Reconfiguring labour value and the capital/labour relation in Italian global fashion

Abstract

AbstractThis essay draws on ethnographic research conducted from 2004 to 2012 among Italian firms involved in the manufacture and distribution of textiles and clothing in China to argue that the boundary between labour and capital cannot be assumed as fixed and stable, but rather is continually remade through particular, situated historical processes. I show how the Italian national legacy of capital/labour relations both set the stage for the outsourcing of manufacturing to China and shaped Italian firms’ investment and labour management strategies. As Chinese consumers became increasingly crucial to the European fashion industry, Italian firms reorganized their production and distribution processes to live up to the prestige value of ‘Made in Italy’. This brought about an ironic twist in the fetishism of commodities in which the proclaimed immaterial value of Italian commodities was appropriated by Italian managers, enhancing their labour value. At the same time, however, the dislocation of Italian managers impeded the process through which labour had been converted into capital in Italian industrial districts, hardening the boundary between capital and labour and altering the dynamic structure of capital/labour relations.