Time to Go Back or Forward? Checking the Relevance of the Proletariat/Precariat Dichotomy in the Iranian Political Economy

Abstract

Thanks to the popular literature on the global expansion of neoliberalism, the concepts of Precariat, Precarity, and Precariousness have been accepted, in both the academic and the public spheres, to describe the essence of contemporary labor relations. This critical turn, however, has not sufficed to discredit traditional left concepts like Proletariat and Class Conflict. The turn has not yet provided the context for a decisive theoretical shift. The advocates of the orthodox Marxist framework have cast doubts on the significance of contributions made by such neologisms. Using a combination of qualitative methods, including participant observation, problem-centered interviews, and focus groups, this study has gone beyond the proletariat/precariat dichotomy to explore the lived experience of Iranian temporary workers. Based on the results, the precarious workers in Iran cannot reduce their demands to distributive fairness because their productive redundancy is the result of both precarian and proletarian moments. The supplementary themes of Marginality, Invisibility, and Centricity are also useful to explain the mechanisms through which the Iranian subalterns are dealing with precarity.