945–1989]. Praha: Úřád pro dokumentaci a vyšetřování zločinů komunizmu. Pavelčíková, N. (2014). Romové v oblastí Slezska a Severní Moravy. [Roma in Silesia and North Moravia]. http://www.moderni-dejiny.cz/clanek/romove-v-oblasti-slezska-a-severni-moravy/. Accessed 7 July 2016. Raichová, I. (2001). Romové a nacionalismus [Roma and Nationalism]. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. Sedláková, R. (2007). Obraz Romů v televizním zpravodajství – příklad mediální konstrukce reality [The Image of Roma in TV news – an example of medial construction of reality]. Brno: doktorská práce [Dissertation]. Special Eurobarometer 437. (2015). Discrimination in the EU in 2015. http://ec.europa.eu/ public_opinion/index_en.htm. Accessed 6 July 2016. STEM. (2011). Vztah české veřejnosti k Romům [The relation of the Czech public to the Roma group]. https://www.stem.cz/vztah-ceske-verejnosti-k-romum-1844/. Accessed 7 July 2016. Úřad vlády České republiky. (2013). Zpráva o stavu romské menšiny v Česke republice za rok 2012 [Yearly report on the situation of the Roma minority in the Czech Republic for the year 2012]. Prag: Úřad vlády České republiky. Vomastková, K. (2011). Vystěhování Romů ze Vsetína na Jesenicko a Prostějovsko: Popis a analýza dopadů vystěhování na romské rodiny, práci obecních úřadů, krajské samosprávy a NNO působících v regionu [The resettlement of Roma from Vsetín into the areas of Jesenik and Prostějovsko: Description and Analysis of the outcome of resettlement for the Roma families, the work of the municipal offices, local government and the NGOs working in the region]. Brno. www.socialni-zaclenovani.cz. Accessed 4 July 2016.

The Precariousness of the Young Generation and the Making of Flexible and Employable Workforce Franz Schultheis 1 Introduction In an interview published over thirty years ago under the provocative title “Youth is but a word”, Pierre Bourdieu (1980) focused, from a sociological point of view, on an issue which since then has become even more important and broader in scope, namely the issue of youth and its historical and intercultural relativity, its social role, and the challenges it poses. There is a very broad consensus among sociologists that these last three decades have seen deep economic, social and cultural changes, which can be summed up by Boltanski and Chiapello’s (2001) view that a “new spirit of capitalism” has emerged and contributed to radically changing the rules of the game in contemporary societies. We shall therefore propose, in our contribution, a return to P. Bourdieu’s sociological interpretation and discuss its usefulness in the light of thirty years of social change. The question of the integration of young people into employment will be at the centre of our sociological analysis. We set out from the theoretical premise that this set of problems lies at the core of what, since approximately 1840, has been called the “social question” in capitalist societies. The transition from school to working life is increasingly becoming a critical and precarious period, marked by all kinds of uncertainties and risks, which compound what psychologists call the “crisis of adolescence” with the additional problem of moving successfully from the socioeconomic “limbo” of childhood and early youth to the moment when it becomes

F. Schultheis (*)  Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_7

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necessary for young people to “find their place” in the world of work. Against the background of this crisis, new social and political approaches have been developed, particularly in order to help strengthen, on a lasting basis, people’s economic, social and cultural capabilities to cope with an ever-changing world of work which has turned the goal of an uninterrupted professional career into an increasingly rare privilege and which in fact requires individuals to develop specific skills to manage their increasingly discontinuous professional and private lives. Since the 1980s, numerous concrete initiatives have been implemented on the basis of this capacity-building or “capabilities approach”, whose main propounder in recent years has been A.K. Sen (1999, 2000). Of course, the theoretical framework established by Sen represents a broad “coordinate system” for diverse socio-political interpretations and practical approaches. Depending on one’s discipline and/or theoretical standpoint—from economics via sociology and political science to philosophy—there are variations on the same subject. This should not be regarded as a criticism of the capabilities approach, but, on the contrary, it points to its heuristic fertility and great socio-political potential. The capabilities approach expresses clear normative views of human beings in terms of philosophical anthropology as well as views on key social issues. Both strands converge in the demand that the “realisation” of all human potentialities be promoted and supported. Since Greek antiquity, ideas about what makes a “good” or “successful” life have been at the centre of ethical and philosophical discourse. However, while this type of thinking was initially the prerogative of an elite of free citizens (male members of the ruling class) who used it as a basis to solemnly legitimate their power, the capabilities approach revolutionises the demand for ­self-realisation not only by defining and postulating it as a fundamental “human right” but also by charging the political and social institutions with the responsibility of creating optimal chances for the self-realisation of all citizens. The opportunities for self-realisation would then be—to use a term coined by Max Weber—“life chances” in a material sense as well as in an immaterial sense. They would be “species powers”, in the Marxist sense, which would have to be freed from different types of alienation. Thus, the capabilities approach cannot simply be reduced to a hedonistic proclamation of the way to salvation or to the establishment of heaven on earth: its aim is not to make messianic promises of happiness, but rather to call for a society where everyone is entitled to be the author of his or her own life story. From the point of view of a “sociology of socialisation”, the originality and importance of this approach is perhaps most tellingly expressed by two distinctive qualities which make it stand out from classical socio-political conceptions:

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• In the first place, innovation in terms of taking into account young people’s situation and career projects regarded as a whole and through their own eyes and viewpoints. In this way, young people targeted by initiatives based on a capabilities approach relinquish the passive role of “clients” that need to be looked after. Instead of adopting a bureaucratic outlook to tackle the problems and difficulties encountered by young people, the aim is to take a “lebensweltliche Perspektive”, i.e. a perspective based on the “world of everyday life” as the starting point for action. With Bourdieu, we may say that this approach aims to strengthen the resources available to individuals (cultural, social and symbolic “capital”) and then, once it has become internalised as a way of life, to serve as a sort of practical sense to enable them to find their way in an increasingly complex social world. • Secondly, this approach is clearly distinct from a managerial or instrumental view of the problems addressed and their reduction to a purely economic dimension along the lines of “How can young people be integrated in the labour market as rapidly and as cheaply as possible?” On the contrary, contemporary social issues are regarded in terms of a comprehensive concept of social citizenship which draws no artificial distinction between the public and private dimensions of people’s careers and personal development, but rather, strives to integrate them through a horizontal approach. • Last but not least, the capabilities approach is characterised by a profound change in the way young people with integration difficulties are viewed (and view themselves). Habitually, they are seen in a pejorative and negative light as “problem cases”, so that social work in this area inevitably takes on the appearance of a “corrective” activity aimed at remedying a number of presumed shortcomings, gaps and incompetencies. With the capabilities approach, on the contrary, the targeted persons function as active players, responsible for their own lives and equipped with a multiplicity of valuable skills which hitherto were only latent and invisible to the eyes of those who viewed the problem of precariousness from a traditional, a priori negative standpoint. As in the case of traditional education systems, such a conventional approach—because of its extremely restrictive concept of what “capability” can legitimately mean—produces, whether consciously or not, a “catalogue of shortcomings and deficiencies”, rather than taking the actual individual, including his or her background, current situation, needs, dreams and expectations as the starting point to determine which personal aptitudes and skills can be mobilised to develop a project for the future, i.e. what opportunities or “life chances” (Max Weber) would be made available to the individual by those capabilities once they were released and activated. In the following we shall strive to combine the capabilities approach with a kind of sociological diagnosis of the “social issue” of young people affected by multiform exclusion and precariousness.

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2 Young People: Bourdieu’s Point of View According to Bourdieu, the meaning of “youth” (i.e. the status of young people, their social representation, their “life chances”, etc.) varies considerably from one historical period and one culture to another. At the same time, Bourdieu points out that the same variability can be observed in the status of young people within one and the same society. For example, the relation between “biological age” and “social age” is profoundly different for the two genders. Furthermore, depending on whether a young person is socially integrated in the world of work or, alternatively, in the education system, we may speak of at least two different “youths”: on the one hand, we have students with their “temporary” integration in an almost “playful” economic market; and, on the other hand, young people who are already fully integrated in the world of work, with all the “seriousness” this implies. In the first place, we may speak of a state of temporary irresponsibility in a social no-man’s-land where everyday life can be improvised by combining elements taken from the world of childhood and the world of adulthood and thus, as it were, playing on both sides—an undeniable advantage, which appears to make many young people from privileged social classes want to prolong this state of affairs as long as possible so as to stay “forever young”. In the second case, we find young people becoming integrated fairly rapidly and definitively in the world of adults, although in terms of biological age they are the peers of the members of the first group. The “learning to labour” which is the lot of working class youth also involves a “cooling out” process (Goffman) whereby young people learn to “fall into step”. “Everyone must find their place” and young people are expected to “grow up”. According to Bourdieu, however, these social borders, which up until recently were fairly clear-cut, have been blurred by the fact that increased access by lower-middle-class and working-class young people to higher education has given rise to a wide range of intermediate social groups. Young people from different social backgrounds have been placed in a sort of social limbo (schools, universities, etc.) which is separate from the world of adults. As a result, they have—at least in part and temporarily—a different way of life whereby they can all experience a relatively open (at least theoretically) world of possibilities, with a significantly wider range of career options than that enjoyed by previous generations. At the same time, however, the (very) relatively democratised access to higher education institutions is not automatically accompanied by a comparable increase in the assets accessed through academic qualifications. In fact, quite often a point is rapidly reached where there is an inflation of certain qualifications, particularly when such qualifications have become accessible to people

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“without social status”. This results in painful disappointments and frustrations, as the expected benefits of upward social mobility—sanctioned by the State in the form of a degree or diploma—fail to materialise. This, in a nutshell, is the argument advanced by Bourdieu in his sociological analysis of the situation of young people in our ‘bourgeois’ societies. Today we must ask ourselves whether these contradictions and paradoxes in the status of young people are not being further exacerbated under pressure from increased market competition as well as from the new skill needs associated with the new spirit of capitalism. On the one hand, being young appears to be associated, as a common denominator, with the ideal image of the highly employable and competitive worker. On the other hand, the profound changes that have taken place in the labour market, accompanied by increased job insecurity, appear to make the “adult status” so uncertain that young people’s careers are becoming increasingly unpredictable and seem to be replaced by a way of life that can best be described as continual improvisation and makeshift adaptation to circumstances.

3 A Problematic Youth For some years now, ‘young people’ have had a meteoric career as a conceptual category exemplifying the most urgent social problems and the most burning social issues. In the first place, this seemingly ‘natural’ and hence ‘universal’ category increasingly appears to play the role of a generic target of all policies aimed at combating precariousness in general and unemployment in particular. Thus, young people are being placed at the very centre of today’s ‘social issue par excellence’, namely the crisis of the ‘wage-earning society’. Furthermore, they seem to function as an all-purpose category, particularly extensible and flexible as a means of projecting all kinds of collective conceptions relating to insecurity, malaise and crisis (think, for example, of speeches on urban violence, juvenile delinquency or drug addiction). As a social issue, ‘young people’ have become the favourite target of a ­two-edged social regulation policy: On the one hand, young people are deemed to require social protection; on the other hand, however, the social order must be protected from young people. Support and control are advocated as the two sides of the same ‘social coin’. Everything seems to suggest that the rapid success achieved by this variable-geometry category in different historical contexts and socioeconomic situations can be largely explained by its ability to serve as a particularly polysemic concept behind which a wide range of social relations of the dominant-versus-dominated type (including relations between ‘the established’

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and ‘the aspiring’, ‘owners’ and ‘would-be owners’, etc.) may hide or manifest themselves in a transfigured or euphemistic fashion. When we speak of youth, we are speaking of social reproduction; when we ask questions about the precariousness that afflicts young people, we are talking about a social reproduction mode that is in crisis; when we ponder the causes of young people’s violence, we focus on various forms of anomie and different pathologies that accompany this crisis and their negative psychological and social effects. It is no coincidence that the issue of “youth precariousness” and its multiple forms (poverty, unemployment, vulnerability, social exclusion, etc.) has been raised to the status of a key social issue precisely at a time when we are witnessing a radical transformation of the modern wage-earning society that emerged in Europe during the Trentes Glorieuses (“The Glorious Thirty”)1 through a specific kind of “historic compromise”. In the context of ­so-called “social” or “continental” capitalism (also known as “Rhénan capitalism”), the status of “wage-earner” or “employee” was—so to speak—institutionalised on a lasting basis through government action in the area of labour law and social protection, thus simultaneously embodying a concept of social and political citizenship and a fairly standardised model of career development. This compromise has now been radically called into question. The emergence of “young people” as an “all-purpose category” to represent contemporary economic and social problems has been paralleled by the emergence of a wide range of discourses which appear to regard the specific qualities associated with “being young” as the very basis of a new conception of human resources geared to meet the pressing requirements of an economy subject to the seemingly unavoidable and irreversible constraints of the new historical dynamics of increasingly globalised capitalism. Flexibility, mobility, perfectibility, meritocracy, adaptability, low cost, competitiveness, constant subjection to tests and reviews—these are some of the material and symbolic requirements associated with the status of “young” which have subsequently been transformed into the universal “virtues” of the new type of human resources repeatedly advocated in neoliberal rhetoric. The aim seems to be to turn the employee of the future into an “eternal youth” who will unquestioningly accept, almost as a dictate of fate, the need to take part in an endless rat race which will never lead to a stable, recognised and secure job. “Employees” in this situation will be all the more prepared to embrace the concept of lifelong learning since they will never truly leave this

1This

refers to the thirty-year period from 1945 to 1975, following the end of the Second World War in France in 1945—Translator’s note.

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strange “waiting room” where they find themselves in the company of a “reserve army” of similar workers aspiring to security, all of them eternally young in that they will forever lack a legitimate social status.2 The concept of “employability”, which is continually being served in all the different sauces of neoliberal discourse and which—thanks to its remarkable ambiguity—has crept into numerous policy statements and programmes aimed at promoting job creation and combating unemployment, is perhaps the concept which most tellingly expresses this idea of human resources that are flexible, mobile, with no attachments and no history, i.e. always young. All this leads us to believe that “youth” as a favourite category of current economic and political discourse plays the role of a “test lab” for a new kind of economic “standard” or “habitus”, which would characterise someone who can be described as a ­self-marketing or self-promoting wage-earner, who is forced to submit his/her personal worth to the verdict of the market day-in, day-out.

4 Youth as a Laboratory to Test Flexible and “Employable” Work Habits The terms “youth” and “precariousness” go hand in hand, sociologically speaking: to be young means not be “settled”; not being settled goes with an absence of the goods and material or symbolic assets that give an individual a recognised social status and social value as someone who “owns himself or herself” (Castel). As a “social limbo” or “social moratorium” largely built and protected by the modern State through the education system and the wide range of rights established to protect minors, the category “youth” has proven to be remarkably flexible and adaptable to different social and economic contexts, and everything indicates that this “waiting room” of the market-based society not only plays a key role in managing a reserve army of labour in accordance with changing needs but also represents a kind of socio-economic “laboratory” or “factory” to produce and reproduce an economic “habitus” and human capital “suited to demand” in the market-based society.In the context of the major economic changes experienced in all post-industrial countries, the officially registered unemployed are only the most visible consequence of the crisis of the wage-earning society. In fact, everywhere in contemporary societies we are witnessing a process of increasing job insecurity and increasingly-precarious living standards—a­

2For

an example of this kind of way of life, see Rambach and Rambach 2001.

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p­ rocess which tends to destabilise society as a whole. In addition to the forms of income-insecurity recognised by the State, there is a largely uncharted “grey area” which includes broad segments of the population that face uncertainty and the absence of the guarantees, assurances and protection traditionally associated with full-time, open-ended employment. A large proportion of this disadvantaged population is made up of new generations of young workers who are joining the labour market for the first time or have joined it very recently. These young people are confronted by a “multidimensional precariousness” which results in a lack of social status and social rights, a lack of financial and domestic independence, poorer long-term career prospects, no regular income, and inadequate coverage by social protection programmes. In short, instability and insecurity affect disadvantaged young people in all areas of their social, economic, professional, relational and family life. Unemployed young people are only partially included in unemployment statistics and everything suggests that this social group’s lack of public visibility in official representations reflects the lack of collective knowledge and recognition of the problems and risks associated with it. Families often must counterbalance, for varying periods of time, this absence of support. There is a division of labour (paralleling the distinction between private law and social legislation) whereby the brunt of the social protection of young people rests on the shoulders of their families (obligation to provide food and shelter, support for insertion in the labour market, etc.). But in the last twenty-five years or so, this key mechanism of social reproduction has itself entered a profound crisis and is becoming increasingly less capable of fulfilling social protection tasks. As a result, the traditional welfare state—based on an insurance system which follows something akin to a meritocratic logic in that it provides social protection to those who have worked over a period of time (and have thus paid social security contributions)—only provides support for young people in a subsidiary capacity (provision of training and education, income support when they become of age) and is therefore too static and too limited in scope to effectively address the social reproduction problems faced by the young generations. At the risk of running ahead of the argument, we may therefore advance the following hypothesis: faced with job insecurity and the deterioration of the “standard” social integration model developed during the “Glorious Thirty” (i.e. a linear and stable professional career from leaving school to retirement), young people are increasingly forced to resort to a kind of continuous “career improvisation” and to develop makeshift strategies to compensate for the absence of paid employment.3

3For

a more detailed analysis, see Schultheis (2005).

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Whether paradoxically or not, increased precariousness is affecting a young generation which, on average, is more highly qualified than any other previous generation, and the gap between, on the one hand, the potential value of all the qualifications submitted on the employment market as “entry tickets and, on the other, the actual value obtained, which has been eroded by significant inflation, further contributes to the sense of crisis experienced by young people as well as by their parents/families—given that the latter have not only invested a considerable amount of financial and cultural capital in the reproduction strategies applied to their offspring, but have also placed their hopes and expectations in the success of these strategies”. The reproduction crisis we are currently witnessing is not only a crisis of the material bases of society (the social situation), but also a symbolic crisis which affects the social status of these highly qualified young people, who find that the “society of abundance” has closed its doors to them or that, at best, they will be admitted to it by the back door. In conceptual terms, it is firstly the notion of “multiform precariousness” which is most relevant to the study of these issues. The concept of precariousness enables us, in the first place, to take into account all the phenomena young jobseekers may experience (spatial and social segregation, different cultural backgrounds, drug addiction, crime, etc.) and, secondly, to avoid the dead-end into which so much current research has steered itself by focusing on the categories of “administrative rationality” such as “unemployment”, “poverty” and “insertion”. Young people today join the labour market at a particularly difficult time, when the crisis of the wage-earning society makes the transition from school to the world of work increasingly “opaque”. We observe an inflation of formal qualifications, which causes a huge gap to open up between young people’s aspirations and their actual chances of realising them. The rites of passage that used to characterise the socialisation process (school, training, finding a job, forming a couple, marrying and having children) no longer function as relevant markers of progression along people’s life-paths. For many young people who are setting out in life, uncertainty and the disorientation resulting from a “loss of bearings” are very real problems. Of course, as an intergenerational reproduction crisis, the crisis of the wage-earning society affects all young people, and we may be tempted to adopt the term “duped generation” to describe the collective fate of toady’s young generation (in view of the gap between the promises and expectations developed during the socialisation process, on the one hand, and the increasingly lower chances of realising these expectations, on the other). But we should not shy away from pointing out that it is the most deprived and “resourceless” young people in all respects (financial, educational, social and “symbolic”) who are naturally the most “excluded” from society and the most marginalised economically and socially.

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5 The Slave Ship The term “slave ship” is being used to describe the peculiar situation or ­no-man’s-land in which some school-leavers—who embody the gravest aspects of the social reproduction crisis—find themselves. Disrupting social reproduction in yet another way—namely in terms of “public order”—these young people make up a subgroup particularly exposed to the risk of falling into more-or-less serious and chronic crime. Thus, they are at the same time the most vulnerable youth (and hence targeted by social policies aimed at providing assistance and protection) and the most “dangerous” (and hence a primary target of preventive and remedial actions on the part of social workers and/or correctional and law-and-order agencies). It is therefore those less fit to take part in the increasingly competitive race for the “goodies” promised by the consumer society who are being made to carry the can for (and, in a sense, represent) the current process of generalised regression in relation to the social and economic status gained by the previous generation. It should be recalled in this connection that the frustration inflicted on the young generation is proportional to the extent of non-compliance which a tacit rule which appears to govern the “relations of fairness” between generations: The new generation must set out in life from a level at least as good as that from which the previous generation set out, and no doubt this golden rule of social reproduction is no longer followed today. Basing ourselves on the anomie theory developed by Durkheim, we feel justified in arguing that this complex social syndrome entails a process of strong social “anomisation” and appears to go hand in hand with a wide range of pathological symptoms, which are expressed empirically, in a visible fashion, by sociological phenomena such as rising suicide rates, falling birth rates, increased violence, the spread of anti-rational trends and the emergence of a kind of “social chauvinism” based on the collective resentment of the members of an entire generation whose common denominator is the fact that they “lost out” in the process of modernisation (see data on suicide among young people). The characteristic low social status of young people is all the more painful in that the new “employability ideology” has made the individual responsible for his social success or failure, turning him/her into a sort of ­“self-promoter” who must “sell” himself/ herself for the best possible price on an increasingly competitive labour market. In other words, the prevailing economic logic holds people culpable for their inability to meet the new requirements of market competition. The re-emergence of thinly-disguised social Darwinism and the increasingly blatant acceptance of the “survival of the fittest” as the key underlying principle of social and economic

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life is de-ethicising the “rules of the game” and pushing the individuals who are most at risk of “multiform marginalisation” towards a kind of “legal marginalisation”. Confined to an increasingly wider area at the crossroads between social assistance and the penal system—a sort of no-man’s-land outside the sphere of sharing and bargaining in the framework of the major social institutions (welfare State, trade unions, political parties, etc.)—these young disadvantaged people, let down by the social reproduction system, are being targeted by professional practitioners in both fields and, as it were, being brought under a double tutorship. The void in which they find themselves is regarded as a potential danger not only to their social integration and to having a successful career but also and especially to society as a whole, which for the common good must be protected from these redundant members.

6 Childhood and Youth: Two Variable-Geometry Categories The border between youth and adulthood is not fixed once and for all, but rather, as Pierre Bourdieu rightly argues, is a function of the competitive race for status. Whilst spontaneous sociology would make us believe that “youth” refers to an immutable and hence trans-historical biological state, the actual socio-historical objectivation of this seemingly self-evident category clearly shows, as we have outlined above, that, depending on the given socio-historical situation, the relationship between the biological age and the social age may vary considerably. According to Bourdieu, the adult generation “i.e. the owners of the assets, whatever their kind, may be interested, under specific intergenerational transmission conditions, to keep the assets away from their would-be inheritors by labelling the latter as ‘young’ and stigmatising them as irresponsible, immature, etc., while, on the contrary, under different historical social reproduction conditions they may be interested in attributing the accolades of maturity (age of entry into employment) precociously”. In any historical period, therefore, classifications based on age may constitute a way of regarding and dividing society in accordance with an established social order in which each individual is assigned a legitimate or “natural” place and is expected to stick to it. At the same time, we should recall, with Bourdieu, that the meaning of “youth” at a particular point in history, in a specific social context, is a function of strongly fluctuating social and structural variables. This is particularly obvious in the epoch of modernity, which is characterised, as we have seen above, by a social reproduction mode increasingly based

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on the transmission of cultural capital and, hand in hand with this, an increasingly long average duration of youth as a socio-economic limbo functioning in the service of a system which demands increasingly higher academic and professional qualifications. The relation between “biological age” and “social age” not only differs along gender lines but also varies significantly depending on whether an individual’s social integration takes place in the world of work or, conversely, in the education system. When we consider the status of “youth” in modern societies, we must therefore speak of at least two different “youths”: on the one hand, students, with their integration in an almost “playful” economic market (small temporary jobs or holiday jobs; practical and financial help from parents and/or scholarships/grants; subsidised meals and accommodation; “Bohemian” lifestyle/subculture which turns a financial necessity into a cultural virtue; highly independent use of time; stylised, unconventional way of life; etc.); and, on the other hand, young people who are already fully integrated in the world of work, with all the “seriousness” this implies, i.e. “learning to labour” (Willis) through integration in the rational organisation of daily life. In the first case, Bourdieu speaks of a sort of state of temporary irresponsibility where the individual may improvise his/her everyday life by combining elements taken from the world of childhood and the world of adulthood and thus, as it were, playing on both sides—an undeniable advantage, which makes many young people from privileged social classes wish to prolong this state of indeterminateness and temporary freedom indefinitely. As far as the second category of young people is concerned, although its members are, biologically speaking, just as young (or as old) as their peers in the first category, it appears that integration in the world of adults takes place quite rapidly, radically and, in general, irreversibly. Everything indicates that the typical inequalities of the economic and social world take on a paradoxical quality in the case of young people: those from privileged social classes seem to be interested in—and to derive advantages from—a prolonged stay in this peculiar “waiting room of the real world”; and, furthermore, everything suggests that this does not constitute a sheer (and ostentatious) waste of time before entering the world of work, but on the contrary, is—in accordance with the theoretical argument advanced in this contribution—a sort of tightly run and effective “social laboratory” for the reproduction of the dominant social classes.

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References Bourdieu, P. (1980). La jeunesse n’ est qu’ un mot. In P. Bourdieu (Ed.), Questions de sociologie (pp. 143–154). Paris: Édition de Minuit. Boltanski, L., & Chiapello, E. (2001). Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme. Paris: Gallimard. Rambach, A., & Rambach, M. (2001). Les intéllos précaires. Paris: Fayard. Schultheis, F. (2005). Prekär auf hohem Niveau. In F. Schultheis & K Schulz, K. (Eds.), Gesellschaft mit begrenzter Haftung. Zumutungen und Leiden im deutschen Alltag (S. 375–378). Konstanz: UVK. Sen, A. K. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sen, A. K. (2000). Ökonomie für den Menschen. München: Hanser.

Inscribed Precarity—Subjectionprocesses and Precarity

Togetherness—On Neighboring in Precarious Times Tadeusz Rachwał

What is the world like when it is experienced, developed and lived from the point of view of difference and not identity? That is what I believe love to be. (Alain Badiou, In Praise of Love)

What I would like to express here is a certain nostalgic perspective on the loss of something which is hardly definable, on the feeling of loss of something which can be tentatively, and perhaps slightly pathetically, termed togetherness. This feeling of loss is simultaneously taking the place of, or perhaps replacing, the opportunity of living together in terms of neighbouring which, in the eyes of Martin Heidegger, was an irreducible condition of being. In his well known essay titled Building, Dwelling, Thinking he tried to prove the ontological status of neighbouring through etymological reading of the Old English word buan which, among other things, means to build: The Old English and High German word for building, buan, means to dwell. This signifies: to remain, to stay in a place. The real meaning of the verb bauen, namely, to dwell, has been lost to us. But a covert trace of it has been preserved in the German word Nachbar, neighbor. The neighbor is in Old English the neahjjebur; neah, near, and gebur, dweller. The Nachbar is the Nachjfebur, the Nachjfebauer, the ­near-dweller, he who dwells nearby. The verbs buri, bilren, beuren, beuron, all signify dwelling, the abode, the place of dwelling. Now to be sure the old word buan T. Rachwał (*)  SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_8

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not only tells us that bauen, to build, is really to dwell; it also gives us a clue as to how we think about the dwelling it signifies. When we speak of dwelling we usually think of an activity that man performs alongside many other activities. We work here and dwell there. We do not merely dwell—that would be virtual inactivity—we practice a profession, we do business, we travel and lodge on the way, now here, now there. Bauen originally means to dwell. Where the word bauen still speaks in its original sense it also says how far the nature of dwelling reaches. That is, bauen, buan, bhu, beo are our word bin in the versions: ich bin, I am, du bist, you are, the imperative form bis, be. What then does ich bin mean? The old word bauen, to which the bin belongs, answers: ich bin, du bist mean: I dwell, you dwell. The way in which you are arid I am, the manner in which we humans are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling. To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell. The old word bauen, which says that man is insofar as he dwells, this word bauen however also means at the same time to cherish and protect, to preserve and care for, specifically to till the soil. (Heidegger 1971, p. 146)

If ‘to be’ may simultaneously refer to building and neighboring, then one cannot avoid asking the question of a certain togetherness of the ontological with the political, of, say, Being (as such) and being-there (in the world). Heidegger’s reciprocal inscription of building within being and of being within building introduces the correlation of the two as an inextricable bind in which Being as such, the ontological Being, always already dwells within the constructed home of the world and is thus an inevitably relational category. It is related both to the originary foundation of the building, it neighbors with Being, but it also neighbors with the world which has been built, with the “there” whose construction is an event which distances and is distanced from the origin. In a way the builder, the human dweller in the world, dwells near, or neighbors, with two others—the other of Being and the other of other human subjects—with which, or whom, he or she remains in relation. This relation necessitates a politics, a certain regulation of the space of “there” which as it were surrounds the subject, dwells near it, which dwelling, as we have seen, even etymologically demands a neighboring and thus some kind of being together, of togetherness. Any strict division of neighboring into subject and object, into myself and my neighbor, though seemingly obvious and necessary, is, as any division, a gesture of separation which in fact also eliminates the reciprocity of togetherness. Such a division seems to be inevitably at work in what Quentin Meillassoux sees as philosophical “correlationism”, a tendency which he ascribes to any kind of thinking about the world which fails to separate man from the world, which separation is, for him, the way leading towards a reconciliation of thought and absolute by way of us awakening to its ancestrality: “we can only hope that the problem of ancestrality succeeds in waking us from our correlationist slumber, by enjoining us to reconcile thought and absolute” (Meillassoux 2005, p. 128).

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Meillassoux’s attempted return to the absolute only apparently seems to be bringing in a theological aspect to his philosophical proposition. Human thought reconciled with the absolute can only take place in a world which itself has become absolutized, a world without difference which, through an erasure of neighbouring, promises an absolute, non-correlational equality of a community without either religion or politics. With the coming of the awakening to ­non-correlational kind of existence, to “an existence dedicated to its own proper existence” (Meillassoux, 2010, p. 474) we shall overcome all the traditional dualistic divisions and dilemmas which result from it. Meillassoux’s solution does not only provide a certain hope, but promises a birth of a transformed subject beyond religion or politics, an “eschatological subject, moved by the desire of universal justice. I call such a subject a vectorial subject – that is to say one magnetically attracted by the vector of the emancipation to come” (Meillassoux 2010, p. 463). This emancipation is going to ‘take place’ in a world which Meillassoux calls “the fourth world,” a world which would be the advent of the “speculative renewal” of some sort of non-correlative justice (Meillassoux 2010, p. 461). This new justice is not a justice which surely will come, but a justice which ‘may be’, given that we are able to overcome the finitude inscribed in the very idea of ­“in-itself” through a shift “from transcendental-correlationist closure to the opening of our knowledge towards the In-itself, to the accessibility of the In-itself“ (Žižek 2012, p. 460). The title of Meillassoux’s seminal book, After Finitude, announces the already mentioned fourth world in which the ‘facticity’ of reality is not a mark of our finitude condemning us “to remain trapped behind the Veil of Ignorance separating us from the unknowable Absolute” (Žižek 2012, p. 460). Rather, it is the absolute which used to constitute the unchangeable foundation and ancestry of being that is posited as something which ‘may be’ rather than as ‘what is’: As such, I think that the most important task for philosophy – its final challenge – is not being, but ‘may-being’. For the may-be unites within itself the true heart of every ontology (the absolutness of factual possibility) and the deepest aspirations of ethics (the universal fulfillment of justice. (Meillassoux 2010, p. 463)

The philosophy of ‘may-being’ also, quite radically, deprives justice of the necessity of judgment, translating it in fact into an ontological factuality. The theological dimension of the biblical demand of loving the neighbor thus becomes not a matter of choice which is always motivated by some kind of judgment, but a matter of the may-being in which justice is ontological. The Old Testament ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ ceases to belong to the order of, however divine,

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law, and becomes a calling from the already mentioned fourth world whose status of ‘may-be’ also demands a new god, perhaps one who does not really need to command. Meillassoux, as Peter Gratton notices, argues that “there is no God, but his fourth World requires, out of the world, a creation ex nihilo of a future God, or, as he puts it, a ‘God who may be’ who answers human being’s greatest aspirations” (Gratton 2012, p. 8). The aspirations of a philosophy which approaches human neighboring and togetherness are always already aspirations of a correlationist philosophy which has not quite overcome metaphysical dualisms and thus has not rediscovered in philosophy the ancestral separateness of the absolute: To think ancestrality is to think a world without thought – a world without the givenness of the world. It is therefore incumbent upon us to break with the ontological requisite of the moderns, according to which to be is to be a correlate. Our task, by way of contrast, consists in trying to understand how thought is able to access the uncorrelated, which is to say, a world capable of subsisting without being given. But to say this is just to say that we must grasp how thought is able to access an absolute, i.e. a being whose severance (the original meaning of absolutus) and whose separateness from thought is such that it presents itself to us as non-relative to us, and hence as capable of existing whether we exist or not. (Meillassoux 2005, p. 28)

From such a perspective loving one’s neighbor as oneself is, paradoxically, an obstacle on the way to Meillassoux’s fourth world of justice, as neighboring is through and through a correalational kind of relation. In a way Meillassoux envisions as his philosophical ideal an accomplishment of the Ovidian Golden Age in which the Other was fully embraced because it remained conceptually unrealizable. What seems to be characterizing the absolute, or God, which ‘may be’ is the independence from any kind of other, with the category of ‘other’ becoming unthinkable, thus granting what seems to be an absolutely just security granted already on the level of ontology. Meillassoux project dehumanizes ontology and, as Graham Harman puts it, “leaves us with a cosmos of utterly isolated identities, none capable of exerting determinative forces against the others (Harman 2008, p. 110). It is exactly for this reason that there seems to be no space for politics in Meillassoux, as politics demands human relationships and at least some sort of a sovereign position. Such a position also excludes togetherness which becomes included within the ideal of it-selfness without limits. In, one could say, absolute contrast to Heidegger’s being-as-neighboring the human figure of neighbor and the inevitable event of neighboring are ethically wrong as introducers of division. Heidegger’s vision is for Meillassoux a correlationist vision which embraces the inevitability of living nearby without transgressing the limits, or borders, of

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somebody else’s home, though keeping one’s home open to neighbors, to the near-dwellers who constitute the social environment of the dweller. In Heidegger, this social environment, ontologically, depends upon a certain solidarity in which what is mine, my home, is open to the visitors, to others who can securely enter that home without being rejected or excluded. Reading being as building, Heidegger’s vision of the world inscribes work as the activity constitutive of one’s existence, though of existence in which the effect of the work, the effect of building, is not a fully private thing, an exclusively private property, but one which, through the demand of neighbouring, is shared with others. Though Heidegger does not openly admit it, his vision of neighboring is in fact an extensive commentary on the law of loving one’s neighbor as one loves oneself. This seemingly simple law addresses the question of the superiority of one’s person over others, over privacy as a superior sate over that of togetherness. What is also inscribed within this law, or commandment, is one’s love of oneself which functions here as the basis of the comparison of one’s love for others. The love of oneself does not necessarily mean selfishness. It raises the basic question of how to make one’s individuality, one’s identity hospitable to others with the hope that this hospitality will be reciprocated and thus constitute a social space which, though individuated, is a shared space from which nobody is excluded. The law of neighboring, which Jacques Derrida (2000) reads as the law of hospitality, is the law in which the neighbor is not treated as a separate, another being, but as one who, through dwelling near, is a potential participant in one’s homeliness, in the security of home offered by the Western rhetoric of homeliness. The law of neighbouring, like the law of hospitality, hides a certain contradiction which, in Derrida’s reading, imposes a contradiction on the very concept of hospitality in fixing a limit to it, in determining it: hospitality is certainly, necessarily, a right, a duty, an obligation, the greeting of the foreign other [l’autre étranger] as a friend but on the condition that the host, the Wirt, the one who receives, lodges or gives asylum remains the patron, the master of the household, on the condition that he maintains his own authority in his own home, that he looks after himself and sees to and considers all that concerns him [qu’il se garde et garde et regarde ce qui le regarde] and thereby affirms the law of hospitality as the law of the household, oikonomia, the law of his household, the law of a place (house, hotel, hospital, hospice, family, city, nation, language, etc.), the law of identity which de-limits the very place of proffered hospitality and maintains authority over it, maintains the truth of authority. (Derrida 2000, p. 4)

What is inscribed within this law of hospitality is the potential avoidance of ‘­precarious times’, a potential life of togetherness which, however, depends on

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the authority of the host, the patronage, the mastery of the household which, in turn, is linked with property, with the idea of private property and of privacy which can always take the route of domination. Hospitality is always very close to hostility, and thus to transforming a guest to an enemy, to an unwelcome, parasitical, being. As Derrida puts it, hospitality is opposed to what is nothing other than opposition itself, namely, hostility [Feindseligkeit]. The welcomed guest [hôte] is a stranger treated as a friend or ally, as opposed to the stranger treated as an enemy (friend/enemy, hospitality/hostility) (Derrida 2000, p. 4).

In the postindustrial world the status of hospitality and neighboring has radically been changed along with the idea of togetherness, the latter term sounding in this world as excessively pathetic. Andrew Ross (2009), in his book titled Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times claims that today’s precarity is “in large part, an exercise of capitalist control. Postindustrial capitalism thrives on actively disorganizing employment and socio-economic life in general so that it can profit from vulnerability, instability, and desperation” (Ross 2009, p. 51). Those in precarious positions in fact have to beg for a place in the home of economies, the begging being a denial of the homeliness of capitalist economy despite the fact that the very word ‘economy’ hides the idea of home. The begging is also hidden in the word, and the idea, of precarity: As derived from the Latin verb precor, the literal meaning of precarity is to be forced to beg and pray to keep one’s job. It is most often used as shorthand for the condition of social and economic insecurity associated with post-Fordist employment and neoliberal governance, which not only gives employers leeway to hire and fire workers at will, but also glorifies part-time contingent work as “free agency,” liberated from the stifling constraints of contractual regulations. Low-wage immigrant service workers and high-tech consultants alike might share these conditions, and this commonality has inspired activists who see the opportunity for cross-class solidarity. (Ross 2009, p. 7)

Beggars do not fit the pattern of neighboring, they are neither neighbors nor guests. The cross-class solidarity mentioned in the above quotation is not really a cross-class one, because the precariat, to which most of us nowadays belong is not a class comparable to the Marxian division into classes. Yet, what the precarious times have produced is a certain kind of homelessness, of not fully belonging which redefines the very idea of homeliness, that is to say of work and its results. What seems to have been undermined in the postindustrial world seems to be the fixity of the idea of place, the realization that places, like homes, are

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not stable and closed wholes or unities through which we define the others, perhaps the potential guest, but in fact no-places of sorts into which is inscribed a certain insecurity and the possibility of being a guest in one’s home. A no-place need not necessarily be a utopia, given that the topography of our vision of the world does not demand places, does not beg for places. In his book on no-places (Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity) Marc Augé claims that what is needed is an anthropology through which we, eventually, will learn how to look at ourselves from a different perspective not simply through genealogy of what we are, but through distancing ourselves from ourselves. Contemporary French people, he claims, are more worried about their loans in Credit Agricole than about their genealogies (cf. Augé 1995, p. 17). In terms of the Lockean idea of property they are not quite themselves, they exist simultaneously here and there, they do not occupy a simple place, a site which was one of the key-terms of the traditional anthropology. They, or perhaps we, in fact occupy no-places to which we are both strangers and hosts, spaces which are not our own and which, paradoxically, are not quite theirs, whatever, or whoever the they are. What hypermodernity has, willy-nilly, created is a space which demands neighboring, though one slightly different than in Derrida’s idea of hospitality in which the mastery of the host is related to the master of the place. In a sense the hypermodern space is a nomadic space, a space of uncertainty which can be overcome only through the neighboring of the precarious who we all, as it were, are. Neighbouring may also be read as a kind of togetherness. The figure of the neighbor may pose “a challenge to the possibility of thinking totality in politics,” as William Rauscher claims in his reading of Reinhard and Agamben. (Rauscher 2012, p. 9). The challenge seems to be coming from the threat of togetherness which unifies the neighbors who themselves remain “somehow non-total or incomplete” (Rauscher 2012, p. 10). It is exactly for this reason that in his theorizations of love and neighbor Alain Badiou in fact asks about neighboring or neighborhood rather than about neighbor. Badiou’s statement saying that “love begins where politics ends” (Badiou 2004, p. 160) is, in the eyes of Kenneth Reinhard (2005), a proposal of a political theology of neighbor in which it is impossible to link two or more people in a world directly as neighbors. They can only “be asserted as being in the same neighborhood” (Reinhard 2005, p. 66). An effect of such an assertion may be a certain univocity of differences, their togetherness in carrying the universal. As Badiou, referring to 1 Corinthians 14:7,1 puts it: “only by

1“And

even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?” (King James Bible).

