The Geography of Class Power

Abstract

The accumulation of capital has always been a profoundly geographical affair. Without the possibilities inherent in geographical expansion, spatial reorganization and uneven geographical development, capitalism would long ago have ceased to function as a political-economic system. This perpetual turning to 'a spatial fix' to capitalism's internal contradictions (most notably registered as an over-accumulation of capital within a particular geographical area) coupled with the uneven insertion of different territories and social formations into the capitalist world market has created a global historical geography of capital accumulation whose character needs to be well understood. How Marx and Engels conceptualised the problem in The Communist Manifesto deserves some commentary for it is here that the communist movement - with representatives from many countries - came together to try to define a revolutionary agenda that would work in the midst of considerable geographical differentiation. This differentiation is just as important today as it ever was and the Manifesto's weaknesses as well as its strengths in its approach to this problem need to be confronted and addressed.