ABSTRACT
In light of the reasoning laid out in previous sections, it hardly takes a great leap to appreciate that what happens in the labour market is key to the development of neoliberalism. After all, this serves as a model for the functioning of the social in other spheres and is therefore of great symbolic significance. In turn, employment policies are particularly crucial when it comes to the distribution of material resources and the justification of inequality in society. In what follows, the introduction and consolidation of precarity in the Spanish labour market will be outlined. This will involve briefly relating this to its history. Like in other countries of Southern Europe, but unlike the rest of continental Europe, in Spain no pact was established between employers and workers. After a review of the main laws underpinning the process that helped shape a “common sense” in relation to markets, the extent and consequences of the process of labour market deregulation will be explored. Finally, there will be a discussion of the activation policies and transformations of state missions that were to pave the way for the social policies discussed in the following section.
