He was known for his work for Operaist journal Quaderni Rossi and his Marxist analysis of labour practices at Italian companies FIAT and Olivetti.
Alquati was born in 1935 in Klana, Croatia, where his father had been exiled because of his left-wing stance within the Italian Fascist party.
[4] He moved to Turin when he was 25, where he joined the editorial staff of the political journal Quaderni Rossi alongside Raniero Panzieri, and in 1963 founded the journal Classe Operaia ('Working Class') with Mario Tronti and Antonio Negri[5][6][7] Alquati's work studying labour practices in the Fiat factory in Turin was an early contribution to the sociology of work in Italy.
[8] He was influenced by the methodology of Danilo Montaldi and the barefoot researchers: he worked at the factories he was studying and lived with other workers.
[14] His academic work focused on globalisation and its possible alternatives; the thought of Zygmunt Bauman on the liquid society; and women's history and politics.