Chandler Griffith
Kaitlin Fertaly
Kaitlin Fertaly
GEOG 5100
Week 4 Response Paper
Response to The Enigma of Capital and The Crises of Capitalism
David Harvey’s 2010 book, The Enigma of Capital, is a Marxist explanation of the crisis-prone nature of capitalism and the significance of crises in capital’s reproduction of itself through the lens of the financial crisis of 2008 that started with the housing market in the US and spread throughout the world. Harvey sees the 2008 crisis as a culmination of other crises that had been becoming more frequent since the neoliberal turn in the 1970 to deregulation and the disempowerment of labour. At the core of the current problem, he argues, is the excessive power of the capitalist class in comparison to labour, which results in wage repression and a disproportionate amount of surplus power contrasted with a lack of buying power. As capitalism must always be circulating to prevent collapse, the global finance sector invented a world of shadowy transactions (derivatives, credit swaps, etc.) that returned significant gains for investors but was not investment in real means of production. This false market can temporarily relieve the problem of excess capital, but at a compound rate of 3%, Harvey suggest that surplus capital will continue to be a problem, leading to further crises. This reading of his work will focus on his answer to why capitalism doesn’t collapse due to crises as well as a focus on what this means for understanding the relationship between humans and nature.
Harvey explains that crises in capitalism are inevitable since they restore balance to the contradictions internal to capital accumulation. Borrowing from Marx, Harvey writes, “Crises are, as it were, ‘the irrational rationalizers’ of an always unstable capitalism” (71). So, why then doesn’t capitalism collapse? What, if any, are its absolute limits? Harvey begins to answer this question by stating a principle of capitalism: “all geographical limits to capital accumulation have to be overcome” (155). He then shows that as a result of this quest to “annihilate space with time” there is a spatio-temporal compression where capital circulates faster and faster and where distances of interaction are compressed (158). This quest results in capitalists’ tendency to fetishize technological and organizational innovations (which they often do in conjunction with the state and its military ambitions) that strive to overcome all temporal and spatial limits. (A second part of the answer to this question is Harvey’s concept of the state-finance nexus which refers to the close ties of state structure and financial power to manage capital creation and its flows, now very evident in institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF.) So, are there natural limits to capital’s expansion or will it always find new areas in which to expand?
Harvey argues that there are no hard and fast natural limits to capitalist expansion as was argued first by Malthus and Ricardo (and whose arguments have been resurrected time and again). To negotiate between a view of nature as simply a place and means for humans to exploit and profit from, Harvey presents a dialectical view of nature that allows for adaptation and change, but consequently one that denies the possibility of any “final” environmental crises. Because capitalism is characterized by “an incredible fluidity and flexibility with respect to the relation to nature...it would be false to argue that there are absolute limits in our metabolic relation to nature that cannot in principle be transcended or bypassed” (76). Harvey also shows how this “dialectical unfolding of the social relation to nature” is one illustration of capitalism’s need to compress space and time as well as its inherent creative destruction (189). Harvey, however leaves the door to absolute natural limits propped open a little, adding that natural barriers could potentially be absolute limits if changes in the natural environment are matched by social, economic, and political situation that redefine human/nature interactions (84). He further points out that the environmental movement is the closest thing to an effective anti-capitalist movement that exists today.
For Harvey, the way out of capitalism is a movement that can start in any of 7 spheres of activity he identified and as long as the movement continues to spread throughout all of those spheres. Without this kind of widespread reaction, Harvey (somewhat contradictorily) suggests that capitalism will just continue to grow, expand in an inevitable sequence of crises and growth. This leaves me with one question, in part drawn from a reading of Gibson-Graham’s 2004 article, Area Studies after Post-structuralism, where they suggest that capitalism has come to dominate all of our work to the extent that its hegemony is preventing different, non-capitalist types of economies and different kinds of analyzes (those which don’t reiterate the permeation of capitalism into all spheres of life). Therefore my question is: If we focused more on non-capitalist, non-market based forms of work and production, would we have a different sense of the world? Of capitalism?
Lauren Gifford
Lauren Gifford
Harvey: The Enigma of Capital
September 16, 2012
GEOG 5100
I was most taken with the final chapter in this book: “What is to be done? And who is going to do it?” The part that particularly stood out was where Harvey says unequivocally that capitalism will not collapse, but it will cause a global restructuring that will manifest itself in significant social stratification and environmental degradation (and resulting social unrest). This part, as a geographer, particularly resonated: “The capitalist class cannot, if history is any guide, maintain its power without changing its character and moving accumulation on to a different trajectory and into new spaces (such as east Asia)” (216).
While the example Harvey uses is a physical space, I’m grappling with connecting the idea of space with that of fictitious commodities (Polanyi, again) and, as Harvey explores, fictitious markets. I’m interested in fictitious markets of things like derivatives, futures, and, more specifically, carbon, and the spaces they create. While they offer a place for investment and growth of capital, they also create new risks and uncertainty. To that end, these spaces require less labor to produce, particularly less unskilled labor and, as Harvey noted, fictitious markets “cannot last” (228). Perhaps this is part of the discourse Harvey is referring to when he criticizes a lack of “appetite” for discussions of future capitalisms (217) and its resulting misdirected social unrest.
Harvey says a political movement can start anywhere, yet I wonder if the causes of social inequality and environmental degradation are increasingly rooted in forms or spaces the average person cannot comprehend, how would a movement ever be directed at the agent in need of change? (Example: Who can explain what a derivative is? How about how they contribute to social inequality?) When capital growth is largely virtual, it requires a complete re-conception of radical or anti-authoritarian thought and action. Where does this begin?
