Guy Standing (economist)

Guy Standing
File:Guy Standing (12957386475).jpg Standing in February 2014
Born	(1948-02-09) 9 February 1948
Nationality	British
Institution	Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Field	Unconditional basic income and deliberative democracy
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Awards	Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS)

Guy Standing, FAcSS (born 9 February 1948) is a British professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN).

Standing has written widely in the areas of labour economics, labour market policy, unemployment, labour market flexibility, structural adjustment policies and social protection. His recent work has concerned the emerging precariat class and the need to move towards unconditional basic income and deliberative democracy.

Education

Guy Standing gained his degree in economics from the University of Sussex in 1971. After taking a masters in labour economics and industrial relations at the University of Illinois, he received his doctorate in economics from the University of Cambridge in 1977.

Career

From 1975 to 2006, Standing worked at the International Labour Organization, latterly as director of the ILO's Socio-Economic Security Programme. The programme was responsible for a major report on socio-economic security worldwide and for creation of the Decent Work Index. In 2006 he became professor of economic security at the University of Bath, leaving in 2013 to become professor of development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

The Precariat

Standing's best-known book is The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, published in 2011. In it, he blames globalisation for having plunged more and more people into the precariat, which he analyses as a new emerging social class. According to Standing, the precariat is not only suffering from job insecurity but also identity insecurity and lack of time control, not least due to workfare social policies.

Standing describes the precariat as an agglomerate of several different social groups, notably immigrants, young educated people, and those who have fallen out of the old-style industrial working class.

Standing calls on politicians to make ambitious social reforms towards ensuring financial security as a right. He argues for an unconditional basic income as an important step to a new approach. If politicians fail to take the necessary decisions, he predicts a wave of anger and violence, and the rise of far-right parties.

Honours

• Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

See also

• Unconditional basic income
• Basic Income Earth Network
• Precariat
• Decent work
• Policy Network

External links

• Official website of Guy Standing
• Le précariat: "une classe en devenir", interview for French webzine Basta!, October 2012
• Conference of Guy Standing at the University of Sydney on YouTube, February 2012
• Precariat And Peasant: Reframing Social Protection For The 21st Century on YouTube, July 2013