RT Journal Article
T1 Historical Significance of Labor’s Increased Precariousness in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain
A1 Vicent Valverde, Lucía
A1 Arrizabalo Montoro, Xabier
A1 Patricia Pinto, 
AB This article addresses the historical significance of the increasing precariousness of labor, even in the most advanced economies. Given the sterility of the mainstream approach, based on methodological individualism, we start from a Marxist critique of political economy, focusing on the laws that govern the process of capitalist accumulation and its contradictions. Within the framework of these laws, we analyze the tendency of labor exploitation to increase in a capitalist economy, linked to the exigencies of profitability due to the increasing difficulties of the valorization of capital. The precariousness of labor is studied around some of the main forms it adopts in three European economies: mini-jobs in Germany, “zero-hours contracts” in the United Kingdom, and false self-employment, together with internship and training contracts, in Spain. Based on theoretical and empirical analysis, several conclusions are proposed to understand the extension and deepening of labor precariousness, built on the notions of overexploitation and destruction of productive forces, linked to current demands of capitalist accumulation.
PB Wiley
SN 0002-9246
YR 2019
FD 2019-01-23
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/133001
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/133001
LA eng
NO Arrizabalo, X., Pinto, P. and Vicent, L. (2019), Historical Significance of Labor’s Increased Precariousness in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Am J Econ Sociol, 78: 255-290. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12266
DS Docta Complutense
RD 12 abr 2026