Th e Janus face of austerity politics - Autonomy and dependence in contemporary Spain - Berghahn Journals
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The Janus face of austerity politics
Autonomy and dependence in contemporary Spain
Susana Narotzky
Abstract: How is social reproduction possible in a context of precarious employ-
ment and austerity policies that have defunded welfare? The paradox of autonomy
and dependence is present in intergenerational relations of support and conflict
at various scales. It emerges, on the one hand, in the neoliberal injunction to be
individually responsible for one’s own present and future wellbeing, an aspiration
that is impossible to fulfill. On the other hand, it is expressed in the increasing
recourse by younger active cohorts to the care work and assets of their older kin—
in particular retirement pensions and a home. Finally, policy calls to transform
the pension system oppose younger and older generations in the accountings of
social security financial sustainability and question the fairness of existing public
pension schemes.
Keywords: class struggle, entrepreneurial self, generations, kinship, neoliberalism,
pension, privilege, social reproduction
“Who gives shelter to a couple with two chil- another region of Spain, and he stopped provid-
dren if not your parents? It is very tough, be- ing alimony. She stayed with the children at her
cause with 40 years that I have they cannot treat parents while she enrolled for various training
me as if I had 14 . . . and that I have to depend courses and tried to find odd jobs, even as she
on my parents . . . when I have a husband and tried to get financial aid from various institu-
children and supposedly I should have an au- tional schemes. She confided to me in 2013 that
tonomy . . . and you go back to being 15 years she hates having to “depend” on state “aid”: “I
old and being in your mom and dad’s home, don’t want any aid, what I want is work,” she an-
with everything that it implies . . . because since grily asserts.
then [when you were 15] you already are 40 years Marta is among a generation of younger
old.” Marta is unemployed and has been living adults in Ferrol (Galicia) that have come to de-
with her parents since 2010 when, unable to pay pend on their parents’ willingness to house them,
the mortgage on an apartment she and her hus- share their income with them, and care for their
band had bought, the couple was evicted. Even- children. She speaks of her parents’ generation
tually, they divorced, the ex-husband moved to misapprehension of her situation: “They expe-
Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 90 (2021): 22–35
© The Authors
doi:10.3167/fcl.2021.900103The Janus face of austerity politics | 23
rienced the postwar [post–Spanish Civil War], tion will address the discursive extension of the
the Transition [to democracy], their life became concept of “generations” to address social con-
better. Now they cannot understand that I can- flict. The following sections will explore the actual
not make my life better. They cannot under- resources, discourses, and practices that enable
stand why youth cannot move forward and still personal autonomy and produce economic and
depends on them.” This system of dependencies social dependency. I will then analyze the argu-
is fragile, however, because one of its pillars, the ment of intergenerational inequity that has be-
public pension scheme that provides income to come mainstream among policy makers in the
the elders sheltering younger adults will not be debate around pension reform. The conclusion
available to most of them. Of her eight brothers will address the various frameworks for social
and sisters, Marta thinks only one sister “will reproduction put forward, their scalar articula-
reach a pension” (llegar a pensión) because of tion, and their consequences.
the precarious work and irregular contributions The larger framework enfolding what I will
of the rest as well as the defunding of public describe for Spain is that of neoliberal transfor-
pensions and structural transformations to the mations that have defaced “embedded liberal-
system. ism” and the social protection and regulations
At the center of present-day tension between that constrained capital accumulation. As Har-
autonomy and dependency in Europe is the ar- vey has aptly described it, neoliberalization rests
ticulation between intimate intergenerational on “the financialization of everything” (2005:
kinship relations, the labor market and other 33) and has resulted in a restoration of class
income opportunities, and the state’s mediation power based on the paradoxical articulation
between generations in the form of the pension of an unfettered entrepreneurial freedom ide-
system. In Spain unemployment, indebtedness, ology and the regulatory support to corporate
job instability, and austerity policies foster ev- monopoly (Harvey 2005). Ideologically, the
eryday interdependencies that provide support entrepreneurial aspect of people’s livelihoods
through personal networks or formal institu- becomes the basis for reconfiguring welfare as
tions. This happens in a context that promotes mere “assistance” for those who have failed to
the entrepreneurial self but where expectations self-provide but still “deserve” to get help, while
of individual autonomy are paradoxically in- privatization processes extract formerly pub-
creasingly difficult to fulfill. At the same time, lic services from the reach of the many. At the
intergenerational forms of care overlap with con- same time, the financialization of accumula-
flict and resentment at different scales. Solidar- tion has shifted the weight from surplus value
ity obligations that weave everyday actions of to monopoly rent extraction, on the one hand,
support around parents, children, friends, and and from value expansion through production
neighbors are confronted at another scale with to asset-price inflation (e.g., bubbles), on the
a discourse of privilege of access to resources other (Foster 2010; Harvey 2004; Lapavitsas
such as jobs (stable labor) and income (retire- 2009). As a consequence, this has highlighted
ment pensions). This configures a complex and the role of political elites in their production of
contradictory map of responsibilities and ulti- privilege for capitalist corporations. The deep
mately poses the question of the sustainability form of neoliberalism that Jamie Peck and Adam
of the social system. Tickell (2002) define as a rolling out of the state
This article is an enquiry into social reproduc- appears as the subservience of national power
tion understood both at the scale of the intimate to non-elected political institutions that orga-
reproduction of life framed in social units, such nize capital accumulation on a world scale often
as the household and kinship networks, and at through the regulation of privilege. Privilege,
the scale of the continuity of an encompassing, then, is increasingly understood by citizens los-
differentiated social system: a society. A first sec- ing ground as the locus of struggle: laboring24 | Susana Narotzky
classes are shifting from class struggles around included claims for political representation and
exploitation to struggles for or against privileges democracy. Starting in the 1980s with the re-
in attempts to redefine boundaries of inclusion structuring of the shipyards, and increasingly at
and exclusion to accessing resources (Narotzky the turn of the new century, the configuration
2019). But, as I will show in this article, in rela- of stable jobs has given way to a predominance
tion to the discourse around generational con- of temporary precarious jobs in small and mid-
frontation, this is not a straightforward process size enterprise (SME) contract firms in logistics
but one full of ambivalence and where powerful and the service sector, migration to larger urban
social agents intervene to reconfigure conflict in centers, and an impressive number of retired
terms of intergenerational inequity. workers.