Some other questions:
- Harvey is confident that capitalisms will continue to reproduce themselves, yet is concerned that this is little debate over what they will look like. What does he think that conversation should look like?
- While North America and western Europe fail to embrace the idea of a paradigm shift in global capitalism, Harvey eludes to the fact that the global south, particularly Latin America, does. I’ve found this to be the case in my own research on global climate policy. What are the reasons for this difference? Specifically, why is the global south more willing to engage in notions of post- or anti-capitalisms?
Ian Rowen
Ian Rowen
GEOG 5100
9/16/12
Commentary: The Enigma of Capital by David Harvey
In Enigma, David Harvey lays out a sweeping geographic history of global capitalism and presents a vision for an alternate future not defined by the pursuit of endless growth and capital accumulation, but by the development of human creativity and well-being.
Harvey’s analysis situates the 2008 financial crisis as one of many in the long line of capitalist crises implied by contradictions fundamental to the functioning of capitalism. As such, to Harvey, this crises is not particularly exceptional, but it is, like all capitalist crises, not only an “irrational rationalizer” necessary for the correction of irrational capitalist processes, but also an opportunity for the masses of dispossessed, deprived, and alienated people to construct an alternate social order that functions more humanely and rationally. And, as he points out, it is not just the latter groups that can and should participate in such a reconstruction. As there is no essential difference to the capitalist or worker—as these are roles we put on and play at different times, as we may both be pedestrians and drivers—we can do this together, just as the latter two groups can build a more liveble city together.
Harvey’s reading of Marx is refreshing in both its clarity as well as its willingness to discard or improve upon deficiencies in Marx’s position. For example, his use of the term “accumulation by dispossession” is not only clearer in meaning than Marx’s “primitive accumulation”, but also removes a kind of teleological baggage that weights Marx’s historical analysis.
And yet, of course, for a book so sweeping and general, there are some rather questionable assertions. As the only authors he quotes at any length are Marx and Engels, I’m often left wondering where he got his data, even after reviewing his list of sources at the end of the book.
Just a few questions and concerns:
1) Where and how does he base his assertion that 3% growth is necessary for capitalist reproduction?
2) How can he simultaneously say that capitalism is now “developing very strongly” (109) in India and Indonesia, while also being cognizant of these regions very long and indeed central roles in the globalization of the European capitalist economy? Is he referring merely to the development of internal capitalist economies within present-day India and Indonesia? If this is so, his sense of scale seems underspecified and even incoherent, especially given his otherwise sensitive attention to the contingencies of state and other forms of territorialisation.
3) While East Asia is absolutely central to his assessment of the restructuring of post-1980 global capitalism, he appears somewhat stuck in an outdated Western intellectual tunnel. On page 89, he succumbs almost to Huntington-esque civilizationist thinking when he asserts that a “persistent feature of the history of Chinese civilization” has been its inherent conservatism and repression of new ideas. Of course there are alternate readings of history that focus on China’s persistent features of economic dynamism, material innovation, and ethnic pluralism. In another example, he wonders aloud if China’s foreign policy leaders are influenced by old-school imperialist geopoliticians like Mackinder and Haushofer, without entertaining the possibility that China has its own various geopolitical prophets of far greater antiquity and present-day influence, as well as its own contemporary theorists. (And there was already some decent English-language scholarship on this topic published several years before Enigma, e.g by William Callahan.) He’s also wildly out of date about Taiwan (and likely South Korea as well) when he classes it alongside Singapore as an authoritarian state offering limited democratic rights (199), when Taiwan in the 1990s became at least as democratic as any other state in the world, and remains that way. This doesn’t completely invalidate his point in this particular paragraph about the lack of a necessary link between capital accumulation and individual democratic rights, but the democratization undertaken by both Taiwan and South Korea following industrialization may suggest that there is still some kind of relationship (with Singapore remaining an enigma), even if it’s not as deterministic as some “free market” evangelists believe.
4) He writes about the need to adjust to a steady-state economy, and litters his book with ecological and evolutionary metaphors. Has he been in dialogue with ecological economists who may be thinking along similar lines?
If another edition is printed, I would be curious to see his take on the Occupy movement, especially in light of his book-ending discussion regarding the strengths and shortcomings of various revolutionary sectors of society.
Caitlin Ryan
Caitlin Ryan
17 September 2012
GEOG 5100: Social Theory
Reaction Paper: David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital (2010)
Harvey’s newest book has a clear political/advocacy agenda, not least because it is written for a non-academic audience. But putting aside the polemics, there are some extremely useful sections that draw on important bits of Marxist and non-Marxist political theory that I want to focus on. In particular, the seventh chapter, Creative Destruction on the Land, brings a particularly geographical/spatial approach to bear on the heavily Marxist themes developed throughout the book (e.g. the state-finance nexus, the dialectical and crisis-prone nature of capitalism, creative destruction, the reproduction of capitalism, urbanization, etc.) The spatial theory that comes together in this chapter is encapsulated in terms like the “spatial fix” and “contradictions in time-space configurations’
At the same time that capital “annihilates” spatial barriers (e.g. through new technologies), spatial barriers to the movement of capital will never go away. (In fact, place becomes more rather than less important as capitalism advances.) This contradiction between the annihilation of space and the increasing importance of place exemplifies the type of “radical disjuncture in time-space configurations” that lead to capitalism’s crises. Harvey is drawing on Marx and Engels here (especially the latter, who is quoted on pp. 176-77), but he brings the spatial effects and dependencies of capitalism to the forefront of the conversation (rather than a focus on production, as per, e.g., The Grundrisse). The world of daily experience and life operates on different time and space scales than that of capital, which now literally flies through and across space and time in its perpetual quest for 3% compound growth.
