David Harvey (2006) Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, Verso Books

David Harvey (2006) Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, Verso Books

As most writing on his work suggest, David Harvey is the most cited critical geographer and the fourth most cited social scientist in general. His works since 1970’s have introduced very important concepts in Marxist thought (ie. elaboration of space-time interaction of capital following Lefevbre) and brought daylight into newly emerging fields like political ecology with concepts such as spatio-temporal fix and accumulation by dispossession. Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development, in this sense, adds another block in attempting to produce “unified field theory of uneven geographical development” (pg. 75).

This book of Harvey is based upon Hettner-lectures he has delivered in University of Heidelberg in 2004. It is basically structured in three parts, each forming a different thread of Harvey’s work since to date. It encompasses Harvey’s rigorous critique of neoliberalism and capitalism’s self-making, then moves into the territory of theorizing uneven geographical development which gives the book its sub-title and finally closes with a discussion on introducing space as a key word / key concept in Marxist thought.

The book opens with an essay titled Neoliberalism and The Restoration of Class Power. Here Harvey focuses on the emergence of neoliberalism (as more thoroughly elaborated in his book The New Imperialism) and its implementation across the globe through producing consent and coercion. After this historical introduction and ground setting, Harvey moves on to explain the neoliberal state and elaborates the example of China. “The explicit authoritarianism of the Chinese instance” Harvey argues ”[...]is troubling in view of the more covert anti-democratic tendencies implicit in neoliberalism”. He argues that such successful implementation of neoliberal agenda with coercion in states like China and Singapore can deepen the antidemocratic tendencies elsewhere. Harvey defines two main factors on neoliberalism’s succes as volatility of uneven geographical development and its success in restoring class power of the ruling elite. He goes on to argue the neoliberal state with its legal monopoly of violence playing a crucial role in backing and promoting these processes. This section lays down the empirical backdrop of the book to prepare for the second section which theorizes the uneven geographical development.

In this theory-in-making on uneven development, Harvey argues that four conditionalities must co-exist for a unified field theory on this subject matter. He lists these as (i) material embedding of capital accumulation, (ii) accumulation by dispossession (iii)law-like character of capital in space-time and (iv) class struggles across scales. Despite establishing a theory for academic purposes, Harvey doesn’t miss to include that critique of everyday life provides us with possibilities for its transformation in the Gramscian sense (pg. 86). In setting the theory, Harvey emphasizes the importance of time and space for capital accumulation. He takes this further by discussing that uneven geographical development is inherent to functioning of capitalism and indeed it is the capitalism.

After what I would call empirical and then integrative theoretical sections of the book, the final chapter of the book titled as “Space as a key word” puts forward Harvey’s argument that Marxian tradition focuses very little (with the righteous exception of Lefebvre) on understanding the problematic of space and time. As himself rightly asserts, space turn out to be a extraordinarily complicated key word in geography and politics of the public. Harvey walks us through this conceptual chapter in order to discuss the opportunities of using space as a critical tool in Marxian analyses. His contribution to this discussion finds its niche in reworking on Lefebvre’s tripartite division on space as material space, spaces of representation and representations of space. Harvey argues that space could be understood as being absolute, relative or relational. None of these alone is enough to explain the power of space in geographical explanations he argues. Elaborating his argument through redesigning of post 9/11 Ground Zero, Harvey argues that these 3 explanations of space coexist and needs to be treated as a whole. This complementary understanding of space allows us to understand and create “spaces of hope” in Harvey’s vision. This book contributes to what Harvey calls as “troubling geographies” and thus for this it will be a valuable resource for students of capitalism and its troubling effects on human geography.