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recognizing in differences their capacity for carrying the universal that comes upon them can the universal itself verify its own reality […]. Differences, like instrumental tones, provide us with the recognizable univocity that makes up the melody of the True” (Badiou 1997, p. 106). This return to truth, going against the grain of much of the social constructivism of postmodernity, is not identical with the already mentioned pursuit of the absolute by Meillassoux, though it is “certainly cut from the same cloth” (Galloway 2013, p. 349). Badiou’s thought is related to Heidegger’s notion of authenticity according to which our immersion in “the practices and opinions of the social world we inhabit – in what Heidegger calls ‘das Man, – is structurally susceptible to a disruption that compels us to a new way of being” (Santner 2005, p. 111). The new way, or ways, of being are thus events of disruption of the boundaries which hold us within the social positions of neighbors. Badiou’s neighborhood, unlike neighbor, is thus not definable on the basis of topological closeness or common points of identification. Kenneth Reinhart sees Badiou’s neighborhood as a sphere of openness, as an “open area in a world, a place, subset or element where there is no boundary, no difference, between the inside of the thing and the thing itself” (Reinhard 2005, p. 66). What is crucial here is Badieu’s distinction between membership and inclusion in which an element may belong to a set without being included in it – this results in the possibility of there being “a something that demarcates a difference between it and the set itself” (Reinhard 2005, p. 66). What is demanded in order that neighborhood becomes an event, a social fact, is firstly the disruption of the confines of the inside, the disruption of the closure of the category of neighbor and, secondly, the decision to belong to the neighborhood. Making this decision is crucial, as the belonging, or membership, in the neighborhood is not objectively observable or interpretable. The decision as it were establishes the event of the truth of “subjectivity as constituted by a decision for the event, and fidelity to it” (McSweeney 2011, p. 33). This event of truth opened up by the decision is a possibility of a world not yet realized, an uncertain world which is not a Whole, but an open space or area in which “every ­multiple-being enters into the composition of other multiples, without this plural (the others) ever being able to fold back upon a singular (the Other). For if all multiples were elements of one Other, that would be the Whole” (Badiou 2009, p. 112). The decision concerning the creation of the new open set, of the neighborhood in which there is no boundary between the set and its members or a separation of inside from the outside is thus not a passive decision of recognition or identification, but an active decision which “involves work, a force and a forcing” despite the seeming flaccidity of openness. Perhaps paradoxically, it is also

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the decision of love (cf. Reinhard 2005, p. 66) which, for Badiou is one of four “generic procedures”2 of coming to the truth of the new subject: Through the transitory creation of a new subject of truth, love irreversibly imposes the destruction of the ordinary social idea, the one that separates bodies, consigning them to their particular interests. (Badiou, 2009, p. 380).

Badiou’s project cannot be treated simply as the ethical turn, a Levinasian ontological shift to ethics which characterized much of the late twentieth century philosophy in which “responsibility to and for the other precedes all else” (Jackson 2007, p. 15). What it promises is a radical change of the attitude to the ideas of collectivity and thus of humans to humans through a togetherness in which lack is not a sign of a precarious position, but something which is positively, though perhaps painfully assumed: “Once forbidden, love must painfully assume lack” (Badiou 2009, p. 367), thus making truth of the somehow disorderly order of things: “Love is instead what makes truth of disorder, which is why it is the bearer of that which is indelible in the event” (Badiou 2009, p. 376). Perhaps rather than using neighboring as a mode of human collectivity, we could approach the question of the collective through some idea of togetherness which, at least on the connotational level, does not exclude those beings which/who are not quite like us and which/who can participate in the event of togetherness in terms of shared coequality. Comparing Alain Badiou’s vision of the place of love in collectivity with the theoretical proposal of Luce Irigaray, Lisa Watrous (2012) points to the militancy of both projects as regards love, to its “militant vigilance” and the necessity of its “militant proclamation” (Watrous 2012, p. 68). What seems to be at stake is love’s potential to reveal the paradoxes of homogeneity and difference and thus to force us to abandon our various resistances to thinking the unfamiliar, to exclude it: Love is not a matter of covering over differences in a homogeneous One, but of revealing that differences are capable of abiding and welcoming the truth that traverses them. This welcoming, according to Irigaray, “requires an availability for that which has not yet occurred, an ability and a wanting to open ourselves to the unknown, to that which is still unfamiliar to us and, in a sense, will always remain unfamiliar.” (Watrous 2012, p. 7, quotation from Irigaray 2008, p. 1).

Facing the unfamiliar inscribed in the overcoming, through love, of our resistances to it posits the human subject in a precarious situation, also in the context

2“the

four generic procedures – love, politics, arts and sciences – and the affects that correspond to them” (Badiou, 2009, p. 570).

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of the demand to love one’s neighbor as oneself. What is problematized in love is not only the status of oneness and homogeneity of the neighbor, but also the status of oneness and homogeneity of oneself. This precariousness of position, or precarity, as Judith Butler writes, complicates our ethics and exposes us to the inevitability of sociality: “Precarity names both the necessity and the difficulty of ethics” and “exposes our sociality, the fragile and necessary dimensions of our interdependency” (Butler 2012, pp. 141, 148). Precarity results from the always already split position of the subject and for this reason, according to Butler, we “struggle in, from, and against precarity” (Butler 2011, p. 24). Togetherness is not a state of living without precarity, and though we struggle with it, this struggle is carried out not in the name of some absolute unity, not in the name of a familiar and secure “hereness”, but also to translate “thereness” into a relevant aspect of our condition, the condition of togetherness. Togetherness so conceived of seems to be thinkable only when “when we understand that what happens there also happens here, and that “here” is already an elsewhere, and necessarily so, that we stand a chance of grasping the difficult and shifting global connections in which we live, which make our lives possible – and sometimes, too often, impossible” (Butler 2011, p. 25). All times are precarious, though in ours Butler’s “too often impossible” lives may well result from the fact that without a togetherness which will encompass more than ourselves, without refusal to embrace self-centered anthropocentrisms, we become what Butler terms “disposable.” The fact that precarity has been so strongly attended to in the recent years seems to be a sign of an event (also in Badiou’s sense of the word) of awakening to togetherness through which, to quote Butler once again, some set of values is being enacted in the form of a collective resistance: a defense of our collective precarity and persistence in the making of equality and the many-voiced and unvoiced ways of refusing to become disposable” (Puar 2012, p. 169). This refusal need not be a commandment or a directive, but an incentive of togetherness which might also become an eventful aspect of a renewal of the political.

References Augé, M. (1995). Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso. Badiou, A. (1997). Saint Paul: The foundation of universalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Badiou, A. (2004). Politics as truth procedure. In R. Brassier & A. Toscano (Eds.), Theoretical writings (pp. 153–160). New York: Continuum. Badiou, A. (2009). Logics of worlds: Being and event II. London: Continuum.

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Butler, J. (2011). Precarious life and the obligations of cohabitation, lecture, Nobel Museum, Stockholm. http://www.nobelmuseum.se/sites/nobelmuseet.se/files/page_file/ Judith_Butler_NWW2011.pdf. Accessed 20 December 2016. Butler, J. (2012). Precarious life, vulnerability, and the ethics of cohabitation. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 26(2), 134–151. Derrida, J. (2000). Hospitality. Angelaki, 5(3), 3–18. Galloway, A. R. (2013). The poverty of philosophy: Realism and post-fordism. Critical Inquiry, 39(2), 347–366. Gratton, P. (2012). Meillassoux’s speculative politics: Time and the divinity to come. Analecta Hermeneutica, 4, 1–14. Harman, G. (2008). Quentin Meillassoux: A New French Philosopher. Philosophy Today, 51(1), 104–177. Heidegger, M. (1971). Building dwelling thinking. In M. Heidegger (Ed.), Poetry, language, thought (pp. 141–160). New York: Harper & Row. Irigaray, L. (2008). Sharing the world. New York: Continuum. Jackson, K. (2007). The great temptation of ‘Religion’: Why Badiou has been so important to Žižek. International Journal Žižek Studies, 1(2), 1–28. McSweeney, J. (2011). From decision to event: Complicating Badiou’s politics of truth. Cultural and Ethical Turns 33. www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ mcsweeneypaper.pdf. Accessed 4 April 2017. Meillassoux, Q. (2005). After finitude. An essay on the necessity of contingency. Continuum: New York. Meillassoux, Q. (2010). The immanence of the world beyond. In C. Cunningham & P. M. Chandler (Eds.), The Grandeur of Reason. Religion, Tradition and Universalism (pp. 444–478). London: SCM Press. Puar, J. (ed.) (2012). Precarity Talk A Virtual Roundtable with Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Bojana Cvejic; Isabell Lorey, Jasbir Puar, and Ana Vujanovic. The Drama Review 56(49), 163–177. Rauscher, W. (2012). The politics of the neighbor in St. Paul’s theology. In Y. Almog & E. Born (Eds.), Neighbors and neighborhoods: Living together in the German-speaking world (pp. 8–19). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Reinhard, K. (2005). Toward a political theology of the neighbor. In S. Žižek, E. L. Santner, & K. Reinhard (Eds.), The neighbor: Three inquiries into political theology (pp. 11–75). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ross, A. (2009). Nice work if you can get it: Life and labor in precarious times. New York: New York University Press. Santner, E. L. (2005). Miracles Happen: Benjamin, Rosenzweig, Freud, and the Matter of the Neighbor. In S. Žižek, E. L. Santner, & K. Reinhard (Eds.), The neighbor: Three inquiries into political theology (pp. 76–133). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Watrous, L. (2012). Love’s Universal Impetus: Luce Irigaray and Alain Badiou. L’Esprit Créateur 52(3). https://doi.org/10.1353/esp.2012.0030. Žižek, S. (2012). Less than nothing: Hegel and the shadow of dialectical materialism. London: Verso.

Understanding Merleau-Ponty’s Concept of Dehiscence in the Context of Precarity Reflections on the Vulnerability of Self and Subjectivity Frank J. Macke

1 Introduction One way of interpreting David Graeber’s (2011) fascinating and ­much-discussed text, Debt: The First 5000 Years, is to grasp the concept of economic imbalance as a thematic premise for the articulation of social relations within a s­ ocio-cultural system. ‘Debt’ is a way of characterizing a person’s relationship with another person, as well as a system’s relation with other systems or subsystems. In other words, debt is a way of characterizing human and systemic relations; it is not the only way or even the predominant way—or even, in fact, a necessary way. In the last several decades developed economies have become preoccupied with the thematic of ‘debt’. Both North American and European political systems have chosen to implement policies of austerity—which, to be clear, are in this context to be understood as illiberal political relations between the holders of capital and the economically vulnerable—during a historical period in which the most significant causes of disruptions in wealth and prosperity are attributable to careless economic speculation by the holders of capital and the primary stewards of investment. The transcendent thematic of ‘debt’ emboldens the holders of capital and power to consider a concept of society and culture that in a different F. J. Macke (*)  Mercer University Macon, Macon, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_9

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era and a different context—say, half a century ago—would be considered misanthropic, if not inhumane. As well, the thematic of ‘debt’ carries with it an urge to reconceptualize and re-philosophize the concept of ‘the human’. The holders of wealth and capital, in effect, urge a compromise of the sacred—in other words, a sacrifice—definitionally essential to the (enlightened) Modern realization of self and selfhood for persons outside of the orbit of wealth, prosperity, and power. In the tropic framework of ‘debt’, there is no necessary shortfall of capital (it changed hands; it did not simply disappear), nor is there any sort of imminent test of the carrying capacity of, say, global agriculture, raw materials, water, and so forth. Instead, all that is truly imminent in the thematic framework of “debt” is the sheer number of persons whose lives fall outside of the orbit of wealth, prosperity, and power. “Debt” makes possible a concept of their existence—our existence—as a burden on capital. Merleau-Ponty’s (1968) concept of dehiscence emerges in The Visible and the Invisible as a botanical metaphor to describe a moment of the efflorescence of our being within the world. It potentially serves as a fascinating companion notion to Heidegger’s concepts of Ereignis and ‘the clearing’ (Lichtung). In the lived-experience of precarity, however, the therapeutic possibility of dehiscence risks becoming a moment of terror and vulnerability. The uncovering of being, the opening of possibilities, can come to represent a potentiality for contamination and infection. Instead of a world of diverse prospects and promises, the precarious subject perceives a world of foreigners and strange ideas. The central argument of my paper would attempt to return experience to the communicative foundation of ataraxia and freedom in conscious embodiment. I will further argue that the experience of freedom is inseparable from the concept of selfhood and personhood. Dehiscence, écart, disclosure, discovery: each has been described as fundamental to the embodied, psychological moment of freedom in the being and becoming of the individuated, differentiated self. If the concept of personal agency is limited to the month-to-month, year-to-year survival of bodies, psychological being occurs in an absence of dignity and nobility and mutuality. Transcendence and freedom are of little value in such a context.

2 The Morality of Debt—Guilt and Shame For better or for worse, the movement of political economy during the Twentieth Century enabled the transformation of the Nineteenth Century Marxian categories of capitalist-bourgeoisie-proletariat into capitalist-middle-class-indigent. The indigent class, in the developed economies of the latter half of the Twentieth ­Century,

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has managed (to a greater or lesser extent) to survive largely from a system of complex economic dependencies processed through government bureaucracies. In the United States, the complexity of the bureaucratic obstacles and red tape, often ridiculous in a number of states and localities, and the limited generosity with which assistance is dispensed has enabled American political leaders and journalists to refrain from referring to America as a ‘social democracy’. For several decades after World War II, the development of the middle class in a number of developed economies had produced a sense of both economic and family stability and a capacity to plan for future ambitions. In any case, what we are now seeing as the Twentieth Century concept of ‘middle-class sufficiency’ disappears into history is the transformation of the human from homo sapien to homo economicus to, most recently, homo debitor. The possibility of “debt” as a way of describing human relationship has long been a part of the process of cultural embodiment. Following Nietzsche’s thought in A Genealogy of Morals, Deleuze and Guattari identify ancient, historical, and tribal forms of debt, which they organize into three major configurations. Richard Dienst efficiently summarizes their work: In the first, the so-called “savage” system, debt is incurred and discharged through blood revenge and cruelty; in the despotic/barbarian system, all debts are exercised as dispensations of the infinite credit of the divine ruler […] and finally, in the third system, which is capitalism as such, debts finally break free from the authority of the state and circulate across the whole social surface […] reciprocal responsibilities cease to be tied to lateral alliances or hierarchical obligations, and instead become subject to oscillating and optimal transactions. Henceforth there will be countless ways to be in debt, in all directions and according to various codes and protocols. (Dienst 2011, p. 124)

There is an assumption embedded in this list that capitalism is the evolutionary heir to the savage and despotic modes of debt and justice. Yet, the capacity of this system to collapse down to its lowest form is ever present. Otherwise, in a world in which scarcity truly ought not to be a material problem, especially in our current age, the lives of the world’s underclass would cease to be a matter of such cruelty. Put another way, when we are witness to the cruelty of one set of human beings upon another, what we are witnessing is the payment of a perceived debt. Somehow, “they had it coming to them” becomes a refrain one hears when a person or group is forced to suffer pain, death, or the indignities of humiliation and shame. In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, the plot of the play turns on a shift in the anticipated order of debt and payment. Antonio owes Shylock a considerable sum,

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but Shylock refuses to operate in the system of debt and recompense common to early capitalism and demands, instead, blood payment; that is, Shylock demands his “pound of flesh.” Shylock’s debt collection process is disrupted when emissaries of the state—who are in fact successful imposters—intervene. The outcome of this prank of despotic adjudication—a prank that is intended to be entertaining to Shakespeare’s audience but which is itself quite clearly an offense against the rule of law—is that Shylock is stripped of all of his wealth and possessions and forced to convert to Christianity. Now, putting all of this in the historical perspective of Elizabethan England, Merchant of Venice was written as a comedy—which is to say that Shylock’s “justice” was perceived as a reasonable (or at least pleasing) payment for what he owed Antonio and the true citizens of Venice. Even if the whips and axes of more primitive times are not the fate we are to suffer, the gothic dimensions of humiliation and shame make us fully aware that our debts must somehow be paid. Maurizio Lazzarato comments specifically on this point: Debt produces a specific “morality,” at once different from and complementary to that of “labor.” The couple “effort-reward” of the ideology of work is doubled by the morality of the promise (to honor one’s debt) and the fault (of having entered into it). As Nietzsche reminds us the concept of “Schuld” (guilt), a concept central to morality, is derived from the very concrete notion of “Schulden” (debts). The “morality” of debt results in the moralization of the unemployed, the assisted, the users of public services, as well as entire populations. (Lazzaratto 2012, p. 30)

The experience of shame can be overwhelming. Along these very lines, Lisa Guenther, a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University, writes: “The burning feeling of shame, the sense of being out of place, judged by others as unworthy, unwanted or wrong—not only in this or that particular action but in one’s very existence—leaves the shameful subject nowhere to be, and yet nowhere to hide or escape […] In this sense, shame attacks the very resources that one would need in order to resist shame, and to put in question the mechanisms that produce it” (Guenther 2011, p. 23 f.). As with the character of Shylock, shame catches us unaware, catches us believing that another outcome reasonably and justly ought to follow from an action we undertake forthrightly with honest words and a selfhood that can only do what it can do. Unlike Shylock, we are not guilty of asking for too much— asking for blood when a only a material payment is due—but like Shylock we are told that we do not belong here, that we have not earned the right to enjoy what only members of a lucky inner circle seem to hold in common.

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3 The Event of Dehiscence and a New Context for Humanism and Terror One’s experience of basic anxiety, or ennui, is not the end-point of radical reflection. Instead, it holds the possibility of the beginning of a full encounter with one’s world. It is my argument that this sort of therapeutic moment emerges from what Merleau-Ponty terms the dehiscence—from the splitting-open, the fission— of an embodied consciousness of a world. The dehiscence, in effect, throws the “embodiment” out of its house, sometimes half-dressed and out of its mind, out of its shell, and into another world (Merleau-Ponty 1968, p. 146). New consciousness emerges from new feelings and sensations. And so, among the possibilities of this or any other discovery, we are able to discover that we are not yet dead. Our personal body is revealed to us as though for the first time and we become questionable to ourselves at the very moment we discover ourselves. Here, the ‘I’ of me and the ‘me’ of me are no longer in geosynchronous orbit but I still recognize them both. To the extent the experience is jarring for the self, the range of new vision has not as yet fully and actually occurred. What is jarring is the intuited sense of its possibility—that in fact the water really could break and we would, in fact, have to enter a new world. What is jarring is the anticipation of change; and what is also jarring is the anticipation of loss. The psychology of terror clings to the anticipation of what might eventually happen. The dehiscence, the splitting open, is, if I let myself feel it, an ecstasy, an ek-stasis. It is the body’s coming-into-being. It is at this moment that I can, to paraphrase Whitman, sing my body electric. Because I am not dead yet, I am—in the expression of the “me” that is now me—very much alive. The song of my body, the rhythm of my heart, the rhyme of my thought is only therapeutic if I am sufficiently aware that I am alive. The application of philosophical work to the transformation of consciousness and Self, what Foucault, after Pierre Hadot (1990), termed epimeleia heatou (and Hadot himself called “philosophy as a way of life”, cf. Hadot 1990, pp. 483 ff.) is undertaken as a therapy of vital experience. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is built on this vulnerable foundation, this narrative foundation of vulnerability. All too many of us, and all too often, all too often, are not dead yet and we do not fully know it. As with Vladimir and Estragon, dehiscences of mind and body may well have come and gone, yet we stand in wait for the seemingly important one that may well happen, and perhaps (hopefully) sometime soon. Until then, we are as good as dead (or, at least, little better than dead)—dead to one another but, most critically, dead to ourselves.

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Walter Benjamin writes: “We are bored when we don’t know what we are waiting for. That we do know, or think we know, is nearly always the expression of our superficiality or inattention.” (Benjamin 2002, p. 105). Ennui is hardly a pleasant feeling, but it is a feeling. If one can appreciate this anxiety for what it is, one can see that it is a sign of life, perhaps the most basic sign of life opening itself to reading and interpretation—it is the remainder of life after one has taken worried account of all that can fall away. Ennui and “annoy” share the same Latin root form, in odio, which does not really signify boredom at all. In odio denotes “in hatred.” To feel ennui is to sense the odiousness of what one’s world has become. And thus the experience of ataraxia, I suggest, is what remains of ennui once we let go of the anger. In an extended commentary on the work of Benjamin, Salzani addresses the discomfort of ennui (or spleen) by referencing a passage from Georg Simmel: “Benjamin’s generation was strongly influenced by the analysis of metropolitan life made by Georg Simmel. ‘The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality,’ he wrote in ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life,’ ‘consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation’ which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli.” (Salzani 2009, p. 131). Salzani continues: “In Benjamin’s reading of Baudelaire, spleen is ambiguously related to, and at times confused with, ennui: ‘One of the central motifs of this poetry,’ Benjamin quotes from François Porché, ‘is, in effect, boredom in the fog, ennui and indiscriminate haze […] In a word, it is spleen.’ Benjamin simply follows a fashion in the Baudelairean critique which treats spleen and ennui as synonyms: both are characterized by ‘dull, glib sadness,’ ‘weariness’ [Müdigkeit], and ‘naked terror’ [nackten Schreckens].” (Salzani 2009, p. 137). In Was Heißt Denken? Heidegger makes the claim that “science does not think” (Heidegger 1954/1968, p. 8) and, a bit later, that “only when a person speaks does that person think—not the other way around” (Heidegger 1954/1968, p. 16). Now, not all speech is thinking, but speech—expression in its most artistic sense—is a Heideggerian precondition for thought (This, I believe, is ­Merleau-Ponty’s argument both in “Cezanne’s Doubt” and in “Eye and Mind”). And if Heidegger has taught us anything it is that thinking is not a discourse event—and its domain is hardly exhausted by the field of cognitive science. For we are ultimately within the domain of thought when we find ourselves addressing the world that seems, even still, to be trapped inside the organic tissue of our body’s skin, not yet as flesh. It is within the domain of thought that we, at times, seek therapeutic treatment for the somatic effects, often severe in their debilitation, that coincide with our stressed habituation of neurotic anxiety. When we speak of our feelings we speak of something that remains just out of the reach

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of articulate rational consciousness—which is to say that when we speak of our feelings we are speaking of our flesh in its carnal dialect. Our feelings are the only voice we have ever come to experience of our flesh. Pain, laughter, even dizziness, is the Ursprache of Dasein. It is not a language, it is only voice, or, rather, it is the simultaneity of voice-in-speech. It could be said in the same breath that all doctors minister to the mind and that all doctors minister to the body. Existentially there is no difference. It is said that shame is the feeling one experiences when one senses that the other is about to behold the truth of what has been hidden behind the curtain. The therapy of philosophical reflection may have elements of what, in a bold poetic sense, may be termed “interior design,” but is not about home decoration. Given that we are all composed of flesh, and that flesh communicates, at least in part, by way of a visible skin (a skin to which we customarily add clothing) we all are hiding something. What we hide behind the curtain is the motility of psyche, and the motility of psyche, Merleau-Ponty makes clear, is what defines the flesh of our communicative realities. Getting one’s house in order is a blood matter. What is behind the curtain is not merely in the language of our thought, but in our interpersonal affairs, our families, and our social groups. We attempt to obstruct lines of vision from the drama of what shames us but our ongoing drama nevertheless remains out there for everyone to see. We are shamed by its visibility. The curtain, it turns out, is really for our own eyes. The body of thought, the care of the self, in short, the ministry of therapy, all begin from the notion that the flesh, carefully understood, should be anything but a source of shame. Giving ourselves more care than anything else in the world is what leads us to draw the curtains wide and let the energy, the light of our desire become the ‘show’ of our life. It is Foucault’s general admonition that, in the intimate pursuit of our selves, we ought not be concerned with our lives as things whose natures can be known. Intimate contact, fleshly contact, is a commitment to the problematic of living carefully, of living as best we can.

4 Conclusion: Contemplating the Revolution this Time As the narrative of debt and indebtedness continues to spin out, with nations indebted to other nations and banks indebted to other banks along with, crucially, individual persons living under the watchful eyes of creditors and judges of all sorts, we see the fears of Antonio, Shylock’s indebted ‘victim’, both multiply and

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spread like contagion across the body politic. Any reassurance that we are going to be spared from either the blood lust or the cruelty of the current temperament of the economic system is next to impossible to shrug off. The cruelties that are daily visited upon the world’s permanent—and growing—underclass are not invisible. The sudden realization that that misery could be visited upon me and all that I love is an indication that the world has never really transcended the savage and barbaric notions of debt and indebtedness—not in Shakespeare’s times and not in our own. What this most clearly puts into perspective for me is that the experience of dehiscence as a possibility for freedom— of a liberating phase of evolution and imagination—rather than as a likelihood of fear and compounded insecurity is becoming increasingly limited to those who can afford it. The existence of mid-twentieth century middle class angst was, it clearly seems in retrospect, not the fear of falling, shame, and collapse with which we have become familiar in the last several decades, but instead a sense of disbelief— perhaps a mixture of incredulity, astonishment, and skepticism. Families with a house, a car, health care, and a pension stemming from one secure job simply did not know how ‘wealthy’ they had become. Inexpensive tuition to state colleges and universities (along with generous financial aid for students demonstrating need) enabled a sizable number of baby-boom children to obtain a remarkably good education. And, as such, we can now see what sort of economic foundation the liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s were based upon. Though there was some insecurity in the country, there was, nonethelss, a sufficient level of security for a change in consciousness and a change in values to occur amongst a fairly wide swath of American youth. It was a period of time when fear of freedom and fear of change were considerably less imposing than they are now. Whether freedom and the discourse and rhetoric that describe it is the consequence of personal development and growth on one hand, or revolutionary action on the other—this is the choice Continental philosophy faces at this moment: What should be the ambition of the human sciences? Should we educate as though nothing has happened? Or, if we are to acknowledge the problem before us, should we consider our work as, again (such as we saw in the world of intellectuals a century ago), a key part of a revolutionary consciousness? It has long been the nature of artistic work to proceed from a transformative, if not revolutionary, consciousness. The sciences, however, since the Enlightenment, have performed a much different cultural function. It is not the so-called neutrality of scientific labor but the stability of method that has enabled scientific discourse to enter the processes of socialization and social development with far less resistance than the voices of the arts.

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I have long wondered about the point at which even liberating, transformative pedagogy built from human science epistemology and methodology would become the equivalent of the esoteric “glass bead game” illustrated in Hermann Hesse’s novel, Magister Ludi (Hesse 1943/2002). Perhaps we are reaching that point at this moment. We have reached a point in the West where the hunger for living wages is soon to outpace any thirst for enlightenment. Any sort of revolutionary praxis will need to become subversive. Though this has been true for some time, university intellectuals have had the luxury of referring to the “reality” of class struggle as something historical, as something in the abstract. The very class struggle in which we are now having to intervene—at the very least as fully conscious educators and scholars—is now described by the lives and psyches of all of our students who do not enjoy the comfort of what used to be middle-class affluence. Students are now compiling massive debt to attend even state-funded universities. The experience of higher education in these times does not conform to the dispositif of contemplative masters instilling an appreciation for doubt, ambiguity, and complexity in the open and fertile minds of curious students. Now, the student’s experience of higher education is one of simply ‘not falling behind’. It is not merely that education has become commodified by a competitive market, it is that the style of schooling itself has become a matter of consumer behavior. Bernard Stiegler views this process as a new form of proletarianization (Stiegler 2010). That is, he is not reverting to the Nineteenth Century narrative of a proletariat alienated from the discourse and sign systems of power by way of access to literacy and books (i.e., the primary techno-structural factor in the political economy of early modernism) but to a form of re-proletarianization that aims to organize consumption as the destruction of savior with the particular aim of creating a worried and apprehensive labor force (Stiegler 2010, p. 27). Stiegler’s perspective, both on the dispositif of education and on one’s commitment to vocation, is that what is lost in the consumerist capitalism of this particular moment of economic life is “what the Romans cultivated as otium, a word which […] translates as ‘studious leisure’” (Stiegler 2010, p. 53). Stiegler writes: “The time of the passage to the noetic act is called otium, which does not at all mean idle time, yet does mean the time of leisure, that is, of freedom and of ‘care of the self’. Otium, from an economic perspective inscribed in a general economy […] constitutes an externality opening the space of human commerce insofar as it is a process of psychic and collective individuation in which long circuits of transindividuation are formed.” (Stiegler 2010, p. 54, emphasis in original). Stiegler maintains that an economy of “neg-otium”—that is, a discursive network of relations in which otium is, in effect, negotiated away

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from the experience of social and cultural ego-identity—is what has emerged in the place of the “studious leisure” that had been such a critical part of bourgeois practices in the care of the self a century ago. Stiegler’s summary of our current situation is as bracing as it is instructive. He writes: The middle classes will soon disappear, because they have been proletarianized by the development of consumerism. This is not to say that they have been pauperized: the former is not the consequence of the latter. It is to say that the middle classes are no longer any kind of “petty bourgeoisie”—not because they have been pauperized, but through a symbolic misery […] and through an aesthetic and noetic proletarianization: without otium, without access for example to that instrumental practice which was such a delight to Roland Barthes, for whom a true appreciation of the music of Schumann can only derive from its interpretation. (Stiegler 2010, p. 64)

In an act of cruelty during a time in which even capitalism was still very much unthought, very much “yet to come,” a beleaguered Shylock was stripped of his dignity and required to convert to a religious order entirely foreign to his conscience and his genealogy. Aside from the parochial sense of justice that circulated through the audience of the Globe Theatre, the conversion of the Jew serves no “corrective” purpose other than normalization. The conversion that is occurring now though the political economy of late capitalism, through a strategically concocted illusion of debt and shame, through a sense of obligation to an economic security that promises only to remain out of reach, is a conversion of consciousness from self care to embittered nihilism. It is the obligation of intellectuals to tell the truth about all of this. Our work is cut out for us.

References Benjamin, W. (2002). The arcades project. Cambridge: Harvard University. (First publication 1927–1940). Dienst, R. (2011). The bonds of debt. New York: Verso. Graeber, D. (2011). Debt: The first five thousand years. Brooklyn: Melville House. Guenther, L. (2011). Shame and the temporality of social life. Continental Philosophy Review, 44, 23–24. Hadot, P. (1990). Forms of life and forms of discourse in ancient philosophy. Critical Inquiry, 16(3), 483–505. Heidegger, M. (1968). What is called thinking?. New York: Harper & Row. (First publication 1954). Hesse, H. (2002). Magister Ludi: The glass bead game. New York: Picador. (First publication 1943).

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Lazzaratto, M. (2012). The making of the indebted man: An essay on the neoliberal condition. Cambridge: MIT Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible. Evanston: Northwestern University. Salzani, C. (2009). The atrophy of experience: Walter Benjamin and Boredom. Critical Studies, 1(31), 127–154. Stiegler, B. (2010). For a new critique of political economy. Malden: Polity.

Communicology, Antidepressants and Employability—A Critique of the Pathologization of Precarity Isaac E. Catt 1 Introduction Some preliminary remarks necessarily precede a direct connection of employment pecarity and mental health, especially given that precarious circumstances are too often identified exclusively as economic problems. To the contrary, virtually all intellectual disciplines have a stake in precarity, to include philosophy, culturology and psychiatry, which are influential in communicology. Communicology is the science of embodied discourse and therefore focuses on the human experience of signs in culture. Interrelated signs that figure here include depression, antidpressants, and employment precarity. I should like to begin with reference to pioneering psychiatrist and communicologist Jurgen Ruesch who had a good sense of humor. More than a half century ago he (1962, p. 182) cautioned us that an intellectual analysis of the human condition is likely to leave us with “feelings of discontent and emotional indigestion.” Certainly there is a serious side to this statement as well. Human science is consequential and does not always contribute to a happy consciousness. This is certainly true when the common sense of inherited culture is questioned and our This essay is an amended and updated version of the paper presented at the conference in Graz, Austria. While some of the statistical aggregates pertain to the economic recession begun in 2008, the linkages of socio-economics and mental health, particularly diagnosis of depression and administration of antidepressant medicine, remain relatively constant. I. E. Catt (*)  Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_10

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habits of mind are challenged. Such is the case with the subject of depression and its treatment. We may be more deeply invested in concepts that are authoritatively sourced than we may realize. A “reality” is thereby presupposed in semiosis, an action of signs that takes us literally from a verb to a noun, from the phenomenology of experience to its encapsulation in a sign, and perhaps from a paralytic illness to the static conception of a disease. In this process, consciousness fixates, ironically about an object that is itself an undue rumination-depression. In several conference papers, public lectures and recent publications I have attempted to carve out new territory for a communicology of mental health. Eventually, I nominate the synchronization of perception and expression as the essential issue in what is conceived to be depression, but I have had to scale back my expectations for separate preliminary research reports. That is the case here where I must limit my comments to broad issues that must precede a closer analysis of the habitus and hexis (Catt 2006) of sorrow in a concluding contribution to this vast subject (Catt 2017a). Prescient early communicologists like Edward Sapir (1937), H. S. Sullivan (1964), Jurgen Ruesch (1972), Gregory Bateson (Ruesch and Bateson 1951) and others wrote about the need to fuse social science and psychiatry. As a contemporary example, epidemiology and phenomenology do not have to be at odds as both are necessary to the extent we are concerned about the relative health of the public and also care about the suffering of individual persons. It is wise to envision a role for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) when it comes to contagion and, on the other hand, we do not want to reduce painful experience to a statistic. It is the distinct advantage of reflexive theory in communicology, employing the synthetic and recursive methodology of semiotic phenomenology, to transcend the limitations of either-or thinking in terms of traditionally discrete disciplinary enclaves. The communication matrix is where existence is verified and possibly affirmed by means of the experience of the other of discourse (Catt 2017b). In every case, the ratio of the experienced other to existence manifests in a contest of meaning in the dialectical tensions of cultural-semiotic coding of everyday life and its personal-phenomenological embodiment. To have knowledge of the social world is to share consciousness of its meaning. This meaning is intrinsic to our everyday practices, in culturally in-formed habits. However, meaning is often opaque and in need of clarification. All too often, hidden interests obscure meaning. Common sense is the technology of choice for corporate and institutional interests who have invested economic capital in the obfuscation of conscious experience. This is precisely the case when it comes to helping those who suffer from the current multinational employment situation. That is, drugs are proffered as a technology of coping with the psychological effects of social and economic

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conditions, suggesting that a culture’s institutions are deeply concerned with personal health. Perhaps the reality is quite different. My present task is to discuss the medical semiotic coding of intense sadness resulting from employment precarity. This is an extended illustration of the importance of recognizing the social context of mental illness. We have come to recognize melancholic experience under the psychological code of depressive disorder. To say the sign “depression” is codified is to suggest that it is domesticated and thematized by antidepressants, the ostensible “cure” for depression. We no longer understand depression by any other means. In fact, Thomas Insel, recent Director of the United States National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) sealed the fate of alternative paradigms of mental health when he declared that: “Mental disorders are biological disorders involving brain circuits that implicate specific domains of cognition, emotion, or behavior” (Insel 2013, p. 2). Concomitantly, he declared that the Institute would cease federal funding of research that does not conform to this medical paradigm. To fund other kinds of research would only divert us from the move toward what he calls “precision medicine” (Insel 2013, p. 2). Of course, medicine’s moral responsibility is pathology but, in my view, the medical model may be extended beyond its legitimate capacities to the point that it suppresses the truth of its objects. Concerned as medicine should be with disease, it may repress illness, turning toward illness, it may lose an image of health. Succumbing to political and economic interests, medicine may lose its moral compass. Many life conditions may lead to melancholic experience, but employment insecurity and unemployment rank very high among them. I could, for instance, describe the issue of gender in depression. It remains an inexplicable mystery to advocates of biological explanations of mental “disease” as to why women should be twice as susceptible to depressive disorder than are men. “Silencing the self” has thus become a significant stream of research exploring power as a source of women’s depression (Jack and Ali 2010). Or, I could consider bereavement, for which there is an arbitrary cutoff in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of several weeks beyond which mourning for the loss of a loved one is considered an example of brain disease. I have argued that these experiences as well as others such as divorce, shame and humiliation, early life trauma, or any number of other life circumstances are social sources of depression. The focus here, however, is on socio-economics. Statistics show increases in unemployment and depression go hand-in-hand for both men and women, and there is an increase in consumption of antidepressants directly related to these same phenomena.

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Strong drugs that restructure the brain have been sold to the public and medical professionals on the myth that they are, indeed, anti-depression. As I have argued elsewhere, this is not the case; the nomenclature is itself very misleading. Note that the drugs are directed toward symptoms (signs). Clusters of symptoms called syndromes (codes) are not a reality in nature. They are instead discursive constructions. This point is too readily repressed, as objects tend to become limited by how they are named even in scientific discourse. For example, consider a typical presentation at a “grand round” to an audience of medical students. Perhaps findings of an MRI or PET brain scan are re-produced on a large screen in vivid colors, and we are mislead into believing that the various colors present real depression in contrast to other colors connecting brain parts in a patient not diagnosed with depression. The patients were initially separated into control and experimental groups using yet another construction—perhaps the Hamilton Depression Scale (Ham-D)—which is an interview protocol employing deductive logic wherein the patient answers a few questions. Based on these responses it is decided whether the research “subject” is to be in the antidepressant group or the group getting a placebo. By the way, studies show that most doctors and patients are able to accurately discern who is in which group, mitigating or negating the ostensible anonymity and objectivity of the supposed gold standard of clinical trials. The most important point, however, is this: The research is not directed at drug efficacy regarding depression. To the contrary the research is intended to prove efficacy of a drug toward its anticipated effects on brain function. The test is positive if the drug does what it is hypothesized to do. The psychotropic drugs actually introduce a brain abnormality where none may have existed before. (The obvious exceptions are congenital defects and brain injury.) Keep in mind that a brain scan is not done when patients are normally given antidepressants and that subsequent visits to a doctor, if there are any, are for the sole purposes of checking medical compliance and prescription variation. In other words, the brain’s “disease” is a deduction made on the basis of an interview, an event of interpersonal communication, not a finding of empirical scientific fact grounded in physical evidence. I have specified the case against the myth of a chemical imbalance in the brain at the roots of depression in other places (Catt 2012a, 2014, 2017a). The medicine does nothing to cure a malfunctioning depressed part of the brain. The pathology model is grounded in the Cartesian thinking of psychologism and biologism. Previously, I compared the experiences of depressed persons and persons on antidepressants focusing on implications for interpersonal communication.

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Quite simply, the drug regime leads to the repression of the illness as the chemicals intoxicate, sedate and numb the mind, effectively nullifying the meaning of sadness. (By “mind” I refer to embodied meaning in living consciousness, which subsists through communicative relations.) The medical model’s ostensible solution makes the person into a victim of an alien presence in the body and places ultimate responsibility on the individual person for problems actually originating in the social world. There are political consequences as well. I argue here that the drugs atomize society and risk suppressing the possibility of a precariat, collectives of people whose concerted political efforts might correct social and economic injustices. Medical psychiatry is now conquering the planet, and the magic bullet pill for depression is proving to be a perfect technology for those who most benefit from globalization. My analysis is divided into four parts. Part I is entitled “Employability and Depression Medicine.” Part II is entitled “The Politics of Treatment.” Part III is “Intoxicating the Planet.” Part IV is “A Brief Phenomenology of Everyday Sadness” This should serve to contextualize my next chapter on this subject, the overall purpose of which is to propose a communicology of mental heath (2017a). My present goal, then, is to extend my previous decoding of the myth of depression through a study of its broader contexts. Rather than relying exclusively on USA concerns, I turn to a variety of international sources for evidence and provide many intercultural examples. This is to underline an important aspect of my thesis, which is that there is no universal consciousness. As I have recently written (Catt 2008, 2011, 2013, 2017b), culture inheres in consciousness. A person is more than biology, and a self cannot be known outside of the lifeworld that includes other people. Let’s return, then, to my previous reference to MRIs and PET scans in a presentation at a grand round luncheon at a medical school. What is actually depicted by the brain mapping with contrasting colors? The representations made by the neuroscientists are not purely biological results. They are looking not at the causes of depression but rather at the effects of culture and social interactions. This is because the brain is a social organ that learns and continuously adapts to semiotic processes and phenomenological events in the communication matrix (Jahoda 1993; Kleinman and Good 1985; Blazer 2005; Brown 2002; Brothers 1997; Jack and Ali 2010; Catt 2014, 2008). Inherited physiological capacities are realized empirically only in expression. What we can know is what we mean. Therefore, mental health in general and sadness in particular cannot be comprehended outside the contexts of communication. Employment is one such context.

