Two Sources of Uneven Development Under Advanced Capitalism: Spatial Differentiation and Capital Mobility

Abstract

Although capitalist penetration results in a certain regional con vergence, uneven development does not disappear under advanced capitalist conditions. Two sources of geographic unevenness are spatial differentiation and capital mobility. Differentiation produces a spatial mosaic in which the pieces are neither equal, autonomous, nor properly considered "underdeveloped." Mobil ity of capital means that capital may use location as a strategy against labor, local development becomes more dependent on outside capital, development comes and goes over time("Boomtownism") and capital generates a permanent reserve of stagnant places — a lumpengeography of capital. These processes of uneven development are not principally owing to flows of surplus value but to the struc turing of places as use-values for capital, nor are the results particularly suscept ible to traditional regional development policies. Labor's appropriate strategies are several, but must be aimed at finding an alternative to capitalist development not toward a misguided effort to redress geographic differences.