Costanzo Ranci (Politecnico di Milano)

“The changing political economy of  self-employment in Italy”

abstract

This presentation is based on a research on self-employment carried out in 2010-12 in Italy, and published in a book in 2012 (C. Ranci, (ed.) Partite Iva. Il lavoro autonomo nella crisi italiana, Il Mulino, 2012). The research was focused on a general reconstruction of the main dimensions and characteristics of self-employment in Italy, with special attention to the social position of these workers in the class structure and of their political economy. What is peculiar of Italy is not only that self-employment is very large (accounting for 24 per cent of the total labour force, while the average  rate in the EU-25 is 12 per cent), but also that it has played a very important role in the economic development of the country, especially  in specific periods of time and  territories (industrial districts, for example). This sector has known a huge change in the last decade because of main trends: professionalization of the middle class, blurring of boundaries between dependent and independent workers, rising inequalities among the self-employed. Also the political economy of the sector has profoundly changed as a consequence of market transformations, policy restructuring, and changes in the family arrangements that have been supporting self-employment for  long time. Traditional self-employment have been replaced by new forms of self-employment that are typical of post-industrial economy. Also the political representation of self-employment has been changing: the transition from the so-called First Republic to the Second Republic and the crisis of the latter have given way to new forms of political representations, which are still very weak and flowing. The traditional mechanisms of interest representation of the self-employed  were based on what Pizzorno called “the individualistic mobilization”. This form seems to be weakening in the present social and political transition, leaving a political vacuum that is still open to various responses.