Il lavoro attivato. Il significato dell’occupazione nelle nuove politiche

The ALMPs can be used to understand the social meaning of contemporary work. The activation approach has been forging the labour market policies. ‘Welfare to Work’ and ‘social investment’ represent different versions of activation: the former stressing conditionality and pushing recipients to accept any job, the latter aiming at using public funds to invest in ‘human capital’ formation. Despite that difference, the activation approach as a whole shows several critical aspects: ‘individualization’ as theoretical base, coercion and moral labelling of welfare recipients, the key role of financial sustainability in the ALMPs, and the welfare re-commodification. These elements inevitably affect the meaning of labour. Just as the employment contract institutionalised work alienation (Supiot), the service pact with public administration established in the ALMPs subtracts the control of work (the choice whether to work or not) and of its quality (which job to choose or to accept) from benefit recipients