1
Q
Harvey (1973) on emergence Marxist geog
A
[T]here is a clear disparity between the sophisticated theoretical and methodological framework which we are using and our ability to say anything really meaningful about events as they unfold around us. There are too many anomalies between what we purport to explain and manipulate and what actually happens. There is an ecological problem, an urban problem, an international trade problem, and yet we seem incapable of saying anything of depth or profundity about any of them
2
Q
Marx Capital (1868)
A
- Darwin has directed attention to the history of natural technology, i.e. the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which serve as the instruments of production for sustaining their life. Does not the history of the productive organs of [humans] in society, or organs that are the material basis of every particular organization of society, deserve equal attention? […] Technology reveals the active relation of [humans] to nature, the direct process of the production of his life and thereby it also lays bare the process of the production of the social relations of his life and of the mental conceptions that flow from this relations.
- “By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway”
- “a spider conducts operations that resemble those of the weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this: that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour process we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement”
3
Q
Marx (1872) - Hegel vs Marx dialectic
A
“To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the Idea’, he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea’. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought…
With him [the dialectic] is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.”
4
Q
Ollman (1993)
A
“Dialectics restructures our thinking about reality by replacing the common sense notion of ‘thing’, as something that has a history and has external connections to other things, with a notion of a ‘process’, which contains its history and possible futures, and ‘relations’, which contains as part of what it is its ties with other relations”
5
Q
Contradiction Examples
A
- Biofuels vs food land-use C18th GB - threatened bring early capitalism down - “solved” with coal - contradiction thrown somewhere else - anthropocene, CC - contradictions not solved, just displaced
- use vs exchange value - exchange = cost commodity - values tension multiple costs/uses - exchange value quantifiable eg house has exchange value by use value - lot house prices out reach - access use value, hard then exchange - have house want exchange value up, new home want down
6
Q
Marx Capital (1868) Commodities and Money
A
- Commodity single unit, object outside us, satisfy human want - use value value get from materiality commodity (reality through consumption) - exchange value relational (money - expressed in something common to commodities).
- Value worth = amount necessary social labour required - time needed produce articles under normal conditions production, average skill/intensity
- Labour within commodities also two-fold - in each use value of each commodity there is useful labour. Need material or nature, changed into thing with use value through labour/human agency. Diff types of labour but all expenditure human labour power - simple labour power vs skilled labour - all use value calculated basis simple labour - abstraction from skill production. Equate diff commodities and commodity value change if eg. labour can suddenly produce it faster.
- form of exchange value - relative and equivalent form - eg linen which makes up coat has relative value (value in coat in relative form) vs coat equivalent form - linen worth only expressed in relation another commodity. Equivalent commodity = material in which the value of the other commodity is expressed. whether commodity appears relative/equivalent form depends what paired with. Equating commodities eg. 1 coat = 20 yards linen - assumes same labour time in both but changes with productivity eg coat same but linen labour time doubled then 20yards = 2 coats as 1 coat now has half labour time - other hand linen value constant coat varies - labour time coat doubles then 20 yards = 1/2 coat - relative value changes when one value changes, another doesn’t. doesn’t change if values change relative to each other.
- Equivalent value - form commodity directly exchangeable, gets value from its bodily form, white number quantity
- commodity has a use value + exchange value one placed in exchange relation - exchange relation one commodity defined use, other exchange value.
- All commodities in social relation all commodities through value. all commodities can be made equivalent to others but one will become the universal equivalent - transition universal equivalent into money form - universal equivalent is a general for of value could assumed any commodity - commodity bodily form socially identified will become money commodity - was gold
- commodity fetishism - man changes nature’s materials into something useful - when becomes commodity enters commodity + social worlds. Nature + Labour = commodity. We look commodities backwards from end product, ignoring historical discourse behind them (how universal value established, how commodity made) - ultimate money form commodities conceals social character of private labour - individual labour homogenised human labour.
- for commodities to be placed in relation have to be possessed human. Respect private property rights to commodities.
- Commodities can be measured by one commodity because their values are all realised by human labour. All commodities have price in relation standard.
- commodity exchange = social circulation matter - commodity rests moves exchange to consumption - metamorphosis between money (exchange value) and commodity (use value) - C-M-C [can seem like C-C]. Commodity disappears when becomes money = impossible trace where come from. Metamorphosis create a circulation commodities - buying/selling.
- Commodity prices vary with value gold - if value money-commodity changes, other commodities change relative/move toward new standard value.
