Naomi Klein: Organizing the Precarious

The defining characteristic of the
neoliberal crusade around the world,

I would argue, is the rise of precariousness.
The exclusion of large sectors of people

from the official economy, just shocked
out of the roles.

What I do in this alternative history of
neoliberalism, is look at the key junctures

where countries were prescribed what's
called economic shock therapy,

where the whole set of these policies were
imposed all at once.

Like Russia in the mid-'90s, is the
classic example.

Or Poland in 1989.

What we know about these key junctures

is that society has been much,
much more unequal.

This rapid fire selling off of the state
creates an oligarchic class.

It also just throws millions of people out,
not just out of work.

But out of the organized economy.

And precariousness is the signature
experience of the neoliberal project.

Displacement, from mega dams, from export
processing zones, the rise of casual labor

as opposed to steady protected work,
protected by trade unions.

And that's why, mobility, and when you add
climate change

and mass displacement because of climate.
A collision between weak public infrastructure

which is also a legacy of the neoliberal
project,

which sees investing in the public sphere,
in that kind of public infrastructure

as antithetical to the goals,
you have this collision between

weak infrastructure and heavy weather,
like we saw in New Orleans.

So you have, millions of people

displaced by extreme weather.

The precariousness,
the mobility,

these are the signature policies
of neoliberalism.

Now, I've talked a little bit about how
this ecomic project

is adaptable enough to be able to

be able to profit from cracking down
on those mobile people, right.

That in a way, the market has very much
been created by neoliberalism,

the mass displacement, the need to look
for better work,

whether in cities, moving from
countryside to cities,

or country to country, looking for
more work.

Then, you come up against the privatized
infrastructure,

like Bowing's 2.5 billion dollar
virtual fence

that is being built on the border
between the U.S. and Mexico,

the largest homeland security
contract issued to any company.

Whether it works or not
is beside the point.

It is an economy,
and this is such a resilient model,

that it can both displace the people,
can't find jobs for them

but it can profit from containing them.

And Halliburton, of course, one of their
more recent contracts,

was a contract to build detention centers,
in the case of, a vaguely worded

unexpected immigration influx.

Which I think is probably a reference
to mass displacement because

of some sort of natural disaster,
probably is what the reference is.

So precariousness is the signature
affect of neoliberalism.

And what we're starting to see
are more and more, very interesting

social movements that are organizing
around the idea of precariousness.

And because the women's movement has such
a long history of organizing in sectors

that were ignored by a predominantly
male labor movement.

It makes sense, that what we're seeing

is that are women are at the forefront
of these new organizing models.

Because the organizing of home workers,
for instance,

the organizing of sex workers,

the drive to get housework counted,
the work of Marilyn Waring, for instance.

All of this groundwork, that feminists

have been laying is suddenly
I think being noticed, finally,

although, not enough, by some
leftwing male economic thinkers

and writers, who are recognizing now,
that this organizing of the precarious

is our future.