Geography matters!

This reader is one part of an Open University integrated teaching

system and the selection is therefore related to other material
available to students. It is designed to evoke the critical
understanding of students. Opinions expressed in it are not
necessarily those of the course team or of the U niversity.
Geography
matters!
A reader

EDITED BY
D O R E E N M A SSEY A N D J O H N A L L EN
WITH JAMES ANDERSON, SUSAN CUNNINGHAM,
CHRISTOPHER HAMNETT AND PHILIP SARRE

.,..\!.····

�CAMBRIDGE
� UNIVERSITY PRESS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH

THE OPEN UNIVERSITY

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retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
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First published 1984

Reprinted 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994

Library of Congress catalogue card number: 84- 1 6969

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Geography matters!
I. Antropo-geography
I. Massey, Doreen B. II. Allen, John
304.2 GF4 1

ISBN 0 52 1 26887 7 hardback

ISBN 0 52 1 3 1 708 8 paperback

Transferred to digital printing 2002

lP
 Contents

A cknowledgements

Part 1
Introduction: Geography matters
DOREEN MASSEY

A history of nature 12
MICK GOLD

2 The societal conception of space 34

ROBERT SACK

Part 2
Introduction: Analysis: aspects of the geography of society 49
JOHN ALLEN

3 ' There's no place like . . . ' : cultures of difference 54

JOHN CLARKE

4 The spaced out urban economy 68

MICHAEL BALL

5 Jurisdictional conflicts, international law and the

international state system 85
SOL PICCIOTTO

Part 3
Introduction: Synthesis: interdependence and the uniqueness
of place 1 07
JOHN ALLEN

6 The re-structuring of a local economy : the case of

Lancaster 112
LINDA MURGATROYD AND JOHN URRY

7 A woman's place ? 1 28
LIN DA MCDOWELL AND DOREEN MASSEY

v
vi Contents

8 The laissez-faire approach to international labor migration :

the case of the Arab M iddle East 148
ALAN RICHARDS AND PHILI P L. MARTIN

Part 4
Introduction: Geography and society 161
DOREEN MASSEY

9 The nation-state in western Europe : erosion from ' above '

and ' below ' ? 166
MARTIN KOLINSK Y

10 Environmental futures 181

FRANCIS SANDBACH

Index 201
 List of Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank members of the course team of ' Changing
Britain, Changing World : Geographical Perspectives ' for their help in
selecting material for this reader. We would like to thank the authors of the
chapters, especially those which were specially commissioned, for their
receptiveness to our comments and cuts and for their adherence to a tight
production schedule. We would also like to thank M aureen Adams, Eve
Hussey, Enid Sheward and Giles Clark for assistance in tu rning manuscripts
and defaced xeroxes into a legible typescript.

The Press is grateful to the authors and publishers listed below for permission
to reproduce copyright material from the following works :
Chamberlain, M . Extracts from Fenwomen (London, Routledge and Kegan
Paul 1983).
Harrison, Paul. Extracts from pp. 64-68 of Inside the Inner City (London,
Pelican Books 1983). Copyright © Paul Harrison, 1983, and reprinted by
permission of Penguin Books Ltd .
Kolinsky, M artin. ' The Nation-State in Western Europe : Erosion from
Above and Below ' in L. Tivey (ed.), The Nation State, pp. 82-103 (Oxford,
Martin Robertson 1981).
Murgatroyd, Linda and John Urry. ' The Restructuring of a Local
Economy : the Case of Lancaster ' in J. Anderson, S. Duncan and R.
Hudson (eds.), Redundant Spaces in Cities and Regions, pp. 67-96 (London,
the Academic Press 1983). Copyright © 1983, By Academic Press Inc.
Piciotto, Sol. ' Jurisdictional Conflicts, International Law and the Inter­
national State System ' in International Journal of the Sociology of Law, Vol .
II, 1983, pp. 11-40 (Copyright 1983 by Academic Press Inc ( London) Ltd).
Richards, Alan and Philip L. Martin. ' The Laissez-Faire Approach to
I nternational Labor Migration : The Case of the Arab M iddle East ' in
Econ omic Development and Cultural Change Vol. 31 no 3, April 1983, pp.
455-471 ( © University of Chicago Press, 1983. All rights reserved).
Sack , Robert David. Conceptions of Space in Social Thought: A Geographic
Perspective, pp. 167-193. (Macmillan, London and Basingstoke, and the
University of Minnesota Press, 1980).
Sandbach, Francis.' Environmental Futu res' in Environment, Ideology and
Policy, pp. 200-223 (Oxford, Basil Blackwell 1980).
 PART 1

Introduction
Geography matters
DOREEN M ASSEY

Insofar as any sensible distinction can be made between the various social
science disciplines, ' human geography ' has traditionally been distinguished
by its concern with three relationships. First, there is the relationship between
the social and the spatial : between society and social processes on the one hand
and the fact and form of the spatial organization of both of those thing s on
the other. Second, there is the relationship between the social and the natural,
between society and ' the environment ' . Third, there is a concern, which
geography shares in particular with history, with the relationship between
different elements - economy, social structure, politics, and so forth. While
the ' substance ' disciplines of the social sciences (economics, sociology,
politics) tend to focus on particular parts of society, however difficult these
are to distinguis h and define, human geography's concern with ' place ', with
why different localities come to be as they are, has often led it to the study
of how those different elements come together in particular spaces to form
the complex mosaic which is the geography of society.
The way in which each of these relationships has been conceptualized has
varied widely, and often quite dramatically, even in the recent history of the
discipline. All have had their extreme versions. The most absolute of
environmental determinists saw human character and social organization as
a fairly direct and unmediated product of the physical (natural ) environment.
Some of the ' models of spatial interaction ' in the era of the quantitative
nineteen-sixties posited a realm of ' the spatial ' virtually as substantive as the
economic is for economists. There have been studies in which the ' synthesis
of elements ' (after which regional geography supposedly strove ) amounted
to little more than chapters which began with geology and gradually moved
' upwards ' to politics and culture, with little attempt at interlinkage let alone
theorization. But the fact that the answers have so often been wrong does
not mean that the questions which were being addressed were not significant.
Indeed, what we want to argue in this book is that these questions, concern
for these relationships, are of great importance, not just for ' human
geography' but for the social sciences as a whole, and for what those social
sciences are all about- understanding, and changing, society.
It is our intention here to ai:gue for particular interpretations of each of
2 Doreen Massey

these relationships. M uch of the debate within social science in the sixties and
seventies was in fact concerned, if only implicitly, with these issues. Certainly,
the debates had implications for social science's attitude to each of the
relationships highlighted here. What we want to do now is to make those
relationships explicit, and then to argue that on each front the debate needs
to be pushed forward another step. The interpretations which we argue for
here are intended to do just that. They enable both ' the spatial ' and ' the
natural ' to regain a significance, which they had previously lost, within the
social sciences as a whole. And the concern for place, and hence for specificity
and uniqueness, has its parallels, and hence also its implications, in some of
the central methodological debates in the social sciences today.

The social and the spatial

One of the classic images of human geography, perhaps today more amongst
those outside it than those within, is its concern for the region, the area, the
locality, call it what you will. M ost of the editors of and contributors to this
book were educated in a school-geography which divided itself up into
courses on particular regions. This was frequently paralleled by a ' systematic
geography ' in which the spatial organization of different elements (population,
industry, disease) was studied across a set of regions. But it was regional
geography which was the central focus. And in that regional geography the
concern with space was bound up with a recognition of uniqueness and
specificity. Each place was different, and the aim was to put together the
elements in such a way that each configuration could be understood. The
problem with that project was not its aim. Indeed we are going to argue here
that that aim should once again be far more prominent on our agenda. The
problem was its execution. Too often it degenerated into an essentially
descriptive and untheorized collection of facts. It was this period that gave
geography its name as the discipline where you learned lists of products.
The intellectual weakness of this tradition by the middle of the twentieth
century laid human geography open to the wave of su per-positivism and the
mania for quantificatio n which swept all the social sciences in the nineteen­
sixties. Geography was to become ' scientific ', in the strictly positivist sense.
The apogee of this attempt was to be found in the school of ' spatial analysis ' .
Here mathematical models were built o f ' spatial interactions ', theories and
general laws were constructed out of empirical generalizations from vast
data-sets, and everything that was conceivably quantifiable was quantified.
In the process much was lost. Most obviously, things which would not submit
so easily to quantification disappeared from view. In parallel fashion ' space '
itself was reduced to a concern with distance ; the interest in particularity and
uniqueness was replaced by a search for spatial regularities. But the other
thing that was lost was geography's own distinctiveness. It had lost its old
distinctive focus - the synthesis of elements within the individuality of a
particular region. And its methods had converged with those of the other
 Geography matters 3

sciences. Geography might have, in the terms of the sixties, made itself into
a science. The question was : a science of what?
The answer given was : a science of the spatial. The models of spatial
interaction posited, either implicitly or explicitly, the notion of ' purely spatial
processes ' . ' Spatial e ffects ' (the geographical distribution of one thing) were
deemed to be explicable by ' spatial causes ' (the geographical distribution of
another). During this period human geography carved out for itself a new
distinctiveness by defining a new object of study - the realm of the spatial.
There were spatial laws and spatial processes, spatial causes and spatial
relationships. Nor was this an argument whose implications were con fined
to the intellectual or the academic. I t was an important element in the debate
over the causes of inner-city decline, and over the impact of regional policy.
In terms of the relation between the social and the spatial, this was the
period of perhaps the greatest conceptual separation. Geography at this time,
or at least the dominant school of geographical thought, had separated off
for itself a realm of the spatial, self-containedly including, in this conception,
both cause and effect. It needed little input from the other social science
disciplines. For their part the other disciplines forgot about space altogether.
It could not last. In the nineteen-seventies, again along with the other social
sciences, a radical critique was launched in human geography of the dominant
school of the sixties. In geography it took a particular form. Above all it was
argued - and it now seems so obvious - that there is not and cannot be a
separate realm of ' the spatial ' . There are no such things as spatial processes
without social content, no such things as purely spatial causes, spatial laws,
interactio ns or relation ships. What was really being referred to, it was argued,
was the spatial form of social causes, laws, interactions and relationships.
' The spatial ', it was pronounced, and quite correctly, ' does not exist as a
separate realm. Space is a social construct.'
Once again, this had wider ramifications than the simply academic, and
indeed it was most frequently in debates about policy issues that the
methodological questions came most clearly to a head . The causes of spatial
patterns, such as inner-city decline and the problems of peripheral regions,
could not be sought simply in other spatial patterns, it was argued ; the causes
had to be found in wider changes going on in British economy and society
as a whole.
One of the immediate implications of this argument was that, in order to
exp lain their chosen object of study, geographers now had to go outside what
had previously been conceived of as the boundaries of their discipline. In order
to understand the geography of industry it was necessary to learn economics
and industrial sociology. To understand spatial differentiation in housing it
w as necessary to appreciate the mechanisms (economic, sociological, political)
u nde rl yi ng the operation of the housing market. It was recognized, in other
words, that in order to unde rstand' geography' it was necessary to understand
society.
The position of this book is to argue that the critique was both correct and
4 Doreen Massey

important. Indeed, it seems difficult in retrospect to do otherwise. But we also

want to argue that this is not the end of the debate.
The position reached in the argument so far is inadequate in a number of
related respects. Essentially, only one half of the argument had been followed
through. It had been agreed that the spatial is a social construct. But the
corollary, that social processes necessar ily take place over space, had not been
taken on board. While geographers struggled to learn other disciplines and
apply their knowledge to the understanding of spatial distributions, the other
disciplines continued to function, by and large, as though the world operated,
and society existed, on the head of a pin, in a spaceless, geographically
undifferentiated world. In terms of the academic disciplinary division of
labour, this left geographers simply mapping the outcomes of processes
studied in other disciplines ; the cartographer of the social sciences. And much
of the ' radical geography ' of the period was indeed of the ' mapping poverty '
variety. But this unsatisfactory division of labour re flected a far more
important problem at the level of conceptualisation. For ' space ' was seen as
only an outcome ; geographical distributions as only the results of social
processes.
But there is more to it than that. Spatial distributions and geographical
differentiation may be the result of social processes, but they also affect how
those processes work. ' The spatial ' is not j ust an outcome ; it is also part of
the explanation. It is not just important for geographers to recognize the social
causes of the spatial configurations that they study ; it is also important for
those in other social sciences to take on board the fact that the processes they
study are constructed, reproduced and changed in a way which necessarily
involves distance, movement and spatial differentiation.
Two questions arise immediately from this formulation. First, what does
it mean to say that space has effects ? One thing it does not mean is that ' space
itself', or particular spatial forms, themselves have effects. That would simply
be to reproduce the mistakes of the sixties and to posit a notion of the purely
spatial. To take an example : it is frequently argued these days that what is
emerging as industry's new spatial pattern in the UK will pose insuperable
problems for trade union organizers. It is a pattern of relatively isolated
factories, often in small towns, often with one plant dominating a whole
labour market. Contrasts are drawn with the industrially mixed large labour
markets and socially rich contexts of the cities, where trades councils and
militancy have frequently flourished . With foreboding (if you are in favour
of active trade union organization), people point to the paternalistic relations,
lack of militancy, and the frequent common front adopted by workers and
owner-managers in the small and isolated labour markets which have so often
in the past typified, for instance, the old textile industry. Spatial form seems
to' explain· the difference between the two: city versus isolated labour market.
But it does not. It is only necessary to think of the colliery villages of the old
coalfields, equally small labour markets, equally dominated by a single
 Geography mailers 5

employer, for the argument to fall. For the colliery villages on numbers of
occasions have been centres of radicalism and militancy. So indeed have the
cotton towns, in their day, been hotbeds of radicalism. It is not spatial form
in itself (nor distance, nor movement) that has effects, but the spatial form
of particular and specified social processes and social relationships. The social
character of both capital and labour has been vastly different in the textile
towns and the colliery villages and in both it has changed over time. In both,
spatial form has indeed been important in terms of trade union organization
and militancy (or lack of it) but it has been a spatial form of different social
relationships (with different social content) and as such its influence has been
different.
The second question is what, anyway, do we mean by'space'? As we have
already seen, the answer has varied over time. The'old regional geography'
may have had its disadvantages but at least it did retain within its meaning
of' the spatial' a notion of'place', attention to the'natural' world, and an
appreciation of richness and specificity. One of the worst results of the schools
of quantification and spatial analysis was their reduction of all this to the
simple (but quantifiable) notion of distance. Space became reduced to a
dimension. The arguments of the seventies, by reducing the importance of
the spatial, downplayed also any explicit debate about its content. In our view,
the full meaning of the term 'spatial' includes a whole range of aspects of
the social world. It includes distance, and differences in the measurement,
connotations and appreciation of distance. It includes movement. It includes
geographical differentiation, the notion of place and specificity, and of
differences between places. And it includes the symbolism and meaning which
in different societies, and in different parts of given societies, attach to all of
these things.
All these aspects of 'the spatial' are important in the construction,
functioning, reproduction and change of societies as a whole and of elements
of society. Distance and separation are regularly used by companies to
establish degrees of monopoly control, whether it be over markets (the corner
shop being the classic- though possibly least important- example) or over
workers (the great advantage for capital of those colliery and textile villages
was that, short of migration, workers had no alternative place to sell their
labour). Movement, and more generally locational flexibility, has become in
recent years a major weapon used by capital against labour. Threats to close
and move elsewhere have become an almost automatic response of big firms
faced with resistance from labour. And in times of recession and shortage of
jobs it is a powerful threat. More generally, the search after cheaper labour
in recent decades has precisely involved spatial movement, whether it be
internationally (with the building of a new international division of labour)
o r intranationally, with the decentralization of production to 'the regions'
of Britain in the sixties and seventies. In both cases s:>atial restructuring was
integral to the maintenance of profitability. A sense of place, a commitment
6 Doreen Massey

to location and to established community, can be a strong element of people's

resistance to planners' plans. Notions of place and territory are fundamental
elements of state politics. And the symbolism of space and place, which varies
both between societies and within them, from the landscapes of Aboriginal
Dream time to ' prime sites ' and ' prestige locations ' for bank headquarters,
to the Lincoln Memorial and the Cenotaph, in all these forms is integral to
the mode, and effectiveness, of social organization.
It is not just that the spatial is socially constructed ; the social is spatially
constructed too. 1