For over a decade, I have been doing ethno- I have focused my research on the laboring
graphic research in an industrial town in the classes and the transformations that the latest fi-
northwestern region of Spain, Galicia. Although nancial crisis and austerity regime have brought
Galicia is generally known as a poor fishing and about in the lives of different generations.
agricultural region that provided large con-
tingents of migrants to South America during
the first half of the twentieth century, less well Class struggles or generational struggles
known is that it also developed an important
industrial structure in its coastal towns. The This article addresses the widely experienced
industry rested on shipbuilding, both civil and breakdown of social reproduction in Ferrol and
military, automobile production, paper mills, Spain, and the struggles to overcome it. The
and food processing—canning, freezing, and paradox of autonomy and dependence emerges
drying of fish. Ferrol, the concrete town where as a Janus-faced conundrum in the everyday
I have conducted fieldwork, has been home to life of people. On the one hand, the neoliberal
two of the largest shipyards in the country, civil push toward individual responsibility for one’s
and military, a steel factory, a chemical plant, own present and future wellbeing pushes un-
and more recently, a natural liquid gas regas- employed or precariously employed people to
ification plant. This industrial vocation started “reinvent themselves” through self-innovation
in the eighteenth century through the establish- during their active years and for those in stable
ment of a military shipyard and arsenal, which employment to plan their retirement avoiding
very soon also gave rise to organized labor dependence on the public pension system. On
movements. For the last two hundred years, a the other hand, the increasing recourse to kin-
diverse social configuration—male industrial ship, other solidarity networks, and state bene-
workers (shipyards), female canning factory fits to make a living, overwhelms people’s lives
workers, female homemakers, an important with mixed and contradictory results in terms
contingent of navy personnel of various ranks, of self-worth (see Martin, Wig, and Yanagisako’s
and civil engineers—has marked the charac- introduction to this special issue).
ter of the town, its livelihood, and its conflicts. During my fieldwork I have observed the
The boundaries between these social groups complexity of intergenerational and intragen-
were both clear in terms of status and prestige erational relations of support and confronta-
and porous, as shipyard and arsenal person- tion. I have also witnessed how the expansion
nel of different kinds mingled day to day. The of unemployment and precarity impacted the
main conflicts confronted shipyard workers younger generation in this industrial area and
and their superiors—employers in the private what kinds of opportunities were available to
civil shipyards and public and navy personnel them. Although the housing bubble of the early
in the public military yard—around wages and 2000s also affected Ferrol in terms of jobs
work conditions, and during the dictatorship earned or lost, other “bubbles” had a greater im-The Janus face of austerity politics | 25
pact locally, for example the clean energy bub- meaning has developed in recent years attached
ble (as many shipyard jobs had been converted to a concrete neoliberal project aimed at erasing
into jobs in the manufacturing of rotor blades class and dismantling social security systems.
for wind turbines). However, the major shock A recent Guardian article1 speaking about
was the demise of contracts in shipbuilding and the protests in Hong Kong and Chile pointed
the effects it had on the local economy. at the young age of the protesters and declared
The 2008 financial crisis accelerated the shift that class-based struggles had shifted and trans-
toward “new” forms of labor. Unemployment formed into intergenerational conflicts. Strug-
rates above 20 percent—above 50 percent for gles were now about unfulfilled expectations
younger cohorts—have had lasting effects on the and imaginings of a future social position and
labor market and on people’s aspirations, proj- wellbeing that had become elusive. This gener-
ects, and identities. Paid and unpaid work, tem- ational aspect was also the one highlighted by
porary jobs, small entrepreneurship, and social a movement in Spain that, in 2011, defined it-
and solidarity cooperatives overlap with kinship self as “Juventud sin Futuro” (Youth without a
obligations, citizenship entitlements to subsi- future), which stressed the breakdown of social
dies and benefits, and contractual relations. In reproduction that affected them: “Sin casa, sin
this conjuncture, questions of dependence and curro, sin pensión, sin miedo” (No house, no
autonomy become central markers of people’s work, no pension, no fear) was their slogan.