Furthermore, while Harvey does not explicitly say this, his argument seems to be based on seeing capital as spatial in a dual sense. First, capital continuously seeks out new places in which to invest (places with new sources of materials, legislation, labor forces – places with fewer barriers). Second, one of the ways in which surplus capital is re-absorbed is through physical investments in a place, particularly in infrastructure and the built environment. These two inherently spatial characteristics of modern capital form the circumstances in which creative destruction (another term for crisis) becomes the modus operandi of capitalism. Citing Marx, Harvey writes that capital “here encounters barriers in its own nature.” In other words, the dual spatial aspects of capital are also the reasons that capital runs into barriers that yield to crisis.
From this discussion of the hypermobility of capital, I find it interesting that Harvey jumps into questions about place making, territoriality, the state and social cohesion (pp. 193-4). It’s a section that I believe requires extensive further elaboration, but it hints at some potentially rich theoretical ideas linking global capital flows across space with questions of power. As I looked back to the start of the chapter, Harvey accords the same degree of agency and influence to the state as he does to capital (p. 185). Later, he makes two important observations: social cohesion and bonding are inherently territorial forms of human interaction and organization (here, Harvey is nodding to the literature in political geography, especially nationalism and sovereignty studies); and, territory and place are a means by which social power is exerted – pp. 194, 204 - (invoking Foucault’s concept of governmentality and Gramsci’s notion of hegemony). And, while this point is buried, it is conspicuous that the state system that we have today, originating from the Westphalian peace arose at the same time (1648) that global flows of capital were beginning to re-shape the world. This leaves us with two competing logics of power: one based on territory/place, and the other based on the state-finance nexus. Yet they arose from the same conditions, during the same period, and the latter is intimately tied to territory because of the spatial nature of capital discussed above.
Here, I think it is worth talking about Harvey’s view of property’s role, which I believe is fairly narrow for his Marxist roots. While insisting that production was really the root of labor’s alienation, Marx at least recognized that there are inherently social relationships in various forms of property, land in particular but also in the production process, and that these were important to the future of communism. So I think that it is worth considering what happens if we broaden the conceptualization of property to see it not just as an institution supported by the state, e.g. as an external environment that supports the process of capital accumulation and reification, but rather that we take a view of property as itself an arbiter of power relations across different parties, whether between individuals, or between an individual and the state. Doing so, I believe, would place property at the center of attempts to construct an alternative vision to capitalism (Harvey’s ultimate project), and in fact this would seem to be amenable with much of Harvey’s own observations about the effects of capital on urban spaces. I am thinking here in particular of his comments regarding the new city to be constructed outside of Seoul, South Korea.
Lindsay Skog
Lindsay Skog
In The Enigma of Capital, David Harvey interprets the recent global financial crisis through a Marxist political economy lens. In doing so, he highlights the ways in which spatial and temporal understandings of the processes and spaces of capitalism illuminate inherent contradictions and vulnerabilities in the system. Harvey’s project is to consider why the capitalist system is prone to crisis, yet, contrary to Marx’s prediction, does not collapse? Following Marx, Harvey describes that capital—accumulated surplus value—must be reinvested, or kept in circulation, in order to grow. Overaccumulation of surplus capital—that is, capital that is not reinvested—leads to a blockage, or crisis, in the system with the potential to collapse the capitalist system. Harvey argues, however, that over and over again capitalism has overcome the limits of reinvestment in order to correct crises of overaccumulation. In the end, Harvey argues that a thorough spatial and temporal understanding of capitalism demonstrates where and how the reinvestment of capital can be disrupted, leading to an irresolvable crisis of overaccumulation, which should usher in a new mode of production. Harvey’s argument leads to a set of questions: What drives capitalists to reinvest (risk), rather than retain (hoard) capital? Where can capital be reinvested? What are the limits to this reinvestment? These questions, in part, lead us to consider Harvey’s key ideas and concepts.
Harvey argues that capitalists are driven to reinvest capital through competition and the pursuit of social power. The mechanism of competition threatens to close the capitalist out of the market. That is to say, if capital is not reinvested in the production of more capital, another capitalist will invest, which, through the processes of growth and reinvestment, will eventually close competitors out of the market. Harvey explains the competitive drive by equating money and power—the more money, the more power; however, Harvey fails to explain the driving force behind the desire for more power. Are we to assume that, for Harvey, this is simply human nature (eyebrows up)?
The ‘spatial fix’, in addition to being one of Harvey’s most useful and often-cited ideas, helps us understand both where capital can be invested and the limits to reinvestment. The reinvestment of capital, especially in the form of the purchase of raw materials and the increase in the labor force, is inevitably limited by resource and labor availability. Such limits to the reinvestment of capital (potentially leading to an overaccumulation of surplus capital) become mere barriers that can be overcome by locating new sources/locations of raw materials and labor—the ‘spatial fix.’ Similarly, the ‘spatial fix’ overcomes the barriers to the production of capital that result from the lack of a market for the consumption of products, which limits the capitalist’s ability to realize a profit and create capital, by locating new markets.