The social and the natural

The logic of our argument about the relationship between the social and the
natural is similar to that about the social and the spatial. Indeed the two are
closely related : the symbolism of place is often related to natural features,
questions of space are intimately bound up with notions of territory and
thence of land, part of the uniqueness of places is a result of physical
characteristics, of landforms perhaps, or climate.
There is also once again a history to the way in which geography and
geographers have conceptualized the relationship. And once again, too, it is
bound up with debates within the social sciences more generally.
Probably the most notorious school of thought upon this subject has been
that ofenvironmental determinism, with its view that an important explanation
of the way in which society is organized, and human beings behave, is the
natural environment. It is a school which in its extreme and developed form
faded from the forefront of geographical thought many decades ago. I t is
important to mention it now because it left a legacy. It was a legacy which
took many forms : that natural wealth, richness in natural resources, was
responsible for economic development, the physical dereliction of inner cities
for the destitution of their inhabitants, that ' natural ' causes - drought, flood,
crop failure - were responsible .for famine, hunger and poverty in large parts
of the world.
The school which challenged environmental determinism toned down but
by no means eradicated that legacy. This was the school of ' possibilism ' . It
was an inelegant but accurate title, for what the possibilists argued was that
nature had to be seen not as determining social action, but as providing a
set of options and constraints. You cannot mine coal where none exists, but
the existence of coal does not spontaneously produce a mine. ' Society
decides. ' Yet this view, in spite of its differences from environmental
determinism, also shared something with it. For both schools, the way in
which nature was conceptualized was unproblematical ; its physical reality
was simply evident.
But recent decades, again, have seen major critiques both of this way o f
conceptualizing nature and of the remnants of the determinist view . Indeed
 Geography matters 7

in many ways the new argument sought to turn determinism on its head. It
was designed to combat the notion of unmediated natural cause. Quite
correctly it pointed to the social causes of famine, to the social articulation
of what the media announced on the news as ' natural disasters ', to the fact
that the availability or otherwise of resources was a social question, that while
on the one hand the cry was going up that resources were running out, on
the other hand coal mines, for instance, were being closed up with good coal
still within them. It was essentially an optimistic critique, and it was
important. Phenomena which are the product of society are changeable. The
natural - just like the spatial - is socially constructed .
But - as in the case of the spatial - the critique went too far and threw out
too much. Instead of a real reconceptualization it made the social all-powerful
and eradicated nature. But the social is not all there is : social relations are
constructed in and as part of a natural world. Nor is it simply a question of
options and constraints, as the possibilists would have it. For that is to posit
again the notion of two separate spheres. We can only think of the social
conquering the natural, or of the natural presenting constraints to the social,
if the two spheres are initially assumed to be separate.
Once again conceptualization is central. Ideas of nature, just like those of
space, have changed dramatically through history. There have been contrasts
between societies and conflicts within them over what should be the dominant
view. And those conflicts have been, and are, more than intellectual alter­
cations ; they reflect struggles over the organization of society and over what
should be its priorities. The emergence of capitalism brought with it enormous
changes in the dominant view of nature ; from animate M other Earth, to
source of resources and profit, to the endlessly cataloguable and improvable.
The geographical expansion of capitalism was often viewed in terms of
putting resources to better use, gaining greater control over nature (in fact
gaining greater control over other societies, and other views of nature).
Conflicts between mining companies and Australian Aborigines today
embody the same kinds of confrontation - the earth as source of profit from
uranium or as sacred sites from time immemorial. Planning enquiries over
proposed new coalfields in the midlands of England bring into confrontation
notions of land as landed property, nature as resources and ' the natural ' as
a weekend escape. In other parts of the world, the peasants' positive use of
the variety and multiple richness of nature comes up against the logic of
commercial agriculture's desire to eradicate that unpredictability and richness,
to control it through the application of ' science ', to grow crops in endless
l a ndscapes of monoculture, to put chickens into factories, and to produce the
square tomato.
To face these issues, i t is necessary to go beyond the critique of the seventies.
As we said, then, the logic of this theme is similar to that of the relation
be tween the social and the spatial. Both start from the rejection of simply
au tonomous spheres. In the case of the relation between society and nature,
8 Doreen Massey

the argument starts, certainly, by rejecting the notion of an unmediated effect

of nature on society : that famine is simply the result of natural conditions,
for instance, or development the result of natural resources. Natural materials
are not even necessarily natural resources ; certain social conditions are
necessary for them to become so. Within the social sciences, if not within
the world of day-to-day politics and the public media, this is clearly now a
widely accepted position. But to accept that position does not mean that the
world is in some sense ' totally social ' . This has its implications both for the
conceptualization of social processes within the social sciences and for society
itself. On the one hand if we can only conceptualize ' the natural ' through
the prism of the social so also we need to be aware when analysing social
processes that they necessarily take place within a ' natural ' world. On the
other hand, we recognize that social processes have effects upon the natural
environment - it is an impact which, in the industrialized world, is often
phrased in terms such as conquering or controlling. All such terms give the
impression that society is in charge, and some of the consequences of that
view are becoming increasingly apparent. From acid rain to potential climatic
disaster through devastation of the world's major forests, ' nature ' is hitting
back. It is clear that the conceptualization of the social and the natural as
two separate spheres, and in particular the variety of views (from all parts
of the political spectrum) that in that duality the social (frequently manifesting
itself in the noun ' man ') controls the natural, is inadequate. A lot depends
on our recognizing that neither ' the social ' nor ' the natural ' can be
conceptualized in isolation from the other.

Uniqueness and interdependence

There is another way, too, in which the argument we are presenting here
attempts to push forward the state of debate in the social sciences generally.
Any consideration of geography in the fullest sense of the word must face
up to the theoretical problem of the analysis of the unique. In one sense the
very thing that we study is variation : each place is unique. This, too, is
something which has bee n lost sight of in the social science debate of recent
years, in the search after general laws, the intellectual dominance of certain
forms of ' top-down ' structuralism, the (quite correct) desire to relate the
individual occurrence to the general cause.
It was fundamentally important to argue in the nineteen-seventies that
inner-city decline stemmed from general processes of deindustrialization in
the British economy, indeed from the reorientation of the position of that
economy within the shifting international division of labour. It was important
to counter the then prevailing orthodoxy that the explanation for the
problems of the inner cities could be found within the inner cities themselves.
It was important, in other words, to show how the specific outcomes (the
collapse of Merseyside, the London docks, central Glasgow) were all the
product of more general causes.
 Geography matters 9

And yet, too, in making that point so strongly, something was sacrificed - the
i mportance of specificity, the ability to explain, understand, and recognize
the significance of, the unique outcome.
The fundamental methodological question is how to keep a grip on the
generality of events, the wider processes lying behind them, without losing
sight of the individuality of the form of their occurrence. Pointing to general
processes does not adequately explain what is happening at particular
m oments or in particular places. Yet any explanation must include such
general processes. The question is how. Too often a solution has been sought
through an uneasy, and untenable, juxtaposition of two kinds of explanation.
On the one hand, the ' general ', whether it be in the form of immanent
tendencies or empirically identified wider processes, is treated in deterministic
fashion. On the other hand, since the infinite variety of reality does not in
fact conform to this logic, additional factors are added on, in ad hoc and
descriptive fashion, to explain (explain away) the deviation.
But variety should not be seen as a deviation from the expected ; nor should
uniqueness be seen as a problem. ' General processes ' never work themselves
out in pure form. There are always specific circumstances, a particular history,
a particular place or location. What is at issue - and to put it in geographical
terms - is the articulation of the general with the local (the particular) to
produce qualitatively different outcomes in different localities. To take an
example : the decentralization of ' women's jobs ' has taken place in r ecent
decades in the United Kingdom to a whole range of regions - to East Anglia,
South Wales, Cornwall. But the impact of that decentralization (the result,
the outcome) has been different in each place. Each region was distinct
(unique) before the process took place, and in each place the local conditions/
characteristics operated on the general processes to produce a specific
outcome. In each case uniqueness was reproduced, and in each case it was
also changed. If this is in some sense ' structural analysis ', it is in no sense
simply ' top-down ' .
This issue i s important. M ost obviously i t i s important t o be able rigorously
to explain particularity. Only then is it possible to understand a society as
it is, in its specific form and with its internal variations. But it is also that
this specificity is in turn important in explanation. In ' geographical questions '
this is so in a number of ways : as we have j ust argued, regional specificity
has an impact on the operation of general, national or international level
processes, for instance. And the whole mosaic of regional specificities, the fact
o f geographical variety itself - in the labour movement, in unemployment
rates, in political traditions - can have an enormous impact on the way that
society ' as a whole ', at national level, is reproduced and changed. These
examples are taken from human geography and relate to one of its central
concerns : the fact of uneven development and of interdependent systems of
dominance and subordination between regions on the one hand, and the
specificity o f place on the other. It is in this form that the prob l em of the
general and the unique most clearly presents i t self to geography. I t is a
10 Doreen Massey

problem which has been around for some time. As we saw, the positivist
spatial scientists threw out the unique as unamenable to anything but
description. The radical critique recognized it but saw the most important task
to be linking the specific to the general . That task is still important. But it
is also necessary to reassert the existence, the explicability, and the significance,
of the particular. What we do here is take up again the challenge of the old
regional geography, reject the answers it gave while recognizing the importance
of the problem it set, and present our own, very different solution.

The structure of the book

Our overall theme, then, is that geography, in the fullest sense of the word,
matters. This argument is presented in different ways in each of the sections
which follow.
The first two pieces are basic building blocks. They address head on the
question of conceptualization, considering in turn the two key terms of our
discussion : nature and space. We have already argued that the conceptualiza­
tion of each has varied both between societies and within them . M ick Gold,
in his consideration of ' the history of nature ', and Robert Sack in his
discussion of ' societal conceptions of space ' each trace out elements and
aspects of this variation. Mick Gold concentrates on variations through time
in European conceptualizations of nature ; while Robert Sack contrasts views
of space in what he terms respectively ' primitive ' and ' civilized ' societies.
From both pieces two things are clear : that the issue of conceptualization is
bound up with social form and social order, and that in both maintaining
and challenging social orders different forms of conceptualization of both
space and nature are frequently at stake.
M ick Gold's article in effect encapsulates the whole of our argument about
the relation between the social and the natural. As he makes clear, the issue
of what is the socially dominant conceptualization of that relation has more
than an intellectual significance. It is also utterly practical. What is needed
is a theory of social change which fully incorporates the fact of its existence
as an integral part of a physical world, and social practices which work within
that knowledge.
Sack, too, presents powerful arguments relating conceptions of space to
the internal organization of society. In ' primitive ' societies, he argues, the
organic relationship between the individual and society is reflected in the
relationship between society and milieu. The emergence of ' civilized ' societies
involves the separation of these terms, and their attempted recombination.
In that context, the territorial definition of society becomes central to the
maintenance of control. Sack makes a point perhaps too often overlooked :
that ' Whatever else a state may be or do, it is territorial. ' A challenge to
territory is a challenge to the state. In other ways, too, from territorial control
over the workplace, to its use of the symbolism of national shrines and holy
 Geography matters 11

places, civilized society requires and uses particular, and varied, conceptions
of space and place.
I t is not just that geography, in the sense of space and nature, matters, but
th at the way in which we conceptualize those terms in the first place is crucial
to o.
These two articles follow immediately after this Introduction. The rest of
the book is divided into three further sections. In the first of these : ' Analysis :
aspects of the geography of society ', we examine a set of different individual
elements of the functioning of society, particular social processes, or bundles
of social processes. The ones we have chosen concern the urban economy,
cultural forms and international law. They are deliberately varied, because
our aim is to show how spatial structure and changes in geographical
organization are important to the functioning of a wide range of social
processes. The next section : ' Synthesis: interdependence and the uniqueness
of place ', is where we address the question of specificity, the problem of
relating the general and the unique. We pose it in the context of understanding
uneven development - a context where interdependence and uniqueness are
two sides of the same coin - and present an alternative answer to the challenge
posed by the old regional geography. In the final section: ' Geography and
society ', we address the issue at the broadest level - why does ' geography '
matter to the functioning of society as a whole? This can be tackled at a
variety of levels and from a number of angles. Some of them will already have
become obvious from discussions earlier in the book. In this last section,
however, we have decided to address two major questions for the future - the
challenges, from above and below, to the fundamental political territorial unit
of the modem world, the nation state ; and the question of what threats to
society have arisen from the presently dominant forms of relation between
the social and the natural: what is the relation between the prospects for
ecodoom and the way in which society is organized? Both of these major
questions have at their centre the fact that society is part of a world in which
bo th ' the spatial ' and ' the natural ' are fundamental components.

