The precariat is to a service-industry economy as the proletariat is to a manufacturing-industry economy. That's pretty much the thesis of the book, the 'precariat' being the ever-growing flexibilized part of today's workforce. The author did convince me that the precariat is worth distinguishing from the classical proletariat, even though his proposed new class structure isn't the clearest, containing a rung of 'proficians' who seem to be a kind of high wage precariat, consultants and the like. The book is agnostic on how the precariat should consolidate its identity and seek its goals, on the grounds that these are steps in it becoming a 'class for itself'. One may guess, however, that they'll involve a more serious and more international use of the 'non-stop interactivity' which the author thinks is just 'the opium of the precariat'.