U. Beck: Living in a Risk Society

1

• U. Beck Living in a Risk Society
• Outline of a Brief Discussion
• First and Second modernity Becks general view
  on history and modernization
• Risk in the first and second modernity, and the
  unique place/function of risk the
  institutional/system level and the personal level
• Subpolitics the changing nature of compliance
• Globalization and individualization the twin
  pillars of hope?
• Observations

2
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• First and Second Modernity
• Control and predictability linear the triumph
  of the first opens the second to new problems
  chief among them are globalization of issues,
  nature being industrialized, and culture being no
  longer totally separated from nature (as both
  creators of culture and creatures of instinct are
  under the same risk, the problems of second
  modernity are great levelers)
• The failure to make the unpredictable predictable
  in the second one indicator is insurability the
  scope, the process (gestation of BSE could take a
  long time), the end results, etc. are uncertain,
  either because of new technology applications, or
  because of the unforeseen chain of event
  straddling over different societies the
  definition of risk (and thus responsibility,
  accountability, who to compensate, who to take up
  after-care, etc.) is also a legal issue

3
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. Becks general imagery or guiding thought on
   history and modernity

• large monolithic systems (like technocracy)
  will have downfall if the systems are independent
  of individuals (Giddens system trust and
  (quality of) access points)
• what characterizes the second modernity is not
  the emergence of new social systems or groups
  (rather, these have become more and more
  stabilized and constricting, i.e. unable to face
  new problems generated by world risk society),
  but reflexive modernization (individualization,
  pluralization, decidability, reflection, etc.)
• risk is his take on the nature (problems) and
  future of the second modernity at one level, it
  is a theory of modernity (continuing the
  classical tradition), a theory of the way
  industrial system, science/technology,
  corporations, government, and individuals
  inter-link (with consensus and contradictions) as
  they generate and face new problems at another
  level, a plea for new forms of politics

4
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. The unique place/function/significance of risk

1. Risk as something different from natural disaster
   or man-made dangers (like traffic accidents) it
   is intimately linked to decision-making,
   especially industrial ones, that focuses on
   techno-economic advantages and opportunities, and
   thus accept risks as dark side of progress (From
   industrial society to risk society, p.50) ---
   this is risk in the first modernity, and the
   faith is that human beings could increasingly
   reduce the scope of uncertainties
2. Risk in the first modernity generates a social
   pact both government/corporations (public) and
   individuals (private) agree to the statistical
   appraisal of risks, and to the terms of
   compensation (money for damages),
   responsibility (including after-care) and the
   no-fault clause (that the damage/accident is
   not due to personal fault of negligence, or
   intentional damaging)

5
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. This social pact undergirds the strength of the
   first modernity it assesses the systematic
   effects of risks and hazards it in that sense
   de-individualizes risks thus industrial hazards
   or road accidents are insurable on the consensus
   that the systematic effects of a (faulty) plant
   organization or a (lack of) precaution measures
   or system could be independently arrived at, with
   no recourse to individual (whether plant manager
   or worker) intentions or morality (it nearly
   takes the form of statistical probability e.g.,
   certain mortality rate could be expected given
   this degree of air pollution) the optimism is
   that we are on the road to a (increasingly)
   residual risk society
2. BUT this pact (and the attempt to make the
   unpredictable predictable) crumbles, when these
   things happen

6
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• since the mid-20th century, self-generated
  risks could not be calculated meaningfully,
  because the scope could be total (global, wipe
  out the human race), or the scenario unknown, or
  the consequences unimaginable (open-ended debacle
  or open-ended festival of destruction), or the
  damage irreparable (making compensation more or
  less meaningless)
• nuclear, chemical, genetic and ecological
  mega-hazards are of such nature
• At the system/institutional level, one main
  problem (or result) of the incalculability of
  consequences and damage is the lack of
  accountability for these risks (all are
  connected disasters know no national --- and
  class ---boundaries) the result manufactured or
  organized irresponsibility
• At the individual level, ontological anxiety
  rises (What if it does happen after all? hovers
  on the mind), and many risks are actually
  inaccessible to our senses (e.g., atomic
  radiation, genetic mutations) risks and their
  consequences are, in a sense, individualized