Notes
I These arguments are developed further in Massey, D. B. ( 1 984) Spatial
Divisions of Labour: social structures and the geography of production,
Macmillan ; and in Massey, D. B. ( 1 984) 'New directions in space' in
Urry, J. and Gregory, D. (eds.), Social Relations and Spatial Structures,
Macmillan.
 1
A history of nature
M ICK GOLD

' Nature ' is a complicated word : i t has different meanings and these meanings
affect each other. 1 To discover how nature has been represented in Western
culture, it may help to distinguish three very basic meanings : (I) the essential
quality or character of something (the corrosive nature of salt water) ; (2) the
underlying force which directs the world (nature is taking her course) ; (3)
the material world itself, often the world that is separate from people and
human society (to re-discover the joys of nature at the weekend).
I f nature is usually taken as referring to the world ' out there ' - from the
smallest grasshopper, through the Grand Canyon, to the most distant
galaxy - it is also believed that there is a force at work, that nature is working
according to certain principles and that if we study nature we can deduce a
moral lesson.
And that is why nature has a history. Nature cannot simply be regarded
as what is out there - a physical universe which preceded the world of human
values, and which will presumably outlive the human race - because what is
out there keeps changing its meaning. Every attempt at describing nature,
every value attributed to Nature - harmonious, ruthless, purposeful, random -
brings nature inside human society and its values.
This essay is about how views of nature have changed through the
centuries, and what these changes tell us about human history. It concentrates
on European accounts of nature from the late M iddle Ages until the present
day, and the ways in which the personality of nature has been affected by
social forces. Every time we use the word ' natural ' (" It's only natural, isn't
it?") we are almost unconsciously referring to a world order which can be
invoked to justify or to make sense of what happens in this world : from a
strong sexual attraction (" Doing what comes naturally ") to the devastation
of famine (" A cruel natural catastrophe "). There are several different
versions or traditions of nature present in Western culture. This essay is a
brief introduction to the social forces that have expressed, and even altered,
the personality of nature.

12
 A history of nature 13

The animate earth

It' s worth noticing that Western culture refers to a singular force called
·Nature ' which is frequently personified as a woman : Dame Nature in
mediaeval mystery plays ; M other Nature in everyday speech. Raymond
Williams has pointed out that in other cultures, nature is represented as a
complex network of forces : a spirit of the rain, a spirit in the wind, and so
on. The Western model of nature - singular and often personified - is
connected with the fact that we live in a culture based on monotheism.• And
in mediaeval culture, Nature was described as God's deputy - responsible for
carrying out His wishes on Earth. One may speculate that this relationship
embodied a compromise between Christianity and an older, animistic way of
interpreting the world : a way of seeing the Earth as a living body, of seeing
live forces in rocks and winds as well as in trees and animals. Although this
animistic vision was superseded by the Christian world view and then by
scientific values, it is extremely tenacious and clings on to us through figures
of everyday speech : even today it is common to describe the way in which
farmers allow fields to lie fallow for a year as " giving the soil a chance to
rest " . Such feelings are a reminder of the days when the whole world was
felt to be alive.
In Renaissance maps, it was conventional to represent the wind as gusts
of breath which issued from the mouths of cherubs and angels. This was but
one element of the way in which the Earth was perceived as a living body :
the circulation of water through rivers and seas was comparable to the
circulation of blood ; the circulation of air through wind was the breath of
the planet ; volcanoes and geysers were seen as corresponding to the Earth's
digestive system - eruptions were like belches and farts issuing out of a central
stomach.
Nature was not a process ' out there ' to be analysed or exploited. Within
the Scholastic world view (the mediaeval synthesis of Aristotelian and
Christian doctrines), nature was a complex chain connecting God to the
humblest pebble ; and man3 was emphatically inside the system : above the
other creatures by virtue of his reason, but below the angels.4 This belief
system was not just about nature as we understand it today ; it also embraced
the structure of society.
Descriptions of the state talked of the " body politic " in which the princes
were the rulers - the brain - and the Church was the soul. The distribution
o f wealth was the job of the financial system, just as the stomach and intestines
were responsible for the distribution of food. And the feet upon which society
res ted were the peasants and artisans. It was a very hierarchical model, but
o ne which stressed the interdependence of all the elements.5
Correspondences not only existed between our bodily functi ons and the
social order ; they also existed between the human body and the u niverse: this
is the view that u nderlies astrology. Each part of the body was thought to
14 Mick Gold

be governed by a zodiacal sign, so that the whole body was a miniature replica
(or microcosm) of the celestial spheres. Furthermore, the personality of each
man and woman was said to be described by the positions of the stars at the
moment of birth, so that we all carry within ourselves a model of the universe.
Through this system of correspondences, man : society : the universe were
unified into a coherent system. A system that was replaced by the rise of a
scientific outlook which broke the individual, society, and nature down into
their component parts to explain how the bits fitted together. In 1500 the
dominant image of nature and the world was the living organism . By 1 700
the dominant image was the machine.

�atural resources
The change from one outlook to another was not a clean break ; for some
two hundred years these two systems overlapped. There was confusion about
what was alive and what wasn't. When Harvey gave the first clear account
of the circulation of the blood ( 1 628), many geologists were excited : they
thought this was the way in which water circulated the planet. If blood can
flow uphill, then why not water? The Jesuit scholar, Athanasius Kircher, was
one of the first to study volcanoes and geysers at close quarters. In the pictures
that he drew of these phenomena, we can see the beginnings of a scientific
study, but also the belief that water flowed around the world through a
circulatory system ; and his pictures of mountains conveyed his view that they
could be the skeletons of gigantic animals.•
This is the picturesque side of a change in world view, but there was also
a moral and political dimension. If the world were thought of as alive, this
placed some restraints on how the world was treated. We are familiar with
this idea from other cultures ; we know that American I ndians regarded the
Earth as a great mother and found the white man's way of exploiting the Earth
abhorrent:
You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's breast ?
You ask m e t o dig for stones! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones ? Then when
I die, I cannot enter her body to be born again. 7

This attitude sounds far removed from the European outlook. It is interesting
to discover that such values existed in Europe and had to be dismantled before
large scale commercial exploitation of natural resources could take place. A
belief that persisted from Greek and Roman writers until well into the
eighteenth century was that the Earth produced minerals and metals within
her reproductive system . Several ancient writt;rs warned against mining the
depths of M other Earth and Pliny in his Natural History (circa AD 78) argues
that earthquakes are an expression of anger at the violation of the Earth :
We trace out all the veins of the Earth and yet are astonished that it should
occasionally cleave asunder or tremble : as though these signs could be any other than
expressions of the indignation felt by our sacred parent!•
 A history of nature 15

Pli ny also suggests that the results of mining are of dubious benefit to
humanity : that gold has contributed to human corruption and avarice, while
ir o n has led to robbery and warfare.
Such restraints against the exploitation of resources were still active until
the Renaissance, but they were dismantled as commercial mining gathered
mo mentum during the fifteenth century. I n an allegory which was published
in Germany in 1 495, this conflict between respect for the Earth and the
commercial interests of mining was dramatized in the form of a vision. A
hermit falls asleep and dreams that he witnesses a confrontation between a
miner and M other Earth - " noble and freeborn, clad in a green robe, who
walked like a person rather mature in years " . Her clothing is torn and her
body has been pierced. She is accompanied by several gods who accuse the
miner of murder.• Bacchus complains that his vines have been fed into
furnaces ; Ceres states that her fields have been devastated by pollution ; and
Pluto says he cannot reside in his own kingdom because of all the hammering
going on. In his own defence, the miner argues that Earth " who takes the
name of mother and proclaims her love for mankind " in reality conceals
metals in her inward parts in such a way that she fulfils the role of a step-mother
rather than a true parent. Since gold turned into money is the surest way to
create wealth, the mining of metal will help the poor, will decorate the
churches as an act of piety, and will advance culture through the building
of schools and the payment of teachers. Thus in these early stages of
capitalism, nature's image is changing from something to be respected (the
mother) into a source of wealth that needs to be forced into revealing things
(the selfish step-parent).
A further significant step in this process is to be found in the work of
Francis Bacon ( 1 56 1 - 1 626) who is celebrated as the founding father of
scientific research, and the innovator of inductive reasoning. Bacon was also
a politician : Lord Chancellor of England under James I, who had written a
book on witchcraft (Daemonologie, 1 597). In 1 603, the first year of his English
reign, James passed a law condemning all practitioners of witchcraft to
death.
I n her account of the scientific revolution, The Death of Nature, Carolyn
Merchant suggests a striking congruity between the scientist's interest in
nature, and the state's interest in witchcraft. 10 Bacon proposes an experimental
methodology for investigating nature, using language which is starkly sexual
i n its metaphors and suggestive of a witch-finder in its techniques. Advocating
a scie ntific method which will be experimentally verifiable, displaying con­
si ste nt results when repeated, Bacon writes : " For you have but to follow, and
as it were hound Nature in her wanderings, and you will be able to lead her
� nd drive her to the same place again." Describing the investigation of nature
In the laboratory, Bacon invokes the language of the torture chamber : " I
mean in this great plea t o examine Nature herself and the arts upon
i nterrogatories. For like as a man's disposition is never well known till he be
crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shape til l he was straitened and held fast ,
16 Mick Gold

so Nature exhibits herself more clearly under the trials and vexations of art
(mechanical devices) than when left to herself. "
The contrast between Bacon's attitude towards nature in hi s scientific
project, and the image of the Earth as an elderly lady who has bee n assaulted
(as reported in the hermit's dream of 1 20 years earlier) is striking : one can
see the characterization of nature as a woman changing to allow research and
exploitation to take place. Bacon even described matter itself as a " wanton
harlot " : " Matter is not devoid of an appetite and an inclination to dissolve
the world and fall back into the old Chaos. " Nature must be " bound into
service " and " made a slave ", " put in constraint " and " molded by the
mechanical arts " .

The clockwork universe

Feminist historians have argued that the persecution of witches in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be understood only as part of the
revolution in values that took place as capitalism superseded the feudal
system . 1 1 A new order came to predominate in the seventeenth century which
can be characterized as male, mathematical and mercantile. M ale surgeons
replaced female midwives in Britain, and women who practised medicine were
likely to find themselves stigmatized as witches. Mercantile capitalism viewed
nature as a resource to be exploited, as can be seen from the example of
mining. And scientific research produced a mathematical model of the
universe, which superseded the organic analogies of the animate Earth.
Copernicus ( 1 543) attributed to the Earth a daily rotation on its axis, as
well as an annual orbit around the sun, because this was a more mathematically
concise system ; Kepler, equipped with the data of Tycho Brahe, conceived
a universe which was constructed from harmonious geometric relations.
Galileo ( 1 638) succeeded in establishing mathematical principles which
predicted the paths of both heavenly bodies and projectiles on Earth . For
Galileo, " Natural philosophy is written in that great book which lies before our
eyes - I mean the Universe - but we cannot understand it if we do not first
learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written . The book
of nature is written in the language of mathematics. " 1 2
Galileo followed Kepler in differentiating between primary and secondary
qualities, but in a more pronounced form. Primary qualities included number,
motion, and weight. These qualities were absolute, objective, and above all
could be quantified mathematically. Secondary qualities included colour,
taste, odour, and these qualities were relative, and above all subjective. These
three scientists, through their observation of the heavens and their
measurements of phenomena on Earth, drafted a mathematical model of the
universe which amounted to a re-definition of nature. The real world lay
outside of men and women - it was mathematics and astronomy and the study
of motion . Objective nature was whatever could be measured.
 A history of nature 17

Finally, Sir Isaac Newton stood on the shoulders of the scientists who had
preceded him and reduced the major phenomena of the universe to a single
mathematical law - the universal law of gravitation ( 1 687). " The fundamental
ta sk of all science is to explain all phenomena in terms of matter and motion ",
proclaimed Newton. 13 This view of the universe not only altered the status
of man, it also made God slightly redundant. In the mediaeval world picture,
God had been the " ultimate good " and man's purpose was to know God
and to love Him. In Newton's system, God had been relegated to the role
of laboratory technician whose job was to prevent the fixed stars falling out
of the heavens, and to mend the defects of the celestial clockwork. Newton's
favourite proof of the existence of God was the concentric rotation of all the
planets in the same plane. The " ultimate good " was now the cosmic order
of masses in motion, and man's role was to applaud the workings of this
clockwork universe. It was an account of nature which could still (just about)
be celebrated in religious terms, as in the Anglican hymn :

What though in solemn silence all

M ove round the dark terrestrial ball ?
What though no real voice nor sound
Within their radiant orbs be found ?
In reason's ear they all rejoice
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine
' The hand that made us is divine ' . 14
Presented this way, one can see a certain majesty in the scientific revolution's
scheme of order. But in many ways, it's a profoundly alienating vision.
Whatever we experience in the way of emotions or sensations is dismissed
by science as subjective. What is real is simply the movement of molecules.

From mathematical to pastoral nature

An interesting way of visualizing the changing models of nature is to look
at the history of gardens. Changes in the philosophy of nature are reflected
in the human versions of nature that kings and gardeners construct. Perhaps
the best gardening metaphor for the mathematical model of nature bequeathed
to us by the seventeenth century is to be found in the garden constructed at
Versailles for Louis XIV. From 1 66 1 until 1 690, under the direction of the
king's gardener Le Notre, thousands of workers struggled to construct a
magnificent formal garden out of a swamp. (There was a high death rate due
to malaria.) Versailles became the capital of France and Louis XIV's
st atement of his absolute power.
Thousands of fully grown forest trees were planted in elaborate designs,
and when half of them died, they were simply planted again. The domination
and control of nature were celebrated in terms of formal design : not a single
 -.......

.
.

. . .