worth and are often expressed in terms of “gen- They were very clear in their demands—a stable
eration troubles.” job, a home, and a retirement pension—broadly
The concept of “generation” has various addressed at those in power. They critiqued how
meanings with no clear boundaries that often bailing out the banks had defunded social ben-
tend to overlap with that of “cohort,” the latter efits, such as education, and endangered the vi-
category defining a concrete birth position in ability of their future. In sum, their aspirations
a chronological timeline. For Karl Mannheim were those of their parents, to have the security
(1952: 276–322) generations were defined by a of a job, to be able to access a place to live in-
common socio-historical location that exposed dependently, and to have a decent retirement
them to similar experiences, predispositions, when the time came. Much has been written
and actions. Interestingly, his understanding about the fact that young people do not aspire to
of “generations” departs from an analogy of the same kind of stability that the baby boomers
“generation” to “class,” both factors expressing a enjoyed, often internalizing the imposition of
location within the social structure that config- uncertainty and flexibility as a choice (Bradley
ured agency. Duane Alwin and Ray McCammon and Devadason 2008; Brannen and Nilsen 2002;
(2007) distinguish three meanings of the gen- Leccardi 2005). In the massive mobilizations
eration concept. The first relates to kinship and that took place at the beginning of the crisis
refers to the social reproduction of the family; in Spain, this does not seem to have been the
the second refers to the location of birth cohorts case. Indeed, the cohort that was at the center
in historical time; the third is linked to agency of mobilizations, mostly university students or
as cohorts come to participate in events in terms recent graduates, pointed at the generational as-
of a particular socially constructed identity. In pect of the economic recession as a way to show
my analysis, I will use “cohort” for the second the breakdown of basic expectations for making
meaning, simply describing a chronological lo- a living (the intimate scale), but they addressed
cation, while the term “generation” is used for their protest to the establishment, those in gov-
both the first and third meanings, what I have ernment (the societal scale), not to their parents,
described as two scales of social reproduction the “baby boomers”.2 The movement eventually
at the intimate and societal level respectively. merged with others to form the Indignados-15M
What I will try to disentangle is how the societal mobilization in May 2011 in Spain.26 | Susana Narotzky
But is the generational aspect the fundamen- del Estado 2013). Nevertheless, the ideological
tal one to explaining mobilization and unrest? maneuver substituting generational for class
And if so, what does it express? Several authors conflict is not straightforward, as social mobi-
(Bristow 2016; White 2013) have pointed at the lizations often present generational conflicts as
extension in the last 20 years of the generational part and parcel of class conflicts.
conflict discourse, in particular as it relates to Since the beginning of the 2008 economic
the social security theme and to the health and crisis, Spain has witnessed many mobilizations
pension systems’ unsustainability. They histori- addressing the social economic effects of the
cize the rise of the “baby boomer problem” as recession and of austerity measures. General
a demographic argument developing initially strikes have highlighted the consequences of re-
in the United States and soon imported to the cent labor legal reforms that made redundancies
United Kingdom from the mid-1980s onward easier, downplayed collective agreements, and
and directly addressing the need to downsize reduced unemployment benefits. Other massive
the welfare state, in particular health and pen- demonstrations during the 2011–2013 period
sions, on the grounds of “intergenerational in- were launched in defense of public services such
equity.” This policy argument is grounded in the as healthcare and education, and more recently,
technical device of “generational accounting” public pensions (Narotzky 2016), revealing that
that soon became an international standard for responsibility for protecting livelihood is seen
national budget accounting (Auerbach et al. to rest on political rather than economic actors
1992; for a critique see Bristow 2016; Lemoine by those participating in the mobilizations. At
2016: 189–195; White 2013), which inscribes stake is a particular understanding of the sub-
social security rights as financial liabilities and stance of citizenship and of the state’s role in
assets in a generational public ledger that as- caring for and upholding the right to life. Tra-
cribes distributive obligations unfairly between ditional labor movements focused on the re-
active (contributors/debtors) and passive (bene- lation between workers (labor) and employers
ficiaries/creditors) age cohorts. Jonathan White (capital) in terms of returns to labor and capital
(2013: 216) defines as “generationalism” this (wages vs. profit), and of working conditions,
“systematic appeal to the concept of generation understanding these two axes as the main pil-
in narrating the social and the political” that re- lars for making a living and having a life worth
sults in naturalizing—as a demographic injunc- living. This constituted mainly an economic un-
tion—the need for the neoliberal rolling back of derstanding of social reproduction, one that was
public services, on the one hand, and framing gendered and followed the ideologically hege-
the conflict in moral terms linked to the un- monic articulation of income and care, market
fair privileges—instead of rights—of the “baby and non-market provisioning of life-sustaining
