Changing forms of ethnicised poverty: Reflections on Loïc Wacquant’s article

The author examines those parts of Wacquant’s (forthcoming) article where he discusses the state’s rather active role in the production of the precariat or underclass, and agrees that Wilson overemphasised the role of technological and economic changes and turned little attention to the state’s relative autonomy in managing these dramatic transformations. The author believes that in the countries where serious attempts have been made to establish Eastern European versions of the neo-liberal state, it is justified to speak of the underclass, ethnic ghettoes and hyperghettoes – even if in several respects they differ from what we can see in the United States.