7
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• Beck as seeing these changes as the continuation
  of the first modernity industrial decisions that
  are oriented to new techno-economic advantages
  and opportunities (e.g. GM food as made possible
  by scientific advancements, and as more resistant
  to insects, and other benefits) second
  modernity is thus an inevitable part of (further)
  reflexive modernization risks are now on a
  global scale, thanks to the triumph of the first
  modernity)
• But the new prominence of risk in the second
  modernity is also due to the fact that there are
  both many discourses (contested) on risks and
  many material facts of risk
• There are also contradictions or confusion of
  the two modernities the institutions which are
  manufacturing and (presumably) protecting us from
  the risks are the same institutions in the first
  modernity, whereas the risks which we face now
  are risks whose consequences and damages could
  not be calculated

8
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. Impact on the personal shoring the
   unimaginable (just pretending that things will
   not happen or will turn out fine --- thus
   political stability in risk society is the
   stability of not thinking about things, p.53)
   but Beck also sees this a natural/inevitable
   outcome of reflexive modernization the latter
   means that we DO have to think for ourselves, and
   to make decisions (as ours is the age of
   individuality) when confronting risks
2. This individualization of risk is potentially
   political and subversive because

• the risks we now face could be against the
  value of survival (such is the scale/scope/magnitu
  de of damage)
• often those who are supposed to protect one are
  also the perpetrators, endangering public
  well-being

9
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. Risk in the second modernity is thus a political
   issue this is due to

• When one company sees business opportunities in a
  new field (even in ecology industries),
  alternative lines of activities are opened up
  other competitors may appear, and they have to
  sell their product and image to the government,
  interest groups, general public, etc. new
  professions and experts would arrive on the
  scene the system is up for more discussions,
  negotiations and conflicts in other words,
  their existence comes to depend on
  decision-making and legitimation, and they become
  changeable, Subpolitics, p.92)
• And when risk happens and turns into hazard,
  i.e., whether to buy and eat certain types of
  food, or board the mtr tomorrow, then a whole
  array of parties are put on the defensive

10
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• the corporation has to reaffirm safety, while
  minimizing the risk or turn it into technically
  manageable or correctable one
• government or ministry responsible and gained
  acceptance on their guarantee of safety has to
  stage publicity activities to calm the public, to
  give confidence or reassurance (I eat chicken
  every day!), to call on experts to work with the
  corporations, to set up a commission for enquiry,
  to reform the bureaucracy
• risk-hazard is also in the hands of other people,
  viz. media, experts interviewed by media, who
  could one day aggrandize the hazard, and on
  another day underestimate it

• Thus, for Beck, it is important that both
  government and scientific organizations making
  these decisions on risk have a greater
  participation and monitoring by the public there
  must be such opening up or democratization for
  the decision on risk

11
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• Implication 1 The defenses are like
  self-escalating spirals corporations are under
  permanent pressure , and this overtaxes
  expectations and sharpens attention, so that in
  the end not only accidents, but even the
  suspicion of them, can cause the facades of
  security claims to collapse, From industrial
  society to, p. 57)
• Implication 2 Crisis/risk management in risk
  society it could only manage the technically
  manageable or minor risks, but it often legalizes
  (and accepts as normal) the mega-hazards day in
  and day out becoming more and more defensive,
  despite attempts to gain huge publicity success
  with personal confession of eating chicken

12
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• Overall implication How can a democratic
  political authority be maintained which must
  counter the escalating consciousness of hazards
  with energetic security claims, but in that very
  process puts itself constantly on the defensive
  and risks its entire credibility with every
  accident or sign of an accident? (From
  industrial society to, p.58)
• Risk thus means monolithic social systems now
  have a built-in political stability problem risk
  thus opens the space for non-traditional
  politics, in spheres where people previously and
  otherwise unconnected now share common concerns
  and (political) causes

13
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. Subpolitics

1. Beck believes that its inevitable that there are
   more (alternative) forms of politics in risk
   society

• risks could not be externalized (unlike enemies
  in the first modernity), as they are the results
  of nature being re-created by science/industry
• risks are part and parcel of an increasingly
  connected world globalization means that there
  is increasing sameness (both developed and
  developing countries are facing the same risks
  because of food chain, migration chain,
  ecological chain, etc., though pollution follows
  the poor)
• most risks could not be solved by sovereign
  countries, or by international bodies these
  countries are often the perpetrators of such
  manufactured uncertainties traditional politics
  could not solve the problems because these
  problems fall through the mesh of politics,
  industry, ecology, economy