boomer” generation, on the other hand. With resources. In Ferrol, the shipbuilding industry
this new framing and accounting procedures and its auxiliaries provided the largest propor-
conflict shifts to the generational argument tion of employment—what locals describe as
that creates a new powerful form of common the “monocultivo” (monoculture)—and strong
identity while class differentiation disappears unions had fought for, and achieved, economic
from the debate. Generationalism can be found and social rights. Arguably, these struggles were
increasingly during the 1990s in the expert re- predicated on the expectation of a male stable
ports addressing the unsustainability of the job and a “family wage” even as many women
pension system in particular and in the dis- also earned an income in fish-freezing facto-
courses of neoliberal governments. It becomes ries or as homeworkers in clothing manufac-
inscribed in European Commission documents ture. Present-day mobilizations, instead, focus
(European Commission 2010, 2012) and pre- more broadly on social reproduction at the
ambles to pension reform laws (Boletín Oficial experiential scale of household livelihood, andThe Janus face of austerity politics | 27
at the structural scale of the continuity of the with. Second, unemployed members of kinship
system as a whole, hence the stress on the in- networks depend on existing pensions to a
stitutional responsibility of “the state”—an ab- larger degree in Spain than in France. Indeed,
stract entity that is nevertheless conceived as a what moves these retirees to action is the fact
singular, personified agent, sometimes nuanced that their pension has often become the main
as “the government.” Although some massive income sustaining an extended family of pre-
demonstrations such as the Dignity Marches of cariously employed younger kin. Again, here,
2014 and 2015 that claimed the right to “bread, the language of “rights” and the understanding
work, and a roof ” were not framed in genera- that these were “conquests” of the working class
tional terms, their demands were similar to during and after the transition to democracy is
those voiced by “Juventud sin Futuro.” In these pervasive. The class component is an important
movements, work remains a central demand of- aspect of what configures the older generation’s
ten tied to income, autonomy, and self-respect. understanding of entitlements, as these “rights”
In addition, food and housing are highlighted appear explicitly as the result of working-class
as entitlements, and the language of rights and struggles that the democratic state should pro-
the reference to the Constitution is preeminent. tect. For this generation of pensioners, the ex-
Discursively, claims for housing have slid from perience of their active adult years is that of the
younger cohorts’ demands for a “house” (casa), Franco dictatorship. They have an acute mem-
understood as a base for achieving indepen- ory of their combats to change economic and
dence, to older, precariously employed adults’ political relations to achieve and consolidate
demand for a “roof ” (un techo) heard as a more rights such as free unionization, job security,
anguished scream for basic protection from living wages, democratization, social services,
homelessness—the homeless are described with and universal access to health and education.
the phrase “los sin techo” (those without a roof). In their view, rights are not privileges granted
At the same time, legal changes to the social by the state, instead they have been “produced”
security pension system have resulted in an im- and workers “own” them, hence the discourse
portant loss of households’ purchasing power of “dispossession” that accompanies the mo-
and have seen massive and recurrent demon- bilizations and their stupefaction at “expert”
strations of retired people all over Spain, but mainstream economic discourse and the media
especially in the old industrial regions. These presenting them as “privileged.”
mobilizations defend “decent pensions,” but Indeed, these benefits to a public pension
they try to present their claim as an entitlement were presented by pensioners in Ferrol as the
that goes beyond personal interest and em- result of collective—literally “class” struggles—
braces future generations, those of pensioners’ and are therefore attached to the working class
children and grandchildren; their main banner as a whole as inalienable rights to the social
states “Estudiante, trabajador, estamos luchando wealth.
por tu pensión. Únete a nosotros.” (Student,
worker, we are fighting for your pension. Join
us). In contrast to the mobilizations against Autonomy: Reinventing oneself
pension reform in France, which have mainly
moved active workers, in Spain the retirees are In industrial settings such as Ferrol, people per-
the ones organizing and demonstrating in the ceive the loss of an economy based on produc-
streets. Two possible explanations for this differ- tion as a material and moral loss—of stability,
ence come to mind. First, the extreme precarity of citizenship entitlements attached to employ-
of younger cohorts’ jobs inhibits their sustained ment, and of an ethos of hard work and rewards
mobilization as well as the organizational infra- attached to effort. Today, jobs in industry—es-
structures—such as unions—they are involved pecially the shipyard, onshore wind turbines,28 | Susana Narotzky
or steel—are the most prized and considered the area who earn their main income in this way
“better” even when located in contractor firms. remains very low, between 5 percent and 7 per-
Residents acknowledge that newer jobs, in ser- cent except for a peak in 2011,5 many see their
vices and logistics—the textile giant Inditex has future in entrepreneurial forms of making a liv-
an important hub that provides six hundred ing that are strongly publicized by institutions
jobs locally and six thousand in the immediate and the media.