Pierre le Pa u tre, detail from a plan of 1 7 1 4 pu b lish e d in Les Plans, coupes,

projils et elevations de Ia chapelle du chasteau royal de Versailles ( re produced
by pe rmission of t h e Syndics of the Cam bridge U n i versi t y L i brary).
 A history of nature 19

fl ower was allowed t o wilt, and a t Versailles whole beds were re-planted in
t he course of a day. The power of the king over his subjects, the control of
nature by man, are echoed in the way the Chateau dominates the garden :
together they form a statement of mathematical order and of sovereignty.
One hundred years later, a reaction against this account of nature as
absolute order was sweeping across Europe. One can glimpse this at
Versailles : hidden away in a corner of the king's estate is a fairy tale village
constructed for M arie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI . It is called Petit H ameau
(Sm all Hamlet) and includes a mill, a farmhouse, and a dairy grouped around
a lake. This village formed a backdrop for acting out a fantasy version of
ru ral life : the queen and her servants would dress up as milkmaids and
shepherds and frolic on the grass. This was the degenerate end of a view of
nature known as the pastoral.
Pastoral poetry forms a tradition within Western culture that stretches back
two thousand years to the verses of Virgil and Theocritus. The pastoral
celebrated nature as restorative : an antidote to the sophistication and
cynicism that characterised life at court. Later poets (such as M ilton in
Lycidas) used the pastoral as a way of attacking corruption in the church and
in moral matters. They were not attempting a realistic description of country
life, but engaging in a moral critique. The pastoral can be viewed as the seed
from which sprang the Romantic view of nature: nature as embodying moral
values. Nature as a corrective to man's pride. But by the eighteenth century,
the pastoral had become the self-indulgence of M arie Antoinette's village, the
amorous make-believe to be found in the paintings of Boucher and Fragonard :
a fantasy of rural life untouched by work or poverty. Handel's pastoral opera,
A cis an d Galatea, has a chorus of ecstatic peasants singing :
0 the pleasures of the plains
Happy nymphs and happy swains
Harmless, merry, free, and gay
Dance and sport the hours away . 1 6
The pastoral was degenerating into a mood of Arcadian escapism at the very
mo ment when farmers and land-owners were beginning to systematically
' i mp
rove ' the performance of nature. The advent of seed-drilling, the
i ntroduction of new crops and a more scientific approach to the breeding of
l ives tock were all features of early eighteenth-century agriculture. If the pas­
toral were to retain any plausibility, it had to find a way of engaging with the
realities of management and work within the eighteenth-century landscape.
The English artist Thomas Gainsborough toned down the artificiality of
as
P to ral painting and drew on more realistic accounts of country life that were
bei ng painted in Holland by H obemma and van Ruysdael. But to reconcile
t he detailed materialism of the Dutch style with the idyllic fantasies of French
ar tis ts, such as Watteau and Poussin, produced tensions when it came to
rep resenting work.
20 Mick Gold

Thomas Gainsborough, Landscape with a Woodcutter Courting a Milkmaid

(reproduced by kind pennission of the Marquess of Tavistock, and the
Trustees of the Bedford Estates).

In his study of the rural poor in English painting, The Dark Side of the
Landscape, John Barrell has shown how Gainsborough tried to reconcile the
work of the countryside with pastoral pleasure. 16 In Landscape With A
Woodcutter Courting A Milkmaid, a ploughman guiding his team across a field
merges with the background, while in the foreground the attractive young
couple (taking time off from their milking and woodcutting) are engaged in
their courtship. Gainsborough has harmonized the countryside at work and
at play. Some of his other paintings display a striking contrast between the
male and female characters. Peasants Going to Market : Early Morning
depicts men who look convincingly ragged and tired (like real peasants in the
early morning), while the women seem inexplicably dignified and well-dressed.
Gainsborough is caught up in the contradictions of country life that we still
live with : the countryside is presented as a backdrop for carefree relaxation,
but it must also deliver the agricultural goods.
In perhaps his best-known image of the English countryside - his portrait
of Mr and M rs Andrews in the National Gallery - Gainsborough i nte g rate s
Thomas Gai nsborough, Mr and Mrs A ndrews (reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees, the National Gallery, London).
22 Mick Gold

three very different versions of nature. In the background is untouched

wilderness ; to the left of the couple is the picturesque area, landscaped to
please the eye ; and on the right of the picture is a field of abundant corn ,
painted with loving detail to show that M r Andrews was an agricultural
improver, and that by drilling his corn he was obtaining a bumper harvest.
The expressions on the faces of M r and M rs Andrews (a look of " intense
ownership ") remind us of another change that was transforming the landscape
of Britain : enclosures.
A sense of the picturesque came to dominate the land-owning classes' view
of their property. Instead of nature's being marshalled into a grand design
(as at Versailles), human mastery over it had become subtler, more softly
modulated, more naturalized . From the increased wealth generated by
commerce and industry, a rural retreat could be constructed as an escape from
the smoke of the city. Through technical breakthroughs in drainage and
earth-moving, it was now possible to re-arrange the landscape to suit the
owner's taste. As Raymond Williams describes it, the English landscape
garden was a tour deforce of stage design, but fully realised in physical terms :
" a rural landscape emptied of rural labour and of labourers ; a sylvan and
watery prospect with a hundred analogies in neo-pastoral painting and
poetry, from which the facts of production had been banished " Y
A classic example o f this form o f gardening can be seen a t Stourhead in
Wiltshire, designed by the owner, Henry H oare II, a banker, and constructed
under his direction between 1 740 and 1 780. This garden cannot be seen from
the house, and was planned rather as the setting for walks and rides within
a picturesque and literary landscape. H oare had the valley to the west of his
house dammed, creating a lovely series of lakes amidst wooded slopes. And
a sequence of temples and mythological sites suggest literary associations to
the visitor making his way round this carefully constructed " natural "
landscape.
I f nature was being fenced off for aesthetic enjoyment, then what had
happened to the agricultural workers ? One answer can be found in Oliver
Goldsmith's poem The Deserted Village ( 1 769) which describes the clearance
of the villagers, so that a landscaped garden can be constructed :
One only master grasps the whole domain
with the consequence that

The man of wealth and pride

Takes up a space that many poor supplied
Space for his lakes, his park's extended bounds
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds.
 A history of nature 23

Two natures : industrial and Romantic

By the end of the eighteenth century, the industrial revolution was drawing
the poor out of the countryside and propelling them towards the factories
an d cities. Around the year 1 840, Britain became the first country where the
urb an population exceeded the rural population. The violence of this social
tra nsformation had a strong effect on the values that attached to the country
an d the city. More and more, the countryside was perceived as that which
h ad been lost, that which had been left behind . From this perspective of social
upheaval, William Wordsworth articulated the moral values that resided in
nature. A nature that was indissolubly linked to his childhood, growing up
in Cumbria, and to a sense of the fragility of that vision :
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused ;
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains ; and of all that we behold
From this green earth ; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear - both what they half create,
And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise
I n nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart and soul
Of all my moral being. 18
Nature had become something we communed with, something we yearned
for. Emphatically separate from human society and everyday life. It's worth
pausing to discuss what it was that alienated and mystified nature into this
flee tin g, transcendental force. The short answer would be industrialisation
and city life.
As the centre of gravity of society was drawn towards the vast and
fast-growing cities of the nineteenth century, the countryside and nature were
felt to be repositories of a lost way of life, and of values that were in danger
of extin ction. A rural community was felt to be organic and rooted in the
soil ; in contrast to urban life with its anonymity and sense of constant change.
Obviously the idea persists that closeness to the flow of nature - the smell of
damp earth, the cyclical growth and decay we associate with the seasons - is
24 Mick Gold

somehow a more ' natural ' way of life. And yet the industrial world is simply
based upon another model of nature which enables the resources of the world
to be analysed and broken down and re-shaped by human hands. Francis
Bacon had pointed this out in 1 623, when he described three forms of nature :
She is either free and follows her ordinary course of development as in the heavens,
in the animal and vegetable creation, and in the general way of the universe ; or she
is driven out of her ordinary course by the perverseness, insolence, and forwardness
of matter, as in the case of monsters ; or lastly, she is put in constraint, molded, and
made as it were new by art and the hand of man, as in things artificial. • •

Today, a common meaning for nature is simply a n escape from the

" man " -made world : an Eden which we look forward to re-gaining at the
weekend, or on holiday. It is a common experience to walk through a
beautiful, wooded landscape, and then to notice a line of electricity pylons
and reflect how human industry has ' spoilt ' nature once again. It should be
remembered that the electricity pylons, the very notion of an electric current
as a controlled flow ofelectrons, are based upon an analysis and re-arrangement
of nature. The most prestigious science magazine in Britain today is entitled
Nature, since nature remains the starting point of all scientific and technological
activity.
In a sense, the scientific version of nature gave rise to the Romantic version :
to supply what was missing. Since sensations and emotions had been banished
by science from nature, dismissed as subjective, the Romantics expressed their
alienation by constructing an account of nature that overflowed with
emotions and moral feelings. They tried to replace the precision of science
with a sense of mystery and infinity.
(The Romantic attitude towards science was well expressed at a dinner
party in December 1 8 1 7, where Keats proposed the toast, " Confusion to the
memory of Newton ! " And when Wordsworth insisted upon an explanation
before he drank, Keats replied " Because he destroyed the beauty of the
rainbow by reducing it to a prism. " ) 2 0
As the poets of the nineteenth century turned their eyes from the squalor
and alienation of the industrial city, and looked hopefully towards ' unspoilt '
nature, it is worth remembering that they were merely looking from one
account of nature to another.

Survival of the fittest

One of the most spectacular examples of changing accounts of nature
reflecting changes in society can be seen in nineteenth-century England. Since
the discoveries of Newton, the character of nature had been (to use Raymond
Williams' image) that of a constitutional lawyer : interpreting and classifying
examples, making predictions out of precedents. " What was classically
observed was a fixed state, or fixed laws, or fixed laws of motion. The laws
 A history of nature 25

of nature were indeed constitutional, but unlike real constitutions they had
no effective history. What changed this emphasis was of course the evidence
an d the idea of evolution : natural forms had not only a constitution but also
a hist ory."11 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the role of nature

sh ifted towards the selective breeder, improving the species through natural
se lection.
Perhaps the first significant figure in this process was Thomas Malthus,
whose Essay on Population ( 1 798) argued that the population was growing
too quickly, and that finite resources of food would soon be exhausted .22 The
rep lenishing cycles of nature would be wiped out by uncontrollable growth.
Therefore such catastrophes as plague and famine were not aberrations, but
an important part of nature's design. There were not enough places at nature's
dinner table to feed everyone, suggested Malthus. Famine provided the
pruning shears to thin out nature's garden . Harvest failures were examples
of nature's red pencil auditing the book oflife. The dinner table, the gardening
shears, the audit book : all these images of a prudent, commercial society were
used to legitimise a profound callousness towards ' natural ' catastrophes.
Naturalists had begun to analyse and classify the animal kingdom ; soon this
spirit of detached observation gave rise to a similar look at human society.
Darwin's account ofevolution, The Origin ofSpecies ( 1 859), was remarkable
for the controversy it provoked about whether mankind was part of nature,
as well as for the more ferocious character that was attributed to nature as
a consequence of Darwinism.13 When Bishop Wilberforce, a mathematician
and ambitious prelate, debated with Thomas H uxley, one of the first scientists
to declare his support for Darwin's theories, Wilberforce asked H uxley, " was
it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent
from a monkey? " The activities of Biblical fundamentalists in the United
States who, in the 1 970s, have tried to replace the theory of evolution with
the Book of Genesis, may remind us that this question is not yet dead .
But though the theory of evolution has become a part of scientific
orthodoxy, perhaps Darwin's work has had a still more profound (if
uninte nded) effect on ideas of human society. Fifty years after Wordsworth
in v oked nature as " the guardian of my heart and soul ", another poet
la ureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson, described nature as " red in tooth and claw "
a nd invoked a world of unlimited savagery and strife :

A monster then, a dream,

A discord. Dragons of the prime
Which tear each other in the slime.14
T h is world of course bears striking similarities to mid-nineteenth-century
B rit ain : this was the peak of industrialization, the working class had been
d raw n into the factory towns and a ruthless exploitation of workers and of
na tu ral resources was in progress, recorded by Engels and by Charles
Dickens. On an international scale, Britain and the other world powers were
26 Mick Gold

Sir Edwin Landseer, Man Proposes, God Disposes (reproduced by kind

permission of Royal Holloway College, London).

busily seizing and exploiting less advanced countries and cultures. Suddenly,
Darwin's imagery and argument provided the perfect rationalisation of this
process. " Survival of the fittest " had initially referred to " the best adapted
to the environment " . Out of a series of chance mutations, those creatures that
successfully occupied an ecological niche flourished, while others died out.
Soon ' the fittest ' came to mean the most powerful, the most ruthless.
Artists as well as poets dramatically revised the personality of nature,
moving from the pastoral to the violent. The most celebrated nature painter
of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, Sir Edwin Landseer, painted landscapes
of natural carnage. The Swannery Invaded by Eagles depicts a group of
snow-whi te swans being torn to shreds by sea eagles. Man Proposes, God
Disposes features two thuggish polar bears munching the bones of some
hapless polar explorers. And an early work by Landseer, The Car's Paw,
illustrates an ingenious act of animal sadism : a monkey seizes a eat's paw
and forces it against a red-hot stove. Many of his contemporaries were
disturbed by Landseer's skill at representing animal savagery, and it is
difficult to look through the body of his work without feeling that these images
of animal violence are really statements about society.
The way in which Darwin's argument influenced accounts of society
(referred to as Social Darwinism)u is obvious from such everyday figures of
speech as the rat race, the pecking order, the law of the jungle. As soon as
Darwin's theory had become popular currency, historians and social scientists
saw history in a new light. Karl Marx, at work on Das Kapita/, acknowledged
that Darwin's theory of natural selection could serve " as a basis in the natural
sciences for the class struggle in history " . Marx wrote to Darwin, offering
to dedicate Das Kapital to the great scientist. But his collaborator, Friedrich
Engels, warned that : " The distinguishing feature of human society is
production and when the means of production are socially produced, the
categories taken from the animal kingdom are inapplicable. " Similarly, the
 A history of nature 27

a na rchist Kropotkin pointed out that Darwin's argument concerned compe­

ti ti on between species, whereas Social Darwinism seeks to justify competition
with in a species : between members of the human race.
And yet there has been no shortage of analogies from Darwin to society
b eCause the idea seems so suited to competition for jobs on the labour market,
co m petition between companies for a share of the market, competition
be tween nations for territory and power. In short, the salient features of
c ap italist, industrially advanced, and politically rivalrous powers. John
D . Rockefeller argued that you cannot grow a perfect example of the
American Beauty rose without first de budding it of minor blooms ; in the same
way, a company cannot achieve maturity without eliminating serious
competitors - in other words, establishing a monopoly.
The German commander von M oltke (who provided the military muscle
beh ind Bismarck's unification of Germany) saw war as the supreme example
of the Darwinian struggle for existence, where the armies of competing
nations clashed and only the strongest survived. On a global level, it could
eve n be argued that European nations had a moral duty to compete with
' inferior ' races, in order to raise the quality of the species.