14
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. There is increasing space for alternative forms
   of politics, especially when individuals have to
   take decisions in facing risk

• they might realize that what they do (produce,
  consume, etc.) could be a reason (or one of the
  reasons) of such risks (e.g., ozone hole), and
  that science and industry are colonizing the
  future the responsibility (via reflexivity) is
  put back on the individual
• there could be a form of risk habitus
  (subconsciously asking oneself when shopping for
  groceries is this safe?) as risk turns into a
  hazard, they have to make decisions, they could
  stop smoking or engage in ecological
  modernization or participate in green campaigns,
  etc.
• world risk society thus gives rise to the last
  of the democratizations first, political, then
  social, and now cultural this is the promise of
  cultural cosmopolitanism (thinking of oneself,
  and living for others)

15
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. Global issues are now at the heart of political
   imagination, a politics that works bottom-up, and
   across the globe

• thus for Beck, individuality or
  individualization does not mean me-first (and
  all its negative connotations) the me-first
  generation partakes of the wellspring of
  reflexive modernization, i.e., political freedom
  and its consequences for individuality this
  wellspring self-replenishes itself by active
  everyday acting upon these new issues me-first
  generation does not necessarily mean decay of
  solidarity and commitment rather it could mean
  self-critical it could result in altruistic or
  cooperative individualism, as people become more
  reflective and more connected over issues that
  previously have been the purview of national
  politics or organizational prerogatives

16
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. This leads to Becks relatively (or cautiously)
   optimistic appraisal of the future of second
   modernity

• Power of the small young me-first generation
  actually are responding to issues largely ignored
  or ruled out by national states aids, global
  environmental destruction, etc. they think in
  small spaces, but these small places are
  connected over the world because of
  communications freedom and technology world
  issues are not just world issues in terms of
  origins and consequences (that spread beyond
  individual societies), but also in their
  concreteness in the here and now, for one
  society, for one political group, etc. p.15)
  this generation is not suffering from decline of
  values, but only decline of big and outdated
  creeds theirs could be called morality writ
  small (p.10) global from below is thus
  promising but it needs to be further developed
  this requires cultural democratization and
  political freedom, now on a global scale

17
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. Becks optimism is also derived from another
   source the changing nature of compliance in risk
   society

• how do large/monolithic self-referential social
  systems (class, national authorities, etc.)
  perpetuate or create a seemingly independent
  autonomy?

• they receive our conformity/compliance it is
  individuals giving consent to the systems (thus
  it is important to ask under what conditions do
  individuals create in their thought and action
  the social realities of systems that seem to be
  independent of individuals?) (Subpolitics, p.
  95)

18
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society
Changing nature of compliance, contd

• this compliance is underlied or made possible
  by thought schemas (classification systems
  produced for judicial/administrative/scientific/or
  ganizational reasons) (which according to
  Foucault are never neutral or innocuous) thus
  from the most particular domestic setting to new
  babies to tramps, there are these schemes that
  give these phenomena a sense of reality, and to
  which we give (often unconsciously) our consent
  labels are the devices of these classifications,
  and new labels bring forth new groups of people
  (just think of the way value added becomes part
  of management-speak and academia-speak, and how
  new winners and losers are generated)

• The basis of compliance is thus the
  availability (by carrot or stick) of such
  cultural certainties

19
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• In the world of labour, consent or compliance
  has its share of carrot and stick

• labour in capitalism is contractually compelled
  labour they have no alternatives (this is the
  stick)
• labour agreement I, the entrepreneur, pay you
  and do not care what you do with your money in
  your leisure time, as long as you do not care
  what I do and produce with your labour power
  during the working hours that I pay you for
  (Subpolitics, p.96) workers enter this
  agreement (power agreement) because of the
  stick reason, but also because of the firms
  culture (paternalistic or corporate
  culture/corporate identity), or fragmented nature
  of jobs, or hierarchical control clothed in
  scientific management, etc. (these could be the
  carrot)
• The net outcome yes, it is purchased consent,
  but it is also a cultural form of indifference on
  the part of workers