area3—are transient, impermanent, not some- The official discourse—supported by experts,
thing one would like doing for the rest of one’s local agencies, the government, and the Euro-
life.4 Precarious livelihoods block the produc- pean Union (EU)6—is that wage work will be
tion of a valued identity stemming from work, replaced by entrepreneurship, represented by
divorcing toil from valued positions in society. startups of all kinds and innovative forms of
The material devaluation of workers through de- self-employment. Local and regional institu-
skilling, instability, and wage reductions results tions recurrently organize workshops aiming to
in people feeling morally devalued, in feelings induce young people to set up a small business
of inadequacy and shame (in terms of knowl- or become an innovative self-employed entre-
edge and the fulfillment of family obligations). preneur. The latest promotion video for new
Those with permanent employment are afraid entrepreneurs by the Xunta de Galicia declares
of losing their jobs. Casual workers are afraid “entrepreneurship is quality future.”7 Among
of not being rehired, and workplace harassment these potential “new entrepreneurs”—mostly
becomes the norm, especially for women. unemployed younger people—the injunction
When I interviewed her in 2015, Ana María, to “reinvent” oneself is received with ambiva-
who has had a permanent white-collar job in a lent feelings, often welcomed as an opportunity
SME for 17 years, explained: while accepted as a necessity. Entrepreneurial
programs propose a neoliberal ethos of self-help
The crisis forces people to do things they and individual responsibility, of hard work and
don’t want to do just to make a living. achieving autonomy—as opposed to depending
They accept work below their level of on state benefits or being in the subordinate
qualification. They earn very little. The position of waged employment. They also echo
situation makes you bear everything, dis- an older imaginary (present in agriculture, arti-
placement, flexibility, increased surveil- san manufacture, and commerce) of “being my
lance. There is an upsurge of “machismo” own boss” and accessing “freedom.” These are
as well. There is overwork and stress, and training and coaching programs purportedly
work harassment transfers to the body. teaching entrepreneurial skills and instructing
You get sick, your productivity goes down on how to apply for targeted funding from the
and they sack you. There is fear when you regional administrations channeling EU funds.
have a job and your wage goes to help Young people targeted by EU start-up funding8
your mother-in-law, your parents, pay the embrace becoming an entrepreneur as a cre-
mortgage, car insurance, school books, ative form of self-valorization where talent and
and keep a nest egg in case there is an un- imagination will provide a meaningful way to
expected problem. These make multiple earn a living. Others feel that they are pushed to
fears. become “entrepreneurs”—business-oriented—
against their will, when they only want to make
In this conjuncture, the official mantra to “rein- a living and would prefer a stable job. Such is the
vent oneself ”—endlessly voiced by the media— case for many self-employed workers at the end
appears not as a choice but as a necessity both of subcontracting chains or freelancing service
in terms of making a living and regaining self- jobs, who are at pains to think of themselves as
esteem. Although the percentage of people in entrepreneurs and resent the pressure of socialThe Janus face of austerity politics | 29
contributions and taxation, together with the The conversation turned to “the crisis” and to
diminished coverage they will get in case of the feeling of anxiety that pervaded young peo-
unemployment and when they retire. For these ple’s everyday precarious existence, their inabil-
young entrepreneurs, the need to get indebted ity to forge an autonomous life and support a
to financial institutions but also to family and new family and also their feeling of impotence,
friends, in terms of money, of “labor help” for their lack of instruments of struggle. The older
the business project, or of the caring of chil- women expressed the extension of this anxiety
dren and the household, also becomes an added to their own situation, revealing the transfor-
burden. mation of lifecycle expectations in the present
In Ferrolterra, most entrepreneurial ven- conjuncture. Victoria, a widow in her late 70s
tures that have emerged during the economic told the following story:
crisis that began in 2008 are tied to agriculture,
commerce, or service sectors. Beauty parlors, I ran into this neighbor who said to me:
small shops, market stalls, organic agriculture “You are lucky [in the crisis conjuncture],
production, and bars. Many result from the lack you have your pension, your problem is
of alternative employment and narratives start solved and you can relax.” But I answered:
with “I was laid off ” or “there is nothing for me “Maybe my problem is solved but not that
in the labor market” and insist that they “now of my children nor that of my grandchil-
work much harder.” The hassle of the bureau- dren.” People say that we pensioners have
cratic paperwork necessary to become an en- our problem solved, but we are deeply in-
trepreneur and the endless workdays moderate volved in the crisis, because our children
the feeling of newly acquired freedom. Fiscal, are part of our life.
financial, and personal dependencies become
less visible under the ideology of autonomy Carmen, in her 60s, added, “You sacrifice your
and freedom of the entrepreneur. In reality, re- needs in order to give it [income] to them [adult
inventing oneself as an entrepreneur in the children]. We don’t even think of it, we give it to
present conjuncture engenders a number of de- them. If many grandmothers and mothers were
pendencies, many of which are based on the so- not supporting their children . . . the grandpar-
cial network and family assets that help provide ents . . . we are supporting our grandchildren. If
credit, labor, and care. All of this puts stress on they didn’t have our support, this thing [effects
the “independent ventures” because failure of- of the crisis] would be much worse. But this was
ten drags a wider network of people into trouble already the case during the restructuring of the
(especially in the frequent case of indebtedness) shipyard: I had my parents to help us.”
