Value Struggles : Looking at Capitalism through the Wine Glass

Abstract

In this open access book, Stefano Ponte offers a theoretically ambitious, empirically rich interrogation of the value struggles at play in global value chains; using the wine industry as an exemplar, he provides a new and fundamental critique of contemporary capitalism and the inequalities it engenders. There is no better product than wine to unmask some of the contradictions of contemporary capitalism. Wine is one of the most fragmented and diversified industries, and one that is not yet completely dominated by large corporate interests. It is also where all sorts of antagonisms against the power of capital are taking place. Value Struggles shows how these tensions and contradictions play out over the valuation of place, nature and people. Through a detailed analysis of South African and Italian wine, it shows that predatory accumulation is about extracting value not only from labour, but also from place, nature and people’s identities as owners of tangible and intangible assets. This book explains how power is exercised in contemporary capitalism, by whom, and with what consequences for producers, workers, and nature – both in the Global South and the Global North. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark and the Carlsberg Foundation, Denmark.