- coins/symbols value - eg. gold coin erodes still symbolically worth same - function gold as coin becomes separate from metallic value - symbolic idea allows notes to be used - paper money circulates in same quantities as if gold were used - can’t exceed amount gold would circulate if not using symbols - gold standard.
- When metamorphosis interrupted, sales not set more purchases, money is immovable, hoarder of money - in pockets along exchange lines are hoards of money, exchange-value stored up. Money becomes private property individual and no longer social in social exchange system.
- time can separate commodities from realisation prices eg. production time, seasonal - money as means credit, debt idea - have commodity but not paid first.
7
Q
Marx Capital (1868) The General Formula for Capital
A
- commodity circulation = starting point capital - modern capital dates back creation world market
- Money = final production circulation and first form capital
- difference money as money and money as capital = circulation commodities - capital = M-C-M. M-C purchase vs C-M sale - exchange money for money overall M-M - M-C-M aim is money/exchange-value and commodity changes place twice vs C-M-C commodity/consumption aim, money changes place twice.
- M-C-M in reality is M = M+DM - D is surplus value - gain of extra value in the sale (M becomes M+D) - possessor of money becomes a capitalist - his pocket = point money starts and returns - aim = expansion of value, accumulate more wealth
8
Q
Marx and Engels (1848) Communist Manifesto
A
- Manifesto meant to be non-specific, applied any time - Basic thought manifesto = economic production + society’s structure of every historical epoch are the basics of political/intellectual history of that epoch - all history = history class struggles, exploited vs exploiter - proletariat not free bourgeoisie without freeing whole society from exploitation, oppression + class struggles
- Bourgeoisie have power, exploiters, free market creators, global bourgeois outlook = need constantly expanding market for products - global view, move away nationalised industry - use cheap commodities break down China’s walls, compel nations threat extinction to adopt bourgeoisie mode of production. creates world in bourgeoisie image. Made rural depend on urban, uncivilised on west. Crisis put bourgeoisie society on trial - epidemic over-production countered by destruction productive forces, conquest new markets, more exploitation = more crisis future.
- Proletariat develops alongside capital/bourgeoisie as working-class, labour - part machine, commodity subject market in selling labour - work paid enough to reproduce but commodity value = production required (above wages = surplus). As capitalist gains more pushed into proletariat including middle-class. Proletariat strike back - build from individual until class vs class, unions against bourgeois esp as machinery lowers wages.
- communists interest entire proletariat, interest movement against bourgeois as whole. aim communists form proletariat into class, overthrow bourgeois - abolition private property - change fact worker can only live in interests ruling classes - abolish free trade. reduce exploitation between countries. centralise/nationalise, free education etc.
- time written not socialist - communist - socialism = middle-class movement (middle-class want uphold bourgeoisie but not pulled into working-class)
9
Q
Smith, Neil (2009) Historical Materialism
A
- Coined Engels, associated Marx - material basis society emphasised - social change due to historical development of social relations, which are materially based
- Rose geography 70s to explain spatial and env change as result social relations capitalism (mode production)
- late 70s/80s clash post-modernism which sees enlightenment/modernity assumptions as out dated
- Post-colonialists argued historical materialism eurocentric, not reflect colonised peoples experience
10
Q
Marx (1843)
A
“It is clear as noon day, that man, by his industry, changes the forms of the materials furnished by Nature, in such a way as to make them useful to him. The form of wood, for instance, is altered, by making a table out of it. Yet, for all that, the table continues to be that common, every-day thing, wood. But, so soon as it steps forth as a commodity, it is changed into something transcendent. It not only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its wooden brain grotesque ideas… “
11
Q
Smith (2001)
A
“During the summer of love (1967), geography was perhaps the least sexy subject….It is very difficult to conceive of a discipline more uncool than geography in 1967.