Harvey identifies that capitalism must overcome not only its inherently spatial contradictions, but must also overcome a temporal contradiction. That is that the spaces of consumption are not often in line with the available capital to be reinvested. Harvey points out that, once again, capitalism turns this limit into a barrier that is overcome through credit. Indeed, Harvey argues that the reliance on credit to drive capitalism over its barriers creates fictitious and vulnerable market conditions, which can be found at the heart of the recent economic crisis.
A final key idea in Harvey’s work is the ‘state-finance nexus’, that is the confluence of state and financial power. The ‘state-finance nexus’ is implicated in the ‘spatial fix’ by effectively moving surplus capital to other states for reinvestment through international institutions such as The World Bank and IMF. Harvey points put two important points about this nexus: 1. Such institutions are not neutral in these transactions; in fact, they are also producing capital through the taxes and fees charged for these services, and 2. Such institutions use their power positions to extract ‘monopoly rents’ from those needing their services, as we’ve seen in IMF structural adjustment policies.
I find Harvey’s spatial understandings of the processes and spaces of capitalism as a useful analytic. Harvey’s seven ‘spheres of activity’ go far in articulating the assemblage of forces and factors converging to sustain and perpetuate capitalism, while not overdetermining any one of them. Further, Harvey’s idea of the ‘spatial fix’—the creation of new spaces for production and consumption—illuminates the driving forces fueling the spread of capitalism, the processes stymieing the collapse of capitalism, and the ways in which these processes lead to uneven development.
Joanna Weidler-Lewis
Joanna Weidler-Lewis
David Harvey The Enigma of Capital
"Capitalism will never fall on its own. It will have to be pushed" (p. 260). This is one of the conclusions David Harvey reaches in his 2010 book The Enigma of Capital in which Harvey traces the flow of capital claiming capital "is not a thing but a process in which money is perpetually sent in search of more money" (p. 40). Understanding this process helps us understand how crises in capitalism result in the devastation of communities and even countries as underscored by the 2008 economic crisis.
Underlying any capitalist crisis is the "capital surplus absorption problem" (p. 26) whereby capitalists are in a cycle of perpetual accumulation and, forced by competition, must recaptialize and reinvest a part of their surplus in expansion. In order for accumulation of profit to continue, new outlets must continually be discovered to invest this surplus. The over-accumulation of surplus capital – or lack of investment outlets – results in crisis. It is often the case that surplus capital is considered to be a problem of underconsumption or lack of demand, but Harvey maintains, "what appears as an underconsumption problem becomes a problem of finding reinvestment opportunities for a portion of the surplus produced yesterday" (p. 111). This problem is a disruption in the flow of capital.
Harvey continues to look at the obstacles to the flow of capital but warns against looking for "one dominant explanation for the crisis-prone character of capitalism" (p. 116); instead we should "recognize the multiple ways in which crises can form in different historical and geographical situations" (p. 117). While I appreciated his description of the historical processes of capital in chapter 5 (Capital Evolves), I was more intrigued by chapter 6 (The Geography of It All). I am anxious to hear a discussion of this chapter by the geographers in class, and would also like to get their take on this dilemma posed by Harvey:
On the one hand, capitalists cannot abide geographical barriers of any sort – neither spatial nor environmental – and are engaged in a perpetual struggle to circumvent or transcend them. On the other hand, capitalists actively construct new geographies and geographical barriers in the from of physical built environments embodying vast quantities of fixed and immovable capital that must be fully used if their value is not to be lost (p. 213)
Is it a given that capitalist cannot abide any geographical barriers? What about the destruction of our environment, would that be a barrier? I know Harvey talks about this tension but what do others think?
I was hoping that the final chapter would be more prescriptive and let us know exactly what to do to 'push' capitalism out of the way. Instead Harvey seems to suggest that the seven "activity systems" he presented earlier will all need to change to overthrow capitalism. These activity systems include: technologies and organizational forms; social relations; institutional and administrative arrangements; production and labor processes; relations to nature; the reproduction of daily life and of the species; and ‘mental conceptions of the world’ (p. 123). Is it even possible to alter or adjust each of these? The category of "mental conceptions" alone seems innumerable.
Eric Reiff
Eric Reiff
Reaction Paper – David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital
17 September 2012
The impositions that capitalism has thrust upon the world include disparity of wealth, disposition of labor and assets from their owners, and where neoliberalism has infected there a loss of social cohesion in favor of individuals taking responsibility for the ills wrought by capital accumulation. In this work Harvey offers us the thesis that anti-capitalism has to engage capital in seven spheres (123) instead of just through production as Marx would have it. In addition to this complexificaton he suggests that different people will come to the anti-capitalist party with political baggage that will both need to be incorporated into the movement from the beginning. In addition, as the movement moves toward these goals it will have to overcome developing frictions between the spheres. I am encouraged to see that anti-capitalism for Harvey no longer resides just in reclaiming the means of production. I’m glad to see that Harvey sees how capital manifests in individual lives in ways as varied as their environment and ideologies as well as social reproduction. By throwing his umbrella of inclusion over all the various ways capitalism reaches into people’s lives he offers more people an entrance to his anti-capitalist party.
However, he now has articulated a multifaceted approach to confronting capitalism that will have trouble coalescing into a movement or focusing on a single vision—neither vision nor movement seems to take shape without the other (227). This vexing nature of this problem is underscored in how it ends a section of the book without much further guidance. What guidance he does offer is in the guise of a theory of coevolution (228) in which the movement that does materialize has to be able to address all the seven spheres laid out previously to survive. He sees it moving from one sphere to the next so as to not stagnate and lose touch with the other spheres as previous experiments in communism have done. To keep attention focused on the environment, ideology, production, administration, social reproduction etc. will be an enormous task (228), and Harvey acknowledges this. To make it even worse the spheres will come into conflict as the movement progresses—i.e. production may need to inflict some environmental degradation. Harvey says we will just have to be aware of these coming conflicts and slog through them thoughtfully—however unlikely this seems in a world besieged with a neoliberal, go it alone, beggar thy neighbor political mindset.
