Understanding Outsourcing and Subcontracting: An Approach from the Theory of Surplus Value

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Martín Rodríguez Miglio
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X18791966
• Subject Matter: ArticlesWorkers’ Struggles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 223, Vol. 45 No. 6, November 2018, 114–126

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X18791966

© 2018 Latin American Perspectives

114

Understanding Outsourcing and Subcontracting

An Approach from the Theory of Surplus Value

by

Martín Rodríguez Miglio

Translated by

Mariana Ortega Breña

A critical analysis of outsourcing studies dating from the mid-1980s to the present lays

the groundwork for a new understanding of its rationale. Relying on the idea of production

in contemporary capitalism as involving both labor and valorization processes, this

approach explains outsourcing as arising from the requirements of capitalist accumulation.

Un análisis crítico de los estudios de tercerización que datan de mediados de la década

de 1980 hasta el presente sienta las bases para una nueva comprensión de su lógica. Basado

en la idea de que la producción en el capitalismo contemporáneo involucra procesos tanto

de trabajo como de valorización, este enfoque explica que la subcontratación surge de los

requerimientos de la acumulación capitalista.

Keywords: Outsourcing, Subcontracting, Labor process, Valorization process,

Capitalism

Outsourcing has been analyzed and debated in the fields of labor and labor

organizations, management, and the organization of production since the mid-

1980s and early 1990s. Economists have analyzed it in terms of cost, relational

rents, and customer/vendor cooperation strategies, while social labor studies

have addressed changes in working conditions, labor discipline, and the

breakup of worker collectives. However, this vast literature has failed to

account for the need of the capitalist enterprise to organize work in this par-

ticular way. In most cases, the explanation for it is political, simply pointing to

the volition of the individual capital without asking what determines this

behavior. Thus existing studies fall into surprisingly superficial characteriza-

tions that do not address big capital’s need for the decentralization of produc-

tion. The issue is addressed in terms of the individual extraction of surplus

value without considering the conflict over that surplus value that determines

capital accumulation. My objective here is to address this failure.

The first section will analyze the contributions of these studies and identify

the central elements of current approaches and their limitations and potential.

The following section will take a more in-depth look at the more important ele-

ments and develop the tools necessary for the study of the issues that remain

Martín Rodríguez Miglio is a researcher and professor of the economics of knowledge at the

Instituto de Industria of the Universidad Nacional General Sarmiento in Buenos Aires. Mariana

Ortega Breña is a translator based in Mexico City.

791966LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X18791966Latin American PerspectivesRodríguez / UNDERSTANDING OUTSOURCING AND SUBCONTRACTING

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