And yet, the influence of the anti-war movement in the US, the feminist and environmental movements, the Prague Spring of 1968, the anti-imperialist movement radicals discovering socialism and Marx – all of these wider social eruptions in the late 1960s and the 1970s completely transformed the discipline. They had a greater effect on geography than on any other social science in the Anglophone world”
12
Q
Bunge
/
Marx
A
- not function geographers map earth, but change it
- philosophers interpreted world, point is to change it tho
13
Q
Harvey - The Limits to Capital (1982)
A
- tries understand expansionary dynamic capitalism - how plays out spatially, searches markets/surplus
- annihilation space by time
- geographically uneven development
- capitalism evolves space/time
- spatial fix - capitalism fix contradictions- doesn’t solve its crises, moves them around geographically
14
Q
First contradiction of capitalism - overaccumulation example
A
- Wallstreet crash and the Great Depression - before mass production (accumulate in huge factories, piles commodities (overaccumulation), then can’t sell as no demand - underconsumption)
15
Q
Massey (1984)
A
spatial divisions labour (organisation capitalist economy over space creates social relations through which inequality/uneven dev produced)
- “But new spatial divisions of labour are also more than just new patterns, a kind of geographical re-shuffling of the same old pack of cards. They represent whole new sets of relations between activities in different places, new spatial patterns of social organisation, new dimensions of inequality and new relations of dominance and dependence. Each new spatial division of labour represents a real, and thorough, spatial restructuring”
- “The fact that one region has jobs only in direct production while another claims all the headquarters, or that areas differ in their dominant industries, or that in one area the jobs on offer are overwhelmingly manual while in another there is a sizeable slice of white-collar and well-paid employment in research, all these differences reflect different forms of geographical organisation of the relations of production.
What are often called ‘interregional relations’ reflect the same thing. Structures of dominance and subordination between economic activities in different places mirror the way in which … the relations of production are organised over space. ‘Interregional’ relations are the relations of production over space”
16
Q
Massey (1991)
A global sense of place
A
- rethink place in age globalisation - time-space compression, people experience mobility differently eg. gender, race
- places are a composite of all the relations that comprise it - relations not just local
- eg. Kilburn London high street - people around world with global connections vs Dakkah bangladesh slums trapped populations - experience time-space compression differently (different social groups)
- place composed social relations in it, no essence, fluid
17
Q
Smith (1984)
Ideology of Nature
A
- Ideology = set ideas of ruling class, who’s claims are universalised so that we are blinded from production + social inequalities that exist for capitalism to function - one perspective becomes naturalised
- ideology of nature obscures the labour process production nature or social relations within it
- capitalism made certain view nature - eg. human domination acceptable
- external nature (waiting internalised through social production) and universal nature
- internal (human beings) / external (environment) nature
- nature as object to be mastered and manipulated - nature as external materials or objects of labour to be worked on to create commodities
- hostile wilderness as social function to legitimise attack on nature / external nature legitimises subjugation nature
- journey external nature (city) to universal (wildness) - without externalisation nature don’t need stress universality
- metabolism of nature
- Uneven dev is endemic to capitalism
“Much as a tree in growth adds a new ring each year, the social concept of nature has accumulated innumerable layers of meaning in the course of history. Just as felling the tree exposes these rings—before the timber is sent to the saw mill for fashioning into a human artifact—industrial capitalism has cut into the accumulated meanings of nature so that they can be shaped and fashioned into concepts of nature appropriate for the present era. Old concepts of nature are less vanquished than co-opted to the present purpose .”
18
Q
Eden (2009) Production of Space
A
- social production of spaces within which social life occurs. term from lefebvre’s ideas social space - proposed concept socially produced space - spatiality - way register mental and material space
- Lefebvre mapped trajectory capitalism and rise west (little mention production space colonialism) in terms class struggle + capital accumulation, but also as inscription masculine power on social life/space.
- Blum and Nast (1996) argue logic shot through masculinise and heterosexism - body history masculine, female bodies passive + invisible
- Lefebvre’s abstract space - capitalist modernity - fragmented, aggressively expanding social space, whose contradictions disclosed the unstable constitution globalisation.
