Countering precarity: social resilience through a political economy of trust

This chapter explores the socio-economic parameters that shape experiences of security and vulnerability. It argues that contemporary capitalism has generated not just a precarious class, a “precariat” (Guy Standing), but a precarious multitude, with experiences of precarity cutting across gender, age, class and occupational differences. Policy efforts and intellectual critique have so far focused either on fighting inequality through redistribution or on a revival of the post-WWII, bureaucratic welfare state. As an alternative, this chapter will articulate a policy set that fosters societal and personal resilience by building what I have conceptualized as “political economy of trust”. These are reforms which counter social and economic insecurity at the level of interpersonal relations and interactions, with a focus on logistics of equitable distribution of risks and opportunities.