The Dictionary of Human Geography

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micro-economic foundations for Marxism

usingrational choice theory, and to dis-

place dialectics with analytical philosophy and

the labour theory of value withneo-classical

economics. Realist Marxists have sought to

provide a stronger philosophical shell for

Marxism by drawing upon recent develop-

ments in the philosophy ofrealism(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’isan

open, and perhaps irrelevant, question.

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, inCapital-

ism and schizophrenia, of Sigmund Freud,

Marx and Baruch Spinoza, orcritical 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 withhuman 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 amarxist 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,spaceandnaturethat 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

developmentof capitalism (cf.production

of space). On the other side, there has been

a constructive critique of theethnocentrism

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 inregional

geographythat 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

Marxist economics A heterodox field that

spans the methodological gamut from struc-

tural andclass-centred relational anddia-

lectical approaches to individual-centred

rational choiceapproaches. 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. Theecon-

omyis 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 ofcapitalism.

The historian Robert Brenner, for example,

has offered a remarkable class-based analysis

of the jagged transition fromfeudalismto

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

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MARXIST ECONOMICS