- Protests france 1968 lefebvre hoped resistance take back spaces everyday - movement work through spaces representation
- Lefebvre central thesis = production of space
19
Q
Harvey (2000) Interview
A
- 1969 Harvey focused positivism understanding geog - gradually realise the tension rational scientific approach geog and application to political issue as come into touch politics like civil rights / anti-war movements
- 70s engages with Marx’s work
- 1982 Limits to Capital - book aim understand Marx
- 1989 book The Condition of Postmodernity - looked how economy influenced urban fabric through shifts capital-labour relations - state still key regulator of labour even with globalisation - state more dedicated creating good business climate for global investment = control labour movements. time-space compression key idea here
- Marx anti social justice - saw attempt distribution alone - redistribution alone not solution, need transform mode production - harvey sees room reintroduce idea justice, esp in line env arguments, but not expense fundamental aim change mode production
- Spaces of Hope focus justice/rights - despite UN Declaration Rights 1948 still exploitation labour (bourgeoisie rights) - need fill rights socialist ideas - Harvey work limited in engagement eurocentric not China/USSR, focus Marx critique capitalism
- Subordinate competition is evident to capitalism
- for capitalism to work people have to believe wealth will continue increasing indefinitely (state/media promote this) - how long capitalism last? not underestimate opposition capitalism - fragmented, localised, diverse, needs global force/organisation - find commonality in differences, collective politics sensitive to geog distinctions
20
Q
Davis (1982)
A
- Housework consumes 3000-4000 hours average housewife’s year and this does not include child care - housework invisible - women’s movement demands men help but have men liberated themselves from assumption housework is women’s work - is enough - desexualisation domestic labour not alter oppressive nature work - neither m/f waste work on that
- capitalism housework could done trained workers, using tech advanced cleaning machinery - hidden as capitalist economy structurally hostile industrialisation housework - but with women working industrialisation/socialisation housework becoming social need - issue social attitudes continue associate females with housework
- Engels argues sexual inequality as we know it now did not exist before advent private property - previous societies more equitable and respectful. eg. Tanzania Masai women responsible domestic activities including house-building - as important as men’s cattle rearing, no less contribution, equal social status genders - vs capitalist society domestic work diminishes women’s social status - housewife is her husbands’ servant in bourgeois ideology - new idea compared pre-indsutrial spinner, weaver, baker, seamstress
- advancement industrialisation - econ production shifts home to factory (eg. candles now mass produced) = erodes importance women’s domestic work. physical and structural separation home/factory - value goods about value/profit not meeting family needs. domestic labour doesn’t create profit so inferior. housewife by product, rooted in social conditions middle-class but became universal model womanhood, alongside the mother. propaganda sees women’s role home - women in work excuse exploited worse - sexism source super-profits.
- US black women exception, most worked outside home, slavery - equal men, all slaves - black women’s lives never had housework central focus - family providers and done housework/reared children - not lean husbands econ security
- women’s movement identifies housework key part women’s oppression - The Wages for Housework Movement 1974 demands weekly gov pay check - women producing commodity as important - create labour power sold capitalist market (Costa)
- Capitalism not care way labour power produced/sustained, only concerned generating profit - presupposes existence body exploitable workers - extreme eg. South Africa black male labour yields high profits but their wives/children domestic life unimportant, even threat - black women not allowed in white cities where husbands work for fear creating stable black population - 28% black women south Africa not marrying
- Many women work cleaners, maids - receive wages closer housewife’s allowance than worker’s pay check - now (80s) women can’t find jobs due sexism - high unemployment - need press job equality and social services eg. child care, maternity leave
- Wages for Housework Movement discourages women from seeking outside jobs
- women can unite other women/men challenge capitalists at point production - generate power fight sexism
- wages for housework little long-term solution women’s oppression, not address discontent housewives - wages make women feel had do housework - would not gain psychological liberation - most disillusioned with housework
- fast-food chains emphasis approaching obsolescence housework - fewer daily meals at home - need new social institutions assume housewife’s duties
21
Q
Kallis and Swyngedouw (2018)
Do bees produce value?
A
- Kallis ecological economist vs Swyngedouw Marxist geographer
- K bees contribute value - socially necessary labour time honey determined beekeepers and bees labour
- S work of bees not produce value - seen as external / unimportant capitalism - bees do work but labour has no Value - do useful labour, produce no value - bees work for free - argument about bees/ non-human labour about moral induction to recognise great contribution non-human makes to life, wellbeing, economy - Marx figuring how capitalism works - notion of Value is a-moral - Marx not deny non-humans/humans do useful labour just that it isn’t valued capitalist system
- K argument about bees not moral, analytical - work done by horses or fuel can’t just be use value - as eg. need move car 10km take 10 hours human work move it vs 10 horses move it in 30mins or fuel move it even master - just as constitutive value as human labour is - also understand how capitalists gain surplus by switching labour with fossil fuels - capitalists exploiting non-humans, appropriating free work/value commons.
- S bees/oils use-value from view capital = productive forces - ability to increase productivity - force production alters SNLT - something value now eg. horse has be worthless tmrw eg. replaced oil for capitalism survive - constant change makes hard monetary value nature under capitalism. Cart example value commodities change Marxists aware work nature does but its productive power is free, why capitalism easily destroy it. capitalism can’t value nature in monetary terms - valuing nature need enforced state/ need get rid capitalism.
- K Marx problematic seeing natural source power and technology as analytically the same when need consider other things eg. impact no fossil fuel future on productivity/capitalism - nature put external production process, not capturing importance free work.
- S - Capitalism is by definition destructive of nature.
- K - ecological economists/Marxists define value differently but agree basic analysis level
- S - capitalists want maximise profit, do so any way can. picture different nature valued differently - know nature valued differently diff societies diff modes production - we should insist nature be valued under capitalism - not Marxist theory but capitalism has limits/ not value nature - Marx theorising practice capitalism - doubt any valuation system can be devised accounts real value nature way compatible capitalisms survival. diff value configuration nature requires abolition capitalism
- K - capitalism values claim only thing commodities have common human labour - also have energy / non-human work embedded in them in common - no objective way know what really is value under capitalism
22
Q
Marx
A
annihilation of space by time
23
Q
Lefebvre (1974)
A
- The production of space
- time and space not fixed, objective but relative, social - produced through socio-tech worlds
- 3 types space lived, perceived, conceived
- perceived = material, daily routines, separation work/home
- conceived = representations space, abstract plans, imagined space
- lived = mental maps, personal geog, relation space place body affective space
24
Q
Harvey (1993)
A
Nothing unnatural about NYC
25
Robbins and Fraser (2003)
‘if the state can put non-commercial Scots pine woodland in the place of industrial forests, it is only, after all, because increased extraction is occurring in the Baltic states, Indonesia and Ghana…’
- Scottish wood conserved only because not needed for timber as UK timber sourced offshore
26
Harvey (1974) Production of Scarcity
- Marx disagree Malthus understanding population pressure on env - doesn't account for surplus (surplus labour created by dispossession people from land - become urban labourers, not agriculture)
- Scarcity structural condition - produced capitalism - pre-condition for exchange value as scarcity = need to buy - creates reserve army of labour that without access resources has sell labour power
27
Production of Scarcity Example - Swyngedouw (2004)
Guayaquil, Ecuador
- 65% urban population use 3% water, accessed via vendors at price 200x higher than from city's piped water network
- expanding access relies private capital, but capital expects public assistance
- where/how water moves depends on how can be commodified
- water not independent resource base (outside capitalist relations) being drawn down by populations - water available shaped expectations capital and mediated state
- availability water depends relationship capital and the state - scarcity
28
Moore (2015)
Capitalocene idea: neoliberal capitalism problem (- but carbon emissions did pre-exist capitalist economies?)
29
Weeks (2011)
The unique milieus of ‘work life’ and ‘home life’ organized distinct spheres of sociality and civic participation in the West for centuries, coordinating the polar spheres of domestic and public life.
30
Davis (1981)
The importance of factory-produced commodities resided overwhelmingly in their exchange value – in their ability to fulfill employers’ demands for profit. This revaluation of economic production revealed a fundamental structural separation between the domestic home economy and the profit-oriented economy of capitalism. Since housework does not generate profit, domestic labour was naturally defined as an inferior form of work as compared to capitalist wage labour. An important ideological by-product of this radical economic transformation was the birth of the “housewife.” Women began to be ideologically redefined as the guardians of a devalued domestic life.
31
Dallacosta (1972)
- Since Marx, it has been clear […] that the foundation of capitalist society was the wage labourer and his or her direct exploitation. What has been neither clear nor assumed by the organizations of the working-class movement is that precisely through the wage has the exploitation of the non-wage labourer been organized. This exploitation has been even more effective because the lack of a wage hid it. […] Where women are concerned, their labour appears to be a personal service outside of capital. The woman seemed only to be suffering from male chauvinism, being pushed around because capitalism meant general “injustice” and “bad and unreasonable behaviour”, the few (men) who noticed convinced us that this was “oppression” but not exploitation.
- Domestic labour is not essentially “feminine work”; a woman doesn’t fulfill herself more or get less exhausted than a man from washing and cleaning. These are social services inasmuch as they serve the reproduction of labour power. And capital, precisely by instituting its family structure, has “liberated” the man from these functions so that he is completely “free” for direct exploitation; so that he is free to “earn” enough for a woman to reproduce him as labour power.
- Woman on the other hand has been isolated in the home, forced to carry out work that is considered unskilled, the work of giving birth to, raising, disciplining, and servicing the
worker for production. Her role in the cycle of social production remained invisible because only the product of her labour, the labourer, was visible there.
Theory & Concepts
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Decks in class (5)
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