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2 Part I—Employability and Depression Medicine The Mental Health Economics European Network (MHEEN) includes t­hirty-two countries. In a comprehensive report to the European Commission the network states that the “loss of the opportunity to work is by far the single greatest contributor to the costs of poor mental health in Europe” (McDaid et al. 2007, p. 3). That employment contributes to health is evidenced by its opposite condition. Regarding depression in particular, the report indicates that there are global, continental, national, social and personal costs. The report states: “The total costs of depression in the EU have been estimated at 118 billion Euros per annum of which 64% are due to productivity losses” (McDaid citing Sobocki et al. 2006, p. 6 f.) This is more than twice the cost associated with cardiovascular disease (McDaid citing Leal et al. 2006, p. 7). Furthermore, “around 50% of all people recorded as suffering from depression are now on long-term disability pensions.” “This has been growing steadily year after year” (McDaid 2006, p. 7). At a personal level, people who are depressed may lose their jobs because of their condition and may not be able to recover employment for reason of having been diagnosed with depression. People with this diagnosis want regular employment but “have lower rates compared with the general population” (McDaid 2006, p. 9). Mounting evidence on the alienation of the depressed, the MHEEN report reflects on the conditions in many specific countries. For example, in England those diagnosed with mental illness have a 40% lower chance of employment. In Norway, fewer than 30% of the mentally ill are employed (McDaid 2006, p. 10). Importantly, these are people capable of work and who desire regular employment. For many, the relationship between unemployment and mental illness is causal, as is depression in particular, a fact reported in many respected studies and public investigations (Whooley et al. 2002; Dooley et al. 2000; Landau 2012; Hirsch and Pianin 2011). Moreover, depression leads to other problems such as suicide, the rates for which are known to rise and fall with economic conditions (CDC 2011). Summarizing their data in a longitudinal study, Dooley et al. (2000, p. 5) propose that employment status should be understood “not as a dichotomy of working versus not working but as a continuum ranging from adequate employment to inadequate employment (involuntary part-time or low wage) to unemployment.” Their results “confirm that both unemployment and inadequate employment affect mental health” (Dooley et al. 2000, p. 5). A report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (Kivimaki et al. 2007, p. 1) elaborates that “employees who were exposed to downsizing but kept their jobs were at a higher risk of being prescribed psychotropic drugs” as were, of course, those

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who lost their employment. Depression is now most commonly treated with antidepressant drugs and limited if any psychotherapy. Insurance companies discourage communicative based psychiatry, much preferring chemical therapy. In every country considered in this review unemployment is strongly linked to antidepressants. Mind’s New Workplace Campaign (2010, p. 1) reports that in Britain 7% of workers “have started taking antidepressants for stress and mental problems directly caused by the pressures of recession on their workplace,” and the government’s statistics show an increase of almost 5 million prescriptions in a single year between 2008 and 2009” (Mind’s New Workplace Campaign Report 2010, p. 1). Sales of antidepressants increased everywhere in the worldwide recession that began in 2008. While the employed have health problems, the unemployed are four times more likely to experience mental illness, prominently depression, which then contributes to many other physical, psychological and social problems. Specifically, unemployment doubles the chances for depression. The ravages of unemployment are more important than the objective statistics can possibly show. Emotional-psychological damage may be permanent. Initial social isolation ­ may worsen as time goes by, because there is fear of social contagion induced by the unemployed person’s condition. Humiliation and shame accompany job loss. Social status is substantially depreciated. Admission to mental health facilities and hospitals increases markedly during economic recessions. Suicides are a known risk of depression and are linked to every economic downturn. The longer a person is unemployed the greater the chances of depression. Dramatic increases in the consumption of antidepressants are causally linked to unemployment in several studies and expert commentaries (for specific examples see studies in Finland, Virtanen et al. 2008 and studies in Croatia Dragun et al. 2006). Indeed, it may be said that the conditions of unemployment and depression are at the very least parallel. Of course, antidepressant medicine was already on the increase before the economic downturn, largely due to the highly successful advertising campaigns of the pharmaceutical industry. In the United States, drugs are directly marketed to consumers who are advised that feelings of sadness are unnecessary and that they should instruct their medical doctors to prescribe specific psychotropic drugs to correct their disease. If the drug industry is to be believed, depression is unlike any disease in the history of illness. Drug consumption has increased one thousand fold since the medicine was introduced. Just a few decades ago a diagnosis of depression was extremely rare. The introduction of the medicine for depression has not resulted in a decreased occurrence of the disease. To the contrary, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that depression will rank second only

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to cardiovascular disease as the cause of disability worldwide only a few years from now. Importantly, “levels of disability associated with depression are higher than all other chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, or back pain” (Moreira 2007, p. 194 citing Ustin and Chatterji 2001). The WHO describes depression as the cause of 850,000 suicides each year. However, recent studies in England and Iceland conclude that antidepressants are of no utility where the rate of depression is concerned (Helgason et al. 2004). The same is true in the United States where depression has skyrocketed concomitant with the pharmaceutical companies’ promotion of their products. Between 1988 and 2008, antidepressant usage increased 400% in the United States. The rate for a ten year period in Britain is 240% (Pratt et al. 2011 [NCHS data brief to the CDC]). The rate of the disease ironically increases as ostensibly effective new treatments emerge. Many authors have concluded that we are living in the depression era, and they reached this conclusion prior to the most recent recession, which only exacerbated the problem. Given the objective data regarding the overall ineffectiveness of the drugs for decreasing rates of depression and the persistence of psychological and social damage inflicted on so much of the world’s population, the situation requires closer critical examination. How did psychiatry make this turn to a medical model? Was it based on science or politics?

3 Part II: the Politics of Treatment Loren Mosher was one of twentieth century America’s most prominent psychiatrists, and the story of the advance of the medical paradigm in psychiatry is linked to his professional history. Mosher is an important founder of the community mental health movement. This movement was a historic outgrowth of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and was once very well funded through the NIMH at the peak of social psychiatry in the United States. Mosher is especially well known for Soteria House, which he established in California. There, he proved schizophrenics should not be isolated in mental hospitals nor drugged for behavioral control. Instead, he showed a practical way of dealing with a mental illness. Under a regime of respect and empathetic care the people in Soteria House learned to function quite normally. Mosher’s treatment of schizophrenia was consistent with his social and communicative psychiatry. He advocated forms of psychotherapy grounded in the communication matrix where existence acquires its lessons and habits from the experience of others, in community (Whittaker 2010, pp. 102 ff.). While my focus is on depression’s treatment, not schizophrenia, it is worth a short detour to make a point that will prove

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relevant later as it supports the conclusions of this research report in relation to precarity. Today’s bio-medical psychiatry would like to pin schizophrenia down to causation in the brain so as to continue support for chemical treatment of it. However, the evidence does not support this approach uniformly. The NIMH has continuously funded a longitudinal study at the University of Illinois that has accumulated data for more than two decades. These on-going studies show that schizophrenics do substantially better in the long term if they go off antipsychotics. Additionally, the evidence shows that these drugs damage the patients’ brains in the long run (Whittaker 2010, p. 115 ff.). Soteria Houses, now located in more than one state in the USA, have shown considerable success. This success is shared by analogous approaches based in communication therapies such as the Open Dialogue in Finland, which has a success rate of 83% (Seikkula and Olson 2003; for an update see www.mindfreedom.org). Community based centers treat a large variety of mental illnesses under the premise that normalizing human interactions is essentially therapeutic. Unfortunately, Mosher’s advocacy of social and community based psychiatry led to his alienation from the APA. He resigned from his nearly three-decade membership in the organization in 1998. Leading up to this date and continuing since, the pharmaceutical industry has demonstrated a highly persistent, if not astonishing willingness to subvert not only science but also the law for financial gain (Wilson, NYT, 2010; Reuters, Fact Box, 2012a). Legal sanctions for bad behavior are hard won, because these are large multinational corporations. They are frequently sued and, on the occasions where collective private interests adequately fund the legal cases they are settled out of court for what is assumed to be millions of dollars. Acting Assistant Attorney General Delery (Time Healthland 2012, p. 1) puts it quite simply: “the pharmaceutical industry views these settlements merely as the cost of doing business.” Many prosecutions by the United States government have involved antidepressants, among other drugs. Pfizer pleaded guilty to crimes related to drug promotion in 2009 and paid US$2.3 billion; Eli Lilly, majority financial sponsor of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), was fined US$1.42 billion in 2009 for similar crimes; Merck paid US$650 million to settle its crimes in 2008; Bristol-Myers Squibb paid US$510 million in 2007 for illegal marketing; Cephalon was fined US$425 million in 2008 for marketing violations; Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca paid millions in fines. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was forced to pay a record setting US$3 billion in 2012, “the largest case of healthcare fraud in US history” (Reuters, ‘Drug Company Busted’. 2012). GSK’s principal crime was market targeting of the antidepressant Paxil to patients under age 18 and it pushed Wellbutrin for weight loss and treatment of sexual dysfunction, neither of which is approved by

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the FDA. It would be a humorous anecdote if it were not so serious a matter that GSK was ordered to sign an “integrity plan” promising never to misbehave again, a dubious promise from Big Pharma (Reuters, “Drug Company Busted,” 2012). Those optimistic about the future ethical conduct of the drug industry are of necessity unfamiliar with its history and routine business practices. The industry remains a sound economic investment without regard to ethical considerations. For instance, immediately following the announced settlement, GSK’s shares were highly positive on the New York Stock Exchange. The problem, of course, is that the pharmaceutical industry produces the new drugs we need for prevention and treatment of disease. The proverbial fox is in charge of the chicken house. The industry understands fully that the world’s population is dependent on them. Expressions of the industry’s power based on this dependency are ubiquitous. In the very beginning studies were conducted showing negative results of psychotropics and related drugs that preceded the current popular serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Minimum necessary results were reported. Negative studies were suppressed, or results were cherry-picked for positive signs. Quite amazingly, negative results were referenced in subsequent studies as positive; then, this snowballed as the latter were built upon in further references. Doctors were treated to lavish vacations in world-class resorts and were funded for major grants on condition of support for the companies’ drugs. Business became a pleasure too profitable for many doctors to pass up (Angell 2009). Politics were heavily involved in the selection of membership on important committees that set new standards aligning psychiatry and medicine. The DSM was written with the express purpose of eschewing theory in favor of medical codification. The new medical model was then enforced with vehemence. Those who did not subscribe to bio-psychiatry saw their professional influence wane. Psychiatrists were fired and hired based on their allegiance to prescriptive chemical therapy. Perhaps most circumspect of all these deeds was the direct influence on psychiatric education. Medical schools were given large grants tied to research that supported a bio-medical understanding of psychiatry. Grand round luncheons featured speakers whose research reports were sponsored by the phamaceutical industry. It became increasingly difficult to separate objective scientific reports from proprietary clinical research even in the finest medical journals. After two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, one the world’s most respected medical journals (and years after Mosher), Marcia Angell resigned in disgust at what had transpired. She gradually, reluctantly, but inevitably reached the conclusion that published clinical research promoting ­ bio-medicine for depression is not trustworthy. That is because it is substantially paid for by the

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industry (Angell 2009). Needless to say, medical textbooks followed suit, dismissing the relevance of phenomenological insight into human experience in favor of medical semiotic codes. Students of psychiatry are now taught to rely on the bible of the business, the DSM. It is now aptly characterized as a manual for prescription drugs. Richard Horton (2012), testifying before the British Parliament on behalf of Lancet, another of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, stated unequivocally that: the extent of the commercial sponsorship of medical research and its intrusion into the academic sphere is one of the gravest threats to the independent evaluation of new medicines – indeed to the notion of an independent science base. Without greater scrutiny of the interaction between private and public sectors, the health of our population will continue to be put at risk by biased, over-interpreted, and misreported research findings. At present, our population is part of a largely unregulated experiment involving poorly investigated new medicines that have been licensed on the basis of insufficient data.

Among the egregious behaviors Horton reports are the attempts of the pharmaceutical industry to outright bribe major medical journals. Lancet, for example, was “offered substantial sums of money in exchange for publishing certain research studies” (Horton 2012, p. 238). That brings us back to Mosher. His highly public letter of resignation from the APA, back in 1998, summed up the case. He declared that psychiatry had been “almost completely bought out by the drug companies,” that “psychiatric training reflects their (the pharmaceutical corporations’) influence […] as the most important part of a resident curriculum is the art and quasi-science of dealing drugs, i.e., prescription writing” (Mosher 1998, p. 1 f.). Mosher admonished his colleague’s with “the fact that there is no evidence confirming the brain disease attribution.” Finally, and as a suitable conclusion to this part of my paper, Mosher declared that: “Insiders know that [the DSM] is more a political than a scientific document” (Mosher 1998, p. 3).

4 Part III: Intoxicating the Planet SSRIs are not anti-depression. They are simply drugs that numb and daze, stupefy and confuse thinking, and alienate communicative relations. Yes, coping may improve but some would argue that the difference between prescription drugs and illicit drugs is obscured when both promise a change in mood. For example, amphetamines and cocaine will produce the same effects as SSRIs in

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regard to serotonin reuptake in neuro functioning. One set of drugs is legal, the other is not, and the boundary separating them is justified by the slim margin of who profits. A Cartesian perspective underwrites psychopharmacology. It must be understood that “depression is the prototypic diagnosis for modern psychiatry” (Blazer 2005, p. ix). This means that we have come to understand psychiatry in general through this prototype. In turn, we understand depression almost exclusively through study of the effects of psychotropic drugs on brain chemistry. From this point of view, culture is not an essential semiotic and phenomenological feature of consciousness or mind. Far from it, consciousness is presupposed to be universal. Blazer, a leading advocate of social psychiatry, puts it bluntly: “Society-wide epidemics, however, are almost always caused by some change in the environment, not the body or mind. What is the cause of the current epidemic of depression? We don’t know. Why don’t we know? We haven’t looked” (Blazer 2005, p. ix). To reiterate, economic conditions are by no means the singular cause of depression. However, we can look to these conditions as a paradigm case to demonstrate that the causes are in the world, not in the brain. And, to the extent this is so, we are diverted from our real problems by assigning causality to the dark corners of neuro-chemistry. Nowhere is this alienation of consciousness from experience more prevalent and more harmful than in the intercultural and international arenas. Whether applying the American pharmaceutical bible, the DSM, or the International Classification of Disease, the ICD, Western theories and instruments are used to diagnose and treat the ostensible “disease” of depression all around the globe. As Bradley Lewis (2012), a psychiatrist at New York University indicates, “Transnational pharmaceutical marketers have used an awareness of cultural plasticity not only to study cultural change but also to create cultural change in the experience of depression” (Lewis 2012, p. 72). “In ­disease-mongering,” he goes on to say, “the medical treatment is not sold, but rather the disease itself” (Blazer 2012, p. 76). Some examples may prove ­instructive. In Chile and Brazil patients on drugs or seeking them point toward their stressful or dangerous work environments to explain their depressed moods. Depression is associated with financial difficulties induced by low wages, unemployment, and poverty. A sense of hopelessness and uselessness prevails. They are given drugs to subdue their anxious and despondent lives (Moreira 2007). In northeast Brazil “hunger madness” is locally understood to be an erratic behavioral reaction to prolonged starvation, a clear “symptom of socioeconomic inequality.” However, when placed under the profitable gaze and influence of Western medicine, hunger has become a psychopathological condition to be chemically

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treated (Tsao 2009, p. 1). Whether considering the war torn circumstances of Zimbabwe citizens, or wounded soldiers in Nicaragua or African women seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, all are conceived under the umbrella concept of a universal consciousness. All have a right to the world standard of care for what must surely be their clinically depressed condition (Summerfield 2012, p. 8). 85% of Kenya’s population growth has been absorbed into the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa (Summerfield 2012, p. 8). Kenyans’ lives are no longer tied to the land and the people suffer. They are entitled to the care of antidepressants. Following the great tsunami, the physicians from the WHO and many Western nations rushed into Sri Lanka, and with no knowledge of local culture and how it traditionally handled its many historic catastrophes (notably decades of war) diagnosed post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). They rendered this diagnosis even before landing on the local soil. Most of the medical professionals did not speak the local language, but this did not prevent them from handing out psychotropic drugs, even to children passing by (Watters 2010, p. 65 ff.). Perhaps it would have helped the medical practitioners to know that sadness in Sri Lanka has a different meaning than in the West. In a Buddhist culture melancholy is not understood as a deficiency of self but instead has symbolic value. In Japan, another Buddhist culture, the same thing holds true. In fact the Japanese did not have clinical depression. A story too lengthy to be told here conveys the ability of the pharmaceutical corporations to create this disease in that unwary country. They acccomplished this by paying off doctors and through a massive public relations campaign (Watters 2010, pp. 187 ff.; Lewis 2012, p. 72 ff.). According to a number of critics, disease-mongering through mega-marketing was a huge success in Japan. In India, the lives of small time farmers were torn asunder by large-scale corporate agriculture. The need for community health interventions was based on the distraught experience of economically displaced people. However, their concept of community health is turned on its head by the magic bullet pill. The local markets sell antidepressants at cut-rate prices, and these drugs are more popular than ibuprofen. The industries of pills were so successful marketing the drug concept that they have been able to dispense with advertising. Any “communities” of mental health remain completely unknown in the bio-medical approach (Summerfield 2012, p. 8). Published studies of depression in Ethiopia considered it unnecessary to take the local mores into account utilizing the Western Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) to diagnose depression. Of course, they found it a widespread disease and proceeded as may be anticipated (Summerfield 2012, p. 6). One might guess that Afghan refugees landing in “battered vessels” might have some difficulties transitioning to the foreign culture of Australia. Not so, said the offices of Multicultural Mental Health Australia.

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The misplaced refugee population was the collective victim of brain disease writ large. Needless to say, they were prescribed the requisite chemical antidote (Summerfield 2012, p. 7 f.), even while they were being isolated on a desolate island. After Argentina entered a fourth year of recession many people were suffering economically. A public relations campaign was mounted that successfully convinced medical professionals and the general populace alike that their anxieties were diseases of their own personal making. Panic attacks and stress then became rampant, but luckily the international pharmaceutical industry was attentive and came to the rescue with a flood of drugs (Tsao 2009, p. 2). In Mexico, workers who suffer long workdays for below poverty pay routinely take methylphenidate to ease their daytime drowsiness and lethargy. In North America, this infamous drug is known as Ritalin. We come now to my final example of Latvia and Vieda Skultans’s insightful discussion of the phenomenology of these matters (2003). Skultans is a practicing psychiatrist in Latvia who sensitively and thoughtfully depicts the situation there. The Balkans, along with the Russian Federation, suffer the greatest number of suicides in the world. They are melancholic populations in general. As an empirical indicator, the rate of alcoholism in some larger cities exceeds 70%. Having discarded the rule of communism the assumption might be that their psychological lives are much improved. However, many vulnerable people have not seen the benefits of capitalism. “The old, lone women the disabled and chronically sick” are especially endangered, states Skultans, “but everyone suffers from an increased sense of the unpredictability and precariousness of life” (Skultans 2003, p. 2422). Under the previous regime the people could commiserate regarding their shared misery. There was a communicative basis for a condition called nervi. To hear about a person’s experience of nervi was to listen to a life story. Recently, a new Western psychiatry has individualized, biologized and medicalized treatment for depression under the semiotic code of antidepressants. Doctors receive instructions for diagnosis and treatment from the drug industry. Psychiatrists are specifically trained to ignore the narratives of their patients. To learn therapy now means to systematically self-discipline against the noise of life’s narratives, against subjectivity, against context. A highly atomized view of society is at work. Disease, in fact, takes noun forms, dismissing verbs as depressive illness becomes thing-like and decidedly non-empirical where the patient’s conscious experiences are concerned. The Latvian case is a robust paradigm exemplar of bio-medical psychiatry. Mosher’s worst nightmares are upon us. The irony is inescapable, in treating an affective mood disorder, the patients’ feelings are strenuously ignored. The concept of a universal consciousness de-contextualizes conscious experience;

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it disembodies. One researcher expresses the issue quite plainly: to pathologize the pain of depression is to “evacuate it of political meaning” (Tsao 2007, p. 43). Rational people who are victims of “ruthless asymmetries of wealth and health” (Tsao 2007, p. 4) are made to feel irrational. The symptoms and syndromes they experience result not from chemical imbalances in the brain but rather from vast social and economic inequalities. That they may be convinced of the improvement of their medicalized conditions is clinically proven to be primarily the result of the placebo effect of medication (Kirsch 2010; Moncrieff 2009). They are under the influence of drugs and may lead the remainder of their lives in an intoxicated state. The patients have accepted as their habit of mind the precise semiotic code anticipated by the manufacturers of antidepressants. Policies and practices in the social and economic sphere are no longer seen as the source of misery when the vision of the world is turned inward. Not only are the cultural meanings of illness lost, but also the prospects for forming a precariat, ensembles for resistance to injustice, are greatly diminished. The atomistic society serves political interests. Globalization numbers victims in the multitudes. Yet, they do not often unite in their common misery, perhaps because their conception of the enemy alien is internalized. A docile person does not see the self vitally interconnected to others in the communication matrix. Chemical pacification serves not only the drug companies but also broader economic interests dividing the global North and South.

5 Part IV: A Brief Phenomenology of Everyday Sadness Reading Skultans, we are reminded of Richard Rorty’s comment that reality “does not have a preferred description of itself” (Skultans 2003, p. 2430). Of course, psycho-biologism’s claim is precisely that reality is cleanly and nakedly delivered over to modern neuro-psychiatry and to no one else. In fact, the medicalization of psychiatry promotes an exclusive discourse, and scholars or lay commentators are presumed unqualified to discuss matters for which they lack medicine’s prescribed credentials. In Rorty’s aphorism we see congruence with John Dewey and Pierre Bourdieu, both critical pragmatists who transcend disciplines and never succumb to cynicism (Catt 2014). There is hope that the social context can be recovered. Self-focused rumination on one’s plight may well contribute to the ruins of the day, but habits of mind can be altered. Examples have already been mentioned in the case of Soteria House in America and Open Dialogue in Finland. This can be specified in relation to depression. Of course,

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there are communicative therapies that are alternatives to drugs. Studies have shown that any form of talk therapy is more successful than pills for treatment of depression as measured by the likelihood of relapses. Furthermore, where drugs are accompanied by psychotherapy, the drugs are proven to be superfluous. It is the human dialogue that cures. It may be that the “placebo effect” that accounts for the ostensible success of antidepressants is actually the result of the patient’s interpersonal trust in a doctor. In fact, the evidence is accumulating that proves the crucial role of communication in doctor-patient relations. Studies show communication eases physical pain, that doctor’s emotions affect their success with patients, and that doctors who learn to listen improve their patients’ health (Ofri 2013; Fuentes et al. 2014; Ofri 2017). Communication is not a mere enhancement to medical care; rather, it is often essential to cure and particularly in psychiatric medicine where shared meaning is the name of the game. There are emerging examples of new medical practices that have eschewed the quick fix of taking a pill. In England, we have exemplars focused on life as it is really lived, rather than life constructed out of syndromes and imagined brain disease. At the Sandwell Primary Care Trust antidepressants are not considered appropriate for patients who are experiencing intense sadness that is perfectly understandable in the context of their social and economic conditions (Torjesen 2010). General Practitioners interview patients not to see whether they fit the protocol of major depression but, rather, to discover the quality of the communication matrix in which they reside. The doctors’ offices are organized into well being teams that help with stress management, self-esteem, and confidence. They have advisors to help with employment, exercise therapists, and advisors for entrepreneurship. Other general practices in England are leading the way with citizens’ advice bureaus that include life skills counseling. How effective are they? The skills counseling for employment at one Practice in Kentish Town in north London claims an 80% success rate (Torjesen 2010, p. 4). What we see here is a change of habits that, rather than ruminating on the chemistry of the brain, takes action to change the circumstances. Though social psychiatry was nearly moribund, there is burgeoning research supporting a return to it. For instance, Brown et al. (2009) report in the Journal of Affective Disorders that by degree life events and difficulties preclude the effectiveness of antidepressants. Many scholars recommend social treatments for social problems. There are indications of an inchoate paradigm shift from medical pathology back to authentic mental health. Unlike chemical therapy, mental health recognizes that mind is in the world, not merely in the brain (Brown 2002). Unfortunately, committed as it is to the singular Cartesian model, the NIMH does not intend to support these efforts.

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Let me make some concluding remarks as a preface to a forthcoming analysis of these issues from the standpoint of semiotic phenomenology and the habitus (2017a). If as Ruesch suggested “feelings of discontent and emotional indigestion” usually result from human science, it may not be a bad thing. Such analyses may motivate reflection on the kind of social world we live in and the forms of our personal participation in it, our habits of mind and action. What was once called neurotic depression and is sometimes called minor depression today is a normal and brief period of sadness, but major depression has effectively become indistinguishable from minor depression. The pill is the common answer regardless of the severity of melancholic experience. We know that people who have not been diagnosed with depression take 80% of the pills, most are not under psychiatric care, and many will maintain the drug regimen for years to come (Pratt, NCHS Data Brief to CDC 2011). Antidepressants are tacitly accepted as a means of democratizing mental health by providing solace for unhappiness. However, it is possible to return to a focus on the phenomenological experience of sadness. Not everyone who is depressed is in a negative economic fix. Not everyone who is unemployed or underemployed experiences depression. For French sociologist Alain Ehrenberg (1998/2010) as for Bourdieu (2005), however, the system of social relations precedes and underwrites our economic structures. Regardless of the social and economic circumstances, the problem of depression is a disturbed communication matrix. We have come to accept the cultural mores; the expectations for the habitus are cultural practices. The interrelations of ­person-society-culture are not such that existence is verified and affirmed by experience of the other. Habits of mind mask this problem. In depressed experience the paradox looms large that we are committed ideologically to alienation and simultaneously to fulfill a standard of success by connection with others. This splintering is amplified by a postmodern condition in which we often validate a characterless, multi-phrenic self with neither historic integrity nor constancy of moral aptitude. This produces, in the words of Ehrenberg (1998/2010) a weary self, a self continuously in need of revision and always coming up short, a self defined by its deficits. The self’s conflicts of being are no longer in the relational domain of others and are no longer the object of psychoanalysis. Rather, this depressed self is permanently deficient, passive and unable to meet its responsibility of action. The body is the house of an alien that requires drugs to sustain a perpetual victim status. The self is shorn of usefulness, of employability. This self lacks the meaning that is the source of love, a meaning conceivable only through communication with the other. The ruins of the day are personal. Paradoxically, the disconnected self gets what it wants and desires what it has lost.

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­ ommunication is commonly thought to be this kind of accomplishment, the forC tification of the self with and through the influence of others. A deeper conception of communication at the core of consciousness is thereby precluded. The existential self goes hungry in the plentitude of its narcissism (Catt 2002). Capitalist society achieves its tacit goal in the moral poverty of affluence and ethics of selfabsorption. Degrees of employability have come to determine the worth of self. The meaning of activity, of employability, of usefulness in society is being redefined. Globalization produces wide disparities, of first and last world nations, wealth and poverty, hope and despair, health and illness, self and others. Alienation is a boon for some but the bane of many. The self is supposed to achieve its potential and is let down by the greater environment of which it is a part. The self is blamed for its misery, for its rootless disconnection, at the height of its postmodern achievement of loneliness. The self is weary says Ehrenberg. Love is lost, I would say. Not even s­ elf-love, that last refuge of homo economicus, can salvage the day. We live in an age of depression. In large part, the age may be understood through analysis of the semiotic code of antidepressant medicine, drugs prescribed for improvement of mood, mood that is disordered, unruly in its passivity, and in need of chemical pacification. A quiet chaos persists deep within the paralysis of communication. Selfhood presupposes adequately balanced relations of existence and experience, of perception and expression, and of stability and change. However, the habitus is insecure, uncertain, and, on the whole, precarious. This precarity is expressed as depression. Depression, not unlike unemployment, is the deprivation of authentic communication with the world of others.

References Angell, M. (2009). Drug companies & doctors: A story of corruption. New York Review of Books. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15. Accessed 2 June 2012. Blazer, D. G. (2005). The age of melancholy. New York: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (2005). The social structures of the economy. Cambridge: Polity. Brothers, L. (1997). Friday’s footprint: How society shapes the human mind. New York: Oxford University. Brown, G. W. (2002). Social roles, context and evolution in the origin of depression. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43, 255–276. Brown, G. W., Harris, T. O., Kendrick, T., Chatwin, J., Craig, T. K. J., Kelly, V., et al. (2009). Antidepressants, social adversity and outcome of depression in general practice. Journal of Affective Disorders, 121, 239–246. Catt, I. E. (2002). Communicology and narcissism: Disciplines of the heart. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 4(4), 389–411.

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Precarious Sociality and Pathological Actors—Aspects of the Production of Social Disintegration Alexander Sieg 1 Introduction Following the transformation of the labor market and social structures since the 1990s, precarious working and living conditions have emerged gradually in Germany and in other Western European countries. Concomitantly, various studies suggest a change of the psychological disposition and constitution of precarious employees, the unemployed and people working under ‘traditional’ conditions. In his work “The uneasiness in the society”, the French sociologist Alain Ehrenberg (2012) has compared these effects of mental dispositions with patients having a psychiatric diagnosis. These are first and foremost: loss of social relationships, withdrawal, listlessness, vulnerability, insecurity. The psychopathological terms for the consequences of these characteristics are: depression, vulnerability, fear. The causes of the seemingly individual psychopathologies are, however, not medical, but are, as he argues, mainly due to the changes in the working and life situations of the last few years, which call for an intensified “compulsion to autonomy”. Compulsion to autonomy, which in itself is already paradoxical and as a rule overexerts people in the long run. I would like to illustrate this with two examples: Example 1: On 14 November 2012, the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung published an article with the headline “national disease depression”. In the article, the reader discovers a continuous increase in mental illness in the Berlin/ Brandenburg region, forcing a very high proportion of the now permanently sick A. Sieg (*)  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_11

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and thus unable to work for early retirement. This finding was calculated based on the Second Cross-ends health report for Berlin and Brandenburg. This lead to enormous subsequent (treatment) costs and individual suffering. Example 2: The “Health Reports” of the German Employees’ Health Insurance for the state of Hesse from 21/03/2013 have the following results: In 2012 the number of days of absence has increased by sick leave of patients with depression and anxiety disorders over the previous year by 7% compared to the year 2000, the number rose to 83%. Reference is made in the report that mental health problems include long downtime and result—in high costs for both exployers and health insurance companies (as they have to cover the sick pay after 6 weeks). Payments to mentally ill patients account for almost 50% of all DAK health payments. The Health Report explains to allow the rapid increase by a change in the willingness to help with mental health problems. On the other hand, reference is made to the connection between mental illness and the workplace, especially on those jobs in which the employees would have to be available almost around the clock.

2 The Uneasiness in the Working World and the Production of Social Disintegration I Alain Ehrenberg compares and analyzes the different collective personality structures in the USA and France and the history of the psychoanalysis and psychiatry of the two countries in his work on “The Uneasy Society” (2010, 2012), in the first and second part. In the last chapters of the second part Ehrenberg undertakes the attempt to analyze and discuss the radical changes in the working conditions and work organization of the past 20 years and their impact on the discomfort within the working world. Through the discomfort in the working world, so the central thesis of Ehrenberg, more and more pathological subjects emerge. As a result of this, these subjects propel increasing social disintegration. Ehrenberg’s question implicitly poses the question: Why and how do we deal with the fact that the demands and abilities resulting from the modern working conditions do not generate pathological subjects? For our discussion of the connection between precarious sociality and pathological actors, Ehrenberg developed some very helpful theses and reflections, which I will briefly outline. While Ehrenberg draws upon the French societyhis arguments are comparable to most developed states in Europe and can therefore be exemplified here.

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2.1 Selected Theses from Ehrenberg 2.1.1 The Changes in the Working World For the changes in the world of work, Ehrenberg identifies three decisive transformation lines that cause social and psychosocial suffering. These are: a) New forms of work organization oriented towards radical forms of flexibility and autonomy. b) The emergence of a population group with an uncertain occupational status and/or long-term unemployment: here the required autonomy becomes compulsion and calls the entire personality in the form of an “apell (s) to subjectivity”. Autonomy means no longer freedom of choice, but is under a dictate of action and competition (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 365). c) Ehrenberg introduces a third transformation line, which is not so explicit in comparison to the other lines. This is described by Ehrenberg as follows: the tasks of public psychiatry have extended to the care for the mental health of the whole population. Among other things, there is an extension of the pathologies treated by psychiatrists and the mixing of psychiatric patients and social groups in precarious living conditions. The third transformation line will be especially important for Ehrenberg in order to recognize the relationship between psychiatry and social work, which will be discussed later. The starting point of the description and discussion is the suffering in the working world, whose main cause for Ehrenberg is the dichotomy between the “traditional equality of protection and the new equality of autonomy” (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 367).

2.1.2 Work and Autonomy Ehrenberg introduces investigations and discussions since the 1990s, which “stylize work to the bearer of personal achievement” (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 370) and to the preeminent source of personal appreciation. Thus, unlike in many places the discussions in the 1970s and 1980s about the future of work, which projected a transition from work to activity in general, and which increasingly placed ­self-realization and social participation outside of paid work. According to French studies and discussions, work is increasingly linked to self-realization. Parallel to this revaluation of labor, this begins to become the source of psychological suffering (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 371). The main trigger for this is that autonomy in the

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changed world of work “will not be defined as independence, but as cooperative activity in the social relations characterized by competition.” (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 371). Greater autonomy should come after the concept in the workplace. However, the opposite occurred (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 371). Due to the changes in the management discourse, especially in personnel management, the change of the work organization now no longer required the workforce to follow standardized work tasks. Rather, self-initiatives were required in completing competitive order, the autonomy granted was a compulsion to bring in one’s own personality. In this new management regime, according to Christophe Dejours (1998), there are three types of causes that determine suffering: 1. ‘the fear of incompetence’, 2. ‘the compulsion to work badly’ and 3. ‘the absence of recognition’. These three types result in a lost self-respect. In addition, the modern management system transforms the employee into a collaborator and accomplices of the system by becoming a co-designer of a competitive work process, which in turn increases discomfort (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 379).

2.1.3 The Self Ehrenberg writes in his previous book “The Exhausted Self” of the “overpowered self”, which is subject to the demands imposed by modern social and labor legislation in the service of a neo-liberal renewal—permanently his life. The concept of self-management borrowed from management discourse suggests that the possibility of managing the self is an anthropological possibility, and further refuses this construct the “objective” social conditions of this work on the self. Euphemisms such as self-regulation or self-efficacy are used. The suffering of the individual or of the self arises in this context under the pressure to be constantly active. On the other hand, social recognition is denied or withdrawn.

2.1.4 Flexibility In the present study of the German health insurance funds, the focus of the mental illnesses that have arisen within the working world is primarily attributed to the flexibility and the increasing ongoing potential availability of the workers. Although this is an important factor in work and life satisfaction, it appears to play a more prominent role in pathologies. There are no specific studies on the relationship between autonomy and compulsory availability. At Ehrenberg, there is no explicit statement on the problem of flexibility. The demand for more

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­ exibility comes originally from the criticism of the rigid factory and work disfl cipline and was also reversed by the modern management as the demand for a more autonomy in its opposite. For Ehrenberg the compulsion to autonomy and the permanent lack of recognition are more significant categories than the concept of flexibilisation in the emergence of the discomfort in the working world.

2.2 The Discussion about the Concept of Recognition One part of the French discussion taken up by Ehrenberg (2012) in his remarks is connected with Axel Honneth’s concept of recognition, which is the positive pole within the autonomous discussion, while the negative pole is occupied by suffering. Recognition increases self-respect. Honneth’s concept points to the development of management practices with regard to autonomy with the aim of identifying the “mistakes” and “disturbances”, respectively, the “pathologies of the social” of the current developments. For him, these failures prevent the ­self-realization of the individuals. With the construct of recognition, Honneth calls an attitude and, at the same time, an open concept of work that makes it possible to find the criteria for a successful life. Ehrenberg rejects the normative orientation of Honneth as an individualistic utopia, as an intersubjective component—here the ethical relations—as reasoning pattern is used. Ehrenberg points out that the universal, formal ethics of recognition is conceived without social relations and specific contexts of action of individuals. Ehrenberg states: “The considerations remain very theoretical and make it logically impossible to draw practical conclusions.” (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 396). In the discussion on recognition, Ehrenberg refers, drawing uponHonneth, to two different manifestations of recognition: recognition as an adaptation to social reproduction and an authentic recognition that enables individuals to “realize autonomously their own life goals. (Honneth)” (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 394). At the end of the discussion, it becomes clear that the debate onrecognition cannot be conducted in a purely philosophical way, but is still a desideratum of sociological, anthropological, and social ­psychology.

2.2.1 Work Work, as current discussions show, becomes the central carrier of self-realization, coupled with other positive aspects such as life satisfaction and mental health. However, if work becomes a permanent challenge that requires a “multiple subject”, there can be no more talk of self-realization. The consequences of this constellation are: fears and threat scenarios, mental illness, work loss and high

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fluctuation within the workforce. Through the paradox of autonomy in the workplace, the individual simultaneously brings his or her personality and demands an adaptation to the existing structures. The unresolved conflict between the pursuit of self-realization and the compulsion to autonomy first produces a suffering at work and in its consolidation various forms of disintegration.

2.2.2 Disintegration Disintegration is perceived primarily in subjective perception as a loss of the bonds, the cohesion forces of the society in the French discussion, which Ehrenberg traces, because temporal social ties arise through project work, temporary contracts, honorary contracts and phases of unemployment. The social bonds as a whole are becoming increasingly insecure and are a decisive factor for the discomfort in society. In working conditions, instead of “fraternal solidarity”, “competition and competitive rivalry” (Ehrenberg 2012, p. 372). Even if sociologically speaking, new forms of social-structural connections are emerging within this process, but they have not yet manifested themselves collectively and are not perceived subjectively. Added to this is the norm of the self-initiative and the ­so-called “soft skills”, which have been created by the new organization of the work organization and personnel management, which many employees perceive as a threat. To develop modern human resources management with its primary task, depending on the flexibility of each individual’s flexibility, and to make specific selections on this basis is another source of discomfort and threat.

3 Production of Social Disintegration II A second dimension of the production or consolidation of social disintegration is added to these initial conditions in Germany at the administrative level: the changes created by the so-called Hartz laws—which are officially laws for modern services on the labor market I–IV. Klaus Dörre (2013) has published an essay titled “Ten Years of Hartz: the New Misery” in which he elaborates that the social and labor reform in Germany, which is propagated as an unloved but successful one, produces social disintegration and, above all, cemented it.

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According to Dörre, the “reform” which was celebrated in recent yearsand has been described as the only alternative (FAZ), is a fallacy, to which there is according to no alternative (FAZ), is a fallacy. In the articles of assessment of the labor market reform, the German job miracle is spoken of that has established itself despite the crisis situation. However, Dörre contrast shows: 1. The number of long-term beneficiaries of ALG II is falling very slowly (within one year from January 2011 to Jan 2013 by 94,000 to 4,375,000 [including family members]), despite the fact that “recruitment participation”. 2. Under-employment fell only slightly by 78,000 to 4,026,000 persons within the last year and is thus at an exceptionally high level. 3. Describes Dörre and that is the decisive factor for our discussion: the process of “circular mobility”, which looks as follows: From September 2011 to August 2012, 1.97 million people have succeeded in getting a temporary job. At the same time, however, 1.76 million people applied again for basic security. Of these persons, 50% had already applied for benefits during the last 12 months, one third of which had been applied in the last 3 months (Dörre 2013, p. 107). Dörre (2013) speaks of a dramatic consolidation of employment conditions, which affects a socially very heterogeneous group of people. This means that they are people from a wide range of socio-structural groupings who are permanently concerned with social services and are subject to permanent requirements under the supervision of an administrative discipline, especially the compulsion to autonomy, which they can’t fulfill. The consequences of these practices are: disqualification of social status, depreciation of training, professional experience and qualifications, injury, violation of identity, suspects, exclusion and sanctions. In Germany, the JobCenters imposed nearly one million sanctions in Germany, which cut the already very low standard rate for a certain period of time. Through this process of an ongoing injury, a nearly irreconcilable conflict situation and a difficult to break through cycle of the people circle predestined to show pathological symptoms such as stress, depression, anxiety and insecurity. As a result of this administrative approach, Dörre (2013) concluded, among other things, the dramatic violation of the legitimate claim to integrity and the equivalence of the persons concerned.

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4 Additional Results of the Transformations on the Labor Market 4.1 New Dimensions and Coordinates of Social Inequality Here, Ehrenberg mainly mentions the unequal distribution of personal skills and emphasizes their increasing relevance in the emergence of social inequalities. It is not additive that is significant, but the reinforcement of the effects of social inequalities has an effect on entanglement and interdependence. The strong emphasis on personal psychosocial skills or a specific psychosocial disposition as a source of social inequality is perhaps the most innovative component of Ehrenberg’s thinking. For example, the introduction of a social structural component of the psychosocial disposition would be an extension to a more detailed description of social-structural inequalities in addition to Bourdieu’s distinction studies (Bourdieu 1987), where multidimensional field analyzes can be generated by means of a correspondence analysis supported by today’s SPSS programs. In order to be able to develop highly detailed and accurate models of inequality, personal abilities would have to be measured and then coupled with other items that relate, for example, to classical social structural components, such as cultural preferences and income relations. That would be possible, for example, with a correspondence analysis.

4.2 The Relationship between Psychiatry and Social Work/the Relationship between Professionals and Sufferers For Ehrenberg, the changes in the relationship between psychiatry and social work are so significant that, as we have seen, he combines his own transformation line for the enhancement of social discomfort. The spread of psychosocial pathologies to a group with a larger number, which is subject to precarious working conditions and living conditions, represents an almost impossible task for psychiatry and social work. The pathologies resulting from a precarious working and living situation do not fall into the classical field of activity of the psychiatrist, but also not into the classical role of the social workers. For the psychiatrist or psychologist this means a strong component with regard to the strengthening of social skills, the coping with everyday life of the client. However, the clinical

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psychotherapist usually has inadequate practical experience and counseling competences. For social work, this means that quasi-therapeutic care scenarios are placed at the center of the work for which the social workers are also not trained. The extension of pathologies typical of psychiatric patients to a large number of people still requires a reorganization of the relationship between professionals and those affected.

