The Geographical Transfer of Value: Notes on the Spatiality of Capitalism

Abstract

Marxist research on the geographical unovenness of capitalist development remains highly heterogeneous. Although virtually all Marxists agree on certain general concepts, such as capital accumulation, agglomeration in space, spatial division of labor, capital mobility, the role of the state, etc, there is strong disagreement on how these processes operate and on the nature of their impact on various places. In this paper, a critical evaluation of two dominant lines of thought, the autonomous or semiautonomous development thesis and the transfer-ofsurplus-development thesi is presented, A third approach, based on the notion of the geographical transfer of value, an attempt to use the labor theory of value in geographical terms, is also introduced. This view is further elaborated by focusing first on the articulation of production and circulation, second on state and local state intervention in this articulation, and third on the contradiction between equalization and differentiation. Throughout the paper, a special emphasis is given to the determinant role of class struggle and to the absence of any 'iron laws of motion of capitalism*.

Integrating Finance into Global Production Networks

“…To achieve that goal we will move through different parts of Figure 1, starting with GPNs and regions, through ABS and WCs, to OJs, focusing on the problem of measuring value and its geographical distribution in GPNs. The difficulty of tackling this issue empirically has long been recognized (HADJIMICHALIS, 1984), but we hope to show that some progress can be made with a combination of quantitative and qualitative research at multiple scales of analysis -from country, through sector and company, to product level. This can be done through analyzing data from corporate accounting, macro accounting and the practices of ABS firms.…”

Peripheral integration and disintegration in Europe: the ‘European dependency school’ revisited

“…With the benefit of hindsight, much of the structural analyses conducted by the 'European dependency school' appear pretty accurate and timely. Facets of dependence have been grasped in liberal (Friedmann's function over territory) or Marxist (Hadjimichalis 1984: geographical transfer of value) terms. If the research agenda is taken up again, it will surely have to be updated to the current situation.…”

The Janus-faced genius of cities

“…While geographically divergent levels of economic growth are an important aspect of uneven development (World Bank, 2009), there are good reasons to reject this notion as the preferred or even sole explanation of uneven development. Relational approaches that focus on the simultaneous and parallel production of wealth and poverty as well as on geographical dimensions of capitalism’s antagonisms have long attracted attention from Marxist and non-Marxist theorists (Lenin, 1982 [1917]; Luxemburg, 1951 [1923]; Bukharin, 1929; Myrdal, 1957; Frank, 1969; Emmanuel, 1972; Wallerstein, 1974a; Amin, 1976; Mandel, 1978; Braudel, 1984; Hadjimichalis, 1984; Hadjimichalis, 1984; Hadjimichalis, 1984; Raffer, 1987; Arrighi, 1994; Harvey, 2003; Elwood et al, 2017; Cope, 2019). Despite the different conceptual focuses of these accounts, 5 their common denominator is that wealth transfers across space – inter-regionally or inter-nationally – have historically been and remain a key mechanism for uneven development, adding to and nourishing differentiated growth dynamics.…”

“…Such relational approaches have long been conceptualised, among other things, as ‘metropolitan labour aristocracy’ (Emmanuel and Bettelheim, 1970; Cope, 2019), ‘unequal exchange’ (Emmanuel, 1972; Amin, 1976), the ‘appropriation of surplus of the whole world-economy by core areas’ (Wallerstein, 1974a: 401; cf. Frank, 1969), the ‘geographical transfer of value’ (Hadjimichalis, 1984) and relational impoverishment (Elwood et al, 2017). Despite their different theoretical underpinnings, these accounts all elucidate that uneven development at regional and global scales is a socio-spatial process, at least in part the result of deliberately initiated wealth transfers across space, not just self-reinforcing agglomeration dynamics.…”