While Harvey is correct that the movement against capitalism will be an epic task, I propose that we might find comfort in how easily capitalism appears to consume our lives now. It has not always had an easy road, but it has been successful to the point of getting those it robbed to take the blame for the robbery and pay restitution to boot! If capitalism can do this then probably anything is possible. The important message is that just because it makes structural sense—workers controlling their obejective labor for instance—doesn’t mean that it will be the reality that society chooses to make. That Harvey has sent an invitation to the rest of the disaffected acknowledges rightly that the anti-capitalist narrative is bigger than just the structure of production. Getting everyone on board with a specifically articulated movement will be almost impossible. Occupy Wall Street showed the difficulty in mobalizing the general population and the difficulty in developing an ethos as a movement against rather than for something. Alternatively the recent regime changes in the Maghreb and Middle East perhaps show how quickly a movement can take off from any different points once it starts.
Perhaps the opaque movements of capital are too complicated for the average person to see even in the light of crises, but more likely, we are all blinded by the narrative that there is no other road than capitalism. This is exemplified by the world’s economists that missed the structural issues that just swept across the world. Revolution did not spark, because it appears that this crisis was not big enough to be indigestible by the world’s populations. I would also argue that the alternatives to capital haven’t reached the masses in a way to move them (I listened to my wife lecturing her mom on economics tonight). We as academics need to continue to articulate the wrongs and limitations of capitalism and alternatives to it. An alternative narrative needs to exist before the general population will leave the current paradigm. The reason I came to geography was to create and subvert space in opposition to capitalism; and this work by Harvey, though it fails to offer a clearer articulation of where the movement against capitalism is going, it does tell us where we are and how we got here.
Chandler Griffith
Chandler Griffith
Reaction Paper – David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital
9/17/12
In The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism, David Harvey explains the contradictions of capitalism leading to the global financial crises of 2008, describes its genesis as a reverberation of previously unsolved crises, and provides a roadmap for an anti-capitalist revolution. Harvey calls the capitalist class to task for what “exploitive compound growth is doing to all facets of life, human and otherwise, on planet earth (Harvey 260).” He maintains that capitalism could not have burgeoned and spread the way it has “had it not been for the perpetual expansion of the populations available as both producers and consumers (Harvey 144).” Still, in order to maintain the agreed upon 3 percent annual growth rate, in the absence of other planetary resources and human populations, the capitalist system has had to rely on a series of “fixes” that displace and reconstitute the contradictions and crises of capitalisms. The credit market emerged as a means to invigorate consumerism in the working class, formerly limited by wage depression used to keep profits high, while speculatory markets materialized as a means to commodify future outputs despite limitations on actual present output. These “fixes” constitute an ongoing effort on the part of capitalists to “privatize profits and socialize risk (Harvey 10).”
The reader is left wondering whether the powers that be have been in complete denial of the fact that indefinite compound growth is impossible (precluding imminent failure), or have maintained willful ignorance, knowing that a collapse can be deferred to future generations and disenfranchised populations. Regardless of whether they didn’t know, or knew and didn’t care, the outlook is bleak. Furthermore, reduction in the friction of distance, and the fact that risk can be spread so widely, “encourages even riskier local behaviors because the risk can be transferred elsewhere (Harvey 174).” Thus, the search for new markets has been replaced by the search for new risk absorbers. It is no surprise then that Harvey calls for an end to this game of hot potato.
After putting Chicken Little to shame, Harvey offers up parameters and means by which the capitalist class can be “dispossessed (Harvey 260).” Harvey’s “anti-capitalist” revolution, laid out in the vaguest of terms, holds far less water than the book’s gradual buildup would have one believe. While a firm grasp of our current position is necessary to envision alternatives, it does not ensure foresight. Perhaps my disappointment with this chapter sheds light on a potentially bigger problem related to the assignment of agency throughout the book. In his discussion of Capitalism’s contradictions and crises, Harvey vacillates between blaming the internal mechanisms and contradictions inherent in the capitalist system, and the motives and actions of the capitalist class and the state-finance nexus. This slippery web of agency leaves me questioning whether a new economic system is really the answer. Without falling into cliché arguments about “human nature,” it is hard to believe that a new system will completely subvert the way in which our globalized culture constructs, covets, and protects value. How is Harvey’s “revolution” different from the so far unrealized one that Marx outlined over a century ago?
Joel
Joel Correia
16 September 2012
Geography 5100
Response to The Enigma of Capital
David Harvey’s 2010 work, The Enigma of Capital translates the otherwise mysterious character and functions of political economy and capital for the lay reader. Harvey’s work makes for an excellent read and doing so after previous selections from the Marx-Engels Reader not only clarified many of the concepts presented in the latter, but expanded upon them to demonstrate their application and salience to explain the current crisis of capital. I am particularly taken by three concepts he develops in this text and I briefly comment on them in the following paragraphs. First, I find his notions of “activity spheres” (pp. 121-130) useful as a framework for understanding the development and evolution of capital and its crises. Next, I discuss Harvey’s statement on page 213 that speaks to the very nature of capital production, distribution, and accumulation: “uneven geographical development is not a mere sidebar to how capitalism works but fundamental to its reproduction.” And finally, I comment on his claim that we must address the “mental conceptions” of our relationship with the natural world and among one another in order move beyond the confines of the current capitalist economic model to other possibilities.