Managing the domain

By the end of the nineteenth century, Europe was in command of Africa and
vast areas of Asia. The perspective on nature shifted from the state of all-out
war that characterised the ' Darwinian ' outlook, to the need for efficient
management. Having conquered foreign territories, the task was to set up an
efficient government. H aving eliminated your industrial competitors, the job
was now to consolidate your market. H aving collected all the animals and
plants, it was now necessary to catalogue them.
M ajor museum collections were systematised to give order to the specimens
that had been slaughtered around the world. In Britain, Lord Rothschild
despatched expeditions to remote corners of the globe to collect butterflies,
and the Rothschild Collection ultimately amounted to two-and-a-half million
se t butterflies and moths, meticulously labelled and mounted, 300,000 birds,
1 44 giant tortoises, and 200,000 birds' eggs. 2 8 Some naturalists have speculated
th at this spirit of insatiable collecting and cataloguing is a consequence of
the P rotestant ethic at work in the animal kingdom, since the major European
collections were to be found in Britain, Germany, and Sweden ; in Catholic
cou ntries this tendency towards monumental collections of nature hardly
exis ted .
The Royal Botanic Gardens a t Kew housed a similar collection of plants
Upr ooted from all over the world. Research and selective breeding of plants
t ook place at Kew ; important crops were made more ' productive ' and then
tran splanted to other locations within the British Empire. In particular, the
rub ber plant was successfully ' kidnapped ' from its home i n the A m azon
28 Mick Gold

Basin, improved upon, and then transplanted to Malaya where it became the
basis of a multi-million-pound industry.17
Even in municipal parks and gardens, it became common to incorporate
ducks and trees transported from other continents. Henry H oare's garden at
Stourhead was transformed by importing exotic rhododendra from North
America and the H imalayas, so today the garden has a very different
character from its original one. Nature as a global resource was being
gathered together and efficiently cultivated.
Simultaneously, the warfare between town and country was mellowing into
the idea that these two states could be harmoniously integrated. A key work
was Ebenezer Howard's book Tomorrow : A Peaceful Path to Real Reform
( 1 898) which became the blueprint for the garden city movement. H oward's
diagram for his " slumless, smokeless city " was a series of concentric circles
with six boulevards radiating out from the centre, where the major civic
buildings were located. Industrial, commercial, and residential zones were
sited in different parts of the city and broken up by ' green belts ' . The
outermost circle was an agricultural zone which would supply the city with
food, and also each house was to have an extensive garden to produce
vegetables for the family. Through this scheme, Howard believed the most
alienating effects of industrial capitalism could be transformed : instead of
being divided by competition, the city would flourish through a spirit of
co-operation. The polar opposites of town and country would be superseded
by " a third alternative, in which all the advan tages of the most energetic and
active town life, with all the beauty and delight of the country, may be secured
in perfect combination " .
The first garden cities were built at Letchworth, Hampstead, and Welwyn ;
these formed the starting point for a peculiarly British form of Utopian
planning. Another generation of New Towns were built after the Second
World War, and in the 1 960s Milton Keynes was started as the largest (and
probably last) city in this line of thinking. To some extent, the vision of
transforming society was reduced to a series of town planning procedures ;
the Housing and Town Planning Acts of the twentieth century incorporated
many of Ebenezer Howard's ideas, and the project of reconciling country and
city became a bureaucratic system. 18

Primary qualities take over

The Renaissance astronomer Rhaticus suggested that if you can measure
something, then you have some control over it. This was an interesting
metaphysical notion. The French mathematician Laplace took things one
stage further when he postulated : " If a superhuman intelligence were
acquainted with the position and motion of every atom in the universe, then
this intelligence could predict the entire future of the universe." It was
assumed that this mathematical hypothesis could never be put to the test. But
 A history of nature 29

wi th the growth of computer technology, and more and more sophisticated

way s of gathering information, encoding it, processing it, and disseminating
it, one can see Laplace's remark as more than just abstract speculation. The
more the world is analysed and quantified, the more sophisticated the
i nte lligence gathering and control systems become. (In some countries, there
a re now laws which give citizens access to the information which is being
sto red about them ; this is democracy struggling to survive in an electronic
age.)
What has all this to do with nature ? I t could be argued that a world
ch aracterised by an explosion of information and information processing
systems is the culmination of the project that began with the scientific
revolution : to de-code the book of nature as mathematical information. The
essence of computer technology is that information can only be fed in once
it has been encoded in digital form. Any information that cannot be
mathematically encoded, cannot be considered. The Romantics rejected the
world view that resulted from Newton's discoveries because they felt that the
most important things had been left out - feelings and moral values.
Today, the Newtonian world view is certainly in control of the planet, and
this growth of information systems has amounted to a new industrial
revolution. The first industrial revolution analysed nature in order to imitate
it mechanically, and improve its efficiency. Steam engines were far more
powerful and efficient than water wheels or windmills, the old ways of
deriving power from sources of energy. The new industrial revolution is
electronic rather than mechanical, and is concerned with encoding information
and simulating aspects of the human nervous system. M achines that can
count. Machines that can calculate. Machines that can read and write, that
can talk and listen, that can see and analyse what they see , that can recognise
voices and faces. The more complex the imitation of the human brain, and
the more it is linked to mechanical systems which can act on that information,
the closer we come to a world which exists as a vast simulation of so-called
reality. (Several science fiction novels and films have picked up on this idea
by devising plots in which the hero somehow gets sucked inside a computer
si m ulation of the world, and then he has to find a way of escaping back into
the real world.)
Children growing up today take for granted the programming and use of
computers. They play games on electronic toys which simulate battles
be tween space invaders. They are used to recording audio-visual information
on video and digital systems. And they grow up with ordinary TV sets giving
t hem access to vast amounts of information - weather reports, rates of
exchange, news flashes - which are updated every minute. For kids growing
up in technically advanced countries, this electronic universe is already second
na ture to them .
The ways in which these systems amount to forms of political control are
complex and quite subtle . When Rhaticus suggested that measurement is a
30 Mick Gold

form of control, he did not necessarily mean straightforward coercion. The

earliest Greek scientist, Thales of M iletus, caused a sensation in 585 BC when
his astronomical measurements enabled him to predict an eclipse of the sun.
His mathematical knowledge was a primitive form of power. Knowledge itself
brings control.
In more down to earth terms, one can also notice how this electronic
revolution is automating thousands ofjobs out of existence. Word processors
will replace many secretaries and clerks. And it is now common in any high
street to programme some digits into an electronic cash dispenser, and be
handed some bank notes by a machine. When computers are linked to
mechanical systems, the result is the science of robotics which enables human
workers to be mechanically replaced. The jobs that do remain can be paced
and subjected to close surveillance. Systems for monitoring movements and
for recording and analysing phone conversations, telex messages, radio
signals, are all in the forefront of this electronic revolution.
An electronic imitation of the world might seem to be the antithesis of
nature - but it derives from the way in which Galileo and Newton re­
interpreted nature as a mathematical system . Today could be characterised
as the cybernetic era of nature - nature as bits of information. This is the
culmination of the doctrine of primary qualities. And we are left to seek some
consolation in the world of secondary qualities - smell, sound, sensations,
emotions - and to flirt with some of the personalities which nature has
discarded.

The end ?
Town planner, ruthless predator, selective breeder, " guardian of my moral
being ", constitutional lawyer, agricultural improver, celestial clock-maker,
" wanton harlot ", loving mother : all these characters have been attributed
to nature in the past five hundred years. Which one do we live with today?
The short answer would be all of them. When we watch a TV programme
about nature, we are likely to be startled by close-ups of creatures tearing
each other to shreds. If we switch to a gardening programme, we may see
middle-aged men with moustaches speaking tenderly about a young plant
they are nurturing, and touching its leaves as gently as a baby. If we visit the
natural history museum, we can study nature stuffed and mounted and
painstakingly catalogued. If we take a holiday in the Lake District or the Alps
we may be overwhelmed by the grandeur of nature. If our holiday is
interrupted by an earthquake, we are reminded of nature's monstrous, de­
structive forces. If we simply go for a walk in a park, we are likely to glimpse
a version of either the mathematical order of Versailles, or of the carefully
constructed landscape at Stourhead. And if we shop for natural shampoo or
for herbal remedies, perhaps we are shopping for a reminder of the days when
the Earth was alive.
 A history of nature 31

These are all encounters with nature which take place every day in modern
B ri tain. But beneath these examples there are larger issues at stake. Earlier
1 mentioned the experience of walking in the country and being annoyed by
th e sight of electricity pylons, and said this could be seen as one account of
nat ure intersecting another. More dramatically, in the women's peace camp
at Greenham Common, the representatives of one version of nature have
con fronted the representatives of another. These women have spoken about
their concern for the future of the Earth. Some say that as mothers they have
a special responsibility for the world their children will inherit, and they object
to a piece of the English countryside being hollowed out to house nuclear
missiles. And Greenham is just one small but visible part of a system which
transforms the Earth's resources into instruments of death. Yet these
weapons cannot be dismissed as ' unnatural ' : they are the most striking
examples of human analysis and command of nature. The very structure of
the atom has been " put in constraint, molded, and made new by art and the
hand of man " - as Francis Bacon put it.
Implicit i n this account of the scientific model of nature has been a critique
of technology which I believe reflects a widespread anxiety about the future
of our world. I t is this anxiety which underlies the conflict at Greenham
Common. Reading accounts of technology from the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, what is striking is the optimism they display about
technology's ability to fulfil human needs. This optimism has been undermined
by the way in which technology seems to go on creating new, unanticipated
needs. It has become an end in itself. Traditionally, the scientific revolution
has been represented as the triumph of reason. The simplicity of turning on
an electric light, the ease of flying by jet from one continent to another, the
supply of drinking water for vast cities - all these benefits of technology have
enhanced our lives and today are taken for granted, but each year our
awareness grows of the price to be paid for this knowledge. A sense of ecologi­
cal crisis, and a fear of nuclear annihilation are currently the two most
obvious examples of this price.
Inevitably, this alienation has turned most of us into Romantics - at least,
i n our private lives. We look to nature as a repository of values and we
expe rience the open countryside as a release from the pressures of work and
everyday life. But a glance at the history of Greenham Common shows that
t his ' unspoilt ' piece of nature has served many different ends : it used to be
a stretch of common ground for grazing cattle and sheep. For centuries this
are a was supported by the wool trade, and in the early years of the industrial
revolution, textile machinery was driven by the local streams. Poorly paid
agricultural workers rioted here in 1 8 30 and were hunted down by Grenadier
Guards : one was hanged and many were transported. During the Second
W orld War, the United States Air Force arrived,. F-a:om..Greenham, scores of
glid ers took off as part of the invasion of Europe on 6 June 1 944 . I n 1 9 5 1 ,
des pite widespread local opposition, the Air M inistry acquired most of
32 Mick Gold

Greenham Common for conversion into a permanent air base. And in 1 98 1

the government announced that cruise missiles would be deployed here.
Perhaps this land and everything that has happened on it, is a simple way
of seeing that nature is what we make it. There is no force out there called
' Nature ' which justifies our actions, and which may hopefully come and save
us from this polluted and alienated world. Nature is our own creation, and
may yet prove to be our own destruction . If we wish to live in peace with
each other, and with this planet, it is our responsibility to write that into the
next chapter of the book of nature.

Notes

This essay developed from a documentary film which I produced and directed for
Channel 4, entitled A History of Nature. The script was written by myself and Dr
Robert M . Young, and I would like to acknowledge that many of the ideas and
examples in this essay are indebted to my close collaboration with Bob Young, though
the responsibility for this article is mine alone. I would also like to thank John Barrell,
M aureen McNeil, Richard Patterson, and Conrad Atkinson for the help they gave
on this film, with special thanks to Carolyn Merchant and Jane Cousins. And I would
like to acknowledge the influence of Raymond Williams' work, which goes beyond
the references here cited.

