1. The central thesis is that the segmentation of the contemporary labor market into relatively secure jobs and precarious jobs produces uncertainty rather than the calculable risk-taking that entrepreneurship is based on.
2. Life on the secondary labor market with unstable employment is characterized by uncertainty and lack of predictability.
3. Growing precarious employment is translating into cultural attitudes of apathy, passivity, and labor market withdrawal that oppose the ideal of self-made individuals in a market economy.
The cultural Contradictions of Capitalism - uncertainty and entrepreneurship
1. CULTURAL CONTRADICTIONS
OF CAPTALISM
ATTENTION: PLAGIARISM !!!
The heading of the presentation comes from the book
written by Daniel Bell in 1974
Kazimierz W. Frieske
Institute of Labour and Social Studies
Warsaw, Poland
kajtek@ipiss.com.pl
2. The central thesis of the presentation
is following:
Dynamics of contemporary labour market
namely, its segmentaion and sharp division between
relatively secure employment and the variety of ‘precarious’
jobs
produces uncertainty, as opposed to ‘risk – taking’ that
makes the backbone of traditional ‘market economy’
TO MAKE IT SHORT:
calculable risk – taking is deeply embedded in the concept of
entrepreneurship and in an idea of self-made man able to control his
fate
IT DOESN’T WORK ANY LONGER AND FOR SURE IT DOESN’T
WORK ON SECONDARY LABOUR MARKET
3. TO THE CONTRARY
Life on the secondary labour market, ‘low pay – no
pay’ life course, constant shuffling between
temporary employment and unemloyment, etc.
is ridden by uncertainy and lack of calculability !!!
THE ‘RISK SOCIETY’
THAT WAS ENVISIONED BY ULRICH BECK
AT THE END OF THE ‘80
BECOMES
‘THE SOCIETY OF
UNCERTAINTY’
4. HOWEVER, WE HAVE BEEN
WARNED !!!
In 2001 Mary Douglas, well reputed, British anthropologist wrote what
follows:
... There can be no strong society without
certainty... If we could choose a form of society
that does not need certainty it would not be rich,
or powerful, or cohesive... The whole society could
consist of cultural isolates... the demand for
certainty stems from necessity, not from
intellectual need...
Mary Douglas: Dealing with Uncertainty, Ethical Perspectives, 8/2001
5. The Precariat. The New Dangerous Class.
(Guy Standing, 2011)
Contrary to the title of the book, precarious employment and people
doing precarious jobs are too amorphous and too differentiated to
make a ‘class’ in any real sense of the term
The only common denominator that links them together is
UNCERTAINTY AND INSECURITY
HOWEVER, THE PROBLEM IS
THAT UNCERTAINTY AND INSECURITY TRANSLATE
INTO ATTITUDES AND ORIENTATIONS
THAT ARE OPPOSING THE IDEAL OF AN INDIVIDUAL
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE CONCEPT OF SELF-MADE
MAN
THAT ARE SO CRIUCIAL TO ‘MARKET ECONOMY’
6. EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE:
Tomasik, Silbereisen, Heckhausen
Motivation and Emotion 4/2010
...increase in precarious types of employment on the labor market produced
economic hardships and disturbed routine career planning. Over and above the
increased uncertainty, individuals were confronted with acculturative demands
of acquiring new qualifications and learning new behaviors ... Individuals who
were challenged by many of such demands at the same time were at risk to
overtax their personal and social resources and needed to find adaptive
responses to deal with them adequately... Our findings show that those who
lived under unfavorable conditions and who at the same time managed to
disengage from the unattainable demands, or at least protected their
motivational and emotional potential, were among the subjects reporting the
highest satisfaction with life ...
SHORTLY:
IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE, THAT UNCERTAINTY AND INSECURITY PRODUCE
SUCH ADAPTATIVE STRATEGIES THAT ARE BUILD ON
APATHY, PASSIVITY AS WELL AS THE
LABOUR MARKET WITHDRAWAL
7. CONCLUSION:
GROWING NUMBER OF PRECARIOUS JOBS PRODUCES
UNCERTAINTY AND INSECURITY
UNCERTAINTY AND INSECURITY TRANSLATE INTO
SUCH CULTURAL ORIENTATIONS AND ADAPTATIVE
STRATEGIES THAT MAKE PASSIVITY AND
WITHDRAWAL STRATEGIES
REWARDING
QUE SERA, SERA...
IT IS NOT AN ORIENTATION THE MARKET
ECONOMY IS PREPARED TO DEAL WITH FOR IT
BUILDS ON EXACTLY OPPOSING
ORIENTATIONS !!!