GEOG 240: Day 2

GEOG 240: Day 2Chapter 2: Approaches to Economic Geography

Housekeeping Items

A reminder that the Geography welcome back coffee and muffins event is happening on Wednesday at 10:30 in the Map Library.

Does everyone have a course outline?I have put the major assignment instructions,

along the outline and lecture notes for Days 1 and 2, up on the web site: http://web.viu.ca/alexander2

I also want to sign people up for leading discussions today.

Today we will also go over Chapter 2, and I will pass around some articles that may be of interest.

Chap. 2: Traditional Econ. Geo.

For an overview of the different approaches to economic geography, see Table 2.1. on page 23.

Traditional economic geography- late 1800s to 1950s; focused on factual detail in specific places, often in the service of empire. Two distinct forms: commercial (commodities and resources) and regional (how physical characteristics affect regional economies and associated cultures).

Chap. 2: Spatial Analysis

Strong from the 1950s, but began to be challenged in the late 1960s.

Premised on a philosophy of positivism (see description on p. 25). Is this a philosophy you agree with?

Linked to urban and transportation planning.

Drew inspiration from neo-classical economics (Adam Smith, David Ricardo, etc.) and from German locational theory.

Chap. 2: Spatial Analysis

Two examples would be Weber’s locational triangle whereby factories would tend to be located fairly close to sources of different raw materials, especially when these materials are heavy and impose increasing costs to transport, and to final markets.

Having access to transportation media of various kinds – both for raw materials and for finished products – was also crucial. Examples?

As transportation technologies improve – e.g. from barges to rail to truck transport to air and container ship – production is increasingly liberated from these constraints.

Chapter 2: Spatial Analysis

Weber’s Locational Triangle (source: http://www.answers.com/topic/locational-triangle) Christaller’s Central Place Theory

(source: Wikipedia)

Chapter 2: Spatial Analysis

Christaller’s theory of central place theory was based on imagining that a hierarchy of higher and lower-order centres would emerge to serve agricultural communities in a sort of hexagonal patchwork. Other economists (August Losch and Paul Krugman) have worked with these concepts. Unfortunately, Christaller wound up working for the Nazis during World War II.

Krugman, in his work, has looked at the interplay between centripetal (centralizing) forces and centrifugal (decentralizing) forces. What are some of the factors influencing each?

Much of the spatial analytical work has relied on math for its modelling and then the results are compared with real world economic processes.

Chapter 2: Spatial Analysis to Political Economy

The transition from traditional to spatial economic geography involved a shift from qualitative field work to quantitative statistical work. In this sense, they shared similarities with economists.

In the late 60s, there was a revolt against spatial analysis and some, especially younger, geographers began to adopt a political economy, or Marxist, approach. In part, this was because mainstream geographers seem to be ignoring the major injustices of the day – the war in Vietnam, colonialism and imperialism, and inequalities based on gender, race, class, and developed and developing nations.

Chapter 2: Political Economy

Political economy relied on a so-called ‘dialectical’ approach based on seeing things not as static, but in flux. Things develop through the struggle of opposites, in this case the struggle between classes over who will control the surplus value from production.

According to Marxists, whoever controls the means of production (land, labour and capital) will control and reap the surplus.

While capitalism was a more dynamic system than feudalism, at the time Marx and Engels were writing millions of workers in the industrialized countries were working and living in misery. Conditions are much the same in places like China and elsewhere today. Samsung was recently denounced for employing child labourers in China and for forcing some of its workers to work up to 100 hours a week. This in a so-called “communist” country.

Chapter 2: Political Economy

Marx and Engels believed that capitalism would dig its own grave by increasing the size and power of the working-class and by its constant crises of overproduction, whereby its capacity to produce commodities would exceed the ability of workers and other consumers to consume them. Did it work out this way?

Marxist theory has had much validity, and still does to some degree, but its constructed alternatives in practice have not raised the standard of living or democratic rights for workers – quite the opposite. Are these past regimes (Soviet and Chinese) a perversion of Marxism or the inevitable result?

Chapter 2: Political Economy

Recent economic geographers influenced by Marxism, in discussing uneven development, have noted two trends: A tension between ‘geographical fixity’ of

capital-generated infrastructure and the overall mobility of capital, which seeks to migrate to the most profitable locations. Can you think of examples of this tension?

Capitalism influences and is influenced by geographical space and, as opportunities increase for reinvestment in formerly declining inner cities, we are seeing gentrification on a massive scale. Can you think of examples?

Chapter 2: The Regulation Approach

A partial off-shoot of Marxism, regulation theory looks at modes of regulation – institutions and ways of doing things that have a coherence to them and change over time. During temporary periods of stable growth, a regime of accumulation occurs.

Fordism, combined with Keynesian economic policy by governments, forms a classic case. Fordism involved mass production, higher wages and unionization, and broader consumption patterns. Keynes’ policies involved maintaining demand, full employment, while avoiding inflation through public works spending and manipulation of the money supply. This was the dominant ‘paradigm’ until at the 1970s.

Fordist ‘Mode of Regulation’

Wage-relation

Forms of competition & business organization

Monetary system

The state International regime

Rising wages for productivity gains; full unionization

Dominance of large corporations; in some cases, nationalization of utilities

Use of interest rates to manage demand and contract to maintain demand/ full employment

Highly interventionist; provision of social services; modest income redistribution

Cold War division of states. Fixed exchange rates based on Bretton Woods anchored to US dollar; free trade and promotion of Third World ‘development’

What has replaced Fordism?

The Weaknesses of Marxism

While a political economy approach has strengths, its influence has waned with the collapse of ‘communism.’ Moreover, it has been criticized for being overly deterministic and leaving out human

agency over-valuing economic factors to the exclusion of

culture and ideas neglecting other social categories such race,

gender, and degrees of political and global empowerment, not to mention neglect of ecological issues.

• This has led to various responses, such as post-modernism, post-structuralism, and cultural and institutional approaches to economic geography.

Alternatives to Political Economy

Post-modernism: no one ‘grand theory’; different groups have different worldviews, each of which is equally valid.

Post-structuralism: social structure does not determine all; individuals and groups can, through determined efforts ‘buck the trend.’

A cultural approach: Christmas, to take one example, is not just mindless orchestrated consumerism but a cultural and family-oriented festival. Also what might appear to be pure consumerism in one context could be culturally significant in another. Continuing relevance of gender in all social systems.

‘New regionalism,’ path dependence and relationality.