I For a fuller account of the meanings of the word ' Nature ', see Raymond
Williams, Keywords (London : Fontana, 1 976), pp. 1 84-9.
2 Sec Raymond Williams, Problems in Materialism and Culture (London :
Verso, 1 980), ' Ideas of Nature ', pp. 67-86.
3 This use of the term ' man ' as a generic to cover the whole human race is
deliberate. Whenever this term occu rs in this article, it is referring to a
specifically male-dominated order - from God the father, at the summit
of mediaeval theology, through the court and society of the Sun King, to
the manufacture and deployment of nuclear weapons.
4 See Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Harvard University Press,
1 936).
5 See Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature (London : Wildwood, 1 982),
' Organic Society and Utopia ', pp. 69-99.
6 Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subterraneus (Amsterdam, 1 665). See
Marjorie Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory (New York :
Cornell University Press, 1 959), pp. 1 68-73.
7 Smohalla of the Columbia Basin Tribe in early 1 9th century, quoted in
Alfonso Ortiz and Margaret Ortiz, eds., To Carry Forth the Vine (New
York : Columbia University Press, 1 978).
8 Pliny, Natural History, trans. J. Bostock and H . T. Riley (London : Bohn,
1 858), vol. 6, Bk 33, ch. I .
9 Niavis, Judicum Jovis ( Leipzig, n.d.). For a fuller account of this allegory,
see Frank Dawson Adams, The Birth and Development of the Geological
Sciences (New York : Dover, 1 938), pp. 1 7 1 - 5 .
1 0 See Merchant, The Death of Nature, ch. 7 : ' Dominion over Nature ', p p .
1 64-9 1 .
 A history of nature 33

II See Merchant, The Death of Nature ; Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature
(New York : Harper and Row, 1 978) ; Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre
English, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses (New York : Feminist Press,
1 972).
12 See Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern
Physical Science (London : Kegan Paul, 1 925), ch. 3 : ' Galileo ', pp. 6 1 -95.
13 Burtt, ' Metaphysical Foundations ', pp. 228-99.
14 ' The Spacious Firmament on High ', hymn written by Joseph Addison
(London : The Spectator, 1 7 1 2).
15 A cis and Galatea, music by George Frideric Handel, libretto by
Alexander Pope and John Gay (London, 1 7 1 8).
16 John Barrell, The Dark Side of the Landscape : The Rural Poor in English
Painting 1 730-1840 (Cambridge University Press, 1 980).
17 Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (London : Chatto &
Windus, 1 973), ch. 1 2 : ' Pleasing Prospects ' .
18 William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern A bbey.
July 13, 1 798.
19 Bacon, ' De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientarum ' in Works, ed.
J. Spedding, R. Ellis, D. Heath (London : Longmans, 1 870), vol. 4, p. 296.
20 For an account of the poetic response to Newton, see Marjorie Nicolson,
Newton Demands the Muse (Princeton University Press, 1 946) ; M. H .
Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp (Oxford University Press, 1 953), pp.
298-335.
21 Williams, Problems in Materialism and Culture, ' Ideas of Nature ', p. 73.
22 See R. M . Young, ' Malthus and the Evolutionists : The Common Context
of Biological and Social Theory ', Past and Present, 43 ( 1 969), pp. 1 09-45.
23 See R. M . Young, ' The Historiographic and Ideological Contexts of the
Nineteenth Century Debates on M an's Place in Nature ', in M . Teich and
R. Young (eds.), Changing Perspectives in the History of Science
(London : Heinemann, 1 973), pp. 344-438.
24 Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam (published 1 850), stanza lvii.
25 See Williams, Problems in Materialism and Culture, ' Social Darwinism ',
pp. 86- 1 03 ; R . M . Young ' The H uman Limits of Nature ', in J. Benthall
(ed.), The Limits of Human Nature (London : Allen Lane, 1 973).
26 See Miriam Rothschild, Dear Lord Rothschild (London : Hutchinson,
1 983).
27 Lucile Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion : The Role of the British
Royal Botanic Gardens (London : Academic Press, 1 979), pp. 1 4 1 -65.
28 See Ian Tod and Michael Wheeler, Utopia (London : Orbis, 1 978), pp.
1 1 9-26.
 2
The societal conception of
space*
RO B E RT SACK

We have concentrated o n the essential symbolic structures o f modes of

thought that are potentially a part of the intellectual capacities of individuals
in all societies. These modes are social in the sense that individuals producing
them are influenced by society and the organizations or communities to which
they belong. These socia! conditions undoubtedly affect the contents of the
modes and the degree to which they are separate and distinct. There are,
however, realms of activities that are predominantly group, collective or
social, and in which the individuals act in the name of the group. Nations,
cities, armies, families and scientific, religious and artistic organisations are
examples of collective or social relationships or facts. These facts are linked
to space in two related ways. First, the social organisations and the
individuals within them are ' in ' space and their interactions have spatial
manifestations. Thus we have families in cities, and cities in regions containing
other cities, and so on. Analysing these relationships has been the traditional
concern of social geography and has resulted in such theories as central place,
land use, and the gravity and potential models.
Second, social organisations are often territorial, a fact largely overlooked
by all but some political geographers. Territoriality here does not mean the
location and extension in space of a social organisation or of its members.
Rather it means the assertion by an organisation, or an individual in the name
of the organisation, that an area of geographic space is under its influence
or control. Whereas all members of social or�anisations occupy space, not
all social organisations make such territorial assertions. The social enforcement
(and institutionalisation) of such assertions - in the form of property rights,
political territories or territories of corporations and institutions - provide
the context necessary for social facts to exhibit the first type of spatial
properties. The forms such territorial structures take and the functions they
provide depend on the nature of particular political economies.
• Source : Robert David Sack, Conceptions of Space in Social Thought : A Geographic
Perspective ( London : M acmillan , 1 980), pp. 1 67-93.

Editors' note : the original includes a substantial number of detailed footnotes. We

have reduced these to a small number of references. Readers i nterested in the sources
used by Sack should refer to the origi nal book.

34
 The societal conception of space 35

Both the spatial relations and territoriality of social facts involve distinct
co ceptions of space which we will refer to as societal conceptions. We will
n
explore the societal conceptions ofspace associated with the political-economic
structures of society as a whole.

Mixtures of modes
The greatest differences among conceptions of space at the level of societies
as a whole are found when we classify social systems in a general evolutionary
schema from primitive societies to civilisations, with some civilisations
evolving into modern nation states. (We will not consider the various
transitional stages between the primitive and civilised such as chiefdoms.)
There are two primary properties to the societal conception of space which
apply especially to the level of the political-economic structures and which
most clearly illustrate the differences in views of space that are associated with
the differences between primitive and civilised. The first property is the
conception that a people have regarding the relationship between their society
and its geographic place. As with other things, societies occupy space. The
first property refers to a people's conception of this relationship. Societies tend
to forge strong ties to the places they occupy and to justify these ties through
social organisations and procedures. Different societies conceive of these ties
to place differently. In some primitive societies the social order is not thought
of as possessing a continuous extension in physical space. Rather, the society
is anchored to the earth's surface in very special locations such as holy places,
sources of water and traditional camp sites. The intervening areas, although
known to the members, may be unimportant to them in a territorial sense.
In such cases the territorial boundaries would tend to be vague. For other
societies, the social order may be conceived of as extensive over space where
the boundaries may be more or less clearly defined and may become
territorial. In civilised societies, parts of the society are seen as possessing
continuous extension, but what parts and how clearly their boundaries are
defined differ from one type to another.
The second property of the societal concept of space is the knowledge and
attitude that a people have regarding other peoples and places. In such cases
we are more interested in the elaborateness of the spatial viewpoint than in
the specific details or content of the knowledge.[ . . . ] There are, for example,
primitive societies that have virtually no knowledge of other places or peoples
except their own. Their view is extremely ethnocentric and space is literally
the place or territory they occupy. Beyond the place, the idea of space does
not apply. Other primitive societies may have a slightly more elaborate view
of other people and places. They may be conscious of where other people
b order them, but, except for this, they may be unaware of their neighbours'
te rritories and of what extends beyond. In civilizations, with the possible
exception of feudal societies, we generally find a more articulated view of the
36 Robert Sack

territories beyond one's own, a view that conforms to a projective or

Euclidean space.[ . . . ]
The two properties are roughly interrelated with regard to their degree of
sophistication and these degrees are roughly related to the division of society
into primitive and civilised. In societies which do rely heavily on
unsophisticated-fused views, the social order is often mythologised and linked
to place through a mythical-magical mode. Similarly, the conception of the
space surrounding the society is seen through this mode and in fact becomes
submerged within it. In civilisations (and all civilisations have elaborate
sophisticated modes of thought), both the anchoring of society to place and
the relationship of the society to other places can be viewed in a sophisticated
pattern. But these societies incorporate unsophisticated modes as well. Which
pattern predominates depends on the particular structure of the society and
on its relationship to other societies.

The primitive*
[ . . ] The kind of society which is referred to as primitive belongs before the
.

rise of ancient civilisations some 7-8000 years ago. There are, of course, no
such societies left to observe. Our informed views about them come from
archaeological reconstructions and from anthropological field work in
preliterate societies which have comparable technologies to those unearthed
by archaeology. Even though the ' primitive ' societies studied by modern
anthropologists have changed in the last 8000 years and have bee n in contact
with more developed societies, their technologies and social structures are
radically different from modern ones and closer to what we know of the older
societies from archaeological remains. Therefore, with proper precautions, we
can use contemporary ethnographic data as evidence for a plausible
characterisation of the earlier societies. We will concentrate especially on
those features which set the primitive apart from civilisations and which most
clearly illustrate their societal view of space.
Primitive groups are less complex than civilisations. They have less division
of labour, internal specialisation, fewer numbers and smaller territories. But
among them there are different orders of complexity, ranging from the bands
and clans of the hunters and gatherers through the more complex tribal
societies to perhaps the highest forms of primitive social organisation, the
tribal confederation, such as the Iroquois of north-eastern United States or
the Maori of New Zealand. In all primitive groups, the family is the basic
unit and often the next higher social unit is the band.
For the most part, the hunting and gathering bands are non-sedentary. A

• Editors note : in the original, Sack devotes some space to a discussion of the term
' primi tive ' . We have omitted this as it is peripheral to our focus on the relationships
between space and society. We do, however, share Sack's view that the term
' primitive ' should not be regarded as pejorative.
 The societal conception of space 37

b a nd may have a different ecological habitat for each season. Their numbers
ne ver approach the size of even a modest town. Of the extant hunters and
gatherers, perhaps the Eskimos have the largest villages, numbering in places
of good hunting, several hundred inhabitants. But most villages are much
sm aller. Their primitive technology makes for little specialisation and division
of labour beyond that of age and sex. Their nomadic existence makes the
family unit the essential core of those societies. Links beyond the nuclear
fa mily are established through conceptions of kinships.
The tribe is more complex than the band. The term covers a range of
soc ieties occ u pying different habitats, and having different economics and
population sizes. In the tribe, as in the band, the family is the core unit.
However, the kinship links in tribes are much more precise and extensive than
in bands. Tribal settlements may contain only a single primary family, but
the average size of the villages of non-intensive agricultural tribal groups is
approximately 1-200. In intensively cultivated areas, tribal settlements could
be as large as 1 500.
Tribes have a more segmented social order than do clans and bands, but
not until we come to civilisations do there exist true economic classes. In
tribes, the division of labour is still predominantly based on age and sex.
Community life in the tribe is family oriented. The community seems to
provide its members with an intimate and enveloping sense of belonging. The
· naturalness ' of this unit is one of the most striking aspects of primitive
societies. The sense of a unified community, as Diamond put it, ' spring[s) from
common origins, [is composed) of reciprocating persons and grow[s) from
within ' . The sense of community is enhanced by the tendency in primitive
societies to use the family as an analogy for society and its relationships with
the world. This analogical extension of the family contributes to the general
primitive view of the unity of nature. It creates a personalism which extends
to nature and which underlies, and is perhaps the most distinctive element
of, primitive thought and behaviour.
The intimate link between person and community does not stifle individuality
and personal expression. In fact, according to many observers, there is greater
all owance for individual expressions in primitive societies than in civilised
ones.
How individuals see themselves in relationship to the community is difficult
to dete rmine. Most observers agree that the bond between individual and
society among the primitives is unusual and unusually close. This impression
has led observers to believe that in some respects the individuals do not
co nceptually separate themselves from the group ; that is, the conception of
i ndividual and group is prelogical. As Uvy-Bruhl has said of primitive
societies, " the individual as such, scarcely enters into the representations of
p ri mitives. For them he only really exists insofar as he participates in his
gro up " . 1 ( . . ]
.

It is their wariness about and avoidance of abstractions that more than

38 Robert Sack

anything else are the essential characteristics of non-mythical-magical primi­

tive thought. Many of their so-called philosophical statements are in fact
admonitions against abstractions. We in the West, for instance, are expected
to love, and to believe that love is a good thing. The primitives tell us not
to love love, but to love specific people, and to demonstrate such love rather
than pronounce it.
The primitives' tendency to shy away from abstractions may pertain
especially to thei r thoughts about society because the primitive social order
does not present the need for social abstractions. Primitive society lacks such
powerful elements as economic inequality and class conflict which would
create social differences that only abstract social philosophy or revolution
would help to reconcile. There are no legal, political, administrative institu­
tions, organisations or apparatus of state apart from and above the people.
Primitive society is participatory. Conflicts in society are not directed against
institutions or corporate entities, but against specific individuals. Their
arguments are not abstracted into political theories which offer alternate
conceptions of social order. When an individual finds a social rule or norm
to be an insurmountable obstacle, he may break the rule, or leave the group
to form a new group wherein the rules of conduct may very well be a copy
of ones of the society from which he left. The rule is not seen as an obstacle
for the attainment of a particular goal and may never be an obstacle again.
Because conflicts are personal and n ot abstract, such societies do not produce
political and social alienation. Opponents are people, not institutions or
group entities. Opposition is not between ' we the people ' and ' they the
society ' . There simply are no revolutions in primitive society. In Diamond's
terms,

The primitive stands at the center of a synthetic holistic universe of concrete activities,
disinterested in the causal nexus between them, for only consistent crises stimulate
interest in the causal analysis of society. It is the pathological disharmony of social
parts that compels us minutely to isolate one from another, and inquire into their
reciprocal effects. 2