(Loperfido 2020). Past experience, here, helped understand
present-day intergenerational dependencies.
During the layoffs that took place throughout the
Dependence: The reconfiguration restructuring of the shipyards in the 1980s, how-
of kinship obligations ever, these mutual help networks complemented
other solidarity processes articulated around
In the spring of 2012 I joined a group of women, unionized labor. This was now becoming in-
members of a socio-cultural association. They creasingly difficult as Esperanza, also in her early
were mostly older women, the wives of retired 60s, explained. In her view, present-day precar-
industrial workers who had been active in the ity had weakened unions and young adults, es-
resistance against the dictatorship and were pecially those with children, could not afford to
now trying to organize a solidarity network to confront employers lest they lose their job and
help out those most in need during the crisis. are blacklisted. She proposed that retired peo-
A couple of younger women were also present. ple, who “have nothing to lose,” should wage the30 | Susana Narotzky struggle for their children’s wellbeing in their 15 years after he graduated, he lived on his in- stead. Esperanza suggested, in fact, the polit- come and rented an apartment in the city where ical dependence of young precarious workers he worked. He lost his job in 2013 and now on the previous generation who would be the lived at his parents’ small apartment, sleeping in ones capable of making claims to change their his teenage bed that he sometimes shared with economic situation. Defending their pensions his girlfriend. He got temporary jobs tutoring was one such struggle as this income is often through acquaintances, but he was mostly idle. the main support of the extended family. These Juan, the father, a retired shipyard worker and a “grand-parents” as they define themselves, orga- militant activist of the Marches for Dignity un- nize to defend the public pension system in a knowingly echoed Paula’s critique and decried movement that some experts, neoliberal parties, young people like his son for taking refuge in and the media have characterized as a defense of their parents’ home and not confronting the real “privilege.” I will address this alleged privilege in problems that are destroying them. He declared: more detail after presenting a different view of “They come in search of a home, of food, of any the consequences of intergenerational support. work we can provide. We help them because we Paula, in her 30s, worked in a nongovern- care for them, because they are our children . . . mental organization (NGO) and was the young- but our children could be other people’s children est in the group of women I was talking to. She and, to be fair, we should open our home to others had a different perspective and was very criti- that are not our children. . . . I think we are doing cal of what her older friends were proposing. the wrong thing, this is not the alternative, this In her eyes, older generations should not ma- is an historic mistake. What we are doing helps terially support younger ones or take on their perpetuate those in power” (emphasis added). struggle. She thought that her generation did For this labor leader turned social activist there not mobilize precisely because the older gen- is a shift in the form of solidarity where kinship eration was overprotecting them and taking on support networks, which are closed to non-kin, their responsibilities. She refused what she saw become a perverse instrument inhibiting young as a form of dependency but still thought that people’s collective mobilization. According to older people should transmit their lived expe- Juan, his son criticizes everything but “he does rience of solidarity and struggle. She wanted to nothing to change it, he doesn’t get together learn from the older women’s experience but with others in his situation in order to collec- didn’t want them to replace her, as this would tively mobilize. . . . And he doesn’t do it because deprive her of her own “life.” By learning from we have him with us.” Autonomy for Juan is these older women, she sought to create the linked to collective struggle, to the organized conditions for establishing continuity between objective of change, but his son’s access to the generations—through social reproduction of family safety net gives him some means of liveli- gendered strategies of struggle—while preserv- hood that contribute to demobilizing him. Juan’s ing her sense of autonomy and independence. reading of the predicament of this younger gen- In September of 2015 in another of my visits, eration is very different from Esperanza’s who the solidarity I had witnessed in the previous sees them as trapped in their precarity; but both years seemed to be receding. The family had are active in helping them out at home and mo- become a refuge of last resort, and many young bilizing collective solidarity. people came back to their parents’ homes after This precarious generation appears simul- years of “independent” life. taneously angry and depressed, feels deserving Carmen, previously quoted, and Juan’s son, and shameful. In these newly extended house- Pablo, a journalist in his late 30s who had worked holds, conflicts arising around domestic chores, in a regional newspaper, was one of these “do- sexuality, pocket money, and idleness highlight mestic refugees” as his father called them. For the tension between the desired autonomy of
The Janus face of austerity politics | 31
the young adults and their forced dependence. unsustainable in the long-term, rather than by a
With the reform of the pension system, more- demographic crisis. This systemic failure of so-
over, resources are getting scarcer and the cial reproduction is strongly felt by households
“grand-parents” generation is exhausted and where pensions are the support of extended
anxious about the future, about what will hap- family networks. When, in 2013, a reform of the
pen to their children when they are no longer public pension system de-linked pensions from
around to help. While autonomy expectations consumer price index,9 negatively affecting pen-
of active adults are thwarted, moral responsibil- sioners’ purchasing power, and as a result, their
ity of retired parents grows. capacity to support the wide network of depen-
dents, pensioners initiated recurrent mobiliza-
tions that are still ongoing. In September 2018,
The argument of the new social democratic government returned
intergenerational inequity to pension indexation, provoking severe admo-
nitions from Brussels and conservative-liberal
This new pattern of moral obligations and ma- parties.
