Producing Places

by Hudson, Ray

• ISBN13: 9781572306349
• ISBN10: 1572306343
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-12
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

This book synthesizes a vast body of theory and research on production in capitalist societies. Ray Hudson considers both the specific sites in which production occurs, such as factory, office, and home, and th e production of places in which we live as socialized human beings. Bu ilding on and refining contemporary Marxist analysis, Hudson also draw s on regulationist, institutional, and evolutionary perspectives. He p rovides an innovative understanding of the variety of organizational a nd spatial forms that production can take, the ways these are governed and regulated, effects on social and political arrangements, and impl ications for the natural world. The book is illustrated with examples and evidence from across the global economy.

Author Biography

Ray Hudson is Professor of Geography and Chairman of the International Centre for Regional Regeneration and Development Studies at the University of Durham, UK.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Setting the Scene	1	(14)
Aims and Objectives	1	(2)
Defining Production and the Specificities of Capitalist Production	3	(1)
Five Basic Questions about Capitalist Production	4	(2)
Some Questions of Epistemology, Theory, and Method: Making the Case for a Marxian Point of Departure in Analyzing Production and Its Geographies	6	(5)
Summary and Conclusions	11	(1)
Notes	12	(2)
Placing Production in Its Theoretical Contexts	14	(34)
Introduction	14	(1)
Setting the Scene: Conceptualizing the Production Process within Capitalism via Some Basic Concepts from Marxian Political Economy	14	(12)
Varieties of Marxism and the Engagement between Economic Geography and Marxian Political Economy	26	(2)
Further Refining the Conception of Production as a Social Process	28	(13)
Concluding Comments: A Framework for Understanding Production and the Structure of the Remainder of This Volume	41	(3)
Notes	44	(4)
Capitalist Production, Societal Reproduction, and Capitalist States	48	(48)
Introduction	48	(1)
From a Theory of the Capitalist State and Toward a Theory of National States: Why Does the State Take the Form That It Does?	49	(7)
National States, Economies, and Civil Societies	56	(3)
National States and Social Regulation	59	(2)
Crisis Tendencies, National State Regulation, and the Limits to Regulationist Approaches	61	(7)
``Hollowing Out'' and ``Reorganization'' of National States: From National State Regulation to More Complex Geographies of Regulation and Processes of Governance	68	(8)
What Do National States Do to Ensure That Production Is Possible?	76	(15)
Summary and Conclusions	91	(1)
Notes	92	(4)
Recruiting Workers, Organizing Work	96	(47)
Introduction	96	(1)
Regulating Relationships between Capital and Labor: Collective Representation of the Interests of Capital and Labor ``for Themselves''	97	(10)
Competition in the Labor Market: Recruitment, Retention, and Resistance	107	(17)
Organizing Work and the Labor Process	124	(16)
Summary and Conclusions	140	(1)
Notes	141	(2)
Company Connections: Competition and Cooperation, Part 1	143	(43)
Introduction	143	(1)
Competition within Existing Socio-Organizational and Technical Paradigms	144	(3)
Competition via Creating New Technical and Organizational Paradigms of Production and New Products	147	(15)
Competition via Market Creation and Marketing Innovation	162	(4)
Market Structures, Competition, and the Processes of Globalization	166	(3)
Competition via Learning and the Creation and Monopolization of Knowledge	169	(11)
Summary and Conclusions	180	(1)
Notes	181	(5)
Company Connections: Competition and Cooperation, Part 2	186	(31)
Introduction	186	(1)
Make, Buy, or Network? Collaboration or Competition via the Market as Supply Strategies	187	(13)
Boundaries of Firms and Networks: Closed and Bounded or Open and Discontinuous Spaces?	200	(5)
Longer-Term Strategic Collaboration: Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures	205	(3)
Acquisitions and Mergers as Competitive Strategies	208	(5)
Summary and Conclusions	213	(1)
Notes	214	(3)
Divisions of Labor: Cleavage Planes and Axes of Cooperation	217	(38)
Introduction	217	(2)
Organizing Workers, Dividing Workers: Trade Unions and the Institutions of Organized Labor	219	(5)
Unity and Division between Groups of Workers: Dimensions of Simultaneous Unity and Division	224	(27)
Summary and Conclusions	251	(1)
Notes	252	(3)
Production, Place and Space	255	(31)
Introduction: Place and Space	255	(1)
Conceptualizing Places within the Spaces and Structures of Capitalism	256	(6)
Producing Identities and Senses of and Attachments to Places	262	(6)
Defending and (Re-)Presenting Places	268	(4)
Reconciling the Tensions of Meaningful Place versus Profitable Space: State Policies, Social Cohesion, and Spatial Integration	272	(4)
Varieties of Capitalist State Spatial Policies	276	(6)
Summary and Conclusions	282	(1)
Notes	283	(3)
Materials Transformations: Production and Nature	286	(44)
Introduction	286	(1)
Production as a Process of Materials Transformation: Thermodynamics, the Laws of Conservation, and the Natural Limits to Production	287	(3)
Production as a Process of Materials Transformation: The Materials Balance Principle, Industrial Metabolism, and the Social Limits to Thinking about Production in This Way	290	(4)
Capitalist Relations of Production and the Production of Nature	294	(4)
Capitalist Production as a Process of Deliberate Environmental Transformation	298	(5)
Capitalist Production as a Process of Unintended Environmental Transformation and Pollution	303	(10)
Sustainable Capitalist Production: But in What Sense Sustainable?	313	(8)
Is Sustainable Production Possible within the Structural Limits Defined By Capitalist Social Relations?	321	(3)
Summary and Conclusions	324	(1)
Notes	325	(5)
Postscript	330	(9)
Introduction	330	(1)
What Sort of Capitalist Economy, What Sort of Geographies?	330	(4)
Challenges for the Future	334	(2)
The Final Frontier?	336	(2)
Note	338	(1)
References	339	(36)
Index	375	(11)
About the Author	386