The “activity sphere” framework is useful for explaining and imagining the flow and evolution of capital through time and to explain how crisis can occur. Harvey states that these spheres are dynamic, interrelated, “embedded in a set of institutional arrangements” (p. 122), and inherently tied to the conditions of crisis (pp. 121-124). The relationship of capital circulation and accumulation to each of these spheres is central to the thesis that capital must continue moving for the market to maintain its strength and hegemony. If capital flow is seriously hindered or challenged at any point on its movement through these spheres, crisis such as the “profit squeeze”, “falling rate of profit”, or under consumption (p. 116) can result. Marx and Harvey both write about the inherent crises of capitalism and the ingenuity of capitalists to find novel fixes or ways to circumvent blockages to the flow of capital through these spheres. The activity sphere concept is itself geographic and related to notions of uneven development.
This brings me to the second point I discuss. Harvey alludes that activity spheres are found in different places and times and that they are closely related to differing levels of development upon which capital thrives (pp. 121-124). Harvey’s point then is clear, if development were even across all space capital would cease to flow and crisis would ensue. Therefore “creative destruction on [and of] the land” (see Chapter 7 pp. 184-214) is necessary. Creative destruction is predicated on the idea of uneven development and the need for new markets and places for surplus labor and/or capital to be put to work to keep the system of continual 3% annual compound growth (upon which Harvey claims capitalism is dependent) afloat. The destructive nature of capitalism to continually create and re-create for human interaction and relations is one of its “most signal achievements” p. 189).
In the final chapter, What is to be Done? And Who is Going to do it?, Harvey claims this characteristic of capitalism, that of its constant growth and processes of destruction, must be challenged and stopped. He calls for an essentially paradigmatic shift in “mental conceptions” about our relationships with one another and with nature at large (pp. 229-235). This shift could be based on a number of different common social objectives, but one he explicates in detail is “radical egalitarianism” (pp. 230-231). Regardless of the exact form the challenges to capitalism take, Harvey notes that it is necessary that these changes occur across activity spheres if they are to be successful and cause radical change. Some key social challenges to capitalism in the past (i.e. socialism and communism) failed to do enact themselves across spheres and as a result failed to stop the hegemony of the capitalist system of production, distribution, and accumulation. I agree that radical or paradigmatic changes in mental conceptions are necessary for widespread change to take place. However, the question is, how is that possible and will it ever happen? Perhaps we can discuss that in class as well as the points listed in this short response.
Austin Cowley
The Importance of Space: David Harvey and Marxist Geography
The discussion of space, it seems, is everywhere in Harvey’s take on the current economic crisis in The Enigma of Capital. Harvey, who is arguably the most prominent geographer in the discipline, merges a school of Marxist study that spans the social sciences with key geographic concepts to bring greater relevance to both fields. Although Marx skillfully navigates through the key stages of capitalist development from the means of commodity production to exploitation and crises, his teleological aim towards a socialist society falls somewhat short when we look at historical events of the 20th century. Most importantly, capitalism continues to flourish despite the crises inherent to it. How then, are these barriers continually overcome? For Harvey (2010), it’s the drive of capitalism to reduce the friction of distance, to “annihilate space through time”, that keeps it growing despite its contradictions and penchant for destruction.
As a precursor to a more robust geographical discussion around space, Harvey outlines what he calls the seven “activity spheres: technology and organizational forms; social relations; institutional and administrative arrangements; production and labour processes; relation to nature; the reproduction of daily life and the species; and ‘mental conceptions of the world’” (123). Harvey’s major contribution to this formulation (Marx had six of them) is the addition of instructional arrangements. Harvey rightly points out that for capital to achieve the widely desired annual growth of three percent, many of these activity spheres need to be operating together in a given space. Likewise, these spheres co-evolved dialectically, and form what he calls the “socio-ecological totality” that is capitalism (128). That is to say that these arrangements are intertwined as both the factors and the results of capital growth and accumulation. In this context, these assemblages are reiterated through time and space. Here, space operates mainly as the context for which uneven social relations play out (these processes are not devoid from their geography). For Harvey though, space is more than just context. Capitalism, its forces and agents are also constantly shaping the environment around them.
Harvey points out that the geography of capitalism is “increasingly self-produced” (144). Alongside the growth of the world’s population, it has penetrated nearly every surface of the globe. Historical events such as westward expansion and emergence of suburbs in the United States were generated and closely followed by capital growth. Capitalism also has the fluidity to recognize markets were there were previously none. For instance, the explosion of microfinance can be seen as capital being realized at the micro-scale. In other works, Harvey calls this ever-evolving geography the “spatial fix”, wherein capitalism overcomes its own contradictions through seeking out or engineering new labor forces, points of resource extraction, and consumer markets across the world. As the forces of capitalism reshape the globe through urbanization, suburbanization, post-industrial urban decay, the tracts of capitalism are apparent everywhere. The production of space, Harvey argues, ultimately serves the capitalist drive to dominate space and overcome the barriers to growth and accumulation.