5 Possible Interventions In the following, I would like to refer to possible interventions, which have been discussed within the sociological and social policy discussions, but their consistent implementation is still pending. Starting from the analyses and argumentsdeveloped by Ehrenberg, I would like to introduce possibilities of intervention under pragmatic aspects. Objectives of the intervention: Life satisfaction, equality of opportunity for a lifetime, future, anthropological: emancipation, autonomy (trust in autonomy), self-realization, developing abilities, social recognition

5.1 Possible Interventions 5.1.1 On the Scientific Level a) Re-thinking of concepts. We can assume that the radical changes within the neoliberal working world, characterized by a compulsion to autonomy, the apparent loss of social bonds, and by an extraordinarily high degree of flexibility, can be attributed to the mental health of the working and non—working in one historically unmeasured measure. Fear, insecurity, instability, vulnerability, depression are the symptoms that arise as a result of the discomfort in the working world. These are not categories or symptoms of a psychiatric disease determined by a medical diagnosis but a social science concept. For example, the concept of depression in social sciences thinking that Maurice Halbwachs developed following the paradigm of the sociology of Durkheim’s “Collective Psychology” (Halbwachs 2001). These works are perceived as classical texts in the newer sociological theory, but unfortunately, these writings remain largely unaffected for the current discussion. I propose to introduce the concept of social depression for the time being, and to separate it from the psychiatric or psychological depression in the sense of the collective psychology

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of Halbwachs. In addition, care must be taken to ensure that no social psychological concept is created. This would be a very urgent current task for social scientists who are concerned with the phenomenon of precarious social working and living conditions. Likewise, other terms such as fear, vulnerability, insecurity and instability should be developed radically sociologically. b) More critical social science research regarding labor market and social policies that produces pathologies and disintegration (in particular Hartz IV laws) c) Addressing the topic of of social suffering, for example, through qualitative interviews or qualitative studies (for example Bourdieu et al. 1997; Schultheis and Schulz 2005; Schultheis et al. 2010). The following dictation should be used: no tabooing of the suffering, no individualization of the suffering, no pathologizing of the suffering (cf. Bourdieu et al. 1997; Schultheis and Schulz 2005; Schultheis et al. 2010). d) Analyze the malfunctions of personnel management. e) Linking of criticism (sociology) and research: Convinced by the example of studies of work satisfaction that a higher level of work satisfaction is associated with a higher motivation, a higher identification and thus a higher commitment, a performance and also with less work loss. f) Sociology as an enlightenment, revealing the mechanisms which produce everyday suffering, which can be endured by people.

5.2 On the Work and Social Policy Level a) Radical changes in labor and social policy. a1) The creation of a Basic Income (Haeni and Schmidt 2008) a2) Conversion of job centers and work agencies into counseling and promotion centers for jobseekers, entrepreneurs and innovation. b) Establishment of government agencies for the anonymous verification of compliance with standards of autonomously-screening jobs, recognition, c) Changing the understanding of psychiatry/Changing the understanding of social work/Changing the relationship between psychiatry and social work/ Change the ratio of professionals and sufferers.

5.3 Prevention Teaching of psychosocial competences (“soft skills”) in elementary schools. Notwithstanding the results of Bourdieus and Passerons study “The Illusion of Equal

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Opportunities”, in which the supporting role of the mechanisms of the educational institutions in the reproduction cycle, which are still valid today, are being worked out, there are political and administrative attempts to create equal opportunities. However, as Michael Hartmann has shown for Germany, this path leads only to a shift in the selection instances and selection criteria. If the school does not select, then this is done by the university, and in Germany it is mainly the institutions and companies that hire privileged professionals. Thus, the process of reproducing itself becomes more complicated and duplicated. However, in order to participate in society, to demand self-confident and autonomous rights, psychosocial competences must be taught in elementary schools and also in higher schools. Equal opportunities for a lifetime. Psychosocial centers for the empowerment of authentic autonomy and participation in society.

5.4 Conclusion: Potential Consequences of ­­CounterMeasures The potential consequences of the interventions are obvious: the loss of work is significantly reduced, the motivation of the employees increases, as is the satisfaction of life, the number of the mentally ill decreases and the social inequality is reduced.

References Bourdieu, P. (1987). Die feinen Unterschiede. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, P., et al. (1997). Das Elend der Welt. Zeugnisse und Diagnosen alltäglichen Leidens an der Gesellschaft. Konstanz: UVK. Dejours, C. (1998). Souffrance en France – La banalisation de l’injustice sociale. Paris: éditions du Seuil. Dörre, K. (2013). Das neue Elend: Zehn Jahre Hartz-Reformen. Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 3(2013), 99–107. Ehrenberg, A. (2010). La Société du malaise. Paris: Odile Jacob. Ehrenberg, A. (2012). Das Unbehagen in der Gesellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Haeni, D., & Schmidt, E. (2008). Grundeinkommen. http://www.forum-grundeinkommen. de/filme-bge/grundeinkommen-filmessay-daniel-haeni-enno-schmidt. Accessed 4 Apr 2017.

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Halbwachs, M. (2001). Kollektive Psychologie. Ausgewählte Schriften. Konstanz: UVK. Schultheis, F., & Schulz, K. (Eds.). (2005). Gesellschaft mit begrenzter Haftung. Zumutungen und Leiden im deutschen Alltag. Konstanz: UVK. Schultheis, F., Vogel, B., & Gemperle, M. (Eds.). (2010). Ein halbes Leben. Biografische Zeugnisse aus einer Arbeitswelt im Umbruch. Konstanz: UVK.

Precarisation, Exclusion and Social Work Jörg Zeller

1 Precarisation as a Society’s Practice Logic As a philosopher, I choose to look at precarisation from an ethical point of view. Philosophers don’t investigate into facts but into their possible meaning and understanding. In the following, I wish to analyse the ethical meaning of precarisation. For them who are affected by precarisation it means exclusion from the access to different forms of action resources or Bourdieuan capital. Social Work, as I will try to show, is the effort of a society to compensate for the disadvantages the society undergoes by the precarisation and pauperisation of single society members or groups of them. Thus, the function of Social Work is to maintain the social morals and to prevent uprisings against the prevailing governmental state of the society. By precarisation I understand social changes that deteriorate the work and life conditions of an increasing number of society members. Such deterioration may in the individual case have accidental causes but it has—as an epidemic social disease1—obviously systematic reasons in social systems that exist and develop 1To

talk about social disease implies to stretch the concept of bodily or mental disease of individual subjects to another kind or level of human subjects. I will call this type of ­subject ‘collective subject’. A collective subject emerges out of a plurality of individual subjects that can act, experience and feel—as I will say—‘in common’. If this is possible then it should also be possible that a community can develop a consciousness in common:

J. Zeller (*)  Aalborg University, Thisted, Vang, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_12

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by periodic precarisation of work and life conditions for the socially weakest part of the population. I will say that social systems of this kind operate with an integrated precarisation logic. In addition—if there exist such society forms working with a precarisation logic—I will call them unethical; or more precise: societies with an unethical morality or mentality.

2 Social Work and Social Ethics I understand social work as a profession, in which a social community because of bad conscience tries to compensate for the consequences of its unethical morals. By ‘social ethics’ I understand the overall ethics of a social community. Notice, social ethics is about the prevailing principles of how a society is working as a community. A community, I presuppose, can be understood as an actor, i.e. a subject of action and practice. For instance, a society functioning based on a ­profit-oriented economy is working with a ‘competition morality’. The ultimate end of such a society is not the welfare of its members collectively but the profit of some adverse the loss of others. The morality of such a society is based on an ethics of inequality. Its superior end is that you can be ‘good’ and feel ‘good’ if you can be better than others. On the most general plan, I understand by ‘ethics’ the way of thinking, i.e. the logic, of an actor to base her/his actions or practices on intentions. Therefore, I call it also: practice logic. ‘Intentions’ I take as ‘wishes to realize desirable/ valuable ends’. Intentions are thus conceptually connected to values. They are members of the same concept-family (Wittgenstein 1963) enfolding what people consider as valuable.

doing similar things in a similar way, experiencing more or less the same things in a similar way, and under similar circumstances feel in a similar way like the other members of the same community. This is in my opinion the real basis of morality, i.e. of what ethics is about: to form a conscience and to act on its basis. If ‘disease’, generally understood, is a weakening and disabling of the vital force of living beings then a social disease should be the weakening and disabling of a community’s mental and practical force. If precarisation is such a disease then a ‘precarised society’ can be regarded as ill—i.e. socially ill. Against this way of thinking one could, however, object that diseases of individuals—at least in in the case of physical diseases—not are ‘manmade’ but something the ill person is exposed to by natural causes (bacteria, viruses etc.). Social diseases, in contrast, are entirely manmade. They are the effect of maltreatment of one part of a community by another part.

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Let’s do a bit concept-analysing work. I understand actions as constituted by a) Actors or subjects of action—a subject understood as a conscious human being. b) Conscious human beings can experience, feel, imagine, remember, percept, conceptualize, predicate, infer, and act. c) Action organs—i.e. an actor’s body and optionally objective action instruments. d) An actor acts by activating or forbear to activate sensorimotor organs of his/ her body; an actor’s body is according to Merleau-Ponty 2006 to be understood as a conscious or living body, i.e. an incorporated mind.2 e) Performance—the actor’s making his/her/their intention real. f) Result of the action—the by the performance of the action realized state, event or process. g) Consequences of the action—effects of the action on the actor and/or other actors or living beings and their existence conditions. By ‘practice’ I understand a spatiotemporal extended and logical coordinated system of actions, performed to reach a manifold of mutually connected ends. Practices can be professional or leisure activities—to cure sick people, to teach students, to sell or repair cars, to breed pigeons, to play football etc. Practices can be executed by a system of actions of single actors or by a system of interactions of a plurality of different actors. Interactions are steered by the different intentions of the interacting actors. By socially interacting, humans try to make their intentions real—i.e. to make the world meaningful or to construct (Nørreklit 2004, 2012) a meaningful and valuable reality. I call the way a community of actors constructs a meaningful and valuable reality the practice logic or ethics of this community.

3 Practice Games as a posteriori Practice Logic The realizing of meaning and value by social interactions I understand on the background of Wittgenstein’s 1963 concept of ‘language games’ as practice games. Language games can be understood as an experimental and social construction of communication systems. Practice games are accordingly a community’s experimental

2Notice:

an incorporated mind has at the same time to be a mental or ‘beminded’ body. If so there will be no minds able to act ‘disembodied’, i.e. no ghosts.

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construction of social practices or (Bordieuan) practice fields. Practice games realize then besides other forms of meaning and value construction also the way of realizing (practice logic) of moral meanings and values. It is by their different forms of practice human actors try to make their life meaningful and valuable. By ‘practice game’ I understand therefore an extended variant of Wittgensteinian language games. It realizes the experimental logic of making human existence not only semantically meaningful but also in different other ways valuable. You can look at Wittgenstein’s 1963 seminal concept of a language game either with theoretical or methodological eyes. Theoretically, a language game can be taken as an explanation of language learning of human actors by creating a conjunction between signs (sounds, gestures, facial expressions, postures) and other kinds of social actions. You can, however, also look at language games as an experimental way to make human existence and activities meaningful. Thus, language games become a laboratory for the building (constructing) and testing of communication and cooperation forms. The logic of such forms is created and/or learned by doing. So here we deal with a—to express it in a Kantian way—a posteriori logic or—as I prefer to call it—a practical logic. Because communication and (inter)action can succeed or fail, they are realized in an experimental way. The only way to find out if you can realize your intentions or not is by performing the actions you believe will do it. By performing them a logic of communication and action emerges at the same time from your attempts and experiments to communicate and interact with other people. Therefore, I call it an a posteriori logic (cf. ­Wittgenstein 1970), a logic emerging by doing (‘applying it’) in a certain way. Besides meaning understood as semantic or cognitive value I differ between h) Aesthetic or sensual i) Instrumental or utile j) Moral or way-of-life or existential values. Practice games can thus be taken as the at the same time experiential, experimental, and constructive endeavours of human actors to make their existence meaningful and valuable.

4 Practice Games and Practice Fields By practicing their ideas of a good life, human actors show their understanding and (aesthetically, instrumentally and morally) appreciating of reality. They perform the reality construction (cf. Nørreklit 2012) of their existence within what

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Bourdieu 1993 called practice fields. A practice field is to be understood as a dynamic system of different practices, consisting in k) Subjective action potentials, i.e. habitus forms (Bourdieu 1993) l) An actor’s habitus consists in his/her bodily and mental abilities to act in different ways, i.e. in his/her experiential, theoretical, and practical knowledge. m) Objective action potentials, i.e. capital forms (Bourdieu 1993) n) An actor’s different forms of capital consist in all those objective or institutional instruments and resources, he/she disposes of in trying to realize his/ her intentions. Thus, practice fields consist (normally) of a plurality of actors, instruments and resources interacting with each other and thereby changing the quality and quantity of those habitus and capital forms, which make up the power structure of the field. The function of ethics, i.e. of the logic of practice,3 is basically to find out how an actor must act to reach desirable ends (i.e. to realize something valuable and eventually a good life) not only for the actor himself but potentially every actor or society of actors. By ‘morals’ I understand the ‘realized semantics’ of an ethics—i.e. the way an (individual or social) actor connects (maps) his/her/their way of thinking with (to) a system of different value types, i.e. material, instrumental, esthetical or existential/moral goods. Morality is thus the realized ethics (way of practical thinking) of an actor. I call it also the mentality of this actor. The mentality of actors consists in their attitudes, customs, conventions, world views, etiquettes, etc., i.e. how they in customary circumstances react on, understand, evaluate, and judge what they experience. The difference between ethics and morals can be described as the difference between how an actor thinks he/she should act under certain circumstances, and how he/she really does act.

3I

am clear about the fact that there exist kinds of practice that apparently don’t have an ethical meaning or value. Understanding practice in general as the way human beings can influence their ‘destiny’ I will confirm the view that all kinds of practice contribute in one or other way to an individual’s or a community’s ethics. They realize in different practical ways what we think is good or bad. By ‘logic’ I understand not what but how we think, i.e. the modality of our thinking. In my judgement, all logic is thus modal logic.

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5 Social Work—Responsibility versus Charity Social Work as a profession and practice field, we could say, is ruled by a social community’s intention to help citizens in social need. This can be done based on different attitudes (mentalities): as either as a welfare support or a charity practice. In both variants, Social Work realizes in my opinion the social ethics of a community by assessing it as a desirable good to help people being in need. On this background you could say, Social Work is a community’s political and legal expression of either (its understanding) of social responsibility or a principle of charity. The understanding of social responsibility could be formulated as follows: Help people in need to empower them to realize a good life. It could be based on a backing good-community principle: helping people in need to become able to realize a good life contributes to realizing a good community (good conditions for realizing a good life for all community members). In contrast: charity doesn’t really help people but just attenuates their precarious situation accidentally—i.e. just making them survive under precarizing existence conditions. The two variants of Social Work mentality represent then two kinds of thinking what social ethics is about: a good one and a bad one.

6 Ethical Basics Ethics is based on two conceptual pillars of practical wisdom: o) Free will of the actor p) The actor’s valuation ability—i.e. a disposition to discover values among what there is and takes place: q) To motivate an actor to act presupposes, that he/she can differentiate between good and bad things/states/events, and to desire the good ones and to decline the bad ones The free will of an actor is a consequence of his/her ability to reason, i.e. to think and behave as a rational being. Free will presupposes experience (ability to note one’s sensations), emotionality (ability to get motivated), imagination (ability to see the possible in excess of the real), and rationality (ability to form concepts and propositions and to infer conclusions from premises). It would notably be impossible voluntarily to choose between different possibilities to act without being able to imagine possible states, events or processes that actually don’t exist or take place but can (by action) possibly be made existing or taking place.

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7 Social Work as Applied Social Ethics An actor losing his/her ability to appreciate being alive, i.e. a person or community restricted, hurt or bereft of his/her ‘optative’ abilities (desiring, wanting, wishing, intending), will heavily be handicapped in his/her/its abilities to realize a good life. This holds especially for the victims of precarious work and life conditions. They will be—not legally but ‘practically’—excluded from appropriating the necessary subjective (habitus) and objective (capital) practice-power to realize a good life. Social Work as professional activity takes place as an interaction between two social actors: r) A social worker—i.e. a person professionally trained to help people in social need; in this function, the social worker acts as an individual representative (civil servant) of the social ethics of her society; s) A person in social need—i.e. a person not being able autonomously to create the basics of a liveable and much less yet a good life; he/she can in physical, mental and/or social respect be needy for instance because of t) Either by birth or by accident being physically or mentally handicapped u) Or by “being made socially redundant” because of working place “economisation” (being fired) v) Or by depression because of death of or separation from a loved person. w) The ‘bipedal’ basis of the social-ethical thinking asserting itself in Social Working can give reason to two forms of ethical reductionism, i.e. two ways to amputate social ethics either x) To liberalism (will to power, power is law)—proclaiming that all human beings are free by nature and can get what they want by really willing it; everyone is responsible of his own prosperity or breakdown—a person in social need is an actor with reduced will power and for this reason rightly a Social Work client4 or y) To economism—reducing the diversity of different values or goods to economic values (all capital is based on economic capital, all goods are commodities, the utmost end of human practice is to get rich and to consume as many as possible goods).

4A

‘client’ is according its Latin etymology a socially weak person seeking protection of a socially powerful patron. In countries with a weak state and a powerful mafia it is often the mafia with its patronage system that takes over Social Work functions.

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Present day western style societies try to combine a freedom-welfare based (utilitarian) ethics with a liberalist-economistic reduced moral. The ethics of this kind of society requests, however, that the community in a charitable way ‘helps’ people in social need. Social Work is in practical charge to do this—to help people with reduced action power (habitus) to allegedly (re)constitute their “will power”,5 but in reality, by giving them just as much economic capital that they can live on the breadline. This way Social Work is being misused to exclude people from becoming really empowered to realize a good life (because of so called social diseases like ‘burn out’, ‘stress syndromes’, ‘depression’ and the like, i.e. by handicapping their mentality). Consequently, people living under precarising subsistence conditions are prone to engage in drug abuse or criminal activities. Only people that misunderstand morals with charity believe that precarized people should be graceful and should behave properly because of the welfare aid they get from a society that not really is willing to help them but primarily wants to allay its bad conscience. The worse the social ethics of a community the more its ‘properly behaving people’ are willing to condemn people with ‘improperly behaviour’. Because of the reduced moral of precarising societies, Social Work gains paradoxical traits. Reducing the actor-side (habitus) of ethics to ‘free’6 (pure) will power and the value-side (capital) to economy, Social Work shall free the ‘social client’—a person handicapped in the execution of his/her will—by ‘economistically’ reducing his/her social dignity to a minimum income needed to subsist. A human person gets this way reduced to an economic quantity (‘economic man’). In consequence, Social Work is in charge to ‘free’ a ‘social client’, i.e. a person dependent of social mercy, by holding him/her economically imprisoned in a mere subsistence ‘capital’, i.e. in accurately that form of society, that has made him/her a person in social need.

5Liberalist

minded politicians usually believe that people in social need just lack will power to turn their need into prosperity. Therefore, their eagerness for shortening unemployment aid and forced activation arrangements for unemployed persons. 6The liberalist freedom concept is abstract as far as it assumes humans as being per se (by nature) as free; i.e. free from all qualifying (subjective and objective) conditions enabling a person to choose between different action possibilities. The liberalist concept of freedom reduces thus Bourdieuan habitus to a pure (‘impersonal’) agency, and Bourdieuan capital to pure economic action means. A concept of real freedom should instead define freedom by the subjective (habitus) and objective (capital) conditions (potentials) for intentional acting/ practicing.

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If social ethics is about how a human community enables its members to realize a good life in common, then it seems impossible to help people in social need without changing the social conditions making people socially needy. As a conclusion, it can be said: helping people to realize in common a good life requests a good society with a good social ethics—i.e. a society that doesn’t enable the good life of some citizens at the cost of the precarized life of other citizens socially excluded from the real means to realize a good life.

References Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sozialer Sinn. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Nørreklit, L. (2004). Hvad er virkelighed? In J. Christensen (Ed.), Vidensgrundlag for handlen (pp. 25–59). Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag. Nørreklit, L. (2012). Filosofi i praksis. In G. S. Reinbacher & J. Zeller (Eds.), Filosofiens anvendelighed (pp. 9–48). Aalborg: Aalborg Universitetsforlag. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2006). Phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge. Wittgenstein, L. (1963). Philosophische Untersuchungen. In L. Wittgenstein (Ed.), Tractatus logico-philosophicus, Tagebücher 1914–1916, Philosophische Untersuchungen (pp. 279–544). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, L. (1970). Über Gewißheit. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

Bourdieu for Austrians—Des Menschen Herz. Sozialstaatsroman (The Human Heart. A Welfare State Novel) Egon Christian Leitner

Preface The following discourse about Social Vulnerability in its exact wording (except three minor clarifications) was held on April 4th 2013 on the occasion of the S.U.P.I. conference in Graz. It was a preemptive and provocative attempt both in terms of structure and content. In particular, I applied Foucault’s Reportage of ideas, and, as I believe, Bourdieu’s interpretation of interventional science, litterature and journalism, to the concrete general here and now, the method used being comparable to recent publications of Didier Eribon. Bourdieu’s view of Austria was shaped by Karl Kraus and Thomas Bernhard. Needless to say however, the major influence came from Bourdieu’s prematurely departed Austrian disciple and collaborator Michael Pollak, who, under the title Vienne 1900. Une identité blessée, wrote a kind of sociological or, as you might say, social-psychological analysis of the Austrian history of ideas and shared Bourdieu’s affinity for Max Weber. Weber’s attitude towards Austria was, by the way, an upset and distant one, probably also due to his own observations (in Vienna) and personal experiences (for example with the economist Schumpeter), and he warned of the “Austrianization” of the European continent. As we all know, Karl Kraus referred to Austria as a trial station, an experimental laboratory for doomsday. Anyway, in his study from 1992, Michael Pollak makes present sadomasochism and the polymorphous perversion of the Austrian elites during Egon Christian Leitner is nominated for the “Ingeborg Bachmann Prize” 2020 E. C. Leitner (*)  Judendorf-Strassengel, Austria © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_13

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the prewar and interwar periods. In this context, he points out the global influence of the wealth of ideas, intelligence and creativity during the turn of the century on the one hand and endless fights, corruption, decadence, poverty, abuse of individuals, maltreatment and the forced death of humans on the other hand. Along with these, he also refers to the resistance and survival strategies across social classes, using the legendary Josefine Mutzenbacher as an example amongst others. Apropos the Austrianization of Europe: very shortly, in July 2018, the Austrian government will be taking over the presidency of the EU Council. The boyish, innocent and very young chancellor, intensively coalising with the FPÖ, demonstrating control in the light of the masses of refugees and bloody terror, embodying order and security in the eyes of the public, is not only the darling of the Austrian voters, but also of the presidents Trump and Putin and of all the Christian and social spirited opponents of Merkel. Just as a footnote: Kurz was discovered, fostered and counselled by the former chancellor Schüssel. And what formerly was represented by Jörg Haider is now reincarnated through H.C. Strache. In my S.U.P.I. discourse in 2013, I analysed the era Schüssel-Haider along with its foreseeable consequences. In the meantime, the former neoliberal finance minister, also covered by my analysis, stands trial and the lawsuit is protracted due to staff shortage. As we know, staff shortage is usually caused by neoliberal staff savings. The doctor Vogt, also mentioned, has meanwhile been honoured for outstanding civil courage, and the economist Schulmeister has just written a respectable bestseller which might even make history. Currently, an exemplary referendum for women’s equality is taking place, which, in many aspects, can also be considered a renewal of the referendum for a welfare state, although it can’t replace it. The estimation relating to income and welfare state benefits cited at the beginning of my discourse was established in 2002 by the initiators of the welfare state referendum and actually applies to the majority of the Austrian population: if you are Austrian, you can be assured that during the world economic crisis from 2007 to 2017, your income clearly wouldn’t have been sufficient for making a living if you hadn’t been living in a welfare state at that time. The world economic crisis is considered as having been overcome for a few months now, especially thanks to digital capitalism 4.0. The truth however is, that the latter, and the neoliberal economy as a whole, have been saved by the Keynesianians, who had to save all the banks and speculation markets in consequence of the neoliberal moral hazard, in other words: the systematic blackmail! They did this for the benefit of the real economy and the welfare state, for the people and those responsible. They saved, saved, saved. The leftists saved the rightists! And, as it is generally known, those who helped the neoliberals achieve their fulminant election victory were the masses who had come here after fleeing acute wars or ­life-threatening poverty. None other than the Keynesianians, the welfare state and

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the refugees have helped neoliberalism achieve such a triumph. Neoliberalism owes its survival to them. Without them, it couldn’t exist. Our country is just an example of this. And it remains to be seen if the economic war of the US against the Federal Republic of Germany and the rest of the EU will strike capitalism right at the heart of digital growth. Paradoxically, we might consider diabolic Trump a blessing for the EU: the EU could view the wars differently, focus less on exports and more on the domestic market, domestic demand, the purchasing power of the EU population and the welfare state as a real economic motor. And it could produce “healthy” cars instead of pathologically autonomous ones. As it is generally known, Bourdieu analysed Flaubert, Zola and Molière, and even Virginia Woolf. I tried to heed and apply his views, also those on war and peace. I would be glad to see my deliberations being associated to a ­non-narcissistic Bourdieu philology. One thing, however, is clear: they belong to Bourdieu’s Raisons d’agir. The fact that these still exist is better than the general demoralization all around. The Sozialstaatsroman (Welfare State Novel), which is treated hereafter, deals with a child that survived just by chance. It deals with how people were and what they have become, and with aid organisations that all of us are in need of at some point in life…or at least a person close to us. It deals with the lucky strikes and the accidents in our lives, and with the learned helplessness, the denial of assistance and the obligation to secrecy of professional entities. It deals with emergency situations throughout milieus and professions, social classes and institutions, and also with happy ends. The Sozialstaatsroman has so far gained sufficient public attention and will be continued from the beginning of 2019, along with the related series of talks Auswege (WAYS OUT) with the recent publication of the Bourdieuinspired volumes Vom Helfen und vom Wohlergehen oder Wie die Politik neu und besser erfunden werden kann (On Help and Welfare or Reinventing Politics in a Better Way). Modestly put, these undertakings are at least of heuristic value. (Egon Christian Leitner, June 2018) Ad rem If you allow me, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to use the last few moments of your long working day to explain the world to you in a short and concise manner, and, en passant, the Austrian and of course the Styrian world. In other words, the globe by means of Graz.—If you would take [away] the welfare state from the Austrians, then everybody would have to earn fourfold from what he/she currently earns. Well, firstly, this estimation has not been produced by me, and secondly, it dates back to the year 2002. But you can be sure that here and now, in the year 2013 and in the midst of the world economic crisis, you wouldn’t be able to survive even with a fourfold income if you weren’t living in a welfare state. This is not just some dubious estimation: it was produced by Stephan Schulmeister,

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economic researcher at the Austrian centre for economic research WIFO, and Werner Vogt amongst others. As you may know, during the last few years of his life, Pierre Bourdieu, with the support of social movements, put all his efforts in achieving some kind of popular petition or referendum for a social Europe as soon as possible—which means a Europe characterized by a welfare system—at EU and national level. At the same time, but completely independently from Bourdieu, the doctor Werner Vogt tried to implement for Austria what Bourdieu was bearing in mind. He did this from 1996 on. In spring 2002—Bourdieu had just died—a popular petition for a welfare state Austria was finally organized, mainly on the initiative of Werner Vogt. To achieve this, it took no less than 5 ½ years of preparative work by the Socialist and the Green Party together with the trade unions. If I remember well, at that time, the Caritas being an ecclesiastical organisation didn’t have the political means to officially support the popular petition. Anyway, as you know, the aim of the popular petition was to grant the welfare state constitutional status. This means that it should be considered as a state purpose and thus require a binding social compatibility review of all future laws. The 2002 popular petition was signed by 717.000 Austrians. However, it couldn’t become effective, partly because of the dissolution of the parliament due to Jörg Haider, carried out to enable new elections. You will probably ask yourself why I am wasting your time telling you all this and even more. Well, a few months ago, an Austrian, the athletic Styrian Baumgartner, jumped down from heaven to the earth like a hero, a superman, from a distance of 39 km. A few days earlier, a renowned award-winning Austrian advertising specialist had been asked if this daredevil jump didn’t also jeopardize the Sponsor Red Bull (gives you wings), possibly causing a financial fiasco or even bankruptcy if Baumgartner was harmed or killed. The advertising specialist denied categorically, explaining that if Baumgartner died, this would be buried in oblivion within a week.—According to Bourdieu, who, as mentioned before, died in 2002, the state and society were stricken by memory loss, amnesia, structural amnesia, caused by the media and neoliberalism. Furthermore, Bourdieu warned against being misled by Jörg Haider because this never-ending faschist-esque propaganda should just divert attention from the real objective: he argues that the primary aim of the Austrian government and Haider was to force through the neoliberal economic policy by means of a carrot-and-stick approach. If you want my opinion, the following occurrences prove that Bourdieu’s view of Austria in 2002 wasn’t wrong at all: although the former ÖVP Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel claimed at the end of his term that nobody of his party upheld neoliberalism, his party’s Chairman Andreas Khol, then soon to be President of the National

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Council and currently high representative of the retired population, in the year 2000, the day after the suspension of the EU sanctions had become public, literally proclaimed: We govern in a neoliberal manner. Then, radiant with joy, he added the term neoliberal eco-social market economy. Quite similarly, in the week of the suspension of the EU sanctions, the then Finance Minister and people’s darling Karl Heinz Grasser explained: I am building a state with new economy structures. John Naisbitt, futurologist and trend researcher par excellence, meanwhile declared in Graz that there would be no considerable climate damages or resource shortages and that a future social Europe would harm Europe, that is, the companies and the economy as a whole. As the ban of hedge funds was lifted in Germany in 2002, and hedge funds were starting to be intensely promoted in Austria, popular Austrian athletes were shown in the advertising block just before the principal news on TV—the best time to reach the audiences—explaining to primary school pupils how easy, safe and cheap hedge funds were. On top of this, at that time too, in a TV spot for the Erste Bank which, as we know, would have gone bankrupt without state aid, a lady had several orgasms a day as soon as she heard the word “funds”. So these were the times when Werner Vogt, Stephan Schulmeister, Emmerich Tálos and the late Minister for Women, Johanna Dohnal, whose political spirit is still very present today, (and all the others) struggled to push through the popular petition to finally enable a welfare state. For Bourdieu, this different side of Austria represented Europe’s avant-garde, Europe’s political Spearhead. Just a few additional words on general amnesia: an Austrian-American philosopher, Paul Feyerabend, stated—even though in a different context, but as a principle—that hardly anyone still knows what was possible and thus is still or again possible today. He added that it’s like in an obstructed and destroyed landscape; after a short period of time, nobody remembers its appearance until recently, and nobody remembers how beautiful it was and what had been possible—in a positive and a negative sense. I have written this anthology on the welfare state because I feared that it would all turn into its previous state again and how I have experienced it, and the way I don’t want it to be: that the so-called state and the so-called society and therefore also the people suddenly become the way they used to be when I grew up, and the fear that supportive mechanisms and institutions which each of us depends on some time in the course of his life, and, if not himself, then a loved one, turn the same as they once used to be, at a time when they didn’t do them any good. The first volume of the anthology is entitled Lebend kriegt Ihr mich nie (You’ll Never Catch Me Alive). After decades, I have re-written it in a decrypted form, partly with the aim to allow a more realistic perception of the suicides,

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especially those of children and youngsters, the current family tragedies, the current non-assistance, the current ways of abuse, current deprivations and the current sabotages, especially those in the field of youth work, family work and suicide prevention. The undersupply amid superabundance. The first volume of the welfare state novel deals with the Austrian illness, once called “Morbus Austriacus”. The title of the second volume is Furchtlose Inventur (Fearless Stock-Taking). This is a certain method, a discreet culture of error and incident stock-taking employed by the Alcoholics Anonymous: the procedure helps them to find out what they have done wrong, whom they have harmed and how they can possibly make up for it. As mentioned beforehand, this second volume deals with the support mechanisms each of us, or a loved one, will need some day in the course of his life. Volume three, the Tagebücher 2004–2011 (Diaries 2004–2011), tells us some things about the alternative movements and their NGOs etc., and why they fail again and again, and about alternative ways. Each part of this welfare state triptych deals with people like you and me, but who have been let down by institutions, support mechanisms or their fellowmen like you and me. People who have found themselves given up in a difficult situation, been let down, lost but still have not perished. Moreover, it deals with how they have managed, or rather: why they were favoured by fortune. Anyway—the “hero” of the welfare state novel, the helpful Uwe, in need of help himself, and in my opinion full of joie de vivre, constantly experiences pataphysical phenomenons, anomies, helplessness, hopelessness, grotesque catastrophes, organised irresponsibility, one Milgram and Dörner experiment after another. By the way, etymologically, “hero” means “free individual”, nothing more than this. As an infant, a baby—and earlier of course too—the free individual in the novel (I will just pick a few fragments) almost gets killed. Put precisely: by sheer chance, he wasn’t finally killed, but from the age of ten years on, he tries to kill himself, because he will live instead of being tormented, humiliated, because he is completely exhausted, so exhausted that it infinitely hurts, because this is not a life. From an early age, he grows up among trade unionists, civil servants and military officers and makes friends with a desperate school friend from a solid, catholic, social democratic house, who is just about to perish, and whose father, a member of the SS, had served as a watchman in Auschwitz. One day, Uwe suddenly finds himself in front of/below a hanged person, whose girlfriend, grown up in a good home, tells him how it all happened, and why she and her boyfriend never had a chance of living happily together. Uwe, by contrast, is always glad to be alive, always wants to live and be able to love people, and that

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the people have a life. At the same time however, he must deal with what he has witnessed, which becomes possible when he gets to know the love of his life. Their perspectives in this beautiful life are good. But suddenly, they constantly come to witness misery and agony of people. One day he wants to make his property available to a very decent aid organisation and gets heavily cheated; another time, they get told about a person who won’t survive, and if so, without any higher intellectual capacity, and then that this person is simply untreatable and can’t be rehabilitated. But then, luckily, it isn’t true, but fighting for all this not to be true is simply exhausting. A fight for this life. Once, they witness another person steadily receiving the wrong treatment because she is constantly misdiagnosed; finally it’s cancer and it’s too late. But now and then, it can be a good life because people fight for it. Another time they witness someone being deported into a notorious institution where she really doesn’t belong, where nobody belongs, so they get him out, and later, this huge institution is closed because of the cruelties that have happened there. Believe me, dear audience, I only told you a few fragments so far. The free individual in this novel always quickly retells what he gets to know, but most of the people don’t care or prefer not to know. Many people don’t even know what to do, or they simply don’t believe him, they think he is overdoing or simply doesn’t understand. It must have something to do with his personality or with those about whose misfortune he is reporting. For example, those he is speaking to don’t really take him seriously when he is reporting the hedge funds issue in January 2002 and arguing that hedge funds shouldn’t be allowed or should be prohibited immediately. The same happens to him in 2004, when he predicts that the unemployment rate would at best make up 10% and that the housing bubble would now finally burst. It’s just too unimportant. A similar reaction in spring 2002, when he retells the story of the shortage of nurses. Sometimes however, he can really help somebody. For example refugees. Or an aid organisation. Or when somebody has been abandoned. Then it even happens that people value him a lot and love him, and he is happy about it. The competitors fear that he wants to found a competing party, which he definitely doesn’t want to. He doesn’t even understand that he is amid competitors because he himself doesn’t compete. He co-founds a movement, which is completely absurd, too. He is almost crushed by all this. Some day in spring 2001, a trade unionist tells him, that the trade union can’t organize a strike because in reality, the strike funds are exhausted and the trade union would have to sell their bank to be able to strike, and so on and so forth. If these things seem boring and tiring to you, even far-fetched, completely hammed up and embarrassing because you find it egomaniacal and megalomaniac, I must deceive you, dear audience: they are true. True enough to make up a novel.