terial transfers cannot last, however. To those Indeed, following the European Commission
working today in an increasingly precarious oc- (2010, 2012), Spanish governments of all colors
cupational environment, it is evident that their have repeatedly warned about the “unsustain-
pensions—if any—will not be equivalent to their ability” of the public pension scheme.
parents’ pensions. While the number of years In policy and expert reports, pension fair-
required for a full pension grows (it is presently ness is now defined by an actuarial approach
set around 37), the ability of those in precarious characteristic of insurance business’ risk calcu-
jobs to contribute for such a long period is re- lation that differs from the classic definition of
duced. Moreover, while the replacement rate of intergenerational equity developed at the turn
the “defined benefit” public pension decreases of the twentieth century. That view was based
to minimums, the possibility to make provisions on the idea of a socialized collective obligation
for the future in the other two pillars of the ideal of all present generations toward preceding gen-
“three-pillar system” (“defined contributions”, erations that had invested their work in mak-
and private) is unrealistic for the precariously ing social life possible (Bourgeois 1896)10 and
employed. Likewise, the possibility of accumu- on the social pooling of resources geared to
lating assets such as homeownership that could resolving intra- and intergenerational down-
eventually provide retirement “rents” is practi- turns in livelihood (Beveridge 1942). A contin-
cally impossible. Hence, they will not be able to uous chain of dependencies linked generations
reproduce their parents’ solidarity: an extended through time to the social reproduction of a
family model of kinship obligations where sup- particular collective community. The actuarial
port and care run from older to younger cohorts perspective instead defines sustainability in
continuously. The generation now in their late terms of financial accountability and viability,
60s and early 70s are often taking care of their and individual life-long self-responsibility for
own parents, their children, and grandchildren, wellbeing and the economistic accounting of
using retirement pensions as the main income obligations between generations (Le Lann and
distributed through the domestic network. As Lemoine 2012). The state’s moral responsibility
they are quick to point out, this is a burden that as guarantor of the social reproduction of the
they have not chosen and cannot last. nation, a transcendent and imagined commu-
Therefore, obligations, transfers of income nity of citizens (Anderson 1991), is replaced by
and care, autonomy, and dependency are me- a managerial task of accounting that transfers
diated by a transformed structure of the labor responsibility for social reproduction to each
market and of the welfare system that makes it individual person (Eichhorst et al. 2011; Eu-32 | Susana Narotzky
ropean Commission 2010; Le Lann 2010). The microscale of the household with its income op-
discourse of pension sustainability—conceived portunities and its intergenerational solidarities
in financial terms—has replaced that of social and intimate conflicts cannot be understood
solidarity between age groups and of retirement without analyzing the macroscale of industrial
pension as a citizenship right. restructuring, delocalization, the labor market,
The sustainability argument, presented as a and the various governance scales that config-
matter of intergenerational fairness, results in a ure local spaces and opportunities for making
virtual confrontation between generations for a living.
scarce resources. The media often report this in Second, the material and moral aspects of
terms of “privileges” that the older generation making a living and having a life worth living
does not want to give up, rather than as hard are codependent and express the interconnec-
won entitlements that the older generation is tions between economic opportunities of dif-
defending. ferent kinds, concrete networks that circulate
resources, moral claims, and personal obliga-
tions that sustain material circulation.
Frameworks for social reproduction Third, temporality is present in material
aspects such as the crystallized gains of the
Although the changing situation of this indus- Transition class struggles that consolidated a
trial town in Spain has to be considered in its welfare system, expressed in the pension system
specificities, it is far from unique. The tension but also in the public system of education and
between dependence and autonomy that the healthcare. It is also present in the imaginings
breakdown of expectations has brought to active of the future that both younger cohorts, such
adult cohorts is widespread in Southern Europe as those mobilized in “Juventud sin Futuro,”
(Bendit et al. 2006; Leccardi 2005; Narotzky and and older cohorts, such as those mobilized in
Pusceddu 2020). In particular, we find that the the “Dignity Marches” or the “Pensioners’ tide,”
reconfiguration of the domestic moral econo- have about expectations of livelihood opportu-
mies during recession contradicts in practice nities and desired freedom.
