Globalisation as Late Capitalism

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Globalisation as Late Capitalism
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Objectives of Lecture

• Offer a clear introduction to the work of David
  Harvey on Globalisation
• To briefly review the positions adopted by Woods
  and Wallerstein

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David Harvey
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• Harvey is the famous geographer (most cited) and
  Marxist theorist in the World. Born in 1935 in
  Kent and he has taught mainly in elite US
  Universities
• In different texts he seeks to do slightly
  different, but not contradictory, things
• The purposes of the Condition of Postmodernity
  and the Articles in Schmidt and Panitch are quite
  differently

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• The Condition of Postmodernity The Condition
  essentially constitutes a study of articulation
  of time and space since the European
  Enlightenment.
• Important differences between Giddens and Harvey
  
• Explicitly Materialist and rejection of simple
  idea of premodern and modern sense of space

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• Different Premodern Conceptions of Space and
  Involving Modern Conception of Space and Time
• For Harvey different senses of time exist
  (enduring time, deceptive time, erratic time,
  cyclical time, retarded time etc) and dominate at
  different times and in different relationships
• Key Institutions of development of Modernist
  conceptions of space private property coupled
  with technological development
• Time linked with capitalist work discipline

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• Clearer than Giddens in identifying who make
  space and time and why
• Harvey interested in Time-Space as sources of
  social power and how they impact on human
  psychology (Historical Geographical Materialist)
• Control of Time, Money, Space are three axis of
  social power (fungible)
• For Harvey the study of space involves the study
  of four things (more of a framework for analysis
  than a theory)

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• Distanciation
• Appropriation of Space
• The domination space
• The production of space
• Structural and Suprastructural analysis of space
• Capitalism superior command of space is critical
  to its survival

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• Capitalism involves periodic Spatial-Temporal
  Fixes

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• Importantly for Harvey been a qualitative and
  quantitative shift in the organisation of space
  and time (and capitalism more generally) since
  1973
• New Spatial Temporal Fix
• Annihilation of Space

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• Features of Contemporary Global Period
• Annihilation of Place increases importance of
  place specific competition
• Pursuit of Economies of Flexibility and Turnover
  time over scale
• Political Economy of the Image
• Focus on Speculation
• Pursuit of Economies of Flexibility and Turnover
  time over scale
• Fashions

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• Harvey has always interesting relationship
  between art and wider political economy
• For Harvey the film Bladerunner says some
  fundamentally important things about contemporary
  political economy
• Themes of Bladerunner Time, the Global City
  (sweatshop), the Real and the Simulacra,
  Polarisation and Corporate Power. Body itself as
  object of accumulation
• Problem with Bladerunner problem of postmodern
  politics

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• For Harvey the film Bladerunner says some
  fundamentally important things about contemporary
  political economy
• Themes of Bladerunner Time, the Global City
  (sweatshop), the Real and the Simulacra,
  Polarisation and Corporate Power. Body itself as
  object of accumulation

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• Gangster Rap- Astheticisation of Poverty,
  Individualisation, Compression of Time

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• Pornography- Global (destruction of space)
  industry. Time compression Simulacra dominates
  the real. Excellent example, of postmodern
  political economy. Atomisation and physiology of
  postmodernism.

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• The Potential Political Responses to Time-Space
  Compression can be Disastrous. Anesthetisation of
  Place and the Politics of Charisma

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• Harvey other work can be seen as building on the
  Condition of Postmodernity.
• Big new idea is accumulation through
  dispossession
• Substitute for more desire accumulation through
  expanded reproduction
• Fundamentally very simple. Transfer of resources
  from capitalist sector to global capital. Both a
  internal and external element

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• Interesting example Blair policy towards the NHS
• In 2005 Hewitt announced plans to increase
  percent of operations performed by private sector
  from 5 to 15 percent
• Also Biopiracy
• For Harvey Globalisation Space-time compression
  and commodification

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Other Interesting Radical Accounts

• Wallerstein and Woods stress continuity.
• For Woods particular features of modern nation
  state make it uniquely suited to capitalism
• Wallerstein argues globalisation nonsense and
  what we are in fact living in age of transition.
  Capitalism faces crisis stemming from 3 sources
  rising wages, taxation and input costs

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Conclusions

• Harvey is master theorist and one greatest social
  theorists of the 20th Century
• Difficulty with his work level of abstraction.
  Harvey provides us point of departure for
  empirical work
• Contribution of Woods is to check excessive
  focus on the new
• Wallersteins work is problematic but should not
  be allowed to take from pervious contributions
• After reading week leave theory behind to study
  concrete processes.