Harvey’s contribution to Marxist political economy, specifically through the lens of geography, has brought about new ways of thinking about capitalism. While Marx demystified the historical processes that underline the capitalist mode of production and the logic of its movement, growth, and creative destruction, he fails to foresee the adaptable nature of capitalism through space and its ability to repel its own collapse. Harvey shows how capitalism not only produces space but seeks to dominate it as well. Ultimately Harvey, like other Marxist geographers such as Peet (1998), is unable move us out of the revolutionary and socialist framework of his thinking. Despite his shortcomings in trying to rearticulate the Marxist telos, Harvey has nonetheless taken us one step further in understanding the complicated nature of capitalism.
Ahn Lee
Ahn Lee
Review: Harvey
David Harvey’s The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism is an accessible yet fairly thorough analysis of the inherent contradictions of capitalism, as well as a brief (and less convincing) look toward alternative political economies. Harvey uses his analysis of capitalism’s evolution, the barriers it has faced, as well as the “solutions” with which it has thus far avoided complete collapse, to convey a deep and entirely logical concern for its ability to withstand its own contradictions in perpetuity. The very simple bottom line Harvey points to is that, in order to reproduce itself capitalism must expand at a rate of 3% per year, ad infinitum—thus, as one crisis begets another, the challenges to capital accumulation actually compound. The question is, what’s next?
Capitalism’s inherent contradictions, Harvey observes, manifest in crises caused by profit squeezing (when real wages rise), falling rates of profit (ruinous competition), or lack of effective demand (not enough consumption) and result in vast ever-shifting geographies of accumulation. There are no actual “solutions” to the inherent contradictions of capitalism. There are only fixes that relocate the burden of surplus absorption. For example, he explains, the repression of organized labor during the 1970’s led to a crisis of effective demand in the 1990’s; capitalism’s solution, therefore, was to create a new market based entirely on fictitious capital and speculation on asset values with which to absorb surplus accumulation. The creation and failure of such a market (a “fictitious” one) for the explicit purpose of creating space for capital to expand and reproduce itself is cause for concern. After all, what other fixes are left?
Harvey’s repositioning of this cycle of crisis formation through the lens of “activity spheres” seems to offer a slightly less bleak outlook. Each of these spheres “evolves on its own account but always in dynamic interaction with the others” (Harvey 123). Thus, in their dynamism they create a “socio-ecological totality”, defined by fluidity and, arguably, opportunity for “novelty in human affairs” (Harvey 128). In the chapter, What is to be Done? And Who is Going to Do It?, Harvey emphasizes the importance of shifting “mental conceptions of the world” in reorganizing the world around some alternative to capitalism. Here, Harvey asks, “Can shifts in mental conceptions change the world?” (Harvey 235). It is here that, despite some impressively concrete prescriptions for uniting those opposed to capitalism in a movement to overthrow it, Harvey’s argument is weakest. He even quotes Marx’s observation that capitalism entered the world “bathed in blood and fire” to maintain the notion that passive transformation is unlikely, and that dispossession might be a “necessary precursor to more positive changes” (Harvey 250). But who will participate in such a transformation? Ultimately, my concern with Harvey’s logic stems from my inability to reconcile his constantly shifting scale of analysis (global vs. applying only to developed states) with what I see as potentially disparate goals between the “deprived and dispossessed” and the merely “alienated and discontented” (241).
galenbmurton
Galen Murton
GEOG 5100
Response #2: David Harvey
We like David Harvey. He articulates the complexities of Marxist theory in accessible nuggets. He provides brilliantly convincing critiques of capitalism that make me want to jump on his wagon. He enables both geographers and non-geographers (may I hazard ‘regular folk’ without being too normative) to better understand what is going on with our world, and why it’s so messed up. We read Harvey in all three of my classes this week, and alongside his old friend Marx, he was the most popular theorist of the day. But, are we embracing Harvey too generously? Are we being adequately critical of his critiques?
Harvey is tough to argue with, and he makes solid sense, especially for liberals like us. However, his favor for radical revolution comes across as near apologetics for systematic violence in China under Mao. While more Zapatistas would make the world a more equitable place, the recent devastation wrought by Nepal’s own dysfunctional Maoist insurgency (and now government), to say nothing of the Taliban, does not lend itself to positive reference, as he is wont to do (Harvey, 226). At the end of the day, however, and unless I gain an altered understanding of fundamental economics and global class structure that carries me over to the neoliberal side, I will continue to find Harvey’s arguments quite compelling.
In The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism, Harvey presents a logical assessment of the current global (dis)order with respect to the dominant paradigm within which virtually all humanity is now bound – capitalism. He deconstructs the financial crisis of 2008 with reference to previous depressions and recessions, from the 1930s through the 1980s, as well as the unique factors that led to the more recent perfect storm. Consistent across these recurring meltdowns is a dangerous correlation of capitalist avarice, mass myopia, popular deception, and human hubris.
Crises are both the result of capitalist madness as well as the cause of new capitalist ventures. Harvey illustrates, paradoxically, that it is in fact crises that serve as the ‘irrational rationalizers’ of the profound contradiction of capitalist structures (Harvey, 117). They occur when the capitalist system exceeds its natural limits and yet also serve as a catalyst for creative solutions that ultimately diversity and deepen capitalist models. At various scales, these crises occur in response to barriers such as insufficient capital, inadequate technologies, lack of consumer demand, labour blockages, etc. (Harvey, 47). The problem (from a non-capitalist perspective) with these checks and balances of crisis, however, is that they are perpetually resolved – for example, the ‘capital surplus absorption problems’ of the 1980s were fixed with new socio-economic products like ‘credit, a solution that continues to drive our system today.’
