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Based on ongoing ethnographic research conducted with a network of workers, former workers, and local residents of the Carrara marble basin (Central Italy), this article explores the forms of solidarity and dependence intertwined with and around marble extraction. An overview of the history of marble quarrying provides an introduction to the specific contemporary context, which is characterized by increased extraction and declining employment. An analysis of different local interpretations of these processes highlights a shared predatory dimension. The observation of an unequal exchange between extraction and its benefits is, however, nuanced by the existence of long-standing links between marble work and social reproduction at the local level, as evidenced by the intergenerational transmission of quarries, companies, and trade. Closer attention to these modes of transmission reveals a durable correlation between marble work and male status. Finally, I return to corporatism in the marble industry as the expression of the paradoxical relationship between extractive predation and social reproduction in this region.