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But now back to Werner Vogt, born in 1938, who grew up during the war, but felt safe at home, due to a classless society of women and children and sheltered by a reliable grandfather, as he puts it. Several times in his life, Vogt was forbidden to speak and to write, well, of course, he didn’t stick to it. He also wanted to make the welfare state a central election issue. If the established parties are not capable of it, a welfare state party must be founded in order to act upon the other parties. As Vogt put it in 2002, the idea of the welfare state is the idea of respect for humans, equal opportunities, guaranteed protection by the state in case of major life crises, shared risk bearing./Not dog eat dog, but: We all pay, and who is in need will receive. Also in 2002, he explained that the state should secure the funding of the welfare state by radically imposing a tax on all profits of the financial industry. Another idea Vogt brought forward was, if I have understood it correctly, to merge the healthcare and social sectors in the educational and administrative fields; aid workers should be aware of the fact that they are learning a social profession, and the initial education period should comprise both sectors to enable a solid overview of the institutional choice. Moreover, the wards should experience first-hand how valuable and good the work performed for them is, which means experiencing that quality is possible and that everyone has an inalienable right to it. Vogt is convinced that true quality can’t lead to high follow-up costs, whereas low-quality support can cause enormous consequential costs. During the Kreisky era, he collaborated in a spectacular study on the Austrian healthcare system, on which even a film has been produced. Furthermore, he ­co-founded the consortium “Kritische Medizin” (Critical Medicine), fought for the tortured and forgotten Spiegelgrund children, for the Spiegelgrund adult Friedrich Zawrel and against the highly honoured social democratic Nazi psychiatrist, reviewer, murderer—the chief physician Gross who persecuted Zawrel. Vogt was senior physician at the AUVA and also worked as an emergency surgeon in Nicaragua and Romania and was a member of the fact finding missions in Kosovo. As some of you may know, he also served as a care ombudsman of the city of Vienna and later worked at the social ministry. However, he was removed from these two functions—by the social democrats. As far as I understand, the official reason was that he didn’t have a degree in nursing science. Of course, such reasoning seems completely absurd, considering what the care sector and the related science would be without Werner Vogt’s merits. Just to give you a couple of Vogt’s citations: Everything that exists “outside” also exists “inside”. [Institutions, hospitals, retirement homes] are not the idyllic counterworld to the awful outside world./Those confined care for those locked out. The legislator is the lawbreaker at the same time.—The poor care for the poor, both are disintegrated, isolated, stigmatised, and often live at the subsistence

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level—physically as well as psychologically. Vogt always relied on the Mobilisation of the general public, the Mobilisation of the constitutional state./Opening up, creation of a public./Counter-public. Tell everybody what really happened./ What’s worse is that all the involved persons get used to the current state./One of Vogt’s life principles is taken from Elias Canetti: Break with all those who accept death. Vogt assiduously propagated the following countermeasure: Normality has to be created. He therefore founded something he called Aktion unschuldiger Blick (the innocent look campaign). The reason why I recall Werner Vogt to you who are part of the social support workforce or of the related science or policy is that at this congress, I would like to know from those who professionally deliver aid if the thoughts and ideas developed together with others by the professional aid worker Vogt seem valuable, useful, feasible, helpful or not. At any rate, to me, Bourdieu’s social analysis that aims to make a second life possible for everyone has very much in common with Vogt’s Aktion unschuldiger Blick. I suppose you will know better than me that in Graz, there is the Vinzenzgemeinschaft and the unwavering pastor Pucher. Here—irrespective of the church context—, an aspect that appears vital to me and which is of relevance for professional aid workers in general is that apparently, Pucher and the Vinzigemeinschaft would never let anything or anyone cut them off from their wards. I’m not sure if this is the case with all the professional aid workers, even much less if you consider the society based on the division of labour. While other aid workers are afraid of being near to going into prison due to the legal grey areas and professional dependencies, Pucher’s “rapid deployment group” can count on protection by laws and the state of law. Like the Vogt model, the model “Pucher & Co.” has a lot in common with Bourdieu’s approach: the understanding of autonomy and profession. In Graz, an exemplary model has recently been implemented to enable a ­self-evident error culture. A German nursing expert has developed a prize-winning concept for avoiding in-patient falls in Styrian hospitals. In most of the cases, such falls have dramatic consequences. All possible risks caused by the hospital and the staff are now systematically eliminated. To date, for some inexplicable reason, this was not to be granted at all. This systematic troubleshooting seems similar in character with Bourdieus views. I would be interested in knowing from you, dear audience, in the course of the congress, if such a care-related error culture model would be worthwhile. Bourdieu (born in 1930 and, as mentioned before, deceased in 2002) stated that one right-wing revolution after another was taking place—a permanent neoliberal revolution in which the state itself neutralizes the state; and that the

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l­eft-wing and alternative movements were always lagging 2, 3, 4 revolutions behind; that they weren’t even able to understand, let alone to intervene, neither really, timely nor collectively. According to him, they weren’t even capable of invalidating the principle of competition among themselves—“Dog eat dog”, and “Everyone has to look out for number one”. However, he relied on the perspective that they would finally succeed in realizing these small wonders, and he worked hard to achieve this. He pinned hopes on scientists, artists and rebellious youngsters without illusions, but also on the long-serving workforce that has worked with their company for many years and therefore knows how things are going. But he also counted on the professionals of the aid sector, on those who, as of right, let nobody separate them from their wards and therefore really, timely and collectively stand up to politicians and the economic world. Instead of “standing up” he used the term “backfire” (Gegenfeuer). For “aid sector”, he used the term “the left hand of the state”. “Really”, “timely” and “collectively” were his preferred adverbs. In his terminology, the welfare state was the “empathic state”. Bourdieu was convinced that due to neoliberalism, formerly flourishing European regions and countries would look like post-war ghettos and areas. Neoliberalism as a time-bomb. The term “human capital” co-created by the neoliberal nobel prize winner Becker was an anathema to Bourdieu, and he found George Soros’ attitudes no less questionable. George Soros, the global benefactor and humanist, the brilliant hedge funds manager and enabler of democracy who in reality always pronounced against a financial transaction tax and right at the front rejected and fought against control, regulation or prohibition measures relating to hedge funds. Bourdieu’s democracy method/solidarity approach is characterized as follows: In—or rather through Bourdieu’s “Elend der Welt”, people supposed to be ordinary—like (sorry) you and me—tell each other their supposedly unimportant lives, “disposable lives”, and their fears and wishes and also what hurts them. These are people ranging from the farmer to the investigative judge, from the policewoman to the postal employee, from the wine dealer to the young neo-Nazi-to-be, from the migrant boy and his concierge to the regular businesswoman or the social worker or the mistress or the headmaster or the insurance agent or the head of a women’s refuge. Which means that people who don’t know each other, or are indifferent to each other or find themselves detestable, tell each other their lives. By telling each other trivial things, that, in reality, are fundamental, essential, they progressively disempower the economic stakeholders and political leaders who, on a professional and day-to-day basis, force them into their respective life situations, conflicts and fights, into an existence without each other and against each other. That just about wraps up the purposes of Bourdieu’s

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“La misère du monde”, first published in French in 1993, 20 years ago now. Bourdieu’s idea was that citizens, people, should start timely to talk about all the issues that usually go unmentioned in public, and more and more people should do this. Talk more and more. The people—“eleutheroi”, in Greek, which means “the free people”, should really be able to make use of the right to talk about their real problems without somebody telling them that they have no reason and no right to yammer and that this wouldn’t change anything anyway. This frank, free, timely speaking out was—and here I am purposely repeating myself—the spirit and purpose of Bourdieu’s monumental work. Amongst other things, he used it as a means to acutely and prophylactically fight hopelessness. To fight the supposedly inevitable or supposedly reasonable suffering in everyday life and at work, the daily natural impositions that suddenly lead to the so-called individual fate and fateful course of events, to the extreme situations and catastrophes. Maybe you remember things better than me: during his term, chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel propagated and installed so-called “Nichtraunzerzonen” (“non-yammering zones”). These zones, intensely promoted by the media, were received quite favourably by the population—and, so it seems, also by the then opposition. The socialist and green parties were also guided by this motto in their election campaigns. However, the works from the school of Bourdieu, for example La misère du monde or Gesellschaft mit begrenzter Haftung or Ein halbes Leben aren’t zones for keeping one’s mouth shut. Moreover, the characters in Bourdieu’s Das Elend der Welt also tell us what helps them and what facilitates life for them, about what it is and what it would be. The whole of Bourdieu’s œuvre deals with people in predicaments, below, above and in the midst. By the way, according to Bourdieu, the major problem is the professional secret, which will always prevent any change, for example for those working in the aid sector. Bourdieu: The paralysation of society is achieved through the professional secret. He argues that one should neither let himself be locked up nor be locked out, and that this is the opposite of complicity.—A professional aid worker once said, referring to Bourdieu, that the supervisors supervise the welfare state, but that their obligation to secrecy makes everything useless. The welfare state collection “Des Menschen Herz” is, as I would put it, a pataphysical endeavour. Some pataphysicians read out telephone books at events. Some readers of my welfare state novel find it as non-literary as a telephone book. Well, I am actually pleased about this. To me, pataphysics is the science of absurdities, predicaments and hopelessness and about how we can escape it. The so-called situationists of the time around 1968 tried to escape the systematic destructiveness of political, economic and interpersonal machineries, also by dealing with the works of the pataphysicians, like for example John Cage or the

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Marx Brothers. The Spontis’ saying “Under the pavement, the beach” is derived from the pataphysical situatonists. Anyway, there was a sociologist who used to deal with usual and weird phenomenons, and this sociologist, who came from a poor background, initially wanted to become a magician and to follow in the steps of the escapologist Houdini and first called himself after the magician of King Arthur’s Round Table—“King Merlin”, and later Robert King Merton. Humanity owes its solid knowledge about the self-fulfilling prophecies to him, and also the knowledge about the Thomas theorem, which says: If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. Merton has started developing his theories at the time of the major world economic crisis. His groundbreaking works on anomie, on the major and minor societal breakdowns, which lead to a war of each against each and all against all, date back to the year 1938. The term “anomie” itself, as we know, was coined by the Frenchman Durkheim, who, through his research before World War I, wanted to enable solidarity between the people, but also to explain the suicides and to mitigate the suicide epidemics. Existing anomies, caused amongst others by the fact that every individual, every employee should know that he/she is not needed and can at any time be replaced by another individual, have been described, as it seems, by the early Martin Seligman, Seligman I, in Erlernte Hilflosigkeit (Helplessness. On Depression, Development and Death), Pierre Bourdieu in The Weight of the World, Richard Sennett in The Corrosion of Character, Baudrillard in Die Agonie des Realen—regardless of whether the term has been used literally or not. Jean Baudrillard, some kind of social philosopher who saw himself as a pataphysician and divided the minds, previously translated works of Bert Brecht and Peter Weiss, and from the end of the 1970 on, he described the complete loss of reality of modern society, the digital, super virtual internet-based neocapitalism as a medial excess, as an obscene, hyper real, permanent simulation destroying every secret. As deceit performed at high-speed and never-ending. A lie that becomes reality through itself. In the 5th and 1st centuries before Christ, Thucydides and Sallust have reported about such reversed worlds in Athens and Rome, in some kind of democracy and some kind of republic, with such anomic conditions in which words and values suddenly mean exactly the opposite, such destructive, harmful processes and perversions. Social-psychologically, political-philosophically. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Austrian Karl Kraus, who had been inspired by the Latin of the expelled poet Ovid, did the same. Karl Kraus, who, similarly to Thucydides and Sallust, reportedly always had the feeling of already having experienced all this and therefore being able to understand and denominate things

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so quickly, described corruption, subjection, ruin, war, war within the own nation and against other nations. As you may know, war theorist Clausewitz, who died in 1831, coined the following phrase that has become legendary in military academies, among business managements as well as in the marketing sector: War is a chameleon. Personally, I agree with this; the problem starts with child abuse and ends with the world economic crisis. In between are the aid institutions that are not much more than military hospitals. It’s always the same. War is a chameleon. As I already mentioned, my pataphysical welfare state anthology deals with anomies, simulations, excesses, all the Milgram and Dörner experiments the free individual, alias “Auweh” (“Ouch” in English), knows, especially, how aid institutions and their staff become subjects of Milgram and Dörner experiments and how we can avoid this. For a few decades now, cognitive psychologist and ­error-making expert Dörner hat simulated accidents and catastrophes, political, technical, economic, for ex. in cities, states, atomic power plants. He did this to prevent disasters and trained his test subjects for this good cause. His legendary first test land was named Tanaland—today it seems like Greece. The name of the first test city was Lohausen, which today reminds us of the bankrupt communities and regions. Tschernobyl, which Dörner had exactly reconstructed, in today’s reality became Fukushima. Simply put: every time a person in charge or making decisions says: “There’s no other option” or “There’s no other option: it’s the lesser evil”, or if somebody tells her so and she even believes it herself, chances are high that she is being used for a Milgram or Dörner experiment. Believing that we can do nicely for ourselves or for the family is part of the the experiment. The welfare state anthology—I won’t dwell on the many friendly and encouraging reactions I am really grateful for, especially the reviews in the “Falter”, the “Salzburger Nachrichten”, the “Presse” and the Vienna Literaturhaus—has spontaneously caused various suspicions and fears. I was told, for example, that I has overdone in my descriptions of suffering, that my aim is to do moral blackmail, to profit from privileges, become immune against critics, that I only describe calamities and darkness, that I am overtaxing people, being hermetic, sometimes implausible, and redundant anyway. Concerning the children’s stories, I am being told that they aren’t age-appropriate, that children aren’t this way, don’t think this way. Neither the child about which I am mainly narrating about. People also criticize that the welfare state anthology is a roman à clef, which simply isn’t literature, but an infamy. They also criticise that my descriptions of certain decision makers and certain public institutions or charitable aid institutions are unfair and unrealistic, that apparently, I just want to take revenge. Some of them are of the opinion that I don’t waste any words on all the idealism, the heroism, the modesty, the selflessness despite the poor working conditions and the lack of money.

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If you, dear audience, also have the impression that I am disrespectful, you are heavily mistaken. I have indeed huge respect for people who reacted to the welfare state anthology in the way I just mentioned and are used to try to make the best of all, even of the worst, at work and in everyday life. These people often find themselves in unavoidable, miserable or extreme situations. Even those who are well-placed in the system. If you want my opinion, I think that what they know scares them, even if they publicly pretend the opposite and present themselves manfully or like great communicators, organizers, movers and shakers. However, if you sum it all up, the result is just a certain form of helplessness of helpers. Anyway, I haven’t invented any suffering. I’m not able to invent suffering and sufferers. Not a single suffering in the welfare state novel is invented and unfortunately, neither a single person suffering. I haven’t overdone in my description of suffering. It’s even too much of reality. This happens if those in need of help aren’t helped. Then the suffering doesn’t end, it constantly repeats itself. In contrast to the reader, for the person affected, this isn’t a boring situation, but pure agony. Every single situation again represents a threat of a new kind. The reader can put aside a book, but those in need of help can’t. In reality, the misery is endless as long as nobody in reality provides a remedy. The welfare state novel isn’t a roman à clef, but if one recognizes himself or a loved one in a character of the novel, the welfare state novel becomes useful. Reading the welfare state novel as a roman à clef wouldn’t make it more easily understandable, but occlude and destroy. It would contain allegations and demonizations of certain persons or institutions instead of naming system errors which could actually happen to each of us here, and remedying them. If the welfare state anthology were a roman à clef, it would be inefficient and just some kind of diversionary manœuvre. The things described in the anthology, to me, are rather people in Milgram experiments, which means that they are aid institutions. Those carrying out the experiments are the politicians and the economic stakeholders. The ill-treated are the aid workers and those seeking help. A cultural manager once bore a grudge against me due to the anthology, because I had naively explained that the problem was the fact that there is no error culture, and that it could be solved by finally implementing an error culture. This was interpreted as an unfair critic of the current cultural scene, especially of those socially active. I didn’t mean it this way and was really bewildered about the heavy reaction. It made me wonder. Again, I stick to it: A major part of the problem is that an error culture is no matter of course. Concerning the reproach—I only describe calamity; I dare claim that in the welfare novel you won’t find a single person—regardless of whether you find this

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person sympathetic or despicable—who doesn’t try to find their way out of some kind of calamity. To me, most of these attempts would have been and still are real escapes. Well, if I may say so, these often were and still are simple ways out. The aim of the welfare state novel is to highlight in each of the stories what would have been possible with just a little effort. All the tragedies contained in the welfare state anthology deal with how simple help would be and still isn’t provided. I am convinced that each way out becomes clear from the welfare state novel, just in the seeming hopelessness of the respective narrated situation. If the reader again tried to empathise with this situation of apparent helplessness, he would hopefully recognize all that could have been done or could be done—and how simple this would have been or would be. Apropos heavy and light: often, people who read parts of the welfare state novel told me that apparently it dealt with salutogenesis and resilience, and that salutogenesis and resilience were so important and fascinating and contributed to an easier, more beautiful life. But what I find so scaring about today’s standard talk about the so-called resilience and resource research, and also about positive psychology: There is no doubt that these people are eagerly interested in how people can survive and enjoy life, due to which skills, qualities, values and social constellations. However, given this standard everyday talk, it seems to me that they don’t try to find out how many people don’t survive or can’t enjoy life because their fight for survival, their skills, qualities and values, their beauties and ingenuity aren’t even noticed just because all that these people have tried and accomplished has been ignored or considered worthless. This is exactly what the welfare state anthology deals with. It also deals with officials, the noblesse who loves to talk about resilience and similar things, but ruthlessly let their employees, or rather their subordinates, serve them. They don’t even think of asking what their employees would be able to do or what kind of help they would need. The usual standard talk about resilience only conceals that help is denied and that there is rivalry. My statements about resilience and similar things are not intended to criticize Martin Seligman’s positive psychology. However, I don’t understand why Seligman maintains good relations with Wall Street and the US army, and the acclaimed so-called flow seems a bit ambiguous to me. When Jörg Haider drove drunk and at high-speed, which finally led to his death, he was certainly in flow, too. Every drug addict strives to reach this state. Every Nazi group agitating against a migrant is in a state of flow. Anyway—of course the welfare state anthology deals with resilience, salutogenesis, flow, flourish, creativity and so on. But on the other hand, it also considers that using the term “resilience”, for example, can also be an impertinence and brutality, a very harmful issue.

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A journalist said to me with a friendly smile that for my welfare state anthology, the reader needs a gun licence. Somebody who helps people recovering and staying healthy, teasingly said that reading my welfare state novel can lead to sickness. Of course, some are of the opinion that I am divorced from reality, that the people are not the way I think, that I overestimate them. According to them, humans can only learn on a limited scale, and my attitude towards politicians is too contemptuous and full of prejudices. Moreover, they argue that my reproach to society, politics and economy is unreasonable and even rabble-rousing, and that the honest efforts of entrepreneurs, the so-called capitalists, many of them even campaigning for the unconditional, presuppositionless basic income, go unmentioned in the welfare state novel. Well, I don’t agree. For example, the social entrepreneurs Hans Pestalozzi and Daniel Gouedevert are abundantly cited in the welfare state novel. Both of them have, not long ago, almost completely perished because of their social attitude. Gouedevert, who acted as top manager and chairman in various automobile corporations for several decades, publicly reflected about alternatives for life in general, for the economic, the energy and the automobile sectors and generously financed this kind of research. This is why Piëch of VW dumped him once and for all. Pestalozzi, who has often been compared with Jean Ziegler, was the top manager of the Swiss Migros group, which later should have saved the bankrupt socialist “Konsum Österreich” after Pestalozzi’s expulsion, but didn’t want to. The economist Pestalozzi, who had received his education in St. Gallen, was the right-hand man of his Mentor Duttweiler, whose cooperatively-owned concern Migros should have gone the Third Way between capitalism and state socialism and later did so with much commitment until Duttweiler’s death and Pestalozzi’s expulsion. Duttweiler’s aim was not economic growth, but the democratization of the Swiss economy and the resolution of basic societal problems, which means, a fair provision with basic supplies. In the interests of Duttweiler, Pestalozzi, referring to the Prague Spring, organized the M Spring, by which he was finally defeated by his competitors in the corporation. A Swiss top manager of a bank once told him once that if his bank would take on ethical responsibility in its business, this would lead to mass unemployment in Switzerland. The then most influential head-hunter explained to Pestalozzi that a war was necessary to enable the economy to further flourish. This head-hunter called himself a psychotherapist because so many top managers wouldn’t be able to cope with the modern economic reality anymore. Pestalozzi also reported about managers who, in all seriousness, proudly say that their company and they themselves are doing fine, the proof for this being that they have already experienced their first heart attack. He tells us details of the Machiavellian manager trainings in the beautiful city of

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Florence. The subject of the conference: How can I achieve that my rival in the company has a heart attack? Which means: How do I kill him? The answer is: To start with, I invade his privacy and successively destroy his marriage and thus his family. I mention Pestalozzi and Gouedevert because of the brave new world here and now, and because of the lack of illusions towards today’s social capitalists who, in reality, I’m afraid, can’t hold a candle to Goudevert and Pestalozzi. Well, I could also have told you about Höhn. He coined the term “Delegieren” (“delegate”). In the course of decades of work with the “Deutsche Akademie für Führungskräfte” (German academy of executives), he trained between a quarter of a million and half a million managers. The employer’s representatives highly valued him for this and called him a humanist. However, he was part of the SS and the German secret service (SD) headed by Heydrich. So much for war as a chameleon. I’d like to add a few words on what has become of the characters of the welfare state novel; at least on some of them, and on the ways out; and what the novel is all about. The persian refugee died, say… a few months ago. I would have the free individual of the novel, Uwe alias Auweh (Ouch), tell the reader the following: “On this certain day of that month when the Iranian came to our land 20 years ago, he died. I don’t know if he did hit himself or if someone else did it, or if he really had been so seriously ill – what’s certain is that he had reached the end of the line. I thought that we had done everything in our power to help him have a life. This had been 20 years earlier, and we had been friends. Today it sometimes seems to me that the men who carried his coffin, prayed and buried him eagerly fought for his life during the funeral, but in vain. His whole life here, as far as I know his life, seemed as strenuous and chanceless as the fight of the men with the heavy coffin and the hard soil. The guests were offered sweet dates. I didn’t know what to do with them, and a few hours later, I inadvertently spit the stone of the date into a dust bin. My wife would try to plant a tree with her stone. Of course, we will once know what really happened. How he went to the bad. A young man of the Auschwitz guard’s family killed himself, and the successful investigator, the well-liked policeman, the sunny boy, quit the service after other people had been chosen over him and become his superiors; he just gave up his job, resigned without any claims – a catastrophe for his wife and his children, and for himself, too, of course.” This is how I would continue the welfare state novel. This is how I would have my free individual Auweh tell it—and a few things more. You may ask yourself, dear audience, what all this has to do with the welfare state, and why the welfare state is said to be responsible in such individual personal life stories, and think that this isn’t justified. If you will forgive me saying

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so—, if the Iranian refugee earlier before, many years earlier, had the opportunity of working here legally, he would have found his place in life here, his life would have taken another course and he would still be alive. I’d bet my life on it. The policeman was always subject to tremendous pressure and had nobody apart from his family to ask for help. There was no aid institution, no aid worker he could trustfully refer to with his problems, especially to share his secrets. The police officer—if I may say so—is part of the welfare state. The suicide person is, too. The man I earlier mentioned, the grandson of an Auschwitz warder, came from a family in which almost all members worked in aid professions, who are helpful and from time to time also very catholic. Often they, the helpers themselves, had the problem that they didn’t know who to refer to when they needed support. Because they knew their own kind. Helpers who themselves don’t know what to do. Or helpers who do not want to show any weaknesses. Or who can’t help their own children. Or who have grown up learning that amid all this helplessness, and amid all the things you shouldn’t talk, we all have to look out for number one. To me, the problems of people in aid professions are part of the welfare state. Even the so-called private problems. As you may know, Bourdieu advised to talk about things in a different manner—and to talk about other things than we would ­usually do.

Habitation/Housing in the Welfare State. Some Aspects of Living under Precarious Conditions or: Is There a Life after Breakfast? Sabine Kergel Some dimensions of the impact of social insecurity can be deciphered from forms and ways of housing as particularly in this context social dependencies are directly and immediately perceived and experienced. Housing problems intruding into everyday’s life confront the individual with the limitations of his/her own operational capacity thus making difficulties and conflicts clearly visible. In this context the qualitative expansions reaching beyond the classic ambit of only referring to social welfare recipients could be deciphered as the intrusion of social insecurity into further areas of the society. As an example regarding the civil right to freedom of movement may serve the situation in the former Soviet Union’s ‘system of injustice’ that was characterised by the citizens’ missing rights to mobility because any relocation had to be permitted by official bodies thus restricting an important human right. In contrast in the Western democracies the citizen was free and could basically change his place of residence any time. Considering the case of Germany we observe that according to Article 11, Sect. 1 of the constitution all Germans have got the right to freedom of movement within the entire federal territory. But according to Sect. 2 “this right may be restricted only by or in pursuance of a law, and only in cases in which the absence of adequate means of support would result in a particular burden for the community…” (Grundgesetz § 11, Sec. 2) But since the introduction of the benefit II laws in Germany this right (Sec. 1) is not available anymore for all the citizens, as recipients of unemployment benefit II are forced to get S. Kergel (*)  VSU - Verein für Umwelt- und Sozialpolitik, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_14

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the ­permission to relocation from the jobcentres before moving. This implies a restriction within the constitution, as the unemployment benefit II is associated with such provisions (Sec. 2) thus actually shifting the basic dimension of the constitution. Before signing any tenancy agreement, the unemployment benefit II recipient who is considered fit for work needs to get the confirmation of the new accommodation being paid by the local jobcentre i.e. by the competent municipal authority. “The competent local municipal authority is obliged to give this confirmation in case the relocation is necessary and the expenses for the new accommodation are appropriate, while the municipal authority particularly responsible for that area of the new accommodation has to participate in bearing those costs.” (ALG II § 22, Abs. 4) The decision regarding the necessity of shifting or relocation is at the discretionary power of the municipal authority, i.e. each concrete case will be decided ultimately on the basis of the jobcentre official’s discretionary power. That means the ‘special burden for the community’ as mentioned in the constitution is not the only consideration, as the wish for mobility has to be confirmed by the jobcentre. Additional to the restraints in terms of payable and available flats on the housing market, unemployment benefit II recipients face the restrictions of bureaucratic rules and regulations when searching for a new accommodation. If unemployment benefit II recipients even in this awkward situation do sign tenancy agreements on their own, they may be sanctioned by benefit cuts. In such cases rent increases and operational costs will be not be accepted by the jobcentres. Similar problems occur when the monthly rent is slightly higher than the benefit rate fixed for rents. There was a case in our project where a young man who, with the help of the youth authority had got a certificate that the jobcentre will take over the expenses for his rent, was allowed to share the tenancy agreement of his sister. But the monthly rent was 6.00 € higher than the upper limit fixed by the jobcentre. The problem was not those 6.00 € having to be paid by this young man from his benefit but the fact that all future operational costs and rent increases would not be accepted by the jobcentre. Only due to another youth authority certificate describing the importance for him to live close to his elder sister, as she was his closest relation, the jobcentre agreed to take over the costs for his entire rent. After the next rise of the upper limits of the rate fixed for rents this young man’s rent happened to be below the upper limit. According to the social law young people below 25 years have to stay with their parents, a fact that brings about serious conflicts. Conflicts in a family rise easily when several or even all the members are unemployed. Mutual accusations and aggressions lead to strong disruptions and to the rise of potential threat

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s­ cenarios within these families. This can be shown with the help of a case from our project ‘Social Insecurity’. There was a family with three daughters between 18 and 23 years getting unemployment benefit II who, due to the legal provisions of unemployment benefit II, were about to break up as a family. While the father was unemployed and the mother working in an underpaid job, the daughters were searching for apprenticeships. At that point of time when we did the interview, two of the daughters had got an apprenticeship, and the eldest one was working as an intern in order to get an apprenticeship place later. All three daughters did not live at home any more for most of the time. On the basis of the fact that the second and the youngest daughter were still registered with their parents, their apprenticeship premiums were deducted from the family unemployment benefit II as well as their children allowances which is considered as income, too. One of the daughters came forward to get her child allowance for herself, the second one left her child allowance to her parents, and the eldest one approached her father with an ultimate demand for her child allowance because she as an intern did not have any income at all. In addition, when children are not registered at the family residence anymore but somewhere else, the rent for the family flat having been paid for five persons as in this case, is considered not being adequate anymore, i.e. it becomes too high with only two persons living in that accommodation, consequently the parents will be forced to move out. The parents did not mind that basically but giving the child allowances to their daughters respectively would mean for them additionally the deduction of the amount of the three child allowances from their basic unemployment benefit, as parents are generally the beneficiaries of child allowances. And as soon as the rent is not paid anymore, there is the risk of becoming homeless, that means the entire social cohesion is jeopardised. Since the introduction of unemployment benefit II many people concerned are afraid of loosing their flats. They are worried that the costs of their flats may not be covered anymore by the fixed jobcentre rates. Another case in our project is about a son who has shifted from Berlin to friends in West Germany in order to find a job there. He could not register his residence with the municipal authorities there, as he did not want to put his friends into problems, which was the reason why he was still registered in Berlin. That was why he was still considered to be a part of the family though he himself was not receiving any unemployment benefit II at all. Families with all their members living together in one flat are considered as one household i.e. as one recipient of unemployment benefit II which means that all their individual incomes and allowances are calculated together and deducted from the total amount of their entitlement to their combined unemployment benefit II. He was not able to send some

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documents needed by his mother in this context in time, which is why she had to deregister him with the jobcentre in order to still get complementary unemployment benefit II for herself. This way she was facing a moral dilemma, as she was afraid that her son’s deregistration could cause disadvantages for him. But on the other hand her own existence was at stake if she did not come up to the jobcentre’s demands to cooperate with them with the consequence of being sanctioned by financial restrictions. If there are substantial changes of the housing situation by increases of rent or due to the fact that a member of the household who receives unemployment benefit II leaves or moves out, the jobcentre may bear the full expenses for the rent for another half a year. This time is meant for the remaining members of the household to find another suitable flat, otherwise the difference of the amount of the member having left would be deducted from the combined family benefit. The criteria for fixing those adequacy rates on the basis of socio-political negotiation processes make these families face a kind of double pressure. Each change in this context means to them another potential threat to their already insecure living conditions. Similarly, this problem does not only occur when the basic rent is increased but also when operational costs rise. During an expert discussion an employee of Gesobau (a municipal housing company in Berlin) told that when the expenses for electricity, waste collection, heating etc. rise, the operational costs are increased as well which means that the entire rent has to be adjusted accordingly, probably resulting in exceeding the limits set by the jobcentres. For instance in the year 2011 many families with children have been asked to look for new accommodations within the prescribed limits set by the jobcentre. This turned out to be quite difficult for them because the rents of all the flats in those areas were rising simultaneously as well. The ‘adequacy’ of an accommodation being fixed solely according to its rent (and operational costs) results in the fact that there are only payable flats left that are too small for families. In another interview there was a German complaining that the jobcentre would pay the rents for immigrants while the ‘original Germans’ would face continuous difficulties. In this connection they also vividly complained that children growing up in such small flats would be always too much uproarious and annoying their neighbours with their noise. This couple based their xenophobia on their opinion that immigrants always got advantages, and accommodations would be thrown after them while they themselves (being the ‘ideal type’ of Germans) are forced to leave their flats. For the jobcentre paying those flats it is only a secondary consideration of how many people would share one flat. They would be ready to pay an expensive 2-rooms accommodation

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for a bigger family (as long as the rent doesn’t exceed the flat rate limits for [for example] four people). But in this case there is certainly the risk that the noise level will be higher due to many persons living together under such cramped conditions. This example shows that ultimately these rules and regulations limiting the expenses for accommodations to such an extent that it becomes unrealistic to find adequate flats within those fixed rates contributes a lot to the xenophobia and prejudices of many Germans thinking that specially immigrants are always noisy and don’t know how to behave in normal surroundings. Simultaneously it is obvious that not only recipients of social benefit are affected by this housing policy but large parts of the population as well. Serge Paugam emphasises in his study about poverty that poverty includes an arbitrary social definition. Castel shows how an early act for social cuts in France defines the minimal revenue (‘revenue minimale’), thus specifying poverty and identifying the poor statistically and numerically. This is important because societies tend to hide this fact in a kind of complicity of benefit donors and benefit recipients, as a lot of people eligible to unemployment benefit II don’t make use of their rights in this respect. Similar facts apply to Germany. Since the existence of unemployment benefit II, financial poverty can be determined by 416 € for a single individual (this rate comes down in the case of couples, families etc.) plus the fixed rent rate. In contrast to the statements by German politicians in the Eighties that poverty doesn’t exist in Germany, unemployment benefit II provides a concrete definition of economic poverty without including those persons living even below this unemployment benefit II level. In this context Paugam refers to the fact that this definition of poverty fixes a very permeable borderline of how to determine poverty. He was often asked during his lectures whether he has got statistical verifications of his hypothesis. “In France in the year 2001 6% of the population lived at the poverty level of 50% of the median income per consumption unit (approximately 600 Euros per month), i.e. 3,6 million people lived in poverty; the poverty level of 60% of the median income per consumption unit (approximately 720 Euros per month) could be applied to more than 12,4% of the population, i.e. to more than double, in total to 7,2 million people. Hence a little variation of the official poverty threshold is sufficient to change the percentage of people affected radically. This result reveals a significant concentration of households close to this threshold and shows that this threshold creates a radical cut through an entirety of persons who in reality live under similar circumstances.” (Paugam 2008, p. 13). In terms of the case of housing the so-called “inappropriateness or inadequacy of accommodation” (cit. from rules and regulations of unemployment benefit II) could not be only considered as an administrative problem or administrative principle but this becomes an existential threat also for those employees and workers

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who regarding their financial situation don’t stand out much from unemployment benefit II recipients. In contrast to them unemployment benefit II recipients have access to low-priced monthly tickets for public transport, and they are exempted from paying TV licence fees with the effect that financial and social differences (between unemployment benefit II recipients and low wage earning employees/workers) become less. Increases of rent even merely on the basis of higher expenses for operational costs or energy jeopardise the housing and living situation of particularly those parts of the population who are financially anyway in a bad situation. Unemployment benefit II recipients as well as those population groups who are financially close to them again experience a lot of difficulties in case they have to buy new electronic devices. (In contrast to earlier regulations unemployment benefit II recipients have to save money for new devices like for fridges or washing machines. This means in case of a sudden device failure there is no possibility to go for a new one instantly.) Another point is that older devices consume a lot more electricity. This again rises the expenses for energy to be paid by themselves from their benefit. In this context functional regulations play a vital role contributing to an extreme deterioration of their living conditions due to their interaction and interrelation. There is no constitutional right to one’s own accommodation existing in the society of the Federal Republic of Germany. The attitudes of many employees/ workers who are afraid of slipping again into another period of unemployment are characterised by their insecurity regarding their own accommodation and the environment related to that. During one of our projects about unemployed persons there was a comparison group who meanwhile had found an employment and continued living in small cramped flats. They refrained from searching for a new better accommodation because they were afraid to be in problems in case they might be unemployed again. This is a point when so many arguments come up for discussing the phenomenon of perceived precarity. Kramer discriminates between an experienced and a perceived kind of precariousness implying that the middleclass only encounter a perceived one. At this point questions arise how far working and living conditions are already be affected by these new forms of insecurity reaching right into the centre of the society. Margarete Maruani emphasises that already during the Nineties of the 20th century more than half of all employed persons (between 20 and 60 years) had experienced unemployment minimum one time during their career. Work processes that are newly structured and realigned by difficult allocation conditions do not affect all individuals of the working population but more and more workplaces have lost their kind of in-built security. Anyone who becomes unemployed

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in Germany will also be dismissed more easily than the permanent staff for the sole reason that there has to be paid severance payments to people who had been employed for a longer period. This interaction between ‘home’ and ‘threat’ is especially significant as in this context there are dichotomies developing characterising housing under precarious conditions. On the one hand this makes ‘home’ in the form of a distinct social space undergo a symbolic revaluation manifesting the basic separation of public/private even further. “The caesura between inside and outside, and their formal opposition, which falls under the social sign of property and the psychological sign of the immanence of the family, make this traditional space into a closed transcendence.” (Baudrillard 1996, p. 22) At the same time, the public space is always present in the seclusion of the dwellings, since it is integrated into a social environment, into a neighbourhood, establishing a familiarity with the everyday social environment thus producing social stability. Bourdieu’s study of owned/private homes reveals how social cohesion and solidarity fall apart with the dimensions of loosing one’s neighbourhood. (He considered this one of the most important reasons for the conservative parties’ victory in France in the late Eighties.) This complex situation of conflicting interests strongly influences the inhabitants’ relation to their environment. On the other hand, specially in problematic urban areas, home to many unemployment benefit II recipients, there is a dissociation visible making everyday life increasingly difficult for the individuals. “Whether or not these areas are in fact dilapidated and dangerous, and their population composed essentially of poor people, minorities and foreigners, matters little in the end: the prejudicial belief that they are suffices to set off socially noxious consequences.” (Wacquant 2007, p. 68) Loïc Wacquant points out that the residents dissociate from their environment suspecting their neighbourhood of benefit fraud, of crime and drug trafficking or of addiction. This kind of perception of belonging to such type of social environment will intensify social decline as well as mechanisms of exclusion weakening collective cohesion in these stigmatised districts and resulting in further destabilisation acts. Those opinions of the residents regarding their surroundings show their social distance to their direct living environment that hardly permits any acts of solidarity but rather reflects typical forms of isolation. The ‘precariat’ being fragmented in such a way differs a lot from the proletariat and from social movements because of its marginalised position due to the expropriation of the social space. There is only the path of geographical mobility remaining, in order to be able to escape from such kinds of stigmatising attributions, which, however, is mostly denied to those affected.

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Due to the fact that collective neighbourly relation systems are breaking down and the inhabitants living in such kind of localities are usually cut off from the regular labour market just by belonging to this particular neighbourhood, informal economies like illegal employment, non-registered occupations as well as drug-related and petty crimes become surviving strategies and take hold of these particular districts thus contributing to a further decline of the neighbourhood. This is how lawless zones are integrated into these areas legitimising their stigmatising reputation. For the residents these districts become indifferent ‘spaces’ of mere survival and merciless competition. Weakening the bonds within a territorial community promotes a subdued atmosphere of guilt and shame. The tendency of the actors to retreat into the privatised sphere of their own households and the consolidation of their increasingly hurt emotions developing in the course of the general weakening of those spatially segregated districts, intensify the process of impoverishment. In contrast to this development there were the old workers’ districts where collective support by relatives, neighbours, trade unions, churches and parties gave the residents a kind of social security and a sense of belonging. A more or less close-knit network of neighbourhood organisations supported them in mitigating economic hardships. “One must be careful here not to romanticize conditions in the proletarian neighbourhoods and segregated enclaves of yesteryear: there never was a ‘golden age’ when life in the American ghetto and the French popular banlieue was sweet and social relations therein harmonious and fulfilling. Yet it remains that the experience of urban relegation has, at this level, changed in ways that make it distinctively more burdensome and alienating today. To illustrate briefly: until the 1960s, the black American ghetto was still a ‘place’, a collective oekoumène, a humanized urban landscape with which blacks felt a strong positive identification – even as it was the product of brutal and inflexive racial oppression – as expressed in the rhetoric of ‘soul’ (Hannerz, 1968), and over which they desired to establish collective control – such was the priority goal of the Black Power movement (Van Deburg, 1992). Today’s hyperghetto is a ‘space’, and this denuded space is no longer a shared resource that African Americans can mobilize and deploy to shelter themselves from white domination and find collective support for their strategies of mobility. On the contrary: it has become a vector of intra-communal division and an instrument for the virtual imprisonment of the black urban subproletariat, a dreaded and detested territory from which, as one informant from Chicago’s South Side abruptly put it, ‘everybody’s tryin’ to get out’. Far from providing a protective shield from the insecurities and pressures of the outside world, the space of the hyperghetto is akin to an entropic and perilous battlefield upon which a four-cornered contest is waged between. One must be

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careful here not to romanticize conditions in the proletarian neighbourhoods and segregated enclaves of yesteryear: there never was a ‘golden age’ when life in the American ghetto and the French popular banlieue was sweet and social relations therein harmonious and fulfilling. Yet it remains that the experience of urban relegation has, at this level, changed in ways that make it distinctively more burdensome and alienating today.” (Wacquant 2007, p. 72 f.) Meanwhile the bridges to wage labour are drastically limited if not ultimately cut off by barriers and boundaries to the other parts of the city. The social and psychological effects accompanying this transformation process of urban spaces in their erosion processes are an integral part of an impoverishment policy creating and manifesting these steps of exclusion. A permanent marginalisation is being pushed forward by the fact that the inhabitants of problematic areas are separated from traditional measures of mobilisation and reproduction establishing themselves as fragmented groups deprived of one language, of one repertoire of common images and signs or symbols thus sharing a collective destiny of being stuck without alternatives and visions for the future.

References Baudrillard, Jean. (1996). System of objects. London: Verso. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (2018). Das Grundgesetz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Quelle: Bundesministerium der Justiz und Verbraucherschutz, juris GmbH. www.gesetze-im-internet.de, http://www.bpb.de/nachschlagen/gesetze/grundgesetz/44187/idie-grundrechte-art-1-19. Paugam, Serge. (2008). Les formes élémentaires de la pauvreté. Paris: PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE. Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB). (2003). Zweites Buch (II) - Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende. https://dejure.org/gesetze/SGB_II. Wacquant, Loic. (2007). Thesis eleven. SAGE, 91(November 2007), 66–77.

The Freedom of the Precarious. On the Production of Dependency and Lack of Individuality Rolf-Dieter Hepp

The promises of freedom by liberalism conflict with the living conditions of welfare recipients. The discourse is determined by the free market and an increasing individualization defined as self-realization of the subjects, while the welfare recipients are subject to control mechanisms that align their entire existence with the labor market, pretending to submit to the labor market’s criteria. These mechanisms locks the welfare recipients in a state of ongoing monitoring, which imposes dependency and a lack of individuality on them. Today, Kant’s theorem of self-imposed immaturity of human beings/the dependency of the subject has found a new reference, namely the welfare recipient, known in Germany as ALGII beneficiaries. The entire Hartz Act (Hartz-law was designed to reform the labor market) roams the opposition between demanding and promoting, which has is based on the presumption that part of the population is unable to even feed itself, and thus it must rest in the social “hammock” as it is called metaphorically. “The State must actively promote employment. It must not just be the passive provider for the victims of the failed economy. People who never worked or suffering from long-term unemployment lose the skills needed in order to compete in the labor market. Long-term unemployment also affects personal life conditions in other ways and complicates full participation in society. A social security system, which hinders the ability to find work, must be reformed. Modern social democrats want to transform the safety net of entitlements to a springboard into personal responsibility.” (Blair Schröder paper, The Way Forward for Europe’s Social Democrats. A proposal by Gerhard Schröder and Tony Blair [London, 8 June 1999]). R.-D. Hepp (*)  Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_15

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The social exclusion which is to be countered is actually enforced, due to the endeavours to identify the segment of people whose personal responsibility is denied due to their social status. By defining unemployment as a constraint in participation, the responsibility for his fate is imposed on the long-term unemployed. Thus inefficiency, which is solely based on the dimensions of cost and economic efficiency, are no longer related to the new conditions of the labor market. Instead they are fixed to the victims. There is a risk that the social conditions of this exclusion are neglected by the structural, unilateral economically-driven decisions, so that the social cohesion in European societies will be threatened by these decisions. The unilateral assignments are abstracted from the social compositions in order to focus on the issue of cost efficiency, whereby the social conditions of the exclusion are no longer discussed. “Social cohesion is essentially a spiritual cohesion, namely the sharing of those basic values (religious, ethical, cultural) that overcome the test of history, recovered countless deviations, developed a rational way that led to the organization of contemporary societies. These societies are now living the trauma of continuous, accelerated changes imposed by the globalization process that is, at the same time, an economic, political and social process. It involves spiritual interests and material interests. Involving human beings in spirit, flesh and bones.” (Merli Brandini 2012, p. 68 f.) Based on the practical and theoretical approach to the social problems in Europe, Serge Paugham outlines two different models of involvement of individuals in the welfare state that use different typologies of social models, which he contrasts by comparing the British and the French model. This not only involves different views, themes, and estimates of the state and its functions in a basic assessment of the character of the welfare task involving differing support and assistance measures. It also involves the affected subjects, who are addressed differently according to the different requirements and perspectives. “The French view is rooted in the Durkheimian tradition of organic solidarity, which is to day is perceived as threatened by increasing “exclusion”. The British view is based on a different conception of society in which individuals need to posses sufficient resources, not in order to escape marginalization, but in order to be able to compete with the other in the open market. In France the society of individuals exists and must be regulated in order to enable each individual to achieve prosperity in coherence of the whole. In the UK it is up to the individuals to take care of their welfare while accepting the logic of the market and the competition, although there is a general consensus that they should be helped at the lowest level in case of need.” (Paugham 2008, p. 227)

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The British safety net is more closely connected to the model of the market than the French, because the participation of the individual will be founded through the market, through which he is seen as rooted in the community. As a result, people on welfare are not considered full citizens if they do not pay taxes on their income, but instead depend on social benefits as subsidies. Citizens are considered as full members of society only if they are “independent” due to their own income. Although Paugam concedes that the welfare recipients in France are not necessarily financially better off than their British fellow sufferers, it appears that the individual actor as a member of a social collective is thematized differently, namely as the citizen that have fallen in distress in the social order. This contrasts with the subjectivity of the person concerned if the reception of social benefits are attached to the individual as insufficiency or guilt. The citizen is a market participant tied to resources that must be produced by the subject. That is why in this model the social impairment is a priori present in the figure of the welfare recipient. “The structure of the precariousness represents a continuum of separation and division of labor; it is based simultaneously on the production of boundaries and hierarchies, as well as on the constant blurring and dissolution of these boundaries.” (Raunig 2008, p. 69) The opposites of work/unemployment in the various labor market levels is itself precarious. The labor market is oriented in such a way that a certain floating appears between the different types of work in the society which takes control over the work process and restructures it in a subversive manner. Castel already points out that atypical work conditions apply in relation to new appointments while standard employment contracts continue to cover the vast majority of jobs in the labor market. A difference of qualitative and quantitative opposites is constructed and launched. It is along these lines discussions take place and views of the society are aligned. “Part-time and marginal employment are better than no work, because they facilitate the transition from unemployment to employment.” Schröder, Blair paper, (London, 8 June 1999) This attitude is celebrated in Germany as the credo of the employment process. “Any work is better than no work”, is the credo which echoes around the welfare recipients in all media. Recently, a newspaper report was quoted in which the Labor Office coerced a client into prostitution. As early as 2005, a programmer received a lock on her support because she, after having worked as a waitress, had not been willing to accept a reasonable job as a “sex worker”.

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“According to the existing legal situation since 1 January 2005 recipients of the unemployment allowance II have to accept any work which is not depraved or illegal,” confirms the Hamburg attorney Mechthild Garweg, who specializes in employment exchange complaints. “And since 2002, the profession of prostitution is no longer considered depraved under German law. Thus, women can no longer reject such job offers without risking the removal of their support. This may sound unbelievable, but is the current state of law.” (http://www.emma.de/hefte/ausgaben-2005/maijuni-2005/top-themen/arbeitsamt-vermittelt-prostituierte/) In the case of a 19-year-old woman from Augsburg who had ben offered a job in a brothel, the magazine Bild reported that: “Unemployment Benefit II recipients must accept any work that is not illegal or depraved. Prostitution is neither the one nor the other under German law.” (Newspaper Bild of 07.02.2013) Although these effects of the liberalized decriminalization/legalization of prostitution combined with the restrictive reasonableness criteria of the labor market are undesired; nevertheless they produce a mixture of insecurity and a feeling of being extradited to a labor market as a threat. And the tasks of promoting it and demanding that is imposed on employment agencies mutate to an ­all-encompassing attack on the existence of the dependent. To Walter Benjamin the prostitute is the perfection of the commodity relationship, since in its specificity commodity and seller are/become one. This demand has entered the position of the ALG II beneficiary, since she the negative foil of the existence of the “social parasite” is imposed on her. For Foucault, the disclosure of the need to check the status of the disciplinary subject, the client at Jobcenter, is under an endless regression process in which he must codify his needs and his “will” to integrate by signing an “integration agreement”. “Thereby the acceptance of support eliminates his social status. This proves that he is formally outclassed. … Therefore, he is poor in the social meaning only after he is supported.” (Simmel 1992, first 1908, p. 551) Giles Deleuze points out that these new forces are no longer merely ‘organs’ of governmental power: “These are the societies of control, which are in the process of replacing the disciplinary societies.” (Deleuze 1992, p. 4) This also means that power is no longer achieved solely by punishment and threats, but, above all, through the consumption of goods and an idea that the subject itself is a commodity which is subject to continuous self-control: “In the disciplinary societies one was always starting again the barracks, from the barracks to the factory, while in one is never finished with anything-the corporation, the the armed services being metastable states coexisting modulation, like a universal system.” (Deleuze 1992, p. 5)

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Heinz Steinert points out that the public representation of the problems of the beneficiaries of social services in newspapers and magazines is defamatory and places their insufficiency at the center of their descriptions in order to defame them. “The fantasies of the underclass (in public portrayals, R.H.) were atypical, as far as they here ignored the otherwise dominant young men, especially those of the first and second generation immigrants. Currently France is subscribing to them. There, the underclass is aggressive, ignites cars, and recently even buses. In Germany, on the other hand, according to the October presentation, they are a counterpart to what is called “white trash” in the USA. Moreover, despite the recent electoral success of the NPD, they are still not right-radical. This time they do not consist of menacing young machos, but of devouring, rotten, uneducated families, who tend to neglect and abuse their (many) children.” (Steinert 2006), That such a description also can also be extended to the public sector and its financial markets is outlined by Heinz Steinert for the Land of Berlin to demonstrate that such a strategy of exclusion can be extended also to the operations of the German State. Such exclusion could occur if people do not comply with the state’s policies of saving, which correspond to the level of support for the social recipient, in which case they do not comply with the normative financial requirements. “This picture (of the underclass, R.H.) was additionally combined with “Berlin”, as the country blamed for a higher share of the tax revenue of the federal government.” In the magazine Spiegel of 23.10.2006, Berlin was apostrophized in a subtitle (p. 22) as “also the capital of the German underdog”. In the Magazine Zeit of 26.10, this designation was even made to the title of the first article in a feuilleton section. Here the city-state appears as a moocher, the “fear and scorn” of the “social sponger”, who is indeed impoverished because he lives above his means. The only consolation is that the apparent bonvivant Wowereit (currently Mayor in Berlin, R.H.) has succeeded in creating the personification of this attitude - his election slogan “poor, but sexy” has obviously worked well internally, but is now considered as somewhat frivolous from external points of view.” (Steinert 2006) This exploration of defamatory reports on the underclass presents them as objects of social action, which themselves are in capable of action, and outlines a public image in which they have been stripped of all acceptability due to their prior inadequate actions. The beneficiary of social services has lost his subjectivity and autonomy through excessive inordinate action, and is therefore mutated to a subject of treatment. Thus poverty is financially recaptured into the circle of philanthropic re-education, because those concerned have put themselves in in dependent positions through erroneous decisions and inadequate action. In the “epistemological” couple of “promoting” and “demanding”, this “pedagogy”

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finds its modern expression, which in Germany is to be enforced by the job ­centres. “The principle of autonomy does not treat the most vulnerable very gently. Especially if they can only be supported and their fate is determined, then the victims are declared perpetrators. The welfare recipients beneficiaries are not only considered utilitarian and cynical because they benefit from a system that is “too generous” and from the standpoint of performance, they are also morally responsible for their fate. The principle of internality, which is the foundation of the idea of autonomy according to which a person is the cause of his destiny, which implies that the actors must fully assume the consequences of their actions. This point of view makes it difficult to understand that the victims are victims only.” (Dubet 2009, p. 234 f.) The floating back and forth between the poles of subjective failing and the actor’s own contribution to his social distress pervades the whole debate about welfare. The new quality of socio-economic conflicts that under the condition of the financial crisis penetrate society in a reinforced way carry with them a strong potential for conflicts in the society and strongly influences social cohesion. The contrasts and tensions between the general European trend, which prevails over same or similar conditions and situations, and the distances and influences that are broken over their specificities initiate different social processes, in-house developments, and trends according to the social contexts of the country. Such factors cause vectorial shifts. Thus they influence the overall process of European development and highlight the specificities and peculiarities of national states as based on their development and socio-structural components. In addition, relevant criteria, such as normal working conditions, forms of atypical employment, job security, and social support, in each case continue to be embedded in a specific set of factors of the different EU countries. Thus they differ with respect to definition as well as with respect to social effects. Therefore, the function and the meaning of these terms in the social fabric of the countries must be taken into account in order to avoid premature identification of different conditions and functions. Even within a dedicated elaboration of criteria for empirical surveys, this issue must be taken into account. This is necessary because the distinction between comparable and incomparable social facts depends on an adequate understanding of the meaning of the indicators within the construction of the specific countries. The statistical office of the European Union, Eurostat, also suffers from this methodological dilemma. Admittedly it is able to elicit accurate data. However, these data they are ambiguous and their predictive values are accordingly suspicious and therefore not directly applicable because the data are based on d­ ifferent

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variables and integrated differently. Thus there is a problem concerning the comparability of the collected material: How are unemployment, part-time contracts, and mini-jobs categorized and defined in the national frameworks and how can they be they be transferred and compared? In the UK a person is statistically recorded as employed if he has a mini-job and receives supplementary social assistance, while the in Germany the person would statistically be recorded as unemployed. Similarly, in Germany the welfare legislation recognized recipients of social help as jobseekers. They first mutated to unemployed through the new legislation of Hartz IV (ALGII) and were then recorded together with these. Not before then did they constitute a clearly detectable group. It is for these reasons the focus on comparative research dimensions was an integral part of integral meeting in order to be able to relate real comparative criteria concerning the social realities in different countries, taking into account the relevant differences. It should be emphasized that different theoretical and scientific perspectives and national characteristics were contrasted in the presentations and discussions, in order to enable the handling of an analysis of the requirement models and social starting points under the perspective of supranational alignment (handling). Both the dimensions of a “social quality”, as well as the influences of the “precarity” were identified to outline the ambivalence of the current social conflict potential. Proposals for sociopolitical solutions can only be developed on the basis of a dedicated analysis of the facts concerning the processes of social insecurity that take into account and interrelating the national contexts as well as the development of Europe. Material and symbolic perceptions, economic constraints and subjective requirement models, as well as social situations are contrasted with the political, social and economic situation in several reports and analysis. Here, the differing living conditions were considered both within the respective national social structures as well as in the different countries of the EU and integrated based different methods according to different perspectives of the complexity of the topic. In this context, the range conceptualizing the tendencies of precarisation was outlined to avoid prematurely substituting the precariousness with a modern form of poverty as happened in the German discussion. Social facts such as insecurity, poverty, social assistance (welfare) must be examined with respect to the specific conditions and effects in the respective countries in order to uncover and contrast their modes rather than identify them conceptually prematurely. The various reviews and assessments as well as the analytical framework of the empirical comparison forms within the European states require a dedicated study and preliminary clarification of the definitions of each of the existing grammars of social facts in

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order to analyze the phenomena of precarization and describe their extension. The different weightings were also at the center of our attention in order for us to clarify how the “precarization” expands in the pan-European region and is catapulted into the ramifications of society. The different shifter and connecting elements in their specific configurations and references create step points by which the characteristics of the respective countries can be estimated, without neglecting the general trends of precarization in order to take into account the similarities as well as differences. Meaningful comparative empirical studies can only be undertaken on the basis of such preceding comparisons.

References Bild of 07.02.2013, German Newspaper. “Unemployment Benefit II recipients must accept any work that is not illegal or depraved. Prostitution is neither the one nor the other under German lawtitle” title-page, Berlin 2013. Blair, T., & Schröder, G. (1999). The way forward for Europe’s social democrats. A proposal by Gerhard Schröder and Tony Blair (London, 8 June 1999). Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the societies of control (Vol. 59, pp. 4–7). Cambridge: MIT. Dubet, Francois. (2009). Injustice at work. London: Taylor & Francis. Magazine Emma (2005). http://www.emma.de/hefte/ausgaben-2005/maijuni-2005/topthemen/arbeitsamt-vermittelt-prostituierte/. Merli Brandini, P. (2012). The economic crisis and social precarity. In R.-D. Hepp (Ed.), Precarity and flexibilisation. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. Paugam, S. (2008). Les formes élémentaires de la pauvreté. Paris: PRESSES UNIVERSITAIRES DE FRANCE. Raunig, G. (2008). Tausend Maschinen. Vienna: Turia + Kant. Simmel, Georg. (1992). Über den Armen, in Soziologie. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt a. M. (First publication 1908). Steinert, H. (2006). Prekariat, Kaloriat, sexy Berlin und die Unterschicht. http://www.linksnetz.de/K_texte/K_steinert_prekariat.

Paranoia and Control—A Narrative About the Social Factory Lennart Nørreklit

1 Constructing the Irrelevant Social relations are dialectical. Social power is not simply one directional. If power becomes one directional only, then it may dehumanize the powerless, pushing them outside the social horizon with a status of being a burden and a deterrent to others to keep in line (despite unfairness and unequal distribution of power). What makes our actions social are not their physical and biological functions as such but the communication with which we connect, interact and cooperate. If we are social, then our action is under a communicative control. The form of the social is therefore influenced by the forms of communication controlling our actions. The communication is the social factory. We must understand it and keep it healthy. By communication1 and language may be understood any type of expression that can be observed, interpreted and understood consciously or unconsciously, bodily, verbal or by any medium. If people feel that they lose the ability to influence their social situation by their communication, then they are in a precarious state and in danger of falling by the wayside in social irrelevance.

1The

social factory is here by definition an expression for the ‘mechanism’, i.e. the system of processes, which makes people become social. It produces the social skills and attitudes. In the operaist movement/workerism the social factory is the everyday lives of working people in their communities. Our use of the term is more specific outlining the ‘mechanism’ producing the social qualities of people.

L. Nørreklit (*)  Aalborg University, Berlin, Germany © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_16

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There are plenty of positive but also negative signs in modern society that indicate that something new is happening to the social factory of communication. Western societies, as well as other societies, are losing their contours. A few decades ago things looked different. Society was developing. It was not stable, but had some reliable identifying elements. How could they imperceptibly dissolve? Also, social problems changed of late: extensive precarisation, new mental disorders, replacement of social relations by ‘digital relations’, and more. Maybe social life always was a murky structure and the apparent identities nothing more than constructed illusions? Changes in identity indicate structural changes. All kind of changes take place: in social stratification, in physical and biochemical conditions, and changes in control systems including changes in the ‘factory’ that produces the ‘social glue’, which merges people and enables them to function socially. These changes influence work, social life and health. We shall consider important changes in the ‘factory’ that produces the ‘social glue’: our languages, the communicative tools to control work and life. The forces that glue people together are embedded in the life form is the world of living language games with which people reach each other in the practices of life (cf. the late Wittgenstein 1953)2—from body language to specialized technical languages. Recently major changes in this factory have become visible: in rhetoric, loss of common life language and culture, and in the change in cognitive skills and ethical characters that are being cultivated. This analysis addresses the unhealthy decomposition of cognitive habitus3 that is the consequence of rapidly expanding scripted technical control systems, which are increasingly replacing the live communicative control. These technical systems are based on complex conceptual cognitive habitus that enable mutual understanding and cooperation and thus are at the heart of social behavior and created by the social factory of live language forms.4 However, gradually the technical control systems expand and side-line the control functions of live communication, with which we construct social practices and their accompanying cognitive linguistic habitus with which we reach each other and cooperate. The total replacement of cognitive habitus to scripted IT-based control systems in the end undermines the cognitive habitus that were a hallmark of western societies and thereby the role the social factory in the control reducing it to non-social mechanic behavior.

2Wittgenstein,

L. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Polity Press. 4Live language refers to the flow of expressions—verbal and behavioral—between people in interaction. Scripted language, which continues to exist also when not in use. 3Bourdieu,

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But when the social factory fails, then something happens to society. Its identity is ‘under attack’ and must change. Widespread precarisation and ‘weird’ pathologies are to be expected. If the ‘social glue’ stops functioning, then social centrifugal forces start to outperform the centripetal forces which push many people ‘out of’ society—causing widespread precarisation and large groups to fall into a ‘social rim’, to form a vaguely defined class of people that are recognized as burdens: a class of the irrelevant. Existentially, conception throws us into a world of time, which then is ‘our world’ in which we unstoppably fall until stopped by death. However, we may love the ride through time by connecting to centripetal social forces to create an enjoyable life together with other members of the social world. If, however, live language is lost or has ‘become ill’ and unable to run the show, then the centrifugal forces take over and throw us out in a void, a social rim, to a life of irrelevance as a member of the modern class of the irrelevant. Still people may have the luck to find company there, and if they still are able to play the game of life together, then they may find some joy in the ride through time. There is hope— despite drifting in the sphere of irrelevance in which the social recognition people get is the status as a burden. Combined with this change in communicative control is the legal control system in NPM: contract theory connecting leaders to their superiors (principals). The control of leaders makes them a tool of their principals. A leader is not to make an interpretation of what his institution or business is about—what he is supposed to achieve is all in the contract. Previously professionals should serve their clients—customers, patients, pupils, readers etc. These are, however, not their principals. Thus the function of the professional has changed: the professional is under control to serve his leader—and if that conflicts with his best judgment as to what is best for the client, then it is bad for the client, and it is bad for the professional who is forced to compromise his professional judgment—and sometimes lie about it. This creates a top down hierarchy with an almost invisible top. Not only did the professional change his allegiance—almost always under heavy pressure and precarisation forces making themselves very visible— the control communication also lost its live social character. The new IT scripted control tools enabled this takeover, which has made truth become post-truth5 and democracy seem unmasked as fake without clearly showing the face of what is coming.

5Sergio

Sismondo. 2017. “Post-Truth?”. Social Studies of Science 47 (I) 3–6. Sage.

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It is not only the tour to the rim that is hit. The social is dialectical. People in power also lose social quality in this process. An egoistic cold irrelevance cools the warmth in their hearts. Without her slave, a master is lost and feels cold. Sadly, she may then try to hide the freeze through a drifting into perversion. Marginal groups of social workers, politicians and researchers of the good and the bad worry over the changes and call for re-consideration. But how, and against what? What makes the social factory malfunction? An attacking force? There seem to be none. The ego drive of capitalist economy? Certainly, but that has been around for a long time and does not explain the recent dissolution of the social contours. New weaknesses in the social structure? Certainly, there are many weaknesses; but weaknesses are handled due to the flexibility of the system—provided it recognizes them. Even if it is ‘clogged up’ in a logically impossible control mess, it can change the situation. Thus, we look for an invasive ‘enemy’, a virus, an unknown poison, a nano-machine that penetrates the defenses, destroys the social glue and is almost invisible. The IT-based control language that implements the almost hidden contractual control based hierarchy might just be this nano-machine.

2 Interactive Control—The Social Factory Imagine a free, non-scripted interaction between people. The human life-form is a life that unfolds in a sea of language games6 governed by multilayered cognitive habitus.7 The life of the game is the flow8 of the interaction. This complexity of living language and communication enables us to understand each other and negotiate agreements on what to do: how to form the narrative, the roles, the targets etc. The success of this social life-form creates trust and loyalty to the community. Its live communication is the factory that creates the binding social glue.

6Wittgenstein,

L. 1953. cognitive and conceptual habitus—the term habitus is used to signal that the cognition or the concept is a very complex structure with many layers of insight that accumulated in the process of learning. A definition of a concept on the other hand is one dimensional in that it aims at stating the most important or most advanced layer. 8Csikszentmihályi, M. 1988. “The flow experience and its significance for human psychology”, in Csikszentmihályi, M., Optimal experience: psychological studies of flow in consciousness, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15–35, ISBN 978-0-52143809-4. 7Re.

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For communication to function it needs a language with tools to create understanding, to control the activities, and tools to adapt and develop the language itself and the underlying cognitive habitus, the concepts. It needs ­question-answer, and creativity and judgment. The ability to adjust conceptual habitus is part of the communicative tools needed to keep usage alive and on pair with development. These abilities place the organizational control at the hands of the actors so that they can develop their’ understanding and formulate common ground for action. Each one flows in the language because she is herself a ­co-producer of it. Communication in live language is controlled by complex concepts. Basic concepts in live-language are not defined in a simplistic, one-dimensional way as in a theory. On the contrary, they develop and take the form of cognitive habitus with many layers of knowledge and practice habits.9 Even language itself should be perceived as a complex habitus.10 This complexity in concepts and language enables people to learn, ‘find’ and understand each other and cooperate, although their concepts differ and they all have different perspectives. Communication is always also a negotiation of the more precise meaning of the concepts that should be used. Traditional definitions of concepts are too simplistic and one-dimensional for communication in living practice. Concepts relate to the world by being about the things that make up the world—their appearance, accessibility, function, possibilities and values. The cognitive basis thus provides the actors with an ontology of objects and events, properties and relations, dispositions, possibilities and values and it guides activities and organizes practice. The ontology can change—it follows the development of conceptual habitus. Practice constantly challenges and tests the viability of the concepts on a pragmatic basis: does it work? This is not a transcendental pragmatics (K.-O. Apel11) nor is it a universal pragmatic (J. Habermas12). It is a constructivist pragmatics based on the function of language games in a certain time and place beyond which the signification may drift. It is because concepts and words are habitus that they can cope with the drifting signification and a slowly transforming language.

9Compare

Wittgenstein’s (1953) concept of ‘family resemblance’. Wittgenstein’s (1953) image of language as an old city with a crooked centre and some newer rectilinear suburbs. 11Karl-Otto Apel, K.-O. 1984. A Transcendental-Pragmatic Perspective. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. 12Habermas, J. 1979. Communication and the Evolution of Society. Toronto: Beacon Press. 10Compare

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In this world everybody interacts with some others to create the practice and realize its purpose. Everybody is contributing to common understanding. Words are not private. They are social. Although we live in a world, which is obviously based on such language games, it is nevertheless a very different and asocial world with disturbing problems, unsolvable conflicts and uncivilized acts. Social pathologies, wars and mass killings are produced. Mysterious communication with veiled meaning runs the social show. Egoistic competitive and destructive forces penetrate practice. Ethics seems side-lined on the social level. The Wittgenstein-like world of harmonious live language games is an idealized world. It seemed to unfold unproblematic and harmoniously. If there are conflicts there, then people cooperate and solve them in a game. There they reflect and develop conceptual habitus to connect to each and construct viable practices. There is no need for social conflict.—Indeed, if everybody did follow the rules of the game, social life would be harmonious. Live language game is the factory that produces community. This factory functions perfectly—as an ideal. Precarization and social pathologies seem unnecessary. Worries are expressed and taken care of in the live language game. The world of live language games is an ideal. It is social. It illustrates the workings of the social factory. The language game is the way humans construct social as well as physical realities. The functioning bridge between actors and the field is the functioning reality construction. In a live language, the construction not only coordinates the actors in creating a common narrative, it also allows actors to adapt the narrative to the realities and enable it to produce desired results by understanding the factual possibilities of the fields in combination with their subjective values. If the language game loses the ability to produce desired results, then it is a failure, then it produces illusions not reality. With live language, the search for new solutions is automatically invoked. Thus live language is the basis for construction of human reality, i.e. the way we relate to the world. It is important that the concept of reality13 is exclusive: not everything is real—some things are fictive, and we need to know what is real and what not. The reality principle is the way we distinguish this, it is the way we control our activities. The reality construct constitutes our way of controlling the world. Live language games are an easy way to distinguish between real and not real and thus function as the basis for control. In the live language games we

13In

contrast, the concept of world is inclusive: everything is in the world.

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constantly analyze and check what functions and what does not, and thus what is real and what not. It is a mistake to think that that everything is real as long as we can express it linguistically. On the contrary, the best way to distinguish between what is real and what not is via live language games where one constantly and from any conceivable angle can analyze what functions and does not. Thus, this ideal may inspire us, although it seems unimaginable that humans will ever be able to realize a perfect functioning social factory. We are not social enough. Its vision is, however, seductive and easy to understand. So why does reality show a very different world with social problems and suffering and feeble cohesion that barely maintains any social relations? Why are we not social enough? The social factory of our world faces many problems. But since it is true that people do connect in communicative acts—there is no other way—we should be able to uncover some of the problems by observing the workings of language: How does real communication differ from the ideal?

3 Scripted Control—The Great Systems An element of self-contradiction resides in this ideal of live language. This very narrative is de facto presented in a fixed text. The scripted text is similar to a live oral ‘text’—the important difference is that it is fixed in a stable medium. It does not go away like the voice ‘in the wind’. Being fixed makes it function in a different way from live language. Live language floats between actors, coordinating their activities. Modern practice produces more and more scripts and is increasingly controlled by scripts. Scripts have many forms: stone carvings, handwritten scrolls, printed books, and electronic data files. Almost any physical construct may be considered a script. Some expressions may be considered as something between scripted and live. Modern technology mass produces scripts. Scripts do not appear or disappear by themselves. ‘Running into’ a script is like hitting a stone-wall: the meaning is expressed, hard and unchangeable—not as in live language. Its meaning is unyielding like an absolute command—whether one understands it or not. People fear their mailboxes and become their slaves. The script stops the flow of associative reflection and communication by creating unyielding focus points. The need to understand a script and the possibility to focus on it because it does not disappear triggers reflection to interpret the meaning of scripts, which eventually aids the development of conceptual habitus.

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Scripted text influences the social factory. It enables development of skills through knowledge transfer and the production of large social structures, companies and states. Consider the Stone of Hammurabi14 (about 17th century BC). It depicts the sun good Shamash giving the Babylonian king Hammurabi a text scroll which contains the laws. Beneath that image the laws are engraved in the stone, which illustrates that scripted narratives extend the reach of social regulation beyond the reach of oral tradition, thereby enabling the construction and control of large states and large organizations. The script is an unchanging, binding contract. It is the rule of scripted law—very different from live language. No matter what feelings people have, the social factory cannot change the contract. The contract is the social standard. While live language control is flexible, scripted control installs inflexibility. Live language control may be considered threatening to the hierarchy. Power needs therefore support and protection by rituals. However, several of Wittgenstein’s language games also contain elements of scripted text. Thus they may not be detrimental to the social factory. These scripted texts function by being embedded in live communicative practices. These practices explain, interpret or even modify the ruling script. Scripts embedded in live communicative practices do not necessarily bring reflection and development to a stop. On the contrary, it may aid development of advanced practice, and the modern societies are the outcome. The use of scripts has promoted the development of conceptual habitus and thereby generated disciplines in theory and practice, each with a specialized ontology, to organize and practices in which they are also tested. And, as a basis of this knowledge society, a civilized society has (almost) taken form, a society in which principles of ethics, reason, respect, and care are the social basis of interaction and problem solving. Brute power is considered uncivilized. This democratic civilization is made possible as a replacement of the control by brute power by transferring a powerful status to good and civilized social character. We know these advantages have a price. The social factory of live language has been inhibited. The script increases the formation of high hierarchies of upper classes, which control society—priests, lawyers, judges, kings and owners of capital. They take the power away from live language. They define their control by reference to scripts. The usage of scripts creates the centripetal forces by outlining what life and work in society is about. The scripts are not flexible. People that do not fit this profile and the liking of the ruling class become subject

14Louvre,

Paris.

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to the centrifugal forces. They become subject to alienating sanctions. Sanctions and fear of being thus alienated leads to social pathologies. Precarization is a state in which people experience the feeling that they are about to lose their societal grip due to centripetal forces and that they are being pushed away, out into irrelevance—to become a mercenary or a social pathology.

4 Symbolic Control—A Philosophical Intermezzo Around 1900 symbolic or formal languages took a big step forward. The appearance of modern logic as in Frege’s concept-script (187915) and Russell & Whitehead’s principles of logic and mathematics (1910–1316) nourish the philosophical idea that ordinary language, with its fuzzy and ambiguous meanings, was the root cause of philosophical confusions. It had finally become possible to replace the muddled ordinary language with a symbolic language in which it logically was clear what statements meant, thereby eliminating all philosophical entanglements that were spooking peoples minds. This project of translating all knowledge into one unified logical language eventually generated logical positivism. Concepts had to be defined by basic observational statements called “atomic or sentences” by the young Wittgenstein (192217) or “protocol sentences” by logical positivists (for instance Neurath 1932, Carnap 1932, 193218). Thus everything with a clear meaning could be expressed in this language—the one language common to all science. Unscientific imaginations of metaphysical nonsense would be seen as superstitious spook that had no place en a logical scientific language. Science and knowledge would finally have replaced superstition. There would be a price, however: the conceptual habitus would disappear. It would be replaced by technical definitions. The logical language would be a technical, symbolic language. All its symbols would be technical. It would use

15Frege,

G. 1989. Begriffschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens. Halle. 16B. Russell & A.-N. Whitehead. 1910–13. Principia Mathematica, 1910–13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 17Wittgenstein, L. 1922. Tractatus L ­ ogico-Philosophicus. London: Kegan Paul. – Wittgenstein’s German expression for “atomic sentences” is “Elementarsätze”. Translator: C.K. Ogden. 18Carnap, R. 1932. Die physikalische Sprache als Universalsprache der Wissenschaft. Erkenntnis 2, 432–465. O. Neurath, O. 1932. Protokollsätze., Erkenntnis 3, 204–214. Carnap, R. 1932. Über Protokollsätze. Erkenntnis 3, 215–228.

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logical and mathematical methods to construct propositions and interrelate them with rules for logical deduction. All ordinary (i.e. fuzzy) words would be replaced by symbols such as logical operators, variables, predicates and quantifiers. Fuzzy conceptual habitus would be replaced by one-dimensional definitions. Complex language games about explaining and understanding would be replaced by rules for formation (of meaningful sentences) and deduction (proof). The symbolic languages would have the advantage, that they facilitate logical and mathematical calculation, which may be impossible when using complex conceptual habitus. The logical structure of a proposition (ch. Wittgenstein 1922) would be automatically visible in the symbolic language—contrary to the ordinary language, where the logical structure may be impossible to clarify completely. However, proving and disproving claims—theorems—is about using syntactical procedures. The language in itself has no ontology. It does not in itself relate to any practice or replace any conceptual habitus. The cornerstone of the logical positivist program was therefore to provide the tool with which to introduce adequate concepts in the symbolic language. Without this, the language would continuously be a formal language only. The idea of this tool is the positivist idea of meaning, which to them was the observational information the sentence provides. Since most concepts of ordinary language are complex cognitive habitus, the meaning must be clarified with a group of atomic observation sentences (protocol sentences).19 Especially interesting to us is the young Wittgenstein’s theory in which the meaning of sentences is clarified by being translated to elementary sentences with a two-valued (digital) logic. Translation processes are used to project the logical structure from one medium to a different medium. Wittgenstein’s example of translation is music. He explains that the musical experience (thought), the score, the sound waves, and the groove in the gramophone record share the same logical form. The same applies to the relations between language and world, by structural similarity: the true proposition has the same logical form as the fact it expresses (Wittgenstein 1922, proposition 4.014).20 The same logical structure is projected into different media. This is Wittgenstein’s so called picture theory of meaning. The Tractatus considered the language, physical sounds, notes, score, and the sound waves of a

19Compare

this procedure with the procedure, how a complex meaning is constructed by aggregating the atomic answers in a questionnaire of a respondent. 20Wittgenstein bypasses the difference between digital and analogue media. The scripted media, the score is digital, while the sound waves and the groove in the record are analogues.

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piece of music to have the same logical structure. The difference seems to be kind of ontological: the referring expressions—logical names—refer to different types of things: to notes, sound waves, variations in electronic waves, or variations in the grooves of a record (Wittgenstein 1922, proposition 4.0141). By changing its ontology, a sentence changes its reference to different types of phenomena but with the same logical structure and thus the same logical meaning (sense, German: Sinn). Due to common form, they can be translated to each other by rules of translations or projection. These ‘rules’ may be mechanical as in the gramophone playing a record or in translations in operating IT based systems. Or they may be based on learning as when the orchestra is playing the symphony or a teacher explains a text. The mechanical translation is exact and precise. They fit the positivist ideal and are made possible through the symbolic language. The professional translation on the other hand is based on learning that has created the complex cognitive habitus. These habitus enable the translator to make different translations of the same phenomenon. This means that the phenomena need to be interpreted in order to determine which translation is to be preferred. Thus there are two more or less overlapping approaches to translation—a rule-based translation that even may become mechanical and a habitus-based translation that is based on understanding. All meaningful sentences are logical pictures of some possible fact. This means that the language only can depict facts or states of affairs—if it is true the states exist, if it is false, they don’t. There are these two possibilities, true-false,— Wittgenstein is working with a digital structure. Language is nothing but reporting. This approach to meaning was eventually defeated by the philosophy of live language around the middle of the 20th century. Before presenting the counter arguments, consider what it might have meant to the social factory if this philosophy had succeeded and live communication had been replaced by such symbolic language. How would life be if everybody were talking in these symbolic terms only? How would life be if the only things that gave meaning were reports on observed facts—no matter if these states include emotional reactions? How would we inspire each other, have fun, evaluate and dream up totally new things? How would it be to speak with each other if we only could report facts to each other? This would have a major impact on the functioning of the social factory. Maybe all people would become crazy, maybe humanity would become extinct, or maybe we would become like advanced robots? Civilization might collapse and humans return to a condition with limited cognition as in a pre-historic age. We do not know what would happen. The project, not human civilization, collapsed.

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How did Wittgenstein himself describe the consequences of his theory? At the end of the Tractatus he draws a number of significant conclusions concerning the make up of our world such as: “5.632 The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world. … / 6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value. / If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental. / What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. / It must lie outside the world. / … 6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed.” This world of logical formed facts but void of sense, ethics, values and subjects is very different from the constructivist view of the world produced by the social factory in which values and sense are integrated with the factual to enable sensible reasoning and intentional actorship. It is to be expected, it seems, that the loss of sense, ethics values in the world may have dramatic consequences by undermining the social factory and thus the formation of social reasonable actorship. However, the reason for the collapse of the logical positivist project was rather that it appeared impossible to identify the basic units of meaning, the protocol sentences or elementary sentences. Thus it seemed impossible to translate live language to a symbolic logical language. Another reason was that a symbolic language must presuppose a live language without which it cannot be learned. Further, it seemed problematic that description of real or possible facts was the only type of meaning that existed. There are many other functions of language than to describe facts. Also, Wittgenstein gave up the idea of logical form. Finally, philosophers in Cambridge and Oxford—such as More, Ryle, the late Wittgenstein, Austin and more—vindicated ordinary language against the accusations for obscurity. Instead it was used to illuminate the social factory and human life form. Although the late Wittgenstein thus rejected his early philosophy, there were still philosophers who preferred the young to the late Wittgenstein. And presumably probably many philosophers would have liked to know what difference it really makes—if any—whether we adhere to the young or to the late Wittgenstein? Would it really influence the working of the social factory? However, while the young Wittgenstein lost the argument to the late Wittgenstein, it appears that history recently has given the young Wittgenstein the upper hand through the success of IT technology to penetrate social life. Thus, if live language makes any difference, then this success must have consequences. It is not difficult to see how the recent social changes we addressed are related to this success.

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4.1 Victory for Symbolic Control During the last decades IT has changed the world. It has opened horizons of possibilities and boosted creativity and performance in all disciplines. It has penetrated all professional disciplines and all aspects of human life and created leaps forward faster than ever before. The end of this development is not even conceivable yet. However, IT systems are controlled by symbolic languages based on a digital logic: gate open or closed, or claim true or false, and with a precise logical structure, i.e. Wittgenstein’s ‘logical form’. The logical structure is so clear that a machine can ‘understand’ it. Practically all live concepts relevant to controlling practice have been translated in IT programs to control computer operations.— The project of the young Wittgenstein and the logical positivist is not only realized, it now penetrates all aspects of life and social control. IT systems copy everything. Their language has become the decisive language for control. These languages are not live languages. They are scripts. They define the rules for people’s behavior. But ‘users’ cannot influence them. Live interactive control is lost. Live control is side-lined.

4.2 In a Chinese Room Being in a world subject to pure symbolic control may be illustrated by a thought experiment called the ‘Chinese Room’, by J. Searle.21 Imagine: a person that knows no Chinese is locked in the ‘Chinese’ room. There are no windows, no doors. There is an inbox and an outbox plus a dictionary expressing rules for translating symbols from—say—one system or language to another. Let us call this person blinded, because he cannot see the outside world. When he receives a paper with string of symbols—Chinese characters—then he finds the symbols in the dictionary, and uses it to ‘translate’ them to a string of other symbols he can put in the outbox. Outside the room may be a sighted (able to see real things) ­Chinese-speaking person. He sent and received the answer (translation). The sighted person understands the response and assumes that the responding person understands Chinese, although he does not. The Chinese chamber is constructed

21Searle,

J. 1980. “Minds, Brains and Programs”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3 (3): 417–457. Here it is illustrates a point a bit different from that of Searle.

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in analogue to a von Neuman architecture scheme of a computer: There is an input device and an output device. In the chamber then there is a memory and a central processing controlling a calculation of the responses. From a realist point of view, the person in the room lacks understanding of the language and has no idea of the reality it reflects. No doubt the social factory is severely damaged regarding such a person, who will not be able to develop normal social skills. He cannot connect the language he processes to himself or his world. He is de facto in a sort of contact with other people, since they exchange ‘messages’ with him, but he has no idea of the message and what social contact is. The blinded person has no ontology and thus no pragmatics beyond the question: how to influence the inbox by what I put in the outbox? In general, many have wondered, whether we are in reality living in a matrix like the person in the Chinese chamber, like a brain in a skull, or a processor in the machine or a soul in the body. All these visions are formulated in a self-defeating way. Nevertheless, is that the human condition? Is the dictionary in the chamber the set of rules we follow in order to function in the matrix? Are these rules of translation and projection the algorithms of reality? Do sighted people exist at all or are we all blinded? The philosophy of live language control rejects this idea. It gives us the sighted persons that act pragmatically according to their ontology. They develop. They experience things in the world, and test their experiences by their actions. The blinded person in the chamber does not know what—if anything—the symbols refer to. They could for instance, refer to sound waves, note scripts, or record grooves. He has no ontology, only a logical structure. The ontology is the world outside the Chinese Room. Our present IT-penetrated society is kind of controlled by Chinese chambers and the algorithms put into them. They contain scores of managers and politicians and researchers that analyze possible algorithms and relate them to the big data of the countless data bases. Researchers collecting big data in their inboxes and analyzing possible algorithms fill the control farms in modern control institutions. They suffer under this life in the box. The social factory which would have blessed their life almost vanishes. Thus the difference between the sighted person outside the room and the blinded person inside the room is, cognitively speaking, the construction of cognitive habitus of the outside person in her relation to the world she communicates about. She not only observes the things by her senses, she also studies and investigates them and experiences how they react to her handling. The person in the room has no recognition of the things at all. Their symbols are defined syntactically only. Further, the outsider has learned the language in use, i.e. Chinese, not by any book of rules but through playful interaction. After having learnt the live

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language, she may be trained in the scripted language. But this training presupposes her prior understanding of the live language. Imagine a person who lives the life of a blinded person locked up in a Chinese room. Most of her cognitive habitus dissolves into irrelevance. Her social interactive skills deteriorate. She tries to communicate by means of her matrix dictionary, but experiences immense difficulties in creating any satisfying relations. Nevertheless she receives inputs from the rulers above her, and they expect her to deliver material, with which they can run the outside world. They live in a world surrounded by Chinese Rooms of qualified scholars that produce and calculate. The modern world of control has the vision that there is a great matrix, which is discovered by economists and statisticians. To make discoveries they enter their Chinese room of research, where they ask for receiving data, which they calculate and translate according to their book of rules.

4.3 Collapse of Cognitive Habitus The professional cognitive habitus are constructed with the purpose of serving the clients: companies serve customers, layers serve clients, doctors serve patients, teachers serve pupils etc. This has always been at the heart of professional knowledge and this is the perspective on professionals strongly advocated by Plato in his foundational work. Industrialization introduced plenty low skilled work, which however should be under professional control. And economics tried to calculate optimal solutions. Professionalism still had an independent status as the group that possesses the necessary theories and know-how. The credibility of this structure was that the professionals served as the agents of the clients and all their knowledge was about how to serve the clients in the best possible manner. However, having translated all major control concepts into algorithms it has in theory become possible to create hierarchies that can control the professionals. No doubt that the algorithms are simplifications of the professional cognitive habitus and they operate without a sufficient ontological basis, but the cost of this loss cannot be calculated, since the algorithms define what can be calculated. Thus it happens in all western institutions that professionals have been subjugated and become controlled by rules that, from a professional point of view, often appear to make erroneous decisions, i.e. decisions not in the clients’ best interests. The modern professional—as far as he still exists—is not the agent of the client but of his superior. His principal is the superior, not the client. Thus he becomes part of an effort to exploit the client to the benefit of his superiors. The task of the professional is to make the client a supplementary agent for his superior. Even

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in kindergartens, children are not the true principals, whom are to be served by the caretakers; they are rather treated as agents that serve the political goals by fulfilling the political developmental ambitions that are defined in the hierarchies above the practice. This creates new hierarchies in society producing elements of professional frustration and cliental distrust. The hierarchies are controlled by contracts that define the agent-principal relations. The primary contract, the 'God given' law, is supplemented by contracts that script the hierarchic control system. Complex cognitive habitus are no longer in demand. They by nature come in conflict with the algorithms of the control system. Leadership is able to control professionals despite knowledge inequality due to the scripted control language. Leadership also possesses tools—such as divide and rule—to create the scripted language. With the control language in place, professionals almost have to cheat the system and become criminals in order to fulfill their professional duty, as they perceive it from a work ethic point of view.22 Further, since this system moves into a post truth area, because it undermines trustworthy ontologies and truth criteria, it is able to produce pseudo ‘evidence’ at will. It is increasingly difficult to document erroneous algorithms. At the beginning, the IT era opened a vast horizon of new possibilities. Now it also has become a centralized control instrument penetrating all aspects of life. The IT systems are not just auxiliary tools for calculation; they have become the control system. They are the script. What does not fit with these systems cannot function. They cannot be reasoned with. They are a protective wall between ruling power and people. Moreover, the systems can automatically collect data and thus spy on everything without people knowing it. Furthermore, the ability of these systems to mimic reality is easily used to produce ‘evidence-simili’ (fake evidence) at will, creating any fiction and illusion they want to. Elements of Orwellian (Orwell 194923) Big Brother control systems and contours of ‘ministries of truth’ can be recognized. Even the continuing western warfare and the increase in worrying warmongering (war is peace) is reminiscent of the Orwelliean dystopia. Thus although the young Wittgenstein is right that the digital interpretation of meaning is powerful and can be accomplished, the late Wittgenstein is nevertheless also right. It is the live language that is the human form of life, and we destroy this form of life and our social nature by replacing live language control with a symbolic control language. It is unpredictable how this state of affairs will

22“The

Ethical Mind” in Howard Gardner. 2007. Five Minds for the Future. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Review Press. 23Orwel, G. 1984. London: Secker & Warburg.

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develop. However, the widespread precarization, change in social pathologies, the loss of social contours etc. are signs of problems in the social factory. In research several things happen: there is an increased interest in large-scale quantitative research harvesting and analyzing big data copied in IT systems and developing algorithms to control the behavior of populations. Input from people is not cognitive but reduced to emotional signals as to how much something is liked. The underlying belief might be for instance that it is easier to find algorithms to control people by their emotions than by their cognition. To elaborate this conclusion we expand on the idea that this is what happens when live control language is replaced by technical scripted language.

5 Emotional Control—Paranoia When cognitive control is undermined, then other control mechanisms are called for. In cognitive control, the underlying subjective values and their emotional signals are carefully reflected in cognitive habitus in order to establish a practice that realizes values. Without this cognitive control, purely emotional fixed points must be established to guide action.24 These are established by other means than scholarly reflection: propaganda, myth, and arbitrary narratives. By these means emotional fixed points, emotional premises, are established, points which everybody can relate to: this is good, or this is bad, this you must dislike and condemn. After they have been established every event must be interpreted as supporting the emotional premise. The emotional premise defines the norm. Everything people say and do is measured according to whether they confirm the norm. Now the norm is a gate-keeper to the social community. People not supporting it are incorrect and out. Fanatic supporters of this culture may go to insane extremes in their claims as to what supports an emotional premise. Despite the fact that something is obviously true or false to a ‘sane’ person, in a paranoiac culture, fanatic claims to the opposite may be the ones accepted. This is the paranoia. The emotional premise is a paranoiac axiom that is used to ‘explain’ everything. A “social paranoia” is a cultural state, which uses “emotional axioms” as the guiding principle of meaning. It functions by first establishing an emotive load

24These control systems appear to adopt emotivist ethics in its most rude form, where ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are treated as simple emotive expressions (exclamations) witout any any reflective content (cf. A. J. Ayer, 1936, London, Victor Gollancz Ltd.). The modern massive usage of emotive evaluations—smileys, thumbs, liket scale ratings etc.—documents this. All the later studies in ethics seem to be suddenly forgotten.

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towards selected objects—people or groups—making them the object of emotional reaction. This load is typically very negative. These emotions then control the interpretations of information as well as the actions to be taken. This is paranoiac control. It may be the case that an element of paranoiac control exists in every culture. However it is certainly a matter of degree how paranoiac a specific culture is. Typically, a scientific culture has been considered a force to reduce paranoiac climate. The climate of social paranoia rejects and considers with suspicion claims that are cognitively reasonable without bias and paranoiac intent. It considers all language games in the culture to be part of the paranoiac narrative that identifies the culture. There is a long way from live interactive control based on advanced cognitive habitus with a well functioning social factory to the control by the ­one-dimensional definitions of the logic-machines that posses no working social factory. With this control machine, the state separates itself from the social world.25 The cognitive effort is promoted and cultivated in live interactive control; it is oppressed and replaced by mechanical rules in the control machine. While the first develops advanced practice ontologies to handle its tasks, the world in the second is based on structural principles of translation—ontology and pragmatics have no relevance. In the world of mechanic symbolic transformation, control is not based on insight and conceptual understanding. Thus it must be based on something else: the force of emotion replaces the force of understanding and reason.26 Western culture from the ancient Greek’s search for ataraxia to modern striving for unbiased attitudes and principles for objective case management is in the process of being turned upside down. Not reason but emotion, not the cortex but the limbic system or the reptile brain, so to say, are in control. This post-truth situation connects to the modern rhetoric with high emotional impact (pathos) and poor cognitive content, contrary to prior rhetoric ideals that seemed to put greater emphasis on information and cognitive content based on knowledge and systematic logical reflection (logos) appealing to the cognitive habitus of the receivers. These ideals guide the workings of social factory to produce a social world with interaction based on respect of argument and reason, making reason control wild emotions and not vice versa.

25The

separation of state and society is a severe condition for any state. It brought down the Soviet system. State-society fractures are also experienced in western societies. 26Obviously, emotions themselves also presuppose cognition. This means that the more reason is dismissed the more the emotions themselves are reduced and transform into almost pathological yelling and screaming.

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This development has increased to a paranoiac trend—a schema for western narrative: a) establish an emotional premise—the paranoiac axiom: this—mostly a person—is bad. This axiom is established by a character assassination aimed at defining a scapegoat. Being in control of the media in a post-truth situation this can almost always be done, if necessary. b) When the paranoiac axiom is established the second phase runs: building up momentum! In this phase the attack on the whipping boy continues relentlessly. In this phase credibility of evidence is not important because this takes place in a sick, paranoiac social context. Criticism of the whipping boy is considered true no matter what. Support for the whipping boy is treason and false by definition. c) When the momentum is sufficiently strong, then comes action: to attack and punish or destroy the target, the whipping boy, the witch. This is then doing justice. In a paranoia, observations are systematically interpreted in such a way that the axiom is confirmed. This is the paranoiac definition of a correct interpretation. With the destruction of the target, the destruction of a profession or a whole society may follow, which is considered perfectly legitimate. I have mentioned that reality is an exclusive concept. Here we see how the exclusive nature functions in a paranoiac culture. No statements conflicting with the axiom are accepted. Rules of evidence are reduced to coherence with the axiom, since the basis of the axiom is not rational, but rather emotional. It is an axiom because it must be respected by all other claims. This paranoiac pattern of narration is used in control in all social institutions and layers. In international politics: the paranoia is looking for the next bad guy to be destroyed. Departmental managers may be looking for which of their employees is to be the next victim. Teachers may look for the whipping boy with which to scare and control the class. In international politics it is especially detrimental because the attack not only destroys the presumed witch, but the whole country. The rise of paranoiac control is a step backwards towards less civilized times.

6 A Good Narrative? Why is there negativity in the system? Is this not a bias? Or simply a research strategy? Well, why do so many leaders fight their employees, their army, believing this is a winning course? Why is a paranoia based on fear but not on love and empathy? Why not install a wonderful happiness paranoia?27 If the problem is the

27Bhutan’s

noteworthy endeavour to introduce a gross happiness index has not resulted in significant improvements in the counties international happiness ranking. In general I would caution one to overestimate the significance of the present measures.

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emotional negativity of the culture, could this not be turned upside down? There are, after all, many positive things. When considering the social narratives over time they bulge with elements of how to achieve happiness and a good life, such as: get married, be honest, love your children, your family, your friends, get an education, etc. These are all elements of a positive narrative. This narrative is getting lost. The algorithms replace the narratives. And in the world of algorithms there is nothing good and nothing bad.28 Could we envision a world with positive narratives without the negative paranoia? However, we notice, that positive narratives cannot be paranoiac—if they were, then they would lose credibility. Thus desire for the positive narrative forces us to leave the world of post-truth and go back to the world of truth. Positive evidence must be genuine evidence—it must be evidence not by being positive but by being true. Thus to implement positive narratives demands a higher level of cognitive skill. Consider an axiom: the world is good, as in a narrative about a good God creating the world. This narrative also implies paranoiac problems in order to explain away the negative events. Still, ideals of the good—say, the social ideal of live control—may function as a guiding principle that enables actors to create positive narratives without becoming entangled in a paranoia that eventually destroys his cognition. In a paranoiac culture, there are few basic ‘truths’, i.e. the emotional axioms to guide the analysis. A cognitive culture on the other hand is loaded with truth claims based on a wealth of evidence. And these truth claims can all be challenged, or, if they are accepted, they can function as premises in further reasoning. Thus it is cognitive work that is needed and not emotional claims in order to make respectable claims in a non-paranoiac culture. The rationalism of the enlightenment made the case for the mathematical construction of the world, the deistic God, God the mathematician, who defined the algorithms running the world. Thus the research ideal became to uncover the divine algorithms, and scores of scholars are in their Chinese rooms doing just this. They may find something useful, but as a model control of the world, this perspective undermines the social factory, leaving researchers as well as everybody else clueless what happened in their social environment. Although there is no good and evil in the algorithms (cf. Wittgenstein’s propositions in his Tractatus), these things do exist in the world because we can and do establish them. We need an ontology to take it into account. In a dystopian ‘ideal’ world of social math and determination, there is no good or evil, there is no love and empathy and there are no factual possibilities, as they have been replaced by paranoiac

28Algorithms

are of course originally made by human beings.

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control. There is cold interaction of the logical machine. There can be no actors because actors need values and possibilities to form their intentions and there can be no happiness because happiness is a reward we give ourselves for acting according to our loving values. It is the waste land.29 Being in a reality somewhere between the ideal of live interactive control and the sinister dystopian symbolic control development is unpredictable—recent trends may be projected into the future, but new things may happen that falsify such projections. Against the dystopian perspective we claim optimistically that human beings posses actor skills and that they may continuously create ways to influence the system and eventually succeed in creating a nicer world. This creativity and development needs thinking people that master clear and logical reflection. The calculations of the IT mashines is not sufficient. The persistent call for innovation in modern societies makes no sense without leadership that furthers creative settings and creative skills of their employees—and this involves live interaction to motivate creative actors and researchers. Chasing witches and punishing whipping boys does not promote creativity. Further, leadership needs to be controlled by care for human values of love and empathy to create loyalty and motivate employees to the best performance. It was values as these that cultivation of conceptual habitus enabled to promote, while the loss of cognitive habitus is igniting emotional paranoiac control driven by emotions of fear and anger. It has been amazing to see how fast established scientific understanding in organization and psychology of the social factory, leadership and organization has been replaced by the one dimensional forms of control which are subject to IT control systems. How could large eras of scholarly insight be eliminated from modern decision making practice—causing many professionals to feel that we have taken serious steps backwards without even being able to explain why. The implementation of centralized IT control does, however, explain this. Its control concepts are defined by algorithms that are not only too simple to reflect the professional conceptual habitus but also unable to engage in a genuine I-You dialogue involving mutual respect. And without cognitive habitus, the control becomes emotional and paranoiac. The functioning of paranoiac control is well illustrated in Orwell’s 198430 dystopian society that systematically destroys any

29T.S.

Eliot. 1922. The Waste Land. New York: Horace Liveright, 1922.—‘The final’ Waste Land is a land in which the social factory has collapsed.—No matter how barbaric, a modern war is still based on elements of a functioning social factories, no matter how sick they are. 30Georg Orwell. 1949. 1984. London: Secker & Warburg.

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cognitive habitus and establishes an emotional axiom as the basis for paranoiac control. Eventually the envisioned dystopian global control will have to face the fact that that human actors are able to develop live control of their own, IT systems must be tools not controlling ruling masters. Power based on scripted control naturally fears live control. Actors create subcultures of their own, out of reach of the system because the system does not know their language. In the end, global behavioral control produces its own irrelevance because the distinctions it uses become fuzzy and out of contact with the social world, due to lack of ontology. In the end none of the algorithms work because they have no credible ontology, because cognitive habitus have been side-lined. This is the asymmetry between knowledge for the good and the bad, which constitutes the distinction between paranoia and knowledge. If Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Praise of the Folly31 opened the modern area, we may recall it at this point in history when thinking how to push ahead. We definitively need to cultivate leadership by making it understand and respect the workings of the social factory.

31Erasmus

of Rotterdam. 1511. Praise of the Folly.

The Suspended: Blind Spots in Society—Social Mobility and Political Psychology of Devaluation in East Germany Since 1989 Yana Milev The characterization of protest as ressentiment must be examined for its discriminatory force, with which the ruling classes silence the voices of those below. (Stegemann 2017, p. 147)

1 Introduction “Do you know someone who has been left behind?” was the FAZ headline on 26.02.2017. Next to it was a photograph of a horde of seedy-looking white men, framed as anthropological specimens: as primitives and illiterates, all with facial expressions that promised a willingness to be violent. The photo was taken in Texas and then removed from the internet in mid-March 2017. Ever since Donald Trump’s election victory, the western democratic world is in agreement that 1) it all couldn’t have been less democratic; and 2) the white men who had been left behind were at fault for his victory (or perhaps it was even Russian electoral manipulation). These states of mind need to be clarified. This is why I will pose a few questions at the outset. What was undemocratic in Donald Trump’s ­more-or-less democratic election? Who or what causes worldwide protest? Who are among the protesters? What are they afraid of? Who are these people who

Y. Milev (*)  Seminar für Soziologie, Universität St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_17

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have been left behind—now held to be at fault for Donald Trump’s victory? And why is the US scenario reflected in German sensitivities? Since the end of the GDR announced in 1989, since the unjust state was transferred to the just authorities and the majority of its population subjected to a “crass social change” (cf. Clausen 1994), new opinion research and survey institutes, sociological institutes, NGOs and other institutions have all staged the success of the protagonists of the Wende [Germ.: “turn,” “change”]. However, this way of accounting excluded those who lost in the course of the Wall’s fall and those who were suspended from this German-German project in the 28 years that followed. Here we are speaking of the majority of East Germans who, beginning in 1989 and after 40 years of GDR existence, were confronted with events that they were not prepared for. The story of success continues to be written by people in the west, from the putative bearers of democracy, up until the present day. What does this mean? In order to better understand this, it is not only necessary to look back, but also to re-write social history in East Germany between 1989 and 2017. A political psychology of devaluation, degradation and damage, as well as an analysis of a “democracy without dialogue”, has not been performed for the reception of the German-German project to this day. Such an analysis is highly relevant to current debates about the „society of social relegation” (Nachtwey 2016) in the concrete case of East Germans. I would like to contribute to an expanded discourse about post-Berlin Wall precariousness (cf. Castel and Dörre 2010) by focusing on the political psychology of social decline in East Germany since 1989. An intended result of this undertaking would be, for example, to better understand—in terms of social diagnostics—the especially high numbers of East Germans who reject German EU policy.

2 Blind Spots in Society 2.1 There is no Social “We” in the Values of Unity The refugee policies, which the current German government introduced, multiplied fundamental social conflicts that can presently not be adequately explained and, even more so, not truly solved. The fact of the matter is: the refugee crisis—a result of recent EU-­ administered decisions such as the multiple bank bailouts since 2007, the PIIGS states’ crises and also the proxy wars in the Ukraine and Syria, among others—is massively dividing the German populace. According to surveys by

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the TNS ­institute1 from 2016, approximately 82% of Germans demanded a correction of refugee policies by chancellor Angela Merkel, policies that supported an unlimited opening of borders, unlimited immigration by millions of Muslims lacking documents, unlimited integration of them into the social institutions as well as unlimited family reunifications in Germany. The crisis was exacerbated by the media and political parties’ moderation: “We need qualified labor”, “We can do it”, “Welcoming culture”, “Unconditional help for war refugees”. This precipitated an exacerbation of existing tensions because the propaganda of the period took what even the politically uninitiated recognized as a euphemizing approach to the situation, and because, in the wake of refugee policy, the following emerged with apparent suddenness: social inequality, inequality in capital, a growing low-wage sector, unemployment, cuts in social services, child poverty, old-age poverty and, in addition, symptoms of a populace that has been suspended: left behind by economic growth and political development, and thus rendered socially superfluous. The hugely inflationary euphemism of globalization to the contrary, we are living in societies of precariousness and social decline (Marchart 2013). The result? There is no social “we” of unifying values that can be established by acclamation. The implicit demand of a “we” in Merkel’s “We can do it” exclamation seems an inappropriate overreach in the face of social conditions. These conditions could not have been generated ad hoc. It is more likely that they have been carefully concealed since the German-German political Wende. They are breaking through the surface in the current fundamental social crises, and they are distorting the desired image of a “democracy without ­borders”.

2.2 An Invisible Group of Migrants This text will focus on sections of the East German populace, losers of the ­German-German political Wende after 1989, plus losers in the globalization shift (EU) after 2002—on the history of their social mobility, their experiences of precarification, and their protests. In the refugee policies of the current government,

1Cf.

Umfrage: Deutsche fordern Korrekturen in der Flüchtlingspolitik. Rund 82 Prozent der Deutschen fordern von Kanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU) Kurskorrekturen in der Flüchtlingspolitik. Die befragten Deutschen äußern sich ebenfalls zu eine Wunschkoalition nach der Bundeswahl 2017, Focus Online, 10 September 2016, URL: http://www.focus.de/panorama/videos/meinungstrend-unter-deutschen-buergern-umfrage-deutsche-fordern-korrekturen-der-fluechtlingspolitik_id_5920207.html. Last accessed: 20 March 2017.

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these people who were “suspended” see themselves confronted by a third change in the way they are being left behind. Here, a collective pain threshold seems to have been ultimately crossed. Spaces of social resistance and fault lines can no longer be brushed over. However, for many it has become clear: at the moment, facts and factors are colliding that do not mesh, that cannot be negotiated away and cannot be reconciled. On the one hand, the media and political parties begin their attack, refusing to recognize any connection to the social realities— social and cultural trenches among them—that have been produced over the last 28 years. On the other side, a previously invisible group of citizens becomes visible: the losers of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the populace unrooted by devaluation and exclusion (Schultheis and Frisinghelli 2003), the East German “refugees” within unified Germany, the ones on the periphery, the people no one speaks of. But even here, euphemisms about Europe will not be able to cover up the social facts2 that were produced domestically over time. Up until now, superordinated organizations such as the FRG or the EU were able to efface this population segment, simply submerging it. Extrapolations are then performed on mixed populations. Problems are artificially suppressed: for example, the consequences of the rapidly sinking fertility rate for women from East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, or discrimination against women (which was unknown in the GDR), and the concomitant construction of a discourse of equal opportunities. The general (West German) expectation that a group of citizens that has been left behind should charitably confront the demographic (and other) problems of the state—which is not longer perceived to be such since the development of the EU—is flawed and inappropriate. Since there has been no focus of the agenda or even a remote thought lost on reparations for social grievances in East Germany (and, from the perspective of German federal democratic policy, this cannot be allowed to happen), an unspoken exclusion has ensued, characterized by the establishment of collectively experienced trauma3 and the creation of new enmities. The media do the rest, as does the discourse produced by intellectuals

2Cf. Schoelkopf, K. Entwurzelung ist die gefährlichste Krankheit, Welt Nr. 24, 8. 2008, URL: https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article2692014/Entwurzelung-ist-die-gefaehrlichsteKrankheit.html. Last accessed: 20 March 2017. 3Cf. Bartens, W. Traumatische Erlebnisse prägen das Erbgut. Depression und Trauma werden häufig an die nächsten Generationen weitergegeben, auch wenn sie zunächst nicht genetisch sind. Über soziale Prägung also? Forscher haben nun herausgefunden, dass Erlebnisse auch die Gene verändern können, SZ.de, 14 April 2014, URL: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/gesundheit/genetik-traumatische-erlebnisse-praegen-das-erbgut-1.1936886. Last accessed: 21 March 2017.

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who simply generalize without knowing the sociological details or even the social fields close-up. In “Soziales und kollektives Gedächtnis” (1988),4 Aleida Assmann speaks of the difference between official and unofficial memory. Devaluations and damage to human dignity that were experienced as collective trauma belong to an East German’s unofficial memory. Since this memory is also sacrificed to “forgetting on demand” (Simon 1997, p. 25), as Dieter Simon calls it (and, in addition, to persecution on demand), what remains are symptoms of an acute precariousness and mental disorders that are then delegated to administrative bodies and health insurers.

2.3 Social Construction of Reality “Those suspended from society vote for populists, let themselves be seduced and are incalculable. Those who have not been left behind and are privileged are now blaming themselves,”5 as Rainer Hank puts it in the FAZ. What becomes clear in this rhetoric is the following: a collective bewilderment of the privileged class, which wrings its hands and rejects any conceivable “blame” with big gestures. In this spectacle, which is expertly staged by the dominant media, the aspect of the social construction of reality, of transmissions and projections, is particularly tangible. However, there is no enemy in the sense of the “rightist mob” or the “rightist agitator”. These are constructs of meaning in social spaces that were heavily damaged and now have a high level of vulnerability. This phenomenon should be taken seriously, as to do so might potentially end the chronic devaluation of ­dissidents. There is hardly any literature about the systematic devaluation of East Germans after 1989. Vivian Heitmann’s study “Unverbindliche Welten? Die Wiedervereinigung aus der Sicht von psychisch Kranken und ihrem sozialen Umfeld”

4Cf.

Assmann, Aleida, Soziales und kulturelles Gedächtnis, in: Sabine Peschel (Hg.), Panel 2: Kollektives und soziales Gedächtnis, Bundeszentrale für politsiche Bildung, 02.05.2006, URL: https://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/dokumentation/128665/panel-2-kollektives-undsoziales-gedaechtnis. Last accessed: 21 March 2017. 5Cf. Hank, R. Kennen Sie vielleicht einen Abgehängten? Die „Abgehängten der Gesellschaft wählen Populisten“, lassen sich verführen und sind unberechenbar. Die nichtabgehängten Privilegierten suchen nun die Schuld bei sich. Ein Kommentar, FAZ.NET, 27.11.2016, URL: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/arm-und-reich/abgehaengte-sindder-neue-geist-der-gesellschaft-14546418.html#void. Last accessed: 20. March 2016. The Quotation has been translated by the author, para. 3.

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(Heitmann 1999)6 is thus a pearl in a pile of sand. She did a study between 1990 and 1994 that intended, as she herself wrote: “to give a voice to the side whose experience seemed to have become irrelevant due to the reunification” (Heitmann 1999, p. 8).7

2.4 A Scenario from the Sociology of Catastrophes Already in 1994, five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lars Clausen diagnosed a “crass social change”: “The two Germanys have a lot in common – except for language. We talk – and we feel – less with one another than any side could have ever noticed” (Clausen 1994, p. 229). In the meantime, this fact of speechlessness has expanded into full-blown and hardened conflict. The beginning of the observation and analysis of the conflict, which is essentially an increasing incoherence in social constructs of meaning and values and includes concepts of democracy and freedom in East and West, is dated to 1989 in this debate. It is assumed that social facts in East Germany are so complexly layered that it is not possible to just study one generation or just one symptom in order to reflect the entire story. In the framework of the observation and analysis of East Germany, numerous social events related to the fall of the Berlin Wall and transformation crises occurred simultaneously for the period under observation, starting in 1989. Examining these events and crises individually is relevant for three reasons. First, such a crisis of transformation as in the “Wende” is in itself a crass social change (Clausen); many in a series create social anomie (Durkheim) or collective trauma (Assmann). Second, in reference to other desired neoliberal and democratic changes, the East German populace is considered to be reactionary—recently, spaces of protest and resistance have been opening up here to a previously unknown degree. Third, one has neglected to take up the dialogue so desired by East Germans and is now confronted by a “surprising” situation of potential speechlessness and rejection that is “naturally” ignored and denied by a “big mouth of western values”.8 As Bernd Ulrich wrote at he end of his article “Wie Putin spaltet”9 back in 2014: “world views have been clashing in past

6See

Heitmann (1999). 1999, p. 8). 8Ulf Poschardt, Der Westen soll Putin umarmen, Die Welt-Online, 03.03.2014, URL: http:// www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article125387514/Der-Westen-sollte-Putin-umarmen. html, Stand vom 23 March 2017. 9Bernd Ulrich, Wie Putin spaltet. Die Zeit, Nr.16/2014, 10. April 2014, URL: http://www. zeit.de/2014/16/russlanddebatte-krimkrise-putin. Last accessed: 03 April 2018. 7(Heitmann

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weeks that seem not to have been communicated for quite some time now.”10 2014 doesn’t seem to be that long ago, since evident gaps between opinions are now only dealt with using hate speech and verbal criminalization. A debate on ­social-psychological anomie would have been necessary—and, indeed, should have been begun in 1989—for the purpose of better understanding the collective sensitivities in the “East”, instead of continuing to devalue them. This is precisely what the present dialogue is meant to address.

2.5 The Suspended: A Generative Problem This text thus makes an attempt at unveiling the subcutaneous genesis of opposing social forces, as they are currently being perceived throughout German society, in parallel to the developmental history of the privileged and new German establishment. This means deriving an anti-globalization revolt, undertaken from below, that articulates itself in political fields of resistance within society. At stake, here, is the genealogy of a populace that has been successively left behind since 1989, with particular emphasis place on East Germany, the territory of the former GDR. The generation born there between 1945 and 1975 will be addressed here. When the events of 1989 occurred, the younger members of this population were in the educational system, in training and at the beginning of their professional careers; the older members had studied and been credentialed and/or working in careers for many years. From then until today, theirs has been a history of devaluation, degradation and exclusion; they were exempted from equal opportunity and political participation, while their fate was simultaneously veiled. It is precisely this subcutaneous social history of the so-called opposing forces, those who have been devalued, abandoned, excluded, and left behind—in a word, those who have been suspended—that will first complete the history of social mobility in Germany since 1989.

2.6 Antagonistic Mobility Many millions of people are a part of this group under observation. The last census in the GDR in 1988 counted approximately 17 million people. In 1989, approximately 150,000 “GDR refugees” fled: they followed the “picnic

10Bernd

Ulrich, Wie Putin spaltet. Die Zeit, Nr.16/2014, 10. April 2014, URL: http://www. zeit.de/2014/16/russlanddebatte-krimkrise-putin, para. 32. Last accessed: 03 April 2018.

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r­ efugees“11 over the green border between Hungary and Austria. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, dramatic work migration to the West set in; this served to rapidly decrease the East German populace on the former territory of the GDR. A few years later, the famous return of the uprooted occurred, as those who were unable to establish themselves in the West came back East, and no longer found their own “home” upon returning. The suspended became the stranded, and later the devalued, in their own country: an invisible group of migrants caught up in negative social mobility. Social decline de-couples East Germans from the German/German project, and turns them increasingly into the displaced and refugees in their own country. These are “second-class people” who miss out and disappear in the atomization of high-rise apartment buildings or the clinical anonymity of rehabilitation clinics. In the parlance of the Springer newspaper company, they became known as the “lost generation” of Hoyerswerda, Rostock, Halle and Frankfurt/Oder. Work migration also flowed in the opposite direction, as West Germans came East. They arrived with West salaries and a jungle bonus (Buschzulage),12 an

1119. August 1989. Die erste Massenflucht aus der DDR, Bis zur Maueröffnung sollte es noch rund drei Monate dauern, doch an der ­österreichisch-ungarischen Grenze wurden die Barrieren schon am 19. August 1989 durchbrochen. Rund 600 DDR-Bürger nutzten ein “Picknick” der Paneuropa-Union für eine spektakuläre Massenflucht. Sie hatten ein erstes großes Schlupfloch gefunden, “19th August, 1989. The first mass exodus from the GDR. It would be three months until the opening of the Wall, but at the ­Austrian-Hungarian border, the barriers were alread broken on the 19th of August. Roughly 600 GDR citizens used a „picknick“ sponsored by the Paneuropean Union as an opportunity for a spectacular mass flight. They had found the first major crack [in the Wall].” Spiegel Online, 16.08.1999, URL: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/19-august-1989-die-erste-massenflucht-ausder-ddr-a-35349.html. Last accessed: 21 March 2017. 12Das Wort “Buschzulage” landete auf Platz zwei bei der Wahl zum Unwort des Jahres 1994. Für uns Ossis war dies jedoch kein Unwort. Es war die Beschreibung real existierender gesellschaftlicher Ungerechtigkeit. Westdeutsche Beamte aus den alten Bundesländern erhielten neben ihrem ohnehin höheren Westgehalt auch noch weitere Zulagen, damit sie uns beim Aufbau Ost helfen konnten. Diese Ungleichheit war jedoch nicht nur auf den öffentlichen Dienst beschränkt., Maecel in: Marcel Helbig, Ossi-Diskriminierung. Nicht nur Migranten haben es schwer, auch Ostdeutsche massiv unterrepräsentiert, The word “bush bonus” took second place in the 1994 contest for Silliest Word (Unwort) of the Year. For us Easterners, though, this was no joke. It was the description of a real existing social injustice. In addition to their already-higher salaries, West German state employees from the former West Germany received additional compensation for helping us with “Building Up the East.” This disparity was not limited to the public sector, either. Migazin. Migration in Germany, 21.01.2015, URL: http://www.migazin.de/2015/01/21/ossi-diskriminierung-nicht-migranten-ostdeutsche/. Last accessed: 22 March 2017.

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ironic phrase that ventured from the German colonial period into the present day; it refers to a “bonus for German adminstrators or soldiers for service beyond the border of their homeland”. Beginning in 1989, these conquistadors of the new German democracy were sent to occupy all public administrative positions in ­culture, business, science, art and politics. The specific problem of this story lies in the self-empowerment of the “West” as a protector of a democratic cause of unified values for Germany as a whole since 1989; at the level of social psychology, these unified values had never existed before the fact. This act of self-empowerment of the “West,” shored up by references to the ethics of social ideology and value creation, occurred in diametrical opposition to the thinking and living sentiments in the “East” and has thus exacerbated the incoherences that have underlaid it from the start. Concern was then raised when the suppressed “other” (as of 2014, at the latest) was then publicly declared to be the “right” or “new right”. Concern, because for many East Germans something is being repeated that they knew from Stasi times: the ban on a differing opinion and free speech. It is the “other’s” knowledge, which was not supposed to exist, that is now being discriminated against and stigmatized in the terms of the “better argument” (Porrello 2017, p. 10 ff.)13 or rather “dominant argument”. This process of counteractive migration patterns and antagonistic mobilities—between the established society of the winners of the fall of the Berlin Wall (West) and the invisible society of the losers of the fall of the Berlin Wall (East)—is a conflict that has not yet been heard, but is overdue.

2.7 Post-democracy: Ambiguity of Promises after the Fall of the Berlin Wall In the course of the economic reunification in 1990, an additional divisive aspect was added to a reciprocal estrangement: the “devaluation of elementary material and mental dispositions from the GDR period”14 (Rauschenbach 1995, p. 10).15 The German/German project is an example of post-democracy that was introduced with a gigantic promise to the people of East Germany; it became known

13(Porrello

2017, p. 10 ff.). Rauschenbach, Deutsche Zusammenhänge. Zeitdiagnose als politische Psychologie, Edition Interform, Zürich, 1995, S. 10. 15Entfällt. 14Brigitte

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as the “promise of the Wende” during the Kohl era. The former federal chancellor Helmut Kohl promised the East Germans blooming landscapes—a metaphor for an economic vision. In addition to the “blooming landscapes”, Kohl promised a “mental-moral Wende”, a fundamental regime change in which the formation of a liberal-democratic consensus would be purchased with the liquidation of an existing mentality and morality, and the discrediting and discarding of the East German state’s institutions would be accompanied by the discrediting and discarding of their rational and moral underpinning. This political slogan was a Wende slogan for a better democracy. At a moment when East Germany was in a state of total submission, the social dependence on the Wende promise could be strengthened and expanded. And even as it fostered social dependencies on the “Wende promises”, the FRG created a social-psychological and psycho-political vacuum: blind spots of society that simply do not exist on the rhetorical map of reunification. Within these strategies of post-democracy, Wende winners could occupy space without any inhibitions. The project “land occupation East”—as I would like to term it based on the theory developed by Klaus Dörre about the “Neue Landnahme” (Dörre 2009),16 which was also known as “Aufschwung Ost”—prospered. However, the “Aufschwung Ost” took place without East Germans and was the second German economic wonder after the end of the Second World War.

3 Prospects 3.1 A Change of Course What was neglected? What can be corrected? What does a future vision for a democratic society of equal opportunity and political participation look like? In my view, the resistance in the populace against further measures of a capitalist reconstruction of society should be taken seriously. For this demand, the German critic of capitalism Walter Benjamin left us with a recipe for interrupting catastrophes: “The idea of progress is founded in the idea of catastrophes. That it will go on is the catastrophe.” (Benjamin 1990, p. 683) Pausing on the treadmill of capitalist catastrophe accumulation is the order of the day. Resistance means interrupting progress—and reversing it. In a contemporary rendering, this might be dubbed “the interruption of democratization”. Up until now, capitalism bred its critique in a post-political heritage of global governance,

16(Dörre

2009).

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with the expectation that it could permit its internal criticism to accumulate, and then put it to use. Recently, however—and here we close the circle to the beginning of the text— one is confronted with new protagonists who have appeared in the arena of past globalization games (Sloterdijk 2005), those who are “disgusted”. Formerly opposed to one another, globalists and globalization critics joining forces against a completely new threat, against the subcutaneous resistance that emerged from their collateral damages, against the suspended. This is the decisive change on the stage of globalization. When the suspended enter the arena (of globalization via democratization), prior iterations of g­ lobalization-critique must be taken to involuntary account. The stunned (media) accusations such as “attack on globalization” clearly demonstrate this change of scene; it boils down to an end of globalization and its prior forms of critique.

3.2 Democratizing Democracy The “democratization of democracy” (Offe 2003) is a prospective demand of “the suspended”. The central question of democracy is still: “Do the excluded have a voice?” (Stegemann 2017, p. ?) And if so, what would they say? Let us alter the perspective for a moment, and direct our view to the interior. Let us reduce the speeds of industry 4.0 and Big Data. Let us stop the Revolution of Military Affairs (RMA), the war for energy resources and Peak Oil, the war for markets, growth and leadership. Let us attempt to interrupt the well-financed trends of the globalization industry and the flows of high-tech creative workers, branded as “transnational movements” or “the futures of world society”. Let us try to look at groups of people whose “other” languages and argumentative frameworks are unheeded, who are denied a social affiliation and whose need for dialogue is ignored. Let us try not to devalue the collective needs of resistance—whether in the new German federal states, the old German federal states, in Eastern Europe or the Europe of the PIIGS states—as nascent fascism or as a failed integration into market, but rather as something genuinely social—a response to systematic subjugation. People have needs for collectives, heritage, affiliation, language and space. They need collective frames of reference, ritualized recollection and a reproductive memory in order to survive. Let us take the resistance to a ­neo-liberal loss of control in (East) Germany and elsewhere in the world ­seriously, and discover the solutions that it attempts to offer.

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References Assman, A. (1988). Soziales und kollektives Gedächtnis. http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ propylaeumdok/1895/1/Assmann_Kollektives_Gedaechtnis_1988.pdf. Accessed 3 Nov 2017. Benjamin, W. (1990). Gesammelte Schriften (Vol. 1.2). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Castel, R., & Dörre, K. (Eds.). (2010). Prekarität, Abstieg, Ausgrenzung. Die soziale Frage am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus. Clausen, C. (1994). Krasser sozialer Wandel. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien. Dörre, K. (2009). Die neue Landnahme. Dynamiken und Grenzen des Finanzmarktkapitalismus. In K. Dörre, S. Lessenich, & H. Rosa (Eds.), Soziologie – Kapitalismus – Kritik. Eine Debatte (pp. 21–86). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Heitmann, V. (1999). Unverbindliche Welten? Die Wiedervereinigung aus der Sicht von psychisch Kranken und ihrem sozialen Umfeld. Tübingen: Edition Diskord. Marchart, O. (2013). Prekarisierungsgesellschaft: Prekäre Proteste. Politik und Ökonomie im Zeichen der Prekarisierung. Bielefeld: Transkript. Nachtwey, O. (2016). Die Abstiegsgesellschaft – Über das Aufbegehren in der regressiven Moderne. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Offe, C. (2003). Demokratisierung der Demokratie. Diagnosen und Reformvorschläge. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus. Porrello, N. (2017). Die Stigmatisierung der Rechten. Diskriminierung anderer – eine Folge des besseren Arguments? Soziologie-heute, das soziologische Fachmagazin, 52((April 2017)), 10–23. Rauschenbach, B. (1995). Deutsche Zusammenhänge. Zeitdiagnose als politische Psychologie. Zürich: Edition Interfrom. Schultheis, F., & Frisinghelli, C. (Eds.). (2003). Pierre Bourdieu. In Algerien: Zeugnisse der Entwurzelung. Graz: Edition Camera Austria. Simon, D. (1997). Verordnetes Vergessen. In G. Smith & A. Margalit (Eds.), Amnestie oder Die Politik der Erinnerung (pp. 21–36). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Stegemann, B. (2017). Das Gespenst des Populismus. Ein Essay zur politischen Dramaturgie. Berlin: Theater der Zeit. Sloterdijk, P. (2005). Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

Marginality, Ethnicity and Penality in the Neoliberal City: An Analytical Cartography Loïc Wacquant

I would like to start by extending my warm thanks to the participants of this conference—it is better to do so at its outset since we will likely have strong disagreements at its end. It is a paradox, but one of the main obstacles to advances in the social sciences nowadays resides in the social and temporal organization of research, with the uncontrolled invasion of schedules, the overload of work and the multiplication of missions without a matching expansion of the resources needed to carry them out. It explains that we hardly have the concrete incentives, or even simply the time, to sit down and read in depth the works of other scholars, even those that we would need to digest to keep up with our own specialty areas. And we have even fewer opportunities to meet a group of colleagues coming from a variety of fields who have taken the trouble to dissect a body of writings in order to engage in a focused discussion about them liable to help each to advance further along his or her own research path. It is a rare occasion of this kind that we enjoy today, thanks to the energy and talent that Mathieu Hilgers deployed behind the scenes to organize this meeting. I am very grateful to him, as I am to the sociologists, geographers, criminologists and anthropologists who are joining in these discussions, and to the large audience that has come to listen and, better yet I hope, to contribute to our debates through its live questions and reactions. What I would like to do today is, precisely, to serve as a human switchboard to activate communication among researchers who usually do not encounter one another and therefore do not talk to each another, or do so too rarely and from a distance, about the three subjects that anchor the three thematics of this study day. L. Wacquant (*)  Sociology Department, University of Berkeley, Berkeley, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2020 R.-D. Hepp et al. (eds.), Precarized Society, Prekarisierung und soziale Entkopplung – transdisziplinäre Studien, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-22413-4_18

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In the first corner, we have people who study class fragmentation in the city in the wake of the crumbling of the traditional working class issued from the Fordist and Keynesian era (that is, roughly the long century running from 1880 to 1980) under the press of deindustrialization, the rise of mass unemployment and the diffusion of labour precarity, at the intersection of what Robert Castel (1996) puts under the notion of the ‘erosion of the wage-earning society’ and Manuel Castells (2000) calls ‘the black holes’ of urban development in ‘the information age’. These researchers are concerned with employment and labour market trends and with their polarizing and ramifying impacts on social and spatial structures— leading in particular, at the bottom of the ladder of classes and places, to the unfinished genesis of the post-industrial precariat in the urban periphery at the dawn of the twenty-first century. But they scarcely engage in sustained discussion with their colleagues who, in the second corner, are studying the foundations, forms, and implications of ethnic cleavages. Grounded in ethno-racial classifications in the United States (that is, in the institutionalization of ‘race’ as denegated ethnicity), in ethno-national classifications in the European Union (to wit, the ‘national/foreigner’ cleavage) and in a varying mix of the two in Latin America and a good part of Africa, (­re-)activated by immigration and by the cultural differences of which migration can be the carrier, ethnic division is nonetheless essential to grasping the formation and deformation of classes. And conversely: how can one not see that those who are designated –indeed, defamed– across Europe as ‘immigrants’ are foreigners of postcolonial origins and lower class extraction while others, of upper-class standing, are ‘expats’, whom everyone wants to attract and not drive out? And how can one ignore that the collective perception that one has of them, their modalities of incorporation, their capacity for collective action, in sum, their fate, depend a great deal on their social position and trajectory, and therefore on shifts in the class structure in which they become ensconced? This domain of inquiry, which is experiencing an unprecedented boom across Europe, fuelled by the fear of immigration and by the political and media fad over ‘diversity’, has grown largely autonomous (under the impetus of American-style ethnic studies programmes) and increasingly distant from—even opposed to—class analysis. Thus an artificial alternative has crystallized, which summons us to make a disjunctive choice between class and ethnicity, to grant analytical preference and political priority to either ‘the social question’ or ‘the racial question’ –I am thinking here, in the case of France, of Pap Ndiaye’s resounding study La Condition noire (2008), which aspires to found ‘black studies à la French’, which, in my view, is a double mistake, theoretical and practical, and of the book edited by the Fassin brothers, De la question sociale à la question raciale? (2006), which speaks volumes about the drift of the progressive ‘common sense’ of the moment. Now,

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it is abundantly evident, as Max Weber ([1922] 1978) emphasized a century ago, that these two modalities of ‘social closure’ (Schließung), based respectively on the distribution of material and symbolic powers, are profoundly imbricated and must necessarily be theorized together.1 Finally, in the third corner, studiously isolated from the other two, we have a group that is very well represented amongst us today: criminologists and assorted specialists in criminal justice issues. They burrow away with zeal the closed perimeter of the ‘crime and punishment’ duet, which is historically constitutive of their discipline and continually reinforced by political and bureaucratic demand. Hence, they pay hardly any attention (not enough for my taste, in any case) to shifts in class structure and formation, the deepening of inequalities and the broad revamping of urban poverty, on the one hand, and to the dynamic, and historically variable, impact of ethnic divisions on the other (except under the narrow and limiting rubric of discrimination and disparity, typically conflated). In so doing, they deprive themselves of the means to grasp the contemporary evolution of penal policies, inasmuch as, as Bronislaw Geremek ([1978] 1987) showed in his master work La Potence ou la pitié, since the invention of prison and the emergence of modern states in the West at the close of the 16th century, these policies have aimed less at reducing crime than at curbing urban marginality. Better yet, penal policy and social policy are but the two flanks of the same politics of poverty in the city—in the double sense of power struggle and public action. Finally, always and everywhere, the vector of penality strikes preferentially at categories situated at the bottom of both the order of classes and gradations of honour. It is therefore crucial to connect criminal justice to marginality in its double dimension, material and symbolic, as well as to the other state programs that purport to regulate ‘problem’ populations and territories. I hope that my presence here can help us overcome—if only for the duration of this meeting– the isolation and even mutual ignorance in which the explorers of these three thematic regions hold one another, so that we may set in motion a dialogue among students of urban relegation as a product of class restructuring, of the reverberations of ethnicity, and of the transformations of the state in its different components targeted at dispossessed and dishonoured populations –first

1I

argued this point, a long time ago (Wacquant 1989), in the course of a reinterpretation of the political and scientific controversy stirred up in the United States by the masterwork of my Chicago mentor, William Julius Wilson ([1978] 1980), The Declining Significance of Race, as well as in an article calling for the elaboration of an ‘analytic of racial domination’ escaping the logic of trial which construes racialization as one among many competing modalities of the fabrication of collectives (Wacquant 1997a).