Capitalism is dynamic and powerful because it consistently generates ‘spatial fixes,’ like credit or foreign markets, to resolve immediate crises. The ‘spatial fixes’ take many forms, from the psychological and social (advertisement-driven fetishism for new technologies) to the institutional and regional (the state-finance nexus or free-trade agreements). Regardless of their appearance, these ‘fixes’ are common in the way they entrap consumers/laborers in a vicious cycle of production-consumption-production, as surplus labor is continually appropriated by the capitalist sector (banks) in exchange for material commodities and ever-deepening consumer debt. Such a rat race is terribly difficult to escape.
This capitalist system is a socio-ecological totality that, according to Harvey, depends on seven interdependent ‘activity spheres:’ technologies and organizations; social relations; institutions; labour and production processes; relations to nature; social reproduction; and ‘mental conceptions of the world’ (Harvey, 123). An examination of these spheres reveals the geographic, evolutionary history of capitalism and also presents a great, second paradox: they are at the same time collective strengths and singular vulnerabilities of the capitalist system.
The capitalist ‘socio-ecological’ totality is like a spider web on a dewy morning. From one angle, it is barely visible but strong – even a powerful wind will not blow it away. And yet from another perspective, it is distinct, iridescent, and wonderfully fragile – breaking a single strand can take the whole thing down. When woven by the capitalists, each ‘sphere’ within this web mutually supports and interchanges with all of the other strands: for example, when wage repression presents significant capital surplus absorption problems because middle class folks cannot afford to fill their gas tanks or purchase new white goods, capitalists can manipulate social or natural world relations by fomenting loyalty to domestic hydrocarbons, adjusting gasoline prices, and voicing ‘patriotic’ calls to go shopping. Conversely, when the people have had enough and decide to fight for their rights, and thereby resist the capitalists, it simply takes disciplined organization and solidarity to create the barriers that will break down the system. Labour blockages are a good wrench in the spokes of the machine. An extensive, coordinated strike of factory workers or popular refusal to shop, consume, and spend cash could bring the capitalist structure to its knees and devastate the web. But, success is a matter of exponents, and that continually proves problematic.
By such logic, one views capitalism as a rather precarious structure, a model that can be damaged or even defeated with dedicated intentions. But in reality, capitalism conversely remains durable, diverse, and devastatingly successful. Having situated itself as the global status quo, it is a system increasingly hard to buck. And yet, what will continue to change things, for both the better and the worse, are crises. Eventually, rather than serving to strengthen the system as has often been the case, the crises will compound and catalyze real change. Just the right labour blockages, in line with just the right barriers to capital, properly organized and globally distributed, could finally break the model. Will it ever happen? We have to start somewhere.
Elizabeth Wharton
In The Enigma of
Capital Harvey takes on a (dauntingly) ambitious and wide-ranging task: to
lay out the structure and effects of capitalism on a global scale and to help
us to gain visibility on its spatial dynamics. Touching down first with the
foreclosure crisis of 07-08 – arguably the inevitable outcome of capitalism’s
“underlying problem” in recent years of “how to absorb greater and greater
amounts of capital surplus” (page 28). Here he lays out the fundamental
phenomenon that permeates the remainder of his analysis: a ravenous surplus
requiring growth at any cost and thus in constant search of new places (whether
via literal geographic expansion or abstract spaces embodied in new financial
instruments like the CDO) to invest. (Reading this first chapter led me to also
re-listen to This American Life’s show from May 2008 titled “The Giant Pool of
Money” (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money).
Though it includes no explicit reference to Marx, it strikes me as describing
very much the same dynamic as Harvey is discussing.)
In the chapters that follow Harvey extends Marx’s analysis in the modern context, weaving historical account with structural analysis. His focus on the foreclosure crisis and the wider global crises that followed is not in order to serve as a chronicler of that particular moment, but rather to treat it as a lens through which to view the broader evolution and fundamental pitfalls of the capitalist system.
Harvey has succeed here in presenting a coherent and detailed critique of modern capitalism, still containing the systemic contradictions identified by Marx but now approaching absolute limits in space. However, I found myself at times frustrated with Harvey’s recruitment of evidence toward developing his argument (or as examples of the phenomenon he is describing) that I find open to question and unsubstantiated. This does not necessarily undermine the coherence or structure of whatever overarching argument he is making – in many cases the argument would stand on its own without the potentially problematic evidence brought in on its behalf (or would simply be better served by other evidence). An example: he makes repeated reference to the “unrest” in China that supposedly accompanied widespread job loss as the global financial crisis reached its shores in early 2009 (pages 6, 38, 66). I know that there was much made in western media outlets re the potential for unrest connected to the GFC job losses; but for observers on the ground it was the story (expected and looked for) that never materialized. There was, and continues to be, a great deal of unrest related to a great many issues, and labor as a whole was growing much more assertive in demanding better pay and conditions by 2010-2011. But in 2009 there was no there there. I raise this not because this particular issue is of any great consequence for his argument, but because it indicated to me a perhaps too-speedy process of taking hold of evidence that supports his narrative, without checking the characterization of events involved.
Separately, I had a number of questions as I moved into his final chapter in particular. Chief among these: Harvey, and the Marxist tradition writ large, cites capitalism’s proclivity toward crisis as its defining characteristic. To me, a fundamental question that this begs is whether capitalism is indeed distinct or unique from any other system in containing within itself the contradictions that lead it to crisis. Certainly the nature of those contradictions andthe kinds of crises they produce can be described as distinct to capitalism. But can it possibly follow that other systems do not carry within their very nature contradictions of a different nature that likewise eventually tend toward crisis?