The lack of need for abstractions about society at the pnm1t1ve level
explains the scanty and problematic evidence of its occurrence. It lends weight
to the view that in primitive society the individual and society are not thought
of as very distinct elements, because there is no need for such abstractions
in primitive societies.
The organic relationship between individual and society is recapitulated in
the relationship between society and milieu. As the individual is not alienated
from society, society is not conceived of as independent of the place which
it occupies nor are individuals alienated from the land. A constant and in­
timate knowledge of place enveloped by a mythical view of the land fuses the
society to place. Place is often inhabited by the spirits of the ancestors and
a specific place may have been given to a peopl e by their gods. I n Australia
 The societal conception of space 39

each totemic group is associated with a place from which the totemic ancestor
is supposed to have emerged. When a person dies their spirit returns to the
place of their totemic origin. [ . . . )
Physiognomically arresting landscape forms are often the ones incorporated
i nto the myths, helping to anchor the society to place. A cc o rding to Penobscot
I n dian lore, much of the landscape is a result of the peregrinations of the
m yt hical personage Gluskabe . The Penobscot river came to be when he killed
a monster frog, Gluskabe's snowshoe tracks are still impressed on the rocks
near Mila, M aine. A twenty-five foot long rock near Castine is his overturned
canoe, the rocks leading from it are his footpri nts, and Kineo mountain is
his overturned cooking pot. A place on the earth in many creation myths was
given to a people specifically by the gods. The Pawnee, for instance, believe
that they were guided from within the earth to their present place by Mother
Corn, and the Keresan Pueblo Indians believe that they were led by Iyatiku,
their mother, from the centre of the earth to a place on the earth's surface
called Shipap.
Belief in the inhabitation of the land by the spirits of ancestors and in the
mythical bestowal of the land to the people have occasioned a powerful
communal sense of ownership and use. To have access to the land one must
be a member of the society, which means partaking in the spiritual history
of the group. For example, in Bakongo tradition,

the ownership of the soil is collective, but this concept is very complex. It is the clan
or family which owns the soil but the clan or family is not composed only of the living,
but also, and primarily, of the dead ; that is the Bakulu. The Bakulu are not all the
dead of the clan ; they are only its righteous ancestors, those who are leading a
successful life in their villages under the earth. The members of the clan who do not
uphold the laws of the clan . . . are excluded from their society. It is the Bakulu who
have acquired the clan's domain with its forests and rivers, its ponds and its springs ;
it is they who have bee n buried in this land. They continue to rule the land. They often
return to their springs and rivers and ponds. The wild beasts of the bush and the forest
are their goats, the birds are their poultry. It is they who ' give ' the edible caterpillars
of the trees, the fish of the rivers, the wine of the palm trees, the crops of the field.
The members of the clan who are living on the soil can cultivate, harvest, hunt, fish ;
they make use of the ancestral domain, but it is the dead who remain its guardians.
The clan and the soil it occupies constitute an indivisible thing, and the whole is under
t he rule of the Bakulu. It follows that the total alienation of the land or a part of it
is so mething contrary to Bakongo mentality.•

. Society and place were so closely interrelated that for the primitive to
IOdu lge in speculation about the society elsewhere or about the society having
a different spatial configuration, would be like severing the roots from a plant.
It co uld be of no value. But such intellectual contrivances are precisely what
social planning and theory require. Statements like ' what if the social order
we re altered so that land were held differently ' ; ' what if the village were
red esigned, placing this here rather than there, making that rectangular rather
40 Robert Sack

than circular, so that certain goals will be more easily attained ' , are the basis
of a conceptual approach to society and place. They involve the conceptual
separation and recombination of social activities or substances from space - a
separation which underlies all forms of social theory. This separation and
attempted recombination of space and society are absent in the primitive
world. The place and the people are conceptually fused . The society derives
meaning from place, the place is defined in terms of social relationships, and
the individuals in the society are not alienated from the land.

Civilisation
[ . . . ] While the reasons for that transition from primitive to civilisation are
unclear, it is well established that in all of the changes there was a replacement
of the classless society by a class society. Civilisations have economic classes.
The factor of economic class is extremely important for it leads to different
and often contradictory and antagonistic views of social order.
No longer was society seen by all of its members in the same light. Rather,
it became a multifaceted and ambiguous concept. In order for civilisations
to cohere, such different views would have to be reconciled. The mechanism
concurrent with the formation of civilisation which served to reconcile these
problems was the formation of the state, whether it be the archaic state, the
feudal state, the oriental state or the modern state.
The state stands as an institution above the people encompassing the entire
society. I ts parts seem not to be equivalent to the citizenry. U nlike primitive
society, the government of the state and its officials and power are distinct
from the people and their powers. The government has the power to coerce
its citizens. The state, as Engels explains,

is a product of society at a particular stage of development ; it is the admission that

this society has involved itself in insoluble self contradiction and is cleft into
irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise. But in order that these
antagonisms, classes with conflicting interests, shall not consume themselves and
society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become
necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ' order ; ' and this
power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself
from it, is the state. •

To make this power more accessible, visible or ' real ', the state is endowed
with the most basic attribute of objects - location and extension in space. In
civilisation, political power of the state is areal or territorial. The state is reified
by placing it in space. Territorialisation of authority provides an open-ended
assertion, and, if successful, exertion of control. By expressing power
territorially there does not need to be a complete specification of the objects,
events and relationships, which are subject to the authority of the state.
Anything, both known and unknown, can fall under its authority if located
 The societal conception of space 41

within its territory. This open-ended means o f asserting control i s essential

for the political activities of civilisations because it involves, almost by
definition, the confrontation of novel and the unforeseen events ; and such
an unspecified domain can be claimed only through areal or territorial
au thority. Whatever else a state may be or do, it is territorial.
The linking of society to place is more of a conscious effort in civilisations
than it is in primitive societies and its function in the former is more clearly
to rei fy a power and authority which, because of vastness and complexity of
civilisation, is not clear and self-evident. Consciously moulding society into
a te rritory tends to place more emphasis on the territorial definition of society
than on the social definition of territory. The former has meant that social
relationships are determined by location in a territory primarily and not by
prior social connections, whereas the latter has meant that the use of an area
or territory depends first and foremost on belonging to a group (the
determination of which is essentially non-territorial). In civilisation, a
person's domicile frequently determines the person's membership in social
organisations. Each location may be part of several overlapping or hierarchical
jurisdictions so that being a resident of a place often means being part of
several communities.
While a more territorial definition of power is a characteristic of civilisation,
the degree to which all members of a society are aware of this varies
tremendously. No civilisation has attempted to make its citizenry more aware
of the central authority and the territorial extent of that authority than the
modern nation state. Yet, many states in the twentieth century contain tribal
and peasant cultures which are only minimally affected by modern conceptions
of political territoriality and land use.
In addition to containing tribal cultures, a large proportion of the
population of developing states contains peasant societies whose conceptions
of place often combine elements of both primitive and modern. The peasants'
conception of place focuses on the village and its surroundings. Their
relationship to the land is extremely close, personal and often mystical. Yet,
their livelihood depends in part on contact with the city and the government,
and from such contacts, some ' modern ' conceptions have been incorporated
within the more traditional and inward-looking views of peasant
com munities.
A far greater mixture of civilised and primitive existed in the ancient states.
Civ ili sations arose slowly and only partially replaced primitive societies.
Ofte n, the two societies lived side by side, or primitive forms of community
exis ted on the local and rural levels within the territorial limits of the state.
� uch of the detail of the original transformations from primitive to civilised
•s los t and we have only a general idea of the process in some places. In these
ca ses, there is also evidence of the accompanying changes in the association
o f society to place.
I n ancient Egypt, for example, the original tribal or clan territorial units
42 Robert Sack

were called spats or nomes. As Egypt progressed from a tribal to a centralised

empire, the spat remained a basic territorial unit but its relationship to the
people changed. These units were no longer the demarcation of tribal
holdings, but instead became an administrative area or province of the
empire ; and the position of leaders of the spat changed from the chiefs of
the older tribal communities to administrators or governors of the province.
For Greece and especially Attica, there exists documentation of the end
of the transition from tribal to civilised society. At the beginning of the
historical record, the Athenians still had vestiges of tribal structure. In the
Heroic age they were composed of four tribes which were settled in separate
territories. The tribes were composed ofphratries and clans and the government
of the Athenians was a tribal council or Boule.
As the society of Athens became more complex, its inhabitaQts became
more intermixed geographically but more clearly demarcated into classes,
with the political and economic power being concentrated in the hands of the
few in the upper class. The social territorial changes were expressed by the
introduction of such institutions as the Naukrariai. The Naukrariai, established
some time before Solon, were " small territorial districts, twelve to each tri be " ,
which were t o provide and equip a warship and horsemen for the city o f
Athens. According t o Engels, this institution was one of the earliest recorded
examples of the shift to a territorial definition of society. It attacked the older
tribal form of association in two ways. First, " it created a public force which
was now no longer simply identical with the whole body of the armed people ;
secondly, for the first time it divided the people for public purposes, not by
group of kinship, but by common place of residence " .
Cleisthenes established a new constitution which completely ignored the
older tribal territories. The new order was based on a territorial organisation
of society. " Not the people, but the territory was now divided : the inhabitants
became a mere political appendage of the territory." Yet, to maintain
sentiment to place the new territorial definition of society had to appeal to
the older social definition of territory . In this regard, to keep sentiment to
place alive, the new territory was a ' local ' tribe. But the territory or local tribe
was an artificial geographic unit for the convenience of the state. It was not
an area which traditionally belonged to a group of related people as in the
older tribes which were abolished. The basis of the territorial organisation
were approximately I 00 districts called demes. Residents of each deme elected
a president, treasurer and judges. To again tap the older tribal attachments
to place, the demes had their own temple and patron or divinity. The demes
were organised into thirty trittys of approximately equal population, and
from these trittys were formed ten ' local tribes ' . The local tribe raised arms
and men for the military and elected fifty representatives to the Athenian
council which was composed of 500 representatives ; fifty for each of the ten
local tribes.
Such changes in the relationships between society and place can be seen
 The societal conception of space 43

in other areas of the world. Civilisation, with its emphasis on the territorial
definition of society, makes social order closely bound to place. Community
membership is often decided by domicile, and territorial defence (unlike the
va gueness of the concept in tribal societies) becomes a primary obligation of
the state. An attack on territory is a challenge to the state's order and
authority.
It is the social complexity, inequality and the need for control of one group
by another which make the territorial definition of society essential in
civilisation. Paradoxically, it is the same forces which make the fusion of
society to place in civilisation far more tentative and unstable than in the
p rimitive world. On the one hand, territories constrain flows and movements
of goods. On the other hand, separating activities in places creates specialisa­
tion which in turn increases the demand for trade and circulation. Activities
which are readily located or contained within the territorial boundaries come
to be thought of at the societal level as place specific, territorial or, in general,
as spatial activities, whereas the flows and movements which are not readily
contained come to be thought of as the less spatial or non-spatial activities.
Moreover, on the territorial or spatial side there develop degrees of
' spatiality ' . Civilisations have several kinds of territorial units existing
simultaneously. M odern nation states, for example, are divided into several
sub-jurisdictions and these in turn may be divided into lower order districts
creating areal hierarchies of territorial units whose actions may often be
uncoordinated and in conflict with one another. A hierarchy of j urisdictions,
or even a national territory divided into a single level of lower units, can create
circumstances which are thought to be more or less spatial. A policy which
is formulated at the national level may have predictable spatial consequences
at that level, but perhaps not at the lower level of the geographical scale.
Hence the spatial consequences of an action become foreseen at only one
ar tificial scale. From the viewpoint of those who want to know the spatial
consequences at the lower levels, or at all levels, the policy is not specific
enough, and hence ' less ' spatial than was desired.
The kinds of activities which come to be seen as less or non-spatial and
the degree to which these conceptions are held by the citizens depend on the
dynamics of the societies and on the ways in which the societies are anchored
to p lace. In each society, the ' spatial ' , ' non-spatial ' distinctions can appear
at various levels of abstraction, from the material level of institutions and
economics to the level of political and social philosophy.

Western Feudalism
The specific fusion of society to place in Western Feudalism differed from
the fusion in the Graec<rRoman civilisations and in our own. Feudalism
be gan as the absorption of a disintegrating Roman Empire by the Germanic
t ribes ; it was an absorption and accommodation of a civilised view of
44 Robert Sack

territory by a primitive one. The Roman institutions of precarium, which was

a dependent form of land holding, and the patrocinium, which was the offering
of one's services for protection, were to form the basis of the fiefs and the
vassalages of the feudal system. A peasant swore allegiance to a lord, and
promised to meet such obligations as paying taxes on crops and rendering
specific services to the lord, and in return the lord was to provide protection
for the peasant. The entire structure rested on the labour of the peasant who
did not own the land on which he lived. The peasant's lord owned the land
but only in degree, for he too received the land with obligations from a noble
of a higher order, and so on, up the social scale until the highest level - the
king. In theory, there was to be no land without a sovereign. Nulle terre sans
seigneur.
The peasants were bound to the earth, g/ebae adscripti. As long as the
peasants fulfilled their part of the obligation they could not in theory be
removed from the land. H owever, the peasant could not choose to leave the
land either. While a lord could not sell a peasant as one could a slave, he could
exchange land with another lord and, as a result of the exchange, would come
a new lord for the peasant. For the peasants, social obligations and relations
at the societal level could be determined by domicile. The survival of some
communal village land and peasant holding from pre-feudal times did not
appreciably weaken the peasant's bondage to the land.
Towns existed in the interstices of the manorial system. While towns were
usually modest in size, they were important elements of the medieval economy
and formed a fusion of place and society which was coexistent but in many
respects contrary to the manorial system. A different form of law pertained
within the territorial area of the city. " City air ", as the German saying went,
" makes man free " . These special laws originated from the need of the
merchants to have a permanent place of trade in the towns so that they could
set up their wares and stay during inclement seasons. The inhabitants of these
special places needed the right to travel, and those who sought the merchants'
goods needed to be free to come and go. Such liberties of movement were
granted, and they were paradoxically place specific. " Freedom became the
legal status of the bourgeoisie, so much so that ", according to Pirenne, " it
was no longer a personal privilege only but a territorial one, inherent in urban
soil just as serfdom was in manorial soil. In order to obtain it, it was enough
to have resided for a year and a day within the walls of the town."6
Craft guilds formed another important aspect of the territorial authority
of towns. These guilds established a craft monopoly within the towns. They
participated in the government of the community and it was difficult for a
person to engage in manufacture or become a labourer in towns without being
a member of that community's guilds. These guilds were for the most part
not areally interrelated (mercantile guilds were). Each tended to operate
within the bounds of the city.
Both city and manor formed different, yet contemporaneous, territorial
 The societal conception of space 45

social organisations. The territorial unit of the city expanded in influence and
helped transform the manorial system to commercial agriculture. The
domination of the city occurred in part because of the increased importance
of such activities as the flow of goods, people and money which were not
containable within the existing territorial boundaries. Such flows which were
not containable by the manorial system later became the basis of the less or
non-spatial activities in industrialised societies. Even in the M iddle Ages, such
activities were not accorded equal status with property in land as a real thing.
Property in land was, and is still, called real estate. The other is called liquid
assets.
Although the coexistence of such territorial units as cities and manorial
systems engendered processes which were incapable of territorial confinement
or expression, the primary ' a-spatial ' factor at the societal level was the idea
of the Christian community. Indeed, the Church, as an organisation, was
spatial . It was territorially administered and appeared on the ground in the
form of churches and holy places. These territorial aspects often conflicted
with the territorial units of the secular society and also with the more ethereal
concerns of the Church. But from the societal view, the primary opposition
which the Church presented to the feudal order was the concept of an
' a-spatial ' community of Christians. This community or heavenly city
transcended terrestrial communities and boundaries. Unlike the ' non-spatial '
aspects of society in the contemporary world, the Christian community of
the church transcendent was associated with the fixed and the eternal, while
the earthly cities were short-lived and changing.
The idea of a transcendent Christian community pervaded Christendom,
had an enormous impact on feudal society, and contributed to the later con­
flicts between church and state, in which the power of the state triumphed .
I t was the rise of capitalism, however, which most fundamentally contributed
to territorial re-organisation within the state.