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among them its penal arm (the police, courts, jail, prison, juvenile facilities, and their extensions). If there is a key argument that I want to lay out today, through my answers about each of the books that are the focus of our three sessions as well as in my concluding talk at this end of this day, it is that we urgently need to link these three areas of inquiry and get the corresponding disciplines to work together: urban sociology and economic analysis, the anthropology and the political science of ethnicity, and criminology and social work, with diagonal input from geography to help us capture the spatial dimension of their mutual imbrications, with, at the end our sight, the figure of a ‘Centaur state’, liberal at the top and punitive at the bottom, which flouts democratic ideals by its very anatomy as by its modus operandi. I I propose, by way of both prolegomenon to and frame for our debates, to sketch a rough analytic cartography of the research programme I have pursued over the past two decades at the crossroads of these three thematics, a program of which my books Urban Outcasts, Punishing the Poor and Deadly Symbiosis are both the product and summation. These books form a trilogy that probes the triangle of urban transformations with class, ethnicity and state as its vertices and paves the way for a properly sociological (re)conceptualization of neo-liberalism. So much to say that they gain from being read together, sequentially or concurrently, insofar as they complement and bolster one other to outline in fine a model of the reconfiguration of the nexus of state, market and citizenship at century’s start, and a model that one can hope to generalize by means of reasoned transpositions across borders. This revisit is an opportunity to draw up a provisional and compact balance-sheet of these inquiries and to specify their stakes, but also to signpost how I adapted key notions from Pierre Bourdieu (social space, bureaucratic field, symbolic power) to clarify categories left hazy (such as that of the ghetto) and to forge new concepts with which to dissect the emergence of the urban ­precariat and its punitive management by the neo-liberal Leviathan. Each volume of this trilogy shines light on one side of the ‘class-race-state’ triangle2 and probes the impact of the third vertex on the relationship between the

2I

use the term ‘race’ in the sense of denegated ethnicity: a principle of stratification and classification stipulating a gradation of honour (declensed according to ancestry, phenotype or some other sociocultural characteristic mobilized for the purpose of social closure, cf. Wacquant 1997) that purports to be based in nature; or else a paradoxical variety of ethnicity that claims to not be ethnic—a claim that, infeliciter, sociologists endorse every time they carelessly invoke the duet ‘race and ethnicity’ that anchors ethnoracial common sense in English-speaking countries.

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other two. And each book builds on the other(s) as both empirical backdrop and theoretical stepping-stone. 1. Urban Outcasts diagnoses the rise of advanced marginality in the city, in the wake of the collapse of the black ghetto on the American side and the dissolution of working-class territories in Western Europe, along the ‘class-race’ axis as angled by state structures and policies. 2. Punishing the Poor charts the invention and deployment of punitive containment as technique for governing problem areas and populations along the ‘class-state’ axis stamped by ethnoracial or ethnonational divisions. 3. Deadly Symbiosis disentangles the relationship of reciprocal imbrication between penalization and racialization as kindred forms of dishonour and reveals how class inequality intersects and inflects the ‘state-ethnicity’ axis. Each of these books labors its own problematic and can therefore be read separately. But the arguments that link them together extend beyond each to make a broader contribution, firstly to a comparative sociology of the regulation of poverty and the (de)formation of the post-industrial precariat and, secondly, to a historical anthropology of the neo-liberal Leviathan (Wacquant 2012). They offer a way to rethink neo-liberalism as a transnational political project, a veritable ‘revolution from above’ that cannot be reduced to the naked empire of the market (as both its opponents and its advocates would have it) but necessarily encompasses the institutional means required to bring this empire into being: namely, disciplinary social policy (encapsulated by the notion of workfare) and the diligent expansion of the penal system (which I christen prisonfare), without forgetting the trope of individual responsibility that acts as the cultural glue binding these three aforementioned components together (Wacquant 2010a). I briefly summarize the key arguments made in each book before highlighting their common theoretical foundations and their interconnected implications. 1. The political production of advanced marginality: The first book, Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality, elucidates the nexus of class and race in the districts of dispossession or bas-quartiers of the post-industrial metropolis in its phase of socio-spatial polarization (Wacquant 2008a). I describe the sudden implosion of the black American ghetto after the acme of the civil rights movement and attribute it to the turnaround of local and federal policies after the mid-1970s –a multisided shift that David Harvey (1989) captures well as a move ‘from the managerial city to the entrepreneurial city’, but one that assumed a particularly virulent form in the United States as it also partook of a sweeping racial backlash. This policy turnaround accelerated the

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historic transition from the communal ghetto, confining all blacks in a reserved space that both entrapped and protected them, to the hyperghetto, a territory of desolation that now contains only the unstable fractions of the African-American working class, exposed to all manners of insecurity (economic, social, criminal, sanitary, housing, etc.) by the unraveling of the web of parallel institutions that characterizes the ghetto in its full-fledged form (Wacquant 2005a). I then contrast this sudden crumbling with the slow decomposition of ­working-class territories in the European Union during the era of deindustrialization. I show that urban relegation obeys different logics on the two continents: in the United States, it is determined by ethnicity, modulated by class position after the 1960s, and aggravated by the state; in France and its neighbouring countries, it is rooted in class inequality, inflected by ethnicity (for which read: post-colonial immigration), and partially deflected by public action. It follows that, far from drifting towards the sociospatial type of the ghetto as instrument of ethnic closure (Wacquant 2011a), the dispossessed districts of European cities are moving away from it on all dimensions, so much so that one can characterize them as anti-ghettos.3 I thus refute the fashionable thesis of a transatlantic convergence of dispossessed districts on the pattern of the African-American ghetto and instead point to the emergence, on both sides of the Atlantic, of a new regime of poverty in the city, fuelled by the fragmentation of wage labour, the retrenchment of social protection, and territorial stigmatization. I conclude that the state plays a pivotal role in the social as well as the spatial production and distribution of urban marginality: the fate of the post-industrial precariat turns out to be economically underdetermined and politically overdetermined, and this is true in the United States no less than in Europe—yet another nick in what the historian and jurist Michael Novak (2008) has nicely called ‘the myth of the “weak” American state’. So much to say that we must urgently place government structures and policies back at the heart of the sociology of the city (where Max Weber [1921, 1958] had properly put it) hanging and bearing over over the dyadic relationships between class and ethnicity at the foot of the spatial structure, as shown in Fig. 1.

3The

predicament of lower-class postcolonial immigrants across Europe is that they suffer from the symbolic taint spread by the panic discourse of ‘ghettoization’, which overtly designates them as a threat to national cohesion in every society, without garnering the ‘paradoxical benefits’ of actual ghettoization (Wacquant 2008c, 2010f), among them the primitive accumulation of social, economic and cultural capital in a separate life-sphere liable to give them a shared collective identity and an increased capacity for collective action, in the political field in particular.

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Fig. 1   The ‘Fatal Triangle’ of the urban precariat. (Authors own source)

2. The punitive management of poverty as component of neo-liberalism: How will the state react and handle this advanced marginality that, paradoxically, it has fostered and entrenched at the point of confluence of the policies of economic ‘deregulation’ and social protection cutbacks? And how, in turn, will the normalization and intensification of social insecurity in territories of urban relegation contribute to redrawing the perimeter, programmes and priorities of public authority (I use this expression on purpose)? The two-way relationship between class transformation and state reengineering in its social and penal missions are the topic of the second book, Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity (Wacquant 2009a), which covers the left-hand side of the ‘deadly triangle’ determining the destiny of the urban precariat. State managers could have ‘socialized’ this emerging form of poverty, by checking the collective mechanisms that feed it, or ‘medicalized’ its individual symptoms; they opted instead for another route, that of penalization. Thus was invented in the United States a new politics and policy of management of urban marginality wedding restrictive social policy –through the supersession of protective welfare by mandatory workfare, whereby assistance becomes conditional on orienting oneself toward degraded employment– and expansive penal policy –intensified by the

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concurrent drift from rehabilitation to neutralization as operant philosophy of punishment, and centered on declining and derelict urban areas (the US hyperghetto, dilapidating working-class banlieues in France, ‘sink estates’ in the UK, krottenwijk in the Netherlands, etc.) delivered to public vituperation by the discourse of territorial stigmatization in the dualizing metropolis. This policy contraption will then spread and mutate through a process of ‘treasonous translation’ across national borders, in accordance with the makeup of social space and the configuration of the political-administrative field particular to each receiving country.4 Punishing the Poor effects three breaks to roll out three major arguments. The first break consists of decoupling crime from punishment so as to establish that the irruption of the penal state, and thus the great comeback of the prison (which had been declared moribund and destined to disappear in short order around 1975),5 is a response not to criminal insecurity but to the social insecurity spawned by the precarisation of wage labour and to the ethnic anxiety generated by the destabilization of established hierarchies of honour (correlative

4Those

who would doubt the relevance of the US workfare regime to non-Anglo-Saxon countries should consult Lødemel and Trickey’s book (2001), neatly entitled ‘An Offer You Can’t Refuse’: Workfare in International Perspective. Over a decade ago already, it documented the generalized drift of social policies from the rights to the obligations of recipients, the multiplication of administrative restrictions on access, and the contractualization of support, as well as the introduction of mandatory work programmes in six European Union countries. In his meticulous review of two decades of programs of ‘social welfare activation’, Barbier (2009, p. 30) warns against sweeping generalizations and stresses cross-national as well as intra-national variations in architecture and outcomes; but he concedes that, aside from fostering ‘cost-containment’, these programs partake of ‘a deep ideological transformation’ that has fostered everywhere ‘a new “moral and political logic” articulated to a moralizing discourse of ‘righs and duties’.” For a broader discussion of the political-economic roots and variants of the ‘workfare state’, see Peck (2001). 5When Michel Foucault (1975) published Surveiller et punir (translated two years later as Discipline and Punish), the international consensus among analysts of the penal scene was that the prison was an obsolete and discredited institution. Confinement was unanimously viewed as a relic of a bygone age of punishment fated to be supplanted by alternative and intermediate sanctions in the ‘community’ (this was the peak of the so-called ‘anti-institutional’ movement in psychiatry’ and of mobilization in favor of ‘decarceration’ in penology). Foucault (1977, pp. 358, 354, 359) himself stressed that ‘the specificity of the prison and its role as seal are losing their raison d’être’ with the diffusion of carceral disciplines ‘through the entire thickness of the social body’ and the proliferation of agencies entrusted with ‘wielding a power of normalization’. Since then, against all expectations, the incarceration rate has boomed practically everywhere: it has increased fivefold in the United States and doubled in France, Italy and England; it has quadrupled in the Netherlands and Portugal and increased sixfold in Spain.

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of the c­ ollapse of the black ghetto in the United States and of the settlement of immigrant populations and advances in supranational integration in the European Union). The second break is to encompass in one and the same model the turnabout of penal policy and the permutations of social policy that are customarily kept separate, in both governmental and scholarly visions. For these two policies are mutually imbricated: they are aimed at the same populations caught in the cracks and ditches of the polarized sociospatial structure; they deploy the same techniques (case files, surveillance, denigration and graduated sanctions) and obey the same moral philosophy of behaviourist individualism; and the panoptic and disciplinary objectives of the former tend to contaminate the latter. To effect this integration, I enlist Bourdieu’s (1993) concept of ‘bureaucratic field’, which leads me to revise Piven and Cloward’s ([1971] 1993) classic thesis on ‘regulating the poor’ through welfare: henceforth, the Left hand and the Right hand of the state join together to effect the ‘double punitive regulation’ of the unstable ­fractions of the p­ ost-industrial proletariat. The third rupture resides in ending the sterile confrontation between the advocates of economic approaches inspired by Marx and Engels, who construe criminal justice as an instrument of class compulsion deployed in linked relation with swings in the labour market, and the culturalist approaches derived from Émile Durkheim, according to which punishment is a language that helps to draw boundaries, revivify social solidarity, and express the shared sentiments that found the civic community. It suffices, thanks to the concept of bureaucratic field, to bring together the material and the symbolic moments of any public policy to realize that penality can perfectly well fulfill both the functions of control and communication either simultaneously or successively, and thus operate in concert in the expressive and the instrumental registers. Indeed, one of the distinctive traits of neoliberal penality is its teratological accentuation of its mission of figurative extirpation of danger and pollution from the social body, even at the cost of reducing rational crime control, as illutrated by the hysterical revamping of sex offenders sentencing and supervision in most advanced societies. I conclude Punishing the Poor by contrasting my model of penalization as political technique for managing urban marginality with Michel Foucault’s (1975) characterization of the ‘disciplinary society’, David Garland’s (2001) thesis of the emergence of the ‘culture of control’, and the vision of neo-liberal policy propounded by David Harvey (2005). In doing so, I demonstrate that the expansion and glorification of the penal arm of the state (centred on the prison in the United States and led by the police in the European Union) is not an anomalous deviation from or a corruption of neo-liberalism but, on the contrary, is one of its core constituent components. Just as at the end of the 16th century, the

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nascent modern state innovated conjointly poor relief and penal confinement to stem the flow of tramps and beggars then invading the trading cities of Northern Europe (Lis and Soly 1979; Rusche and Kirchheimer [1939] 2003), so at the close of the 20th century the neo-liberal state bolstered and redeployed its policing, judicial and carceral apparatus to stem the disorders caused by the diffusion of social insecurity at the bottom of the ladder of classes and places, and staged the garish spectacle of law-and-order pornography to reaffirm the authority of a government wanting in legitimacy due to having forsaken its established duties of social and economic protection. 3. The transformative synergy between racialization and penalization: The crescendo of advanced marginality and the turn toward its punitive containment have both been powerfully stimulated and inflected by ethnic division, rooted in the ‘black/white’ opposition in the United States and centred on the ‘national/post-colonial foreigner’ schism in Western Europe (with certain categories, such as the Roma, treated as quasi-foreigners even in their home countries). This inflection operates indirectly, through the bisectrix of the ‘class-race-state’ angle shown in Fig. 1 (and dealt with in Chap. 7 of Punishing the Poor, ‘The Prison as Surrogate Ghetto’), but also directly, through the two-way relationship between race-making and state-crafting. This relationships is figured by the ­right-hand side of the triangle and covered by the third book, Deadly Symbiosis: Race and the Rise of the Penal State (Wacquant 2011c with Polity Press). The synergistic connection between ethnoracial cleavage and the development of the penal state is the most difficult issue of this plank of investigations, both to raise and to resolve, and this for several reasons.6 First, the study of racial domination is a conceptual quagmire and a sector of social research where political posturing and moral ranting too often take precedence over analytical rigour and the quality of empirical materials (Wacquant 1997a). Next, the probability of slipping into the logic of the trial, which is the sworn enemy of sociological reasoning, already very high when one deals with the slippery and loaded notion of ‘racism’, is redoubled in the case at hand as we are tackling an institution, criminal justice, whose official mission is precisely to render judgements of culpability. Third, to understand

6The

concept of synergy (descended from the Greek syn, together, and ergon, work) conveys very well the idea that racialization and penalization operate in unison to produce state outcasts, in the manner of two symbolic organs acting together upon the functioning of the social body. When Émile Littré inserted it into his Dictionnaire de la langue française [Dictionary of the French Language] (1872–77), he traced the notion to physiology and defined it as ‘cooperative action or effort between various organs, various muscles. The association of several organs to accomplish a function’.

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the contemporary connection between race and public power, one must go back four centuries, to the founding of the American colony that would become the United States, without for that falling into the trap of making the present the inert and ineluctable ‘legacy’ of a shameful past that remains to be expiated. Finally, since ethnoracial division is not a thing but an activity (and a symbolic activity at that, a relation objectified and embodied), it is not congealed and constant; it evolves by fits and starts throughout history, precisely as a function of the operative mode of the state as paramount symbolic power. These difficulties explain why I have twice taken this book back from my publisher to revise it top to bottom (and therefore why even now you can only evaluate it through the articles that offer provisional and preliminary versions of the main chapters). Deadly Symbiosis shows how ethnoracial cleavage lubricates and intensifies penalization and how, in turn, the rise of the penal state moulds race as a modality of classification and stratification, by associating blackness with devious dangerousness and by splitting the African-American population alongside a judicial gradient (Wacquant 2005b). The demonstration proceeds in three stages which take us to three continents. In the first stage, I reconstitute the historical chain of the four ‘peculiar institutions’ that have worked successively to define and confine blacks throughout the history of the United States7: slavery from 1619 to 1865, the regime of racial terrorism in the South known as ‘Jim Crow’ from the 1890s to 1965, the ghetto of the Fordist metropolis in the North from 1915 to 1968, and finally the hybrid constellation born of the mutual interpenetration of the hyperghetto and the hypertrophic carceral system. I establish that the stupendous inflation in the confinement of lower-class blacks since 1973 (the black bourgeoisie has both suppported and benefited from that same penal expansion, which suffices to invalidate the c­ ounter-evangelical thesis of the coming of ‘The New Jim Crow’) resulted from the collapse of the ghetto as ethnic container and the subsequent deployment of the penal net in and around its remnants. This carceral mesh was strengthened by two convergent series of changes which, on the one hand, have ‘prisonized’ the ghetto and, on the other, have ‘ghettoized’ the prison, such that a triple relationship of functional surrogacy, structural homology and

7Recall

that the social and legal assignation to the category ‘black’ in the United States relies on genealogical descent from a slave imported from Africa and not on physical appearance, and that it magically ‘erases’ ethnoracial mixture (which concerns the vast majority of persons deemed black) by strict application of the principle of ‘hypodescent’ according to which the offspring of a mixed union belong to the category considered inferior. This symbolic configuration, which prefigures the extreme spatial and social isolation of African Americans in their society, is virtually unique in the world (Davis 1991).

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cultural syncretism has coalesced between them (Wacquant 2001). The symbiosis between the hyperghetto and the prison perpetuates the socio-economic marginality and the symbolic taint of the black urban subproletariat; and it revamps the meaning of ‘race’ and reshapes citizenship by secreting a racialized public culture of denigration of criminals. I then expand this model to encompass the massive over-incarceration of ­post-colonial immigrants in the European Union, which turns out to be steeper in most member states than the overincarceration of black Americans across the Atlantic –a revealing yet little-known fact that is either overlooked or denied by continental criminologists (Wacquant 2005c). The selective targeting and preferential confinement of foreigners issued from the West’s former empires take the two complementary forms of internal and external ‘transportation’, carceral expurgation and geographic expulsion (dramatized by the bureaucratic-cumjournalistic ceremony of the ‘charter flight’). These are complemented by the rapid development of a vast network of detention camps reserved for irregular migrants and by aggressive policies of detection and exclusion that incite informality among those migrants and normalize the ‘misrule of law’ across the continent as well export it to sending countries via the ‘externalization’ of programs of immigration and asylum control (Broeders and Engbersen 2007; Ryan and Mitsilegas 2010). All these measures aim to trumpet the fortitude of the authorities and to reaffirm the boundary between ‘them’ and a European ‘us’ that is painfully crystallizing.8 The penalization, racialization and depoliticization of urban

8The

infamous speech delivered by Nicolas Sarkozy in Grenoble in July 2010 offers a hyperbolic as well as outlandish illustration of this logic of symbolic segmentation and vilification through penalization. Concerned to restore his blown credibility on the issue of public safety with a view to the 2012 presidential elections, the French head of state officially declared ‘war on traffickers and offenders’ and announced the appointment of a tough police chief to the post of local prefect. He directly linked undesirable foreigners to criminality (even though the incident that prompted his speech involved only French citizens); he singled them out for the full wrath of the state and prescribed enhanced and overtly discriminatory sanctions by the justice system (proposing, in addition to mandatory minimum sentences, to strip of their citizenship ‘French nationals naturalized for less than 10 years’ if they are convicted of acts of violence towards the police—a measure in direct violation of the French constitution and European conventions). And he launched a police campaign to dismantle ‘illegal Roma camps’ and to expel their residents en masse, aiming to rack up numbers of arrests and provide video footage for the evening TV news. This flash of law-and-order pornomania earned France the vigorous diplomatic protests of Romania and Bulgaria, official remonstrations and threat of sanctions from the European Union, and wide international reprobation (from the Vatican, the UN, etc.).

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­turbulences associated with advanced marginality thus proceed apace and reinforce one another in a circular nexus on the European continent as in the United States. The same logic is at work in Latin America, which is where I last take the reader in order to scrutinize the militarization of poverty in the Brazilian metropolis as revelator of the deep logic of penalization (Wacquant 2008b). In a context of extreme inequalities and rampant street violence backed by a patrimonial state that tolerates routine judicial discrimination by both class and color and unfettered police brutality, and considering the appalling conditions of confinement, to impose punitive containment on the residents of declining favelas and degraded conjuntos is tantamount to treating them as enemies of the nation. And it is guaranteed to fuel disrespect for the law and the routine abuse as well as runaway expansion of penal power, which one can indeed observe across South America in response to the conjoint rise of inequality and marginality (Müller 2012). This Brazilian excursus confirms that the vector of penalization always aims highly selectively, striking as a matter of structural priority those categories doubly subordinated in the material order of class and in the symbolic order of honour. II I come now to the theoretical inspiration for my work, which is not always clearly perceived by my readers (or else only faintly or elliptically), even as it provides the key to the overall intelligibility of a set of investigations which, without it, might seem rather dispersed if not disconnected. In order to disentangle the triangular connections between class restructuring, ethnoracial division and statecrafting in the era of triumphant neoliberalism, I have adapted several concepts developed by Pierre Bourdieu (1997) and put them to work on new fronts—marginality, ethnicity, penality– from the micro level of individual aspirations and interpersonal relationships in everyday life to the meso level of social strategies and urban constellations to the macrosociological level of state forms (see Fig. 2): symbolic power is ‘the power to constitute the given by enunciating it, to make people see and believe, to confirm or transform the vision of the world, and thereby action upon the world, and thus the world itself’ (Bourdieu 1991, p. 170). It illuminates marginality as social liminality (translating alternately into civic invisibility or hypervisibility), penality as state abjection, and racialization as cognitively based violence. More broadly, it exposes how public policies contribute to producing urban reality through their activities of official classification and categorization (one example in France is the invention of the notion of ‘sensitive neighborhood’ and the nefarious effects it has induced, not only upon the behaviour of state bureaucrats, the media and firms, but also among residents of the areas thus denigrated as well as among their neighbours);

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Fig. 2   The underlying theoretical architecture. (Authors own source)

bureaucratic field refers to the concentration of physical force, economic capital, cultural capital, and symbolic capital (entailing, in particular, the monopolization of judicial power) that ‘constitutes the state as holder of a sort of meta-capital’ enabling it to impact the architecture and functioning of the various ‘fields’ that make up a differentiated society (Bourdieu 1993, p. 52). It designates the web of administrative agencies that both collaborate to enforce official identities and compete to regulate social activities and enact public authority. Bureaucratic field puts the spotlight on the distribution (or not) of public goods and enables us to link together social policies and penal policies, to detect their relationships of functional substitution or of colonization, and thus to reconstruct their convergent evolution as the product of struggles about and within the state, pitting its protective (feminine) pole and its disciplinary (masculine) pole, over the definition and treatment of the ‘social problems’ of which neighborhoods of relegation are both the crucible and the point of fixation; social space is the multidimensional ‘structure of juxtaposition of social positions’, characterized by their ‘mutual externality’, relative distance (close or far), and rank ordering (above, below, between), arrayed along the two fundamental

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coordinates given by the overall volume of capital agents possess in its different forms and by the composition of their assets, that is, ‘the relative weight’ of ‘the most efficient principles of differentiation’ that are economic and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1994, pp. 20–22). As ‘the invisible reality’, irreducible to observable interactions, that ‘organizes the practices and representations of agents’, social space helps us identify and map out the distribution of the efficient resources (Bourdieu 1994, p. 25) that determine life chances at different levels in the urban hierarchy, and then to probe correspondences –or, indeed, disjunctures– between the symbolic, social and physical structures of the city; and finally; habitus, defined as the system of socially constituted ‘schemata of perception, appreciation and action enabling us to effet the acts of practical knowledge’ that guide us in the social world (Bourdieu 1997, p. 200), pushes us to reintroduce into the analysis the carnal experience of agents –and marginality, racialization, and incarceration are nothing if not bodily constraint, manifested most intensely intus et in cute. It helps us attend to ‘the psychosomatic action, wielded often through emotion and suffering’, through which people internalize social conditionings and social limits, such that the arbitrariness of institutions gets erased and their verdicts are accepted (Bourdieu 1997, p. 205).9 It invites us to trace empirically, rather than simply postulate, how social structures are retranslated into lived realities, as they become sedimented into socialized organisms in the form of dispositions towards action and expression. Such dispositions tend to validate and reproduce or, on the contrary, to challenge and transform, the institutions that produced them, depending on whether their conformation agrees with or diverges from the patterning of the institutions they encounter. There is, moreover, a relation of logical entailment and a two-way chain of causality running among these different levels (suggested by Fig. 2)10: symbolic power imprints itself on social space by granting authority and orienting the distribution of efficient resources to the different relevant categories of agents. The

9It is revealing that Bourdieu (1997, p. 205) evokes the pivotal passage of Franz Kafka’s ([1914] 2011) In the Penal Colony in which the sentence of the condemned is carved onto his body by a torture machine as a grotesque variation on what he calls the ‘cruel mnemotechnics’ through which groups naturalize the arbitrary that founds them. This scene puts us at the point where the material-cum-symbolic spear of the penal state encounters and pierces through the body of the offender in an official act of radical desecration resulting in physical annihilation: the citizen shall exist only within the historical ambit of the law. 10For a fuller discussion of the internal relationships between these different concepts, which stresses the barycentric place of symbolic capital in its various incarnations, see Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992).

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bureaucratic field validates or amends this distribution by setting the mutual ‘exchange rate’ between the various forms of capital they possess. In other words, we cannot understand the organization of urban hierarchies, including whether and how powerfully they get ethnicized, without putting into our explanatory equation the state as a classifying and stratifying agency. In turn, the structure of social space becomes objectified in the built environment (think segregated residential neighborhoods and the differential distribution of amenities across districts) and embodied in the cognitive, affective and conative categories that steer the practical strategies of agents in everyday life, in their social circles, on the labour market, in their dealings with public institutions (police staff, welfare offices, housing and fiscal authorities, etc.), and therefore shape their subjective relationship to the state (which is part and parcel of the objective reality of that same state). The causal chain can then be retraced back from the bottom up: habitus propels the lines of action that reaffirm or alter the structures of social space, and the collective meshing of these lines in turn reinforces or challenges the perimeter, programs and priorities of the state and its categorizations. It is this conceptual gearing which articulates the ethnography of boxing presented in my book Body and Soul (Wacquant [2000] 2004) to the institutional comparison that organizes Urban Outcasts. In my eyes, these books are the two sides of a single investigation into the structure and experience of marginality (as indicated at the bottom of Fig. 1), approached from two opposite but complementary angles: Body and Soul delivers a carnal anthropology of a bodily craft in the ghetto, a sort of phenomenological cross-section, from the standpoint of the ‘signifying agent’ dear to the pragmatists, embedded in an ordinary slice of life seen from within and from below, while Urban Outcasts lays out an analytic and comparative macrosociology of the ghetto, constructed from without and from above the lived world it frames.11 I use these notions as so many theoretical levers to machine concepts that help me to detect new forms of urban marginality, to identify state activities directed at producing it upstream and treating it downstream, and thence for sizing up

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detailed examination of the life strategies of a ‘hustler’ in the predatory street economy (Wacquant [1992] 1998) and of the normative twist and practical stretch that the hyperghetto imposes on marriage (Wacquant 1996) are two of the multiple points of junction between these two levels and modes of analysis: in both of those case studies, my chief field informants were also boxers. Likewise, the extended judicial enmeshment of my best friend and ‘ring buddy’ at the Woodlawn Boys Club across two decades provided me with a live analyser of the relationships between marginality and penality in biographical time and at the microsociological scale.

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Fig. 3   The main concepts developed. (Authors own source)

emerging vectors of inequality in the dualizing metropolis in the age of diffusing social insecurity (see Fig. 3). Thus, in Urban Outcasts, I lean against the notion of social space to introduce the triad of ghetto/hyperghetto/anti-ghetto and to dissect the changing socio-spatial constellations that contain the dispossessed and dishonoured populations trapped at the bottom of the ladder of places that make up the city (Wacquant 2008a, 2010b). Marrying Bourdieu’s (1991) theory of symbolic power to Goffman’s (1964) analysis of the management of ‘spoiled identities’, I coin the concept of territorial stigmatization to reveal how, through the mediation of cognitive mechanisms operating at multiple enmeshed levels, the spatial denigration of neighborhoods of relegation affects the subjectivity and the social ties of their residents as well as the state policies that mould them.12

12This

concept has since been developed theoretically and extended empirically across three continents, cf. Wacquant (2007, 2010b, f), the investigations carried out within the frame of the international and interdisciplinary network advancedurbanmarginality.net, and the selective bibliography compiled by Tom Slater, Virgílio Pereira and Loïc Wacquant for the special issue of Environment & Planning E on the theme of “Territorial Stigmatization in Action” (forthcoming).

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In keeping with the precepts of Bachelard’s epistemology, I develop an idealtypical characterization of the new regime of advanced marginality (thus called because it is not residual, cyclical or transitional but organically linked to the most advanced sectors of the contemporary political economy, and notably to the financialization of capital) which supplies a precise analytic grid for international comparison. In Punishing The Poor and a suite of articles derived from it (Wacquant 2010c, d, 2011b), I elaborate the notion of prisonfare by conceptual analogy with that of ‘welfare’, to designate the lattice of policies—encompasing categories, bureaucratic agencies, action programmes, and justificatory discourses– that purport to resolve urban ills by activating the judicial arm of the state rather than its social and human services. I suggest that punitive containment is a generalized technique for governing marginalized categories that can take the form of assignation to a dispossessed district or endless circulation through penal circuits (police, court, jail, prison and their organizational tentacles: probation, parole, criminal justice databases, etc.). I describe the ascendant policy contraption, which relies on the double regulation of the poor through disciplinary ‘workfare’ and neutralizing ‘prisonfare’, as ‘liberal-paternalist’ since it applies the doctrine of ­laissez-faire et laissez-passer at the top of the class structure, toward the holders of economic and cultural capital, but turns out to be intrusive and supervisory at the bottom, when it comes to curbing the social turbulences generated by the normalization of social insecurity and the deepening of inequalities. This contraption partakes of the erection of a Centaur state that presents a radically different profile at the two ends of the scale of classes and places, in violation of the democratic norm mandating that all citizens be treated in the same manner. Its rulers use the ‘War on crime’ (which is not one) as a bureaucratic theatre geared to reaffirming their authority and to staging the ‘sovereignty’ of the state at the very moment when this sovereignty is being breached by the unbridled mobility of capital and by juridical-economic integration into supranational political ensembles. In Deadly Symbiosis, I propose to replace the seductive but misleading notion of ‘mass incarceration’, which currently frames and constricts civic and scientific debates on prison and society in the United States (I used it myself, rather unthinkingly, in my publications prior to 2006), by the more refined concept of hyperincarceration, in order to stress the extreme selectivity of penalization according to class position, ethnic membership or civic status, and place of residence—a selectivity which is a constitutive feature (and not an incidental attribute) of the policy of punitive management of poverty (Wacquant 2011b, pp. 218–219). I recount that punishment is not just a direct indicator of solidarity

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and core political capacity for the state, as Émile Durkheim asserted over a century ago in De la division du travail social ([1893] 2007): it is also the paradigm of public dishonour, inflicted as a sanction for individual moral, and thus civic, ‘demerit’. This leads me to characterize penality as an operator of negative sociodicy: through its ordinary functioning more so than through the glare of the scandals that it alternately unleashes and appeases (Garapon and Salas 2006), criminal justice produces an institutional justification for the misfortune of the precariat at the bottom of the social scale, a justification that echoes the positive sociodicy of the good fortune of the dominant effected by the distribution of credentials from elite universities on the basis of academic ‘merit’ at the top of that same scale (Bourdieu 1989).13 Penal sanctions and their official recording in judicial files or ‘rap sheets’ (casier judiciaire in France, Führungszeugnis in Germany, strafblad in the Netherlands, etc.) operate in the manner of ‘reverse degrees’: they publicly attest to the individual unworthiness of their bearers and incite the routine curtailment of their life chances, as revealed by the amputation of the social and marital ties, housing options, employment opportunities and earnings of ‘ex-cons’ in nearly every advanced country. It suffices, then, to construct ‘race as civic felony’ (Wacquant 2005b) to detect the deep kinship –which is much more than a similarity or an affinity, even an ‘elective affinity’ à la Weber– between racialization and penalization: both entail an amputation of social being that is validated by the supreme symbolic authority. Racial categorization and judicial sanction produce state outcasts, who are all the more diminished as these are more closely conjugated. III I apologise if I was allusive when I should have been didactic, and vice versa, but to cover my subject while remaining brief I have had to simplify my reasoning and to compress my arguments. Nonetheless, I hope that these rudiments of analytic cartography will enable you to better understand and, especially, to link together the three works that we are going to debate. I anticipate that I am probably going to react to some of your criticisms aimed at this or that book by pointing out that the answer is already found in one of the other two, or that the

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adapt here the duality of ‘theodicy’ proposed by Max Weber ([1915] 1946) in his ‘Social Psychology of the World Religions’, which contrasts doctrines that validate ‘the external and inner interests of all ruling men’ (Theodizee des Glückes) with doctrines that legitimize and rationalize the suffering of ‘socially oppressed strata’ (Theodizee des ­Leidens).

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question has been reformulated or even resolved by the division of labour among the three tomes. I shall not say this to give myself an excuse to avoid the issue: it is the overall economy of the project that requires it, inasmuch as the whole is more than the sum of the parts that each corresponding group of readers tends to autonomize according to the focus of their subfield.14 The empirical progress effected and the conceptual novelties proposed in each book are directly dependent upon those made in the other two. One example: I would not have detected the subterranean link between penalization and racialization as kindred forms of state infamia if I had not first theorized territorial stigmatization as one of the distinctive properties of advanced marginality, and then discerned the functional and structural parallelism between the hyperghetto and the prison. I should make it clear, by way of coda and to reassure you, that I did not sit down, back around 1990, with the extravagant project of writing a trilogy in mind. It is the unplanned unfolding of my investigations, the empirical advances (and repeated retreats) it permitted as well as the theoretical problems it made emerge (or vanish) that have taken me, over the years, from one to another vertex of the triangle Class-Ethnicity-State; and it is unforeseen existential connections that have propelled me along the sides that tie them to one another.15 At the start, there was the shock—inseparably emotional and intellectual—that I experienced in the face of the gruesome urban and human desolation of the vestiges of the South Side, whose lunar landscape stretched away, literally, from my

14It

is revealing that the contributions to the symposia devoted to Urban Outcasts (by City in 2008, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Revue française de sociologie and Pensar in 2009, and Urban Geography in 2010) and to Punishing the Poor (organized by the British Journal of Criminology, Theoretical Criminology, Punishment & Society, Critical Sociology and Studies in Law, Politics & Society, Criminology & Justice Review, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, Amerikastudien, Prohistoria and Revista Española de Sociología) reproduce the established separation between disciplines (with, broadly, urban geography and sociology on one side and criminology on the other, while social work and political science are conspicuous by their absence), and deal exclusively with only one of these two books while omitting the other. The collective book edited by Squires and Lea (2012) is a rare attempt to connect the schema of advanced marginality to my analysis of the penal state, but at the price of neglecting the racialization-penalization axis. The tome assembled by Gonzales Sánchez (2011) does cover carnality, marginality, and penality, but its contributors typically stay within one of these rubrics rather than connect all three. 15See Wacquant (2009c) for a fuller discussion of the analytic linkages and biographical ties between “The Body, the Ghetto and the Penal State,” and the civic motivations that propelled me to disentangle them.

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door steps when I landed in Chicago. This shock pushed me to enter into the boxing gym construed as an observation post from which I took up the question of the coupling of ‘race and class’ in the American metropolis and set about reconstructing the notion of ghetto from the ground up, in opposition to the gaze from afar and from above that dominates the national sociology on the topic (Wacquant 1997b). In response to the irruption of the panic discourse on the alleged ‘ghettoization’ of working-class districts in France and its ensuing diffusion across Europe, I enriched my historical perspective by adding a comparative axis. This comparison highlights the role of the state in the production of marginality, a role that is pivotal yet different on the two sides of the Atlantic. Then, magnetized by the craft of the boxer, I drew up the life stories of my gym buddies and discovered that nearly all of them had gone through prison or jail gates: if I wanted to map out the space of possibilities open to them –or, as the case may be, closed to them– I imperatively had to bring the carceral institution into my sociological line of sight. It was then I realized that the bulimic growth of the American penal system since 1973 is perfectly concomitant with and complementary to the organized atrophy of public aid and its disciplinary reconversion into a springboard toward precarious employment. The historical revisit of the invention of prison in the 16th century subsequently confirmed the organic link that has joined poor relief and penal confinement ever since their origin, and it provides a structural basis for the empirical intuition of their functional complementarity. Meanwhile, in Les Prisons de la misère [Prisons of Poverty] I charted the planetary diffusion of the policing strategy and trope of ‘zero-tolerance’, spearhead of the penalization of poverty in the polarizing city. I showed that it operates in the wake of the ‘deregulation’ of deskilled work and of the conversion of welfare into workfare: in sum, it partakes of the building of the neo-liberal Leviathan (Wacquant 1999, 2009b, 2010e). At each stage, ethnoracial division serves as a catalyst or multiplier: it accentuates the fragmentation of wage labour by segmenting workers and pitting them against one another; it facilitates welfare retrenchment and the deployment of the penal apparatus, as it is much easier to toughen up policies directed at welfare recipients and criminals when the latter are perceived as civic ‘outsiders’, congenitally tainted and terminally incorrigible, opposed in every respect to ‘established’ citizens (to invoke a dichotomy dear to Elias and Scottson [1965] 1994). But, above all, racial branding turns out to be similar in nature to penal punishment: they are two twin manifestations of state dishonour. Thus, without ever setting out to do so, I have come to practice a kind of eccentric (some might say quirky) sociology of political power, since in the end I find myself confronted with the

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question of the state as material and symbolic agency, and dragged reluctantly into theoretical and comparative debates on the nature of neo-liberalism and the contribution of penality to its advent.16 The ‘deadly triangle’ that decides the fate of the urban precariat is an ex-post schema that emerged gradually as I progressed in the investigations of which I recapped the main lines in this article. This explains the fact that the three books that synthesize them were published late (with a lag of nearly a decade, on average, from the data production phase) and also out of order: I had to rethink them and to rewrite them several times over so as to better separate and link them at the same time. This analytic configuration is also what gives more strength and weight to each of them –as our meeting today will hopefully provide the opportunity to demonstrate concretely. This presentation and my presence here are an invitation to a generative and transversal reading, not for the aesthete pleasure of breaking with academic conventions, but so that we may collectively draw out the full empirical and theoretical benefits garnered by connecting the themes of the three sessions of this afternoon. I shall therefore conclude with this analytic cri du coeur: scholars of urban marginality, scholars of ethnicity and scholars of penality, unite. You have nothing to lose but your intellectual chains! And you have a world of scientific discoveries to gain as well as a wealth of practical recommendations to interject into the public debate. * This text is a compressed and clarified version of my opening keynote to the conference ‘Marginalité, pénalité et division ethnique dans la ville à l’ère du néolibéralisme triomphant: journée d’études autour de Loïc Wacquant’, organized at the Université Libre de Bruxelles on 15 October 2010. I would like to thank the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains, the Groupe d’Études sur l’Ethnicité, le Racisme et les Migrations, the Institut de Gestion de l’Environnement et d’Aménagement du Territoire, and the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at ULB for their welcome and for their support of this collective enterprise, and Mathieu Hilgers for his intelligence and persistence in shepherding it. I am grateful also to Karen George for producing on short notice a first-rate English draft translation of the original text in French; to Aaron

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Bourdieusian approach in terms of the ‘rightward tilting of the bureaucratic field’ (itself caught up in the drift of the field of power towards the economic pole) allows me to chart a via media between the two dominant and symmetrically mutilated models of neo-liberalism as ‘market rule’ or ‘governmentality’ inspired by Marx and Foucault respectively (see Wacquant 2012 and the seven responses to this thesis in subsequent issues of the same journal).

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­ enavidez and Sarah Brothers for stellar research assistance; to Megan Comfort B and Matt Desmond for sharp editorial and analytic suggestions; and to all the colleagues, students, and activists who have contributed to the advancement of this research agenda over the years through their reactions, critiques, and suggestions at countless venues in multiple countries. Special appreciation goes to Pierre Bourdieu and Bill Wilson, without whose mentorship this work would have never been undertaken.

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Wacquant, L. 2011a. A Janus-Faced Institution of Ethnoracial Closure: A Sociological Specification of the Ghetto. Pp. 1–31 in Ray Hutchison et Bruce Haynes (dir.), The Ghetto: Contemporary Global Issues and Controversies. Boulder: Westview. Wacquant, L. (2011b). The wedding of workfare and prisonfare revisited. Social Justice, 38(1–2), 203–221. Wacquant, L. (2011c). Deadly symbiosis: Race and the rise of the Penal State. Cambridge: Polity. Wacquant, L. (2012). Three steps to a historical anthropology of actually existing Neoliberalism. Social Anthropology, 20(1), 66–79. Weber, M. (1946). Social psychology of the world religions. In H. H. Gerth & C. W. Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology (pp. 267–301). New York: Oxford University. (First publication 1915). Weber, M. (1958). The city. Edited by Don Martindale. New York: Free. (First publication 1921). Weber, M. (1978). Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California. (First publication 1922). Wilson, W. J. (1980). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American insitutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago. (First publication 1978).