austerity policies affecting the state’s respon- Fourth, the dominant ideology of individ-
sibility toward long-term social reproduction. ual autonomy supported by the concept of self-
These issues connect at a structural level but responsibility for the present and the future is
at the same time produce an experienced dis- elusive in practice albeit recurrently wished for
juncture in the everyday lives of people, one by the younger generation. In fact, the metaphor
that increases ambivalence and anxiety. While of reinventing oneself, as the engineered result
young adults are grateful to their parents for of one’s own creative knowledge and energy,
supporting them, they resent having to depend clashes repeatedly with the multiple depen-
on them. Pensioners supporting younger kin dencies—finance, labor, care, and affect—that
are also ambivalent about their role in creating materially and symbolically support entrepre-
passive and dependent adults with no long-term neurial forms of autonomy. Both as support and
perspectives. For younger adults, also, gratitude obstacle to autonomy, dependencies are present
at home toward parents’ everyday support gets and strongly felt.
entangled with abstract misgivings at what they Fifth, from the point of view of the general
are told is an older generation’s struggle to re- structure of the national economy, this situation
tain privileges that harm the young. of prolonged dependence of active generations
The case of Ferrol carries lessons for an- on state subsidies, often through their retired
thropological analysis far beyond this region in parents’ pension, proves useful. It enables the
Northern Spain. First, it illustrates the connec- “internal devaluation” of labor costs that has
tion between scales of social reproduction: The become the central objective of Southern Euro-The Janus face of austerity politics | 33
pean nation-states in order to enhance national She was awarded a European Research Council
competitiveness in the crisis conjuncture. This Advanced Grant to study the effects of austerity
represents a form of transfer from labor to capi- on Southern European livelihoods (Grassroots
tal through the mediation of the state. Economics [GRECO]) (2013-2019). She was
Finally, if we think in terms of social repro- honored with the Spanish National Research
duction at various scales, what we observe, ana- Prize for the Humanities in 2020. She has edited
lytically, is overwhelming interdependence. the collective book, Grassroots Economies. Liv-
Dependence and autonomy, generational ing with Austerity in Southern Europe. London:
accounting and generation thinking, are frame- Pluto Press, 2020.
works and categories used by policy makers, the ORCID: 0000-0001-7390-7840
media, and some groups of mobilized citizens Email: narotzky@ub.edu
(e.g., Juventud sin Futuro) to give meaning to
these overarching and multiscale relationships
in society. The form of individual or distrib- Notes
uted responsibilities that they help configure are
crucial in defining social worth and the modes 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/
through which power is exercised, reconfigured, oct/26/young-people-predisposed-shake-up-
and resisted. Structural conflicts of social repro- established-order-protest (accessed March 16,
2020).
duction understood in terms of generational
2. Although adult cohorts born in the 1950s
confrontation obscure the class differentiation and 1960s are being increasingly described as
that underlies them and the intergenerational “baby boomers” in the Spanish media, this is
solidarities that enable immediate everyday very recent and is clearly an import from An-
survival. glo-American discourse, as the connotations of
that historical period in Spain are very different.
They are linked to the penury of post–Civil War
Acknowledgments scarcity and repression as well as to the “devel-
opment miracle” of the late 1960s.
The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton 3. https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/santiago/
gave me the opportunity to spend many hours 2019/03/18/inditex-vertebra-alto-porcentaje-ec
onomia-provincia-corunesa/0003_201903S1
reading, writing, and debating the issues in this
8C4991.htm (accessed March 26, 2020).
article with many colleagues; I thank them all
4. Instituto Galego de Estadística (2012); for 2019,
and in particular Benjamin Lemoine. Research see https://www.ige.eu/estatico/estat.jsp?ruta=
was funded by the European Research Coun- html/gl/DatosBasicos/DB_MundoLaboral.html
cil Advanced Grant “Grassroots Economics: (accessed March 26, 2020); https://www.laop
Meaning, Project and Practice in the Pursuit of inioncoruna.es/opinion/2019/05/05/retos-em
Livelihood” [GRECO]. The ICREA Academia pleo-temporalidad-crisis-industrial/1399004
Programme (Generalitat de Catalunya) has pro- .html (accessed March 26, 2020); and https://
vided support for research. I want to thank Keir www.europapress.es/galicia/noticia-sindicatos-
Martin, Ståle Wig, Sylvia Yanagisako, and three advierten-temporalidad-desempleo-galicia-201
anonymous reviewers for their comments on a 91024155621.html (accessed March 26, 2020).
first draft of this article. I hope their suggestions 5. Estrutura de ingresos dos fogares grandes con-
cellos, Ferrol, https://www.ige.eu/web/mostrar
have made the article better, but I am solely re-
_actividade_estatistica.jsp?idioma=gl&codigo=
sponsible for the content. 0205002 (accessed March 16, 2020).
6. www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/SummaryReportSem-
inarYouthEntrepreneurshipRev.pdf (accessed
Susana Narotzky is Professor of Social Anthro- March 16, 2020); European Committee of the
pology at the University of Barcelona, Spain. Regions (2017); https://www.consilium.europa34 | Susana Narotzky
.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/educ/ geois_leon/solidarite/solidarite.html (accessed
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