Capitalism
W ith the rise of merchant and then industrial capital, the means of production
became concentrated in the hands of capitalists and spatially concentrated
in workshops and manufactories wherein the labourer worked for wages
under the supervision of management. Work thus became separated from the
h ome and territorial control became specialised to include work places (under
t he control of industry and supported by government through property laws
etc.) and political territories. The new economic order needed large and
mobile labour pools and · free ' trade with a reliable and efficient transportation
infrastructure. All of these factors altered the older territorial fusion of society
to place. Coordination of economic functions was achieved by shifting the
ba sic fusion of society and place to the larger geographic scale of the absolute
st ate and then to the modern nation state. This left the cities with modest
46 Robert Sack

powers, as one of several territorial units in an areal hierarchy of state

territorial organisations. I nhabitants of a city were not only citizens of that
city, but also citizens of higher and lower political administrative units in
which their residences were located.
As we well know, the anchoring of society to place in the nation state, with
its hierarchy of territorial units, has not prevented conflicts between types and
levels of territorial organisations, nor. contained what are thought to be the
Jess spatial processes. If anything, the opposite is the case. As the efforts to
contain and anchor the system become more complex and self-conscious, as
more levels of administration are created, the activities and interrelations that
involve the spatial and non-spatial distinctions increase enormously. Because
of the areal hierarchy of the political administrative system, the spatial
manifestations of decisions are fragmented. Decisions may be directed to only
one level of the hierarchy and yet affect all levels in unforeseen ways.
Jurisdictional conflicts arise concerning the territorial units and the actions
of one has unforeseen consequences on the others.
Antitheses between ' spatial ' and ' non-spatial ' facts or activities can be seen
in the economic realm as well. In capitalist societies, parcels of land, clearly
demarcated in place, are privately owned and held for purposes of speculation.
The land may have been purchased because of its potential value, based on
what might happen on or near it. Although the land contains substances, such
as soil and vegetation, and perhaps even social factors like low-income
families, the value of the land to the speculator may be determined solely by
the future activities that could occ u r near or on it. A new highway may be
constructed nearby which would increase the value of the property as a
commercial site. Even after the highway is built, the owner of the land may
not sell or build until the price is right. In such cases, the economic system
makes us think of land as though it were empty, void of substances that have
value, and of substances as though they were a-spatial entities existing
abstractly somewhere but not materially on the land. Only under profitable
circumstances do particular places and substances combine, and then only
until a more profitable arrangement appears to disassociate and recombine
them with other places and things. [ . . . ]
The maintenance of social order in twentieth century society cannot rely
entirely on the sophisticated but tentative links which social science and
scientific planning provide. In actual practice, the fusion of society and place
is accomplished through the combination of sophisticated and unsophisticated
models. The state uses the sophisticated models of social science, it uses the
arts and it taps the unsophisticated models to anchor behaviour to place. The
United States has a ' heartland ', it has national monuments, shrines and
' holy ' places such as the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, Grant's Tomb ; it
has a mythologised past in the rugged frontiersmen and the ' noble savage ' .
Attachment to nation states in fact may be one of the clearest expressions
of mythical-magical consciousness of place in the twentieth century. As Yi-Fu
 The societal conception of space 47

Tuan points out, sacred space tends to be a locus of power ; it is clearly

demarcated and set apart ; it is supposed to be complete ; and it demands the
ultimate sacrifice for its defence.' All of these characteristics apply to the
modern nation state. Each state, though, has different conceptual separations
of people and place and depends upon different mixtures of the sophisticated
and unsophisticated to recombine them. U nderstanding these differences is
the spatial perspective to social dynamics. What marks the modern conception
of societal space from the primitive is the range of mixtures available to the
modern society, and the fact that the modern, unlike the primitive, has access
to more specialised sophisticated views. With this access and the complexities
of social life which engendered such modes, comes a high degree of
uncertainty, detachment and scepticism about the significant relationships
between social order and geographic area.

Notes

L. Levy-Bruhl, The ' Soul' of the Primitive (Chicago : Henry Regnery,

1 97 1 ), p. 1 85.
2 S. Diamond, In Search of the Primitive (New Brunswick, N.J. :
Transaction Books, 1 974), p. 1 92.
3 Fr Van Wing, Etudes Bakongo, deuxii:me edition (Desclee de Brouwer,
1 959), pp. 93-4.
4 F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (New
York : International Publishers, 1 972), p. 1 76.
5 H . Pirenne, Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe ( N ew York :
Harcourt Brace and World, 1 937), p. 5 1 .
6 Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place (Minneapolis, University of M innesota
Press, 1 977).
 PART 2

Introduction
Analysis : aspects of the
geography of society
JOHN A L LEN

The message o f the introduction to this book was straightforward : geography

matters to all of the disciplines in the social sciences. Social processes
necessarily take place in geographical space and in some relation to nature,
and this carries a series of implications for all explanations of social activity.
Neither sociologists nor economists, it should be said, are opposed to the
argument that space and nature have a part to play in social explanation ;
they are not unaware that social activity occurs in space or that nature
impinges upon social action. I t is not part of our argument that the social
science disciplines today are simply blind to these features of the social world ;
rather, it is that they have failed to conceive the extent to which space and
nature are integral to an understanding of social activity and social change.
Space is not simply a surface upon which changes, say, in the structure of
the British economy are played out. Changes within the structure of economic
production involve the geographical reorganisation of labour and capital ;
and, in turn, the changing geography of economic activity affects the shape
and composition of the workforce and throws up new cultural patterns and
political configurations. Changes in the technology of production are central
to this process of geographical and social reorganization - changes which
involve a rearrangement and control of natural forces to achieve profitable
and competitive conditions of production. Gold captured this view of nature
in his chapter when he spoke of the electronic imitation of the human brain,
micr oprocessor technology, or ' nature as bits of information ' as he refers to
it, as the latest objective quantifiable arrangement of nature. This way of
app roaching the relationship between society, space and nature, this kind of
ge ography, alters the manner in which economic, political and cultural change
is co nceived.
The implications of this view, however, are not merely conceptual, they also
raise methodological questions. Conceptual and methodological issues are
Woven together to prod uce a particular kind of geographical approach. The
me t hods of analysis and synthesis employed in the following two sections do
n ot in themselves produce a new kind of geography. The terms are familiar
49
50 John A llen

within the discipline of geography. What is different about their usage here
is the conceptual framework that governs their application.
Briefly sketched, the two modes of approach, analysis and synthesis, are
best understood as complementary methods that enable us to understand the
geographical organization of society, both at a detailed level and at a richer,
more comprehensive level. The process of analysis involves the selection and
isolation of a particular aspect of society, the consideration in detail of its
various features and the relationships that hold between them, including their
geographical characteristics, at the expense of other aspects of society to
which they are related . The value of this type of exercise rests upon a number
of pragmatic grounds. First, we cannot hope to take up every aspect of society
that has some bearing upon, say, the changing structure of Britain's economy,
and simultaneously study all aspects with the same analytical intensity. In a
social world structured by a series of complex, changing interrelationships,
the process of analysis allows us to hold certain relationships apart and to
concentrate in detail upon each aspect in turn. This internal focus is the nub
of analysis ; it allows an investigation in depth of one aspect of a broader
picture. Second, some kind of division and separation of the different aspects
of the geography of the social world is necessary in order to enable us to
address particular social issues and problems. A geography of housing, of
wel fare, of employment, is the practical development of the need to outline
handlable issues and formulate specific answers to specific questions. Which
issues are defined as manageable, which questions are raised is not pre-given,
and invariably rests upon the institutionalized sub-divisions that hold sway
within a discipline at any one point in ti:ne.
Sketched in this manner there is, as indicated earlier, nothing that is
particularly new either to geographers or to other social scientists about the
task analysis is expected to perform. What is distinctive about the selection
of readings in the following section, however, is that the analyses of the three
topics - cultural forms, urban economic activity, and the process of
international law - are framed in terms of how their geographical organization
affects the very way in which they work.
Two of the three topics - cultural forms and international law - do not
readily spring to mind as geographical issues. Indeed, we have deliberately
chosen them to illustrate the importance of geography to all aspects of social
activity. None of the three authors, in fact, are professional geographers, yet
each acknowledges the importance of geography as an integral part of social
explanation. It is an integral component, first, because the variation in social
conditions within and between countries affects the manner in which social
processes operate in different localities ; and second, because this pattern of
geographical unevenness is continually in a process of transformation as part
of the general dynamic of social change.
Clarke's analysis of cultural forms in the U K draws the two points out
sharply. In Chapter 3 he explores the geographical unevenness of local
 Aspects of the geography of society 51

cu lt ures, their unique characteristics, and challenges the thesis of a mass

cu lture that pervades all areas and regions of the U K . From this standpoint
he shows how the cultural differences between places have had a profound
effect upon the shape and absorption of new cultural configurations. New
c ul tural forms, he argues, are not simply mapped onto local cultures : the
re la tionship between the two is one of negotiation and resistance, ' traces ' of
ea rlier local cultures affect the form of new cultural strands. In turn, he argues
th at the geography of culture cannot be understood without reference to
structural changes in the occupational division of labour. Changes in the
structure of capitalist production which have reworked the social and gender
composition of the workforce also, he points out, involve a geographical shift
of capital and labour. The movement of both industry and workers to new
locations has led to the disruption of old cultural boundaries and created a
new pattern of cultural unevenness and flux. Cultural, economic and spatial
change are, he argues, combined in the overall process of social change.
The links between economic, political and cultural processes are built into
his analysis, but they are deliberately played down to allow a more intensive
focus upon changing cultural traditions. In an analytical sense, Clarke has
turned a spotlight upon cultural processes to show how culture itself cannot
be fully understood outside of its geographical context.
Ball and Picciotto draw out the same point in relation to urban economic
activity and international law respectively. In Chapter 4, Ball demonstrates
how the cost of crossing space measured in terms of time, information and
money influences and shapes the way in which different types of economic
activity, both private and public, use urban space. The barriers of distance
may be used, for example, by retailers to gain a monopoly position over a
particular clientele by locating at a distance from their competitors' shops.
In this sense, space is integral to the activities of retailers and cannot be
analysed in isolation from their economic behaviour, nor can their economic
behaviour be considered in isolation from spatial opportunities and spatial
fonn. At the level of the city as a whole the spatial form of social processes
ca n produce contradictory results. As the tertiary and quaternary sectors take
over the city centre they push up land prices there, and their interest in land
and location as a long-term asset pushes them up even more. One result is
t hat low-income housing becomes, given the politics and economics of the
P roducti on of housing, less and less of a feasible proposition. And yet it is
P recisely the office-owners of the tertiary and quarternary sectors that
dema nd, close at hand, the nightly army of low-income workers to clean up
after the day's business.
In the following chapter, Picciotto addresses the growing incidence of
J. Urisdictional conflicts between major capitalist nation states. In a number
of ex amples ranging from the financial sanctions against Iran to the US
emb argo policies against the Soviet bloc, Picciotto graphically illustrates how
t he divergent political interests and economic rivalries between nation states
52 John A llen

assert themselves as geographical barriers to the international integration of

the world economy. To put it another way, the increasing internationalization
of capital has geographically outstripped the political process of international­
ization. Political territoriality, as Sack pointed out in his article (Chapter 2),
is more than the geographical space occ u pied by a nation state, it is an
assertion of power and control over the events and relationships that occu r
within a defined space. The anchorage of states to place which allows the
defence of economic interests within a territorial unit is shown by Picciotto
to be at odds with a process of capital that has outgrown state political
boundaries. Conflicts over territorial jurisdiction have arisen as the con­
comitant of the interpenetration of capital investment between the developed
capitalist economies. The changing geographical structure of the international
economy and the political world order are integral to the form in which the
conflicts have arisen and are played out.
One further point about the mode of analysis conducted in these chapters
should be mentioned. Each topic has been conceptualized in such a way as
to establish its relation to the wider aspects of society which affect its social
form and development. The analyses are not simply ' cultural ' or ' economic '
or ' political ', they do not reflect any particular sub-divisions of systematic
geography, wider connections are built into the analyses to locate the topic
within the larger social order. This is not to deny the particular focus of
analysis, it is merely to indicate that the topics remain linked to the broader
social context.
I n Chapter 4, for example, Ball's analysis of urban economic life does not
exhaust all that there is to know about the dynamic forces which shape and
structure city life. For the purposes of detailed investigation he selects, or
abstracts, three elements - the division of labour, population distribution and
the built environment - from, say, the political forces and cultural processes
which also shape the fabric of city life. In making such a choice Ball is
consciously dividing up and separating off different aspects of the geography
not only of the city, but also of the wider social world of which cities are a
part. But he is also careful to draw the links, for example, between an urban
spatial division of labour and the wider processes of capital accumulation and
national state policy. His analysis spills over into social relationships that
appear only at the edge of his focus, yet indicate the direction in which
changes within cities may be understood in a more holistic fashion . This is
the groundwork for the construction of a broader synthesis of which the city
would be one element.
In a similar vein Picciotto's analysis of jurisdictional conflicts between
capitalist nation states indicates that an issue of international law cannot be
adequately comprehended outside of its relation to aspects of international
economics and politics. The latter two features are undeveloped in his
account, the links are faintly drawn, to enable him to portray the issue of
legal conflict in sharp relief. Clarke, in Chapter 3, is also insistent that culture
 A spects of the geography of society 53

should not be seen as simply a set of local differences in isolation from wider
aspects of society. The complex geography of culture that he outlines is not
conjured up by a variety of local characteristics ; local cultural terms draw
th eir changing shape from a combination of such characteristics and the wