The Dictionary of Human Geography (120 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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intellectually speaking, a consequent Polanyi boom (see Williams, 2005a) within the academy, but fewer careful readings of the Hayekian ideas that helped spawn these developments. From within the bowels of this turmoil, the Haye kian vision is triumphant the Liberal Inter national has come to pass. Its long march, from Mont Pelerin to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and TINA (?There Is No Alternative?) took about forty years and, according to Harvey?s (2005) brief history, passed through the Chicago Boys in Chile, the IMF/IBRD complex, the Reagan Thatcher revolutions and the corporate (class) seizure of power in the 1970s against a backdrop of declining profitability and income share. Even if ?global neo liberalism? has now assumed a neo conservative and military cast (Saad Filho and Johnson, 2005), nobody seems to question its hegemony: as Gramsci might have put it, there has been a Hayekian ?passive revolution? from above as (Silver and Arrighi, 2003). We have witnessed what the Left?s great pessim ist Perry Anderson (2000c) has dubbed a ?neo liberal grand slam?, with neo liberalism ruling undivided across the globe as the most successful ideology in world history (Anderson, 2002c). This ?fluent vision? of the Right has no equivalent on the Left: Anderson cedes that embedded liberalism (let alone some thing called socialism) is now as remote as ?Arian bishops?, resistances are like ?chafe in the wind? and the Left can only ?shelter under the skies of infinite justice?. Of course, with the vertiginous collapse of Wall Street and a raft of financial institutions in late 2008, fol lowed by the massive bailouts initiated by vari ous governments in Europe and America, Anderson?s grand slam now looks very different. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The very process by which neo liberal mar ket hegemony was established and against which forms of resistance are to be assessed remains a story for which at present we have no full genealogy. The cast of characters may be lined up from the school of Austrian economics to the Reagan Thatcher Kohl troika but this explains very little. Neo liberalism can be seen as a class reaction to the crisis of the 1970s. The global multilat erals and the Treasury Wall Street certainly imposed brutal forms of economic discipline structural ADjUSTMENT to eradicate forever any residue of collectivism in the Third World. But beyond these general descriptions we are left with paradoxes and questions, of which I will list just a few. Why did the LSE and Chicago the centres of Fabianism and a certain sort of American liberalism become the forcing houses of neo liberalism? Hayek, after all, was not associated with the Econom ics Department; it was the arrival of Ronald Coase at Chicago that marked a neo liberal turning point. How did the World Bank a bastion of postwar development economics and a certain sort of statism become the voice of laissez faire? Harry Johnson (who held Chairs at the LSE and Chicago) certainly fig ures in the process, but how can we explain economic liberalism?s capture of key sectors of the Bank (often by second rate economists) against a backdrop of robust Keynesianism? How did the ideas of economists such as Peter Bauer and Deepak Lal gain traction? Criticism of Keynes dovetailed with the anti statism lev elled by many on the Left during the 1970s. In other words, tracing the ways in which (NEW PARAGRAPH) government failures came to outweigh market failures in development thinking demands a complex picture of discursive contestations and political practices. Indeed, by the mid to late 1970s many of neo liberalism?s intell ectual architects (Milton Friedmann among them) claimed that nobody took their ideas seriously Hayek believed that The road to serfdom had ruined his career and marginal ized his entire project. It was the inflation of the 1970s, said Friedmann, that revealed the cracks within the Keynesian edifice. The point is that the ?neo liberal grand slam? was pre ceded by decades of mediocrity, pessimism and contestation, and that the class forces around and through which embedded lib eralism had been built necessarily shaped the manner and forms in which the counter revolution could proceed (if at all). How to think about the power of the market now turns on how one sees this long march through institutions. The catastrophic collapse of the US investment banks and the discrediting of the various regulatory and financial rating agencies with the prospect of a 1930s style world depression in the offing suggests that the neo liberal project has come crashing to a halt. As the New York Times put it in early 2009, ?we are all Keynesians now?. mw (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Elyachar (2005); Prasad (2006); Scabas (2007). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Markov process (or Markov chain)
A type of stochastic process in which the probabil ity of being in a particular state at time t is wholly dependent upon the state(s) at some preceding time(s). It is named after the Russian mathematician who first defined the process. The simplest form, known as a first order Markov process, is where the depend ence is entirely on just the immediately pre ceding state. This process can be represented by a transition probability matrix in which the rows and columns represent the different states and the cells represent the probabilities of movement between states. For example, migration movements between three regions A, B and C could be modelled as follows: (NEW PARAGRAPH) State at time t + 1 (NEW PARAGRAPH) From this we may see that, between time t and time t + 1, 80 per cent of the population in A remain there, 15 per cent move to B and 5 per cent to C, and similarly for movements from regions B and C in rows 2 and 3. By repeated operation of the matrix, the population pattern redistributes to a stable pattern independent of the initial pattern (assuming no births, deaths or movements in or out of the total system). This Markov model has been used to study population migration, EPidEMic processes, the growth and movement of firms, and trends in regional economic convergence and diver gence, and is a component of more sophisti cated demographic modelling. Lwh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Collins, Drewett and Ferguson (1974); Rees and Wilson (1977). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Marxism
The body of ideas and practices developed by Karl Marx (1818 83) and greatly elaborated since his death by his fol lowers. His voluminous writings fall into sev eral broad categories. First, there are those writings that develop a broad theory of history (hiSTORiCAL materialism) as a succession of MOdES Of PROdUCTlON, in which changes in economic and class structures play a central dynamic role. Second, there are writings (such as the three volumes of Capital) that develop a more detailed political ECONOMy of capit alism as a mode of production, using the labour ThEORy Of value to explore its under lying contradictions and tendencies to crisis. Third, there are various, more sketchy, writings on dialectical philosophy and method (see dlALECTlcs). Fourth, there are a wide range of analyses of contemporary events, often designed to illustrate broader theories (such as The eighteenth brumaire of Louis Napoleon), polemical addresses and a mass of journalistic writings for various newpapers. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Marx did not present a single, codified ver sion of his ideas, which in any case changed over the course of his lifetime. Some later Marxists, such as Louis Althusser (see Althus ser and Balibar, 1970), have even claimed to detect a major ?epistemological break? in his work between the earlier more philosophical and ?humanist? texts, strongly influenced by Hegel, and the later, more ?scientific?, analyses of political economy. Gouldner (1980) also sees a distinction between a younger and older Marx, but more in terms of a tension between a voluntaristic ?Critical Marxism? and a more deterministic ?Scientific Marxism?. Even those (the majority of commentators) who prefer to stress the underlying continu ities in his work differ in the emphases they place on different themes and texts. As a result of such multiple possible readings, Marxism has become more a family of theories with many strands than a single codified frame work. This is part of its attraction and contrib utes to its continuing vitality. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Histories of Marxism usually identify several phases of development and divergence (McLel lan, 1979). The first codified version of ?ortho dox Marxism? was developed after Marx?s death by Engels, Kautsky, Bernstein and Plekhanov, who published systematic expositions of histor ical and dialectical materialism, the nature of capitalism and the theory of revolution. Lenin subsequently adapted Plekhanov?s orthodox ?stages? view of history to justify revolution in a backward capitalist state such as Russia. How ever, with the degeneration of the revolution and the onset of Stalinism, ?Marxism Leninism? rapidly hardened into the official ideology of the centralized Soviet state. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The Western Marxism of Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School (Horkhei mer and Adorno) was developed partly as a reaction against this dogmatism, shifting the emphasis away from political economy more towards neglected aspects of cuLture, ideoL ogy and art. A return to Hegel and his influ ence on Marx provided an underlying philosophical thread to this work (see also criticaL theory). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The post Second World War period has been marked by increasing internal diversity within the Marxist tradition, as Marxists have responded to, and interacted with, other developments in philosophy and social the ory. Jean Paul Sartre tried to blend a reinter pretation of Marxism with the philosophy of existentiaLism. Althusser developed a re reading of Marxism indebted, in part, to structuraLism that attempted to save Marxism from what he regarded as the twin deviations of historicism and economism. Althusserian Marxism presented a science of social systems, with a relative autonomy of levels ?structured in dominance? and an econ omy only ?determinant in the last instance?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Althusser?s structuralism provoked strong reactions, leading to a proliferation of new currents over recent decades. Harvey (1999 [1982]) has preferred to go back to Marx?s own writings, demonstrating the continuing potential of an essentially ?orthodox? version of Marxism. The architects of anaLyticaL marxism, such as Cohen, Roemer and Elster (Mayer, 1994), have sought to build micro economic foundations for Marxism using rational choice theory, and to dis place dialectics with analytical philosophy and the labour theory of value with neo classical economics. Realist Marxists have sought to provide a stronger philosophical shell for Marxism by drawing upon recent develop ments in the philosophy of realism (Brown, Fleetwood and Roberts, 2002). Anti essential ist Marxists have sought to expunge the last remnants of economic determinism from Al thusserian Marxism (Resnick and Wolff, 1987; cf. essentialism) and ?postmodernist Marxists? such as Laclau and Mouffe (1985) have tried to find a rapprochement with Jacques Derrida?s deconstruction (see also postmodernism; post structuralism). Whether many of these lines of development are still definably ?Marx ist? or whether they are ?post Marxist? is an open, and perhaps irrelevant, question. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Indeed, some of the most interesting work is being generated through dialogues and cri tiques across boundaries, such as Deleuze and Guattari?s (1984) conjunction, in Capital ism and schizophrenia, of Sigmund Freud, Marx and Baruch Spinoza, or critical realist attempts to find complementarities between Marx and Michel Foucault (Marsden, 1999) or Hardt and Negri?s fusion of elements from Marx, Gilles Deleuze and Spinoza in their Empire (2000). There have also been vital engagements with human geography. Many geographers have been influenced by the dis cipline?s remarkably late reading of Marx: most other social sciences notably anthro pology, economics and sociology had a much longer history of coming to terms with Marx and Marxism, but it would be a mistake to limit the influence of Marx?s writings to the ongoing project of a Marxist geography, not least because so many of the other disciplines with which human geography has entered into conversation have themselves been marked by Marxism, and those traces have in turn left their own marks on geographical enquiry. There has also been a still more belated return movement, in which contemporary Marxism has started to come to terms with the core concerns of human geography. On one side, these have involved conceptual elaborations of place, space and nature that in turn require reformulations of some of Marxism?s basic postulates. Harvey (1999 [1982]) in particular has sought to re theorize Marxism as a historico geographical materialism capable of addressing the characteristically uneven development of capitalism (cf. production Of space). On the other side, there has been (NEW PARAGRAPH) a constructive critique of the ethnocentrism of not only classical Marxism (where the for malization of an ?Asiatic? mode of production is today an embarrassment) but of the ?Westernness? of Western Marxism. This has involved an appreciation of the production of substantive geographical differences, which has been made possible by studies in regional geography that have been revitalized by an engagement with a post colonialism that has itself been inspired and provoked by Marx?s legacy. As a result of these various challenges, critiques and conversations, Marxism continues to develop as a living tradition, interacting with surrounding cur rents in new ways, and spinning off a variety of hybrid forms. kB (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Marxist economics
A heterodox field that spans the methodological gamut from struc tural and class centred relational and dia lectical approaches to individual centred rational choice approaches. If something called ?Marxist economics? coheres, it is be cause of what it is not namely, neo classical economics (however, subsets of rational choice Marxism that seek to give Marxist economics a ?micro foundation? these would include the projects of Adam Przeworski, Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis or John Roemer veer perilously close to post Walrasian variants of neo classical the ory). In the simplest formulation, Marxist economics, unlike its neo classical counter part, views individuals as social beings: as such, it emphasizes social structure more than individual behaviour. It draws attention to class struggle, which, it contends, is inter woven with every other aspect of society in complex and contradictory ways. The econ omy is understood as a terrain where class exploitation occurs and exerts its powerful in fluence over the rest of social life. ?Exploitation? is a key operator in most versions of Marxist economics, and refers to a ?class process in which the person who performs surplus labor is not also the person who appropriates it? (Wolff and Resnick, 1987, p. 167). Note that the description of Marxist economics so far is not confined to the analysis of capitalism. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The historian Robert Brenner, for example, has offered a remarkable class based analysis of the jagged transition from fEUDALlSM to early capitalism in Western Europe and con vincingly illustrated the generality of Marxist economics as a framework for understanding economic crises and growth cycles. Parting company with those rational choice Marxists who claim that the institutional preconditions of economic growth are the outcome of (parametric or strategic) actions undertaken by sovereign economic actors (see Carver and Thomas, 1995), Brenner instead con tends that it is unwarranted ?to take for granted a society of free economic actors, rather than one of economic actors subject to non economic constraints? (Brenner, 1986, p. 25). Second, rationally self interested action in such circumstances will, as a rule, exhibit the goal of maintaining existing prop ERTy relations, thereby impeding economic development; and, third, should economic development occur, it must be viewed in light of the second premise ?as an unin tended consequence of . . . conflicts between [antagonistic] classes? (ibid., p. 26). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The distinctive contribution of geographers to Marxist economics has been to show that capitalist dynamics are intrinsically geopolit ical. Thus, radical geographers such as David Harvey and Doreen Massey have demonstrated, in quite different ways, how class relations in volving the extraction of surplus labour are stretched out spatially and profoundly impli cated in differing patterns of uneven develop ment whether locally, regionally or globally. Whereas studies such as those of Massey exam ine how place specific contingencies includ ing gender and race relations mediate economic outcomes within wider spatial structures of capitalism, others such as Harvey have been more interested to elaborate how the historical and geographical dynamics of capital ism might be charted as corrective responses to recurring ?overaccumulation? crises that are generated by limits immanent to it. There is continuity here with the Marxist economics of Henryk Grossman, Ernest Mandel and James O?Connor who, in varying formulations, hitch Marx?s theory of capitalist accumulation to the theory of crisis. (See also and Marxist GEOGRAPHy; radical GEOGRAPHy.) VG (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Harvey (1985b); Massey (1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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