20
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• Power is thus both visible (labour agreement
  as power agreement) and invisible (the
  indifference of workers to what they do and what
  they produce)
• But power, to Beck, is not as monolithic as it
  seems once the indifference is weakened (as
  e.g., workers begin to care about what they
  produce, as to whether they are ecologically
  friendly or not), then the consent is put into
  question
• To Beck, the indifference is likely to be
  undermined for various reasons

• historically, modernity ushered in political
  suffrage, social democratization
  (educational/welfare and other citizenship
  rights), and finally cultural democratization (as
  everyone thinks of himself/herself and what
  he/she does rationally and reflexively)

21
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• the imperative to work may still be strong in
  a work-based society, but there are signs that
  this imperative is loosening a little, because of
  social security rights, of two-earners families
  (which makes things more flexible), of
  alternative lifestyles (of support, work and
  identity), and of (this may run against Sennetts
  intentions) the no long term situation in the
  world of labour
• Once this happens, workers could be less
  dependent on work, and more demanding in their
  work (raising substantive demands on their work,
  from eco-safety to ill effects of free global
  trade) consent is thus no longer automatic, but
  has to be generated
• At this point, power and power systems are more
  vulnerable purchased consent is no longer that
  forceful, and other things (identity,
  cooperation, recognition, or just fun-loving)
  could make people more reflexive --- and thus
  less indifferent, and more conditional in their
  consent/compliance-giving

22
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. Observations and Conclusion

1. Beck has some interesting things to say about
   modernity, and the experience of living in risk
   society
2. Whilst Giddens and Beck share similar views on
   the nature of modernity in advanced industrial
   capitalist societies (and Giddens also emphasized
   the notions of risk and confidence, etc.), they
   nonetheless have some differences

• Giddens is more self-consciously scrutinizing
  and building upon classical theories, making his
  enterprise into a more coherent theoretical
  system/perspective Beck is more interested in
  theorizing contemporary phenomena, especially in
  a European context

23
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• Giddens formulates his concepts more
  rigorously, while Beck seems to come up with
  concepts that he thinks would suit his purposes
  in analyzing phenomena it will be difficult to
  construct a theoretical schematic for Beck,
  although some central notions are evident

1. The more important thing both of them emphasize
   the reflexivity nature of modernity, and
   seemingly place their hope (cautiously
   optimistic) on it (without, of course, forgetting
   some of the real changes and challenges)
2. The meaning of risk that it is an evitable
   by-product of techno-industrial advancement what
   is different now is its globalized scale (again,
   a result of the triumph of the first modernity),
   its repercussions for ontological anxiety, its
   consequences in creating more fault lines and
   space in the political system (which now needs to
   generate legitimation in an increasingly
   defensive way), and.

24
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society
And

• Its impact on individuals who, in the face of
  risk, are more connected than before, and who, in
  their own small spaces, connect with others on
  issues that lie in the interstices of government,
  industry, economy, ecology, etc. these issues
  form the basis of a cultural change, as cultural
  certainties and indifference are eroded

1. Beck called himself neither optimist nor
   pessimist, but pessimistic optimist but is that
   qualified degree of optimism even warranted?

• like Giddens, he seems to believe that (just
  like) social classes, social systems and unitary
  organizations fade away in the wake of reflexive
  modernization (Subpolitics, p.92) -------
  Is this warranted?

25
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

• work is still very much contractually
  compelling all those changes that Sennett
  discussed (downsizing, delayering, etc.) harm
  those down in the work hierarchy the world of
  work is still very much a source of identity
  (though Sennett would say it is corrosion of
  character) and action
• Beck may over-exaggerate the vulnerability of
  social/political systems even when consensus is
  no longer automatic, such systems could still go
  on business as usual fashion he admits that
  the impotence of institutions, growing with the
  uncertainty of a consensus, can itself remain
  latent so long as no one openly challenges it
  (Subpolitics, p.98)

26
U. Beck Living in a Risk Society

1. In one sense, Beck is saying that risk
   undermines power (as the latter could no longer
   take indifference or consent for granted, and as
   its traditional political system could not tackle
   the risk --- only reaffirm safety, or will away
   the risk) this is all very well --- and it goes
   well with his (and Giddens) assumption that
   social systems do not reproduce themselves only
   individuals in their indifference or something
   lend their consent to them

• But is this too naive, too innocent?
  Compliance is an immensely important issue, and
  how risk society changes the forms and degree of
  compliance is something that has to be further
  theorized