In this article Didem Özkiziltan investigates distinctiveness of work-related precarity in neoliberal orders by pursuing two main arguments. First, precarity prevailed in pre-welfare state capitalist and current era display marked similarities regarding political ideas and workers’ experiences. Second, neoliberal precarity manifests its distinctiveness in the human factor and the socioeconomic circumstances surrounding it. That is, in the previous era of precarity, the labouring men who is in pursuit of social protection and solidarity refused to refashion themselves as homo economicus, thanks to a protective socioeconomic environment where countermovements against the unfolding realities of free-market gathered momentum. In the neoliberal era, incorporation of market values in everyday lives, digital automation and reorganisation of the work facilitated the transformation of labouring men into homo economicus, who can function without seeking solidarity and social protection. Thus, neoliberal precarity renders it highly uncertain whether it is possible to re-embed the markets into society in a foreseeable future.
Didem Özkiziltan (2020), Goodbye labouring man, long live homo economicus: the new precarity in the world of work, Globalizations.