Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason by David Harvey

Author:David Harvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd.
Published: 2017-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

7

The Space and Time of Value

‘Where science comes in,’ wrote Marx to Louis Kugelmann shortly after the publication of the first volume of Capital, ‘is to show how the law of value asserts itself.’1 It is typical of Marx’s approach to first derive and specify a law by a process of abstraction from material circumstances (such as acts of market exchange) and then explore all the possible counter-tendencies that might negate the law. To do things the other way round, he wrote, ‘one would have to provide the science before the science’. Consider, then, how the law of value – so far explored abstractly and schematically as value in motion – ‘asserts itself’ in space and time.

If capital is defined as ‘value in motion’ then something has to be said about the time–space configuration of the world in which this motion occurs. Motion cannot occur in a vacuum. We need to shift from a visualisation of value in motion that is ungrounded anywhere to seeing it as it creates geographies of cities and transport networks; forms agrarian landscapes for the production of foodstuffs and raw materials; encompasses flows of people, goods, information; creates territorial configurations of land values and labour skills; organises spaces of labour, structures of governance and administration. We also need to take account of the significance of accumulated working class traditions and know-how in particular places and times, of skills and social relations (not only of class), all the while acknowledging how the political and social struggles of people living in particular places leave behind memories and hopes of alternative unalienated ways of living and being.

Marx recognised early on that it was inherent in the very nature of capital to create the world market but that in doing so it would have to produce a new kind of space. This theme is articulated at some length in the Communist Manifesto. The merchant capitalists undermined the static powers of feudal landed property. They used their superior command over space to assemble great wealth and power by buying cheap in one place and selling dear in another. With the rise of industrial capitalism, ‘the need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.’ This gives

a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country … All old established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw materials, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.