Literally millions of europeans are living on the edge of unsustainable debt. They’re living on the edge of not knowing whether that tomorrow morning or the next day they’re going to have the means of paying for their absolute essentials. We’ve got a situation where that insecurity is corrosive to our mental health, relationships, and capacity to function. We’re creating a society with a precariat growing, which is becoming dangerous in the sense that the simmering disquiet and social illnesses are building up. It’s got to the point now that unless we have reforms towards a more universalistic approach, a rights based approach, away from means testing, away from behaviour testing, away from all these assessment forms that many people have to fill in – unless we can say “let’s wake up and move in a better direction” then we’re going to build up a society where to talk of social solidarity will become a bad joke.
– Guy Standing
