Quotes from Guy Standing

Workfare will merely accentuate the growth of the low-paying, insecure labour market.

People want to work, but they don't want to necessarily want to do labour.

Collective action remains the best way of renewing the march towards the great trinity of liberty, equality, and solidarity.

A primary justification for a basic income is social justice.

If schooling becomes little more than preparation for the job market and consumption, it cannot produce socially responsible and altruistic citizens.

The precariat has been losing cultural rights in that those in it feel they cannot and do not belong to any community that gives them secure identity or a sense of solidarity and reciprocity, of mutual support.

We need a new model of social protection. Let us accept that jobs are not the magic solution - and that in a globalised market, job guarantees are a false promise. Let us accept flexible labour, too. But in return, let us have a society in which everybody has a right to basic security and a more equal access to other insurance-based schemes.

Most existing national capital funds have been built up from royalties from oil and other minerals. They need not be limited that way. Most are anything but democratic. That could be changed.

A multi-tier social protection system must be based on a modest basic income so as to enable the precariat to build lives involving a balance of different types of work, not just labour in jobs.

Think of a public library, worth more for those who cannot afford numerous books. Think of a public waterway or fishing ground. All types of commons have imputed monetary value that together comprise a source of social income. As such, the commons reduces economic inequality and insecurity in society.

Every time a government minister or spokesman lauds Magna Carta, let us boo or hiss. Shame them. And let us celebrate what it really means to our history: the ability of an emerging class to make demands against the state for new liberties and rights.

The precariat faces chronic uncertainty about what to do, about what incomes to expect, about state benefits that might be their due, about their relationships, their homes, and about the occupations they can realistically expect.

Since all political parties blame the others for the economic mess, it is unfair to attribute unemployment to individual behaviour.

If you had a basic income, it would mean that everybody would have a base on top of which their earned income would be taxed at the standard rate of tax. That would increase the incentive to take low-wage jobs.

education sold as an investment good that has no economic return for most buyers is, quite simply, a fraud.

Why should people with particular skills – always accepting they are skills – live a vastly better economic life than others who have different skills?

Without the freedom to make 'mistakes', people cannot learn to take control of their lives successfully.

Naomi Klein among others has called the globalisation era 'crony capitalism', revealing itself not as a huge 'free market' but as a system in which politicians hand over public wealth to private players in exchange for political support.

Selective paternalism, for those on low incomes or for other groups needing state assistance, is perhaps even worse than general paternalism, since the minority are denied the opportunity to overturn the rule democratically. The

It started as a youth movement, with educated disgruntled Europeans alienated by the competitive market (or neo-liberal) approach of the European Union project that was urging them on to a life of jobs, flexibility and faster economic growth. But their Eurocentric origins soon gave way to internationalism, as they saw their predicament of multiple insecurities linked to what was happening to others all over the world. Migrants became a substantial part of the precariat demonstrations.

Security is a precious asset. It should be a goal of everyone who genuinely wants to build a good society rather than one that facilitates the aggrandizement of a privileged elite who knowingly gain from the insecurities of others. Wanting others to have what you want takes courage. That is what basic income is about.

What is the ethical or philosophical justification for a basic income? A fundamental claim is that it is an instrument of social justice that reflects the intrinsically social or collective character of society's wealth. In the writer's view, social justice is the most important rationale for moving towards basic income as an economic right, although it is complementary to the other two major rationales, namely freedom and economic security.

Managements can now view computer screens, capture computer keystrokes, identify websites frequented and track workers' whereabouts through GPS-enabled mobile phones, webcams and minuscule video cameras.

Thatcher began the privatization of the most precious part of Britain's social commons, the National Health Service, through what her economic advisers called the 'micro-politics of privatization'. The idea was that the government should gradually cut resources for a popular service so as to undermine faith in its capacity to deliver, leading to acceptance of