Guy Standing conference
The Precariat: The New Dangerous (and Promising) Class and dialogue with Marcelo Expósito

• Day: June 18
• 6:00 p.m. Guy Standing Lecture
• 6:45 p.m. Dialogue with Marcelo Expósito
• Space: Aljub
• Face-to-face activity with prior registration and limited places
• Conference in English (with simultaneous translation)

Es Baluard Museu organizes the public conference “The Precariat: The New Dangerous (and Promising) Class” by Guy Standing as the closing of the first edition of the “Contact Zone” programme.

In this presentation, the economist and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) will trace how the dominant ideology of our era, neoliberalism, has produced a globalized “rentier capitalism” that has generated a new global class structure, in which the mass class is the precariat. He will define this in terms of labor and work patterns, and show why it is the most likely group for young people to enter. He will explain why it is internally divided into Atavists, inclined to support populist and reactionary policies; Nostalgic, many of them immigrants who keep their heads down for the most part, and Progressives, those inclined to pursue an ecological and emancipatory politics and career.

The pandemic has greatly expanded Progressives, who have a pent-up energy that could emerge strongly as lockdowns and social isolation fade. It is important to realize that the precarious are not only victims of insecurity and stress, but are also capable of forging a better future. The talk will outline what that future could look like.

Standing, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, proposes these and other reflections, in an activity open to all audiences that closes the LAP (Laboratory of Art and Thought) programme this year with module 5. In this thematic block entitled Work, precarious masses, we start from the analysis of one of the most visible negative effects of capitalism, global precariousness, which is occupational, emotional and social precariousness. A module that, above all, looks to reflect on and unfold possible forms of resistance.

To round off the day, after Guy Standing’s conference, there will be a dialogue with Marcelo Expósito moderated by the LAP content coordinator, Berta Sureda. This meeting will bring LAP#1 to a close.

“Contact Zone” is an annual training and research program that aims to become a platform for ideas and a space for critical thinking from which to explore the potential of artistic practice and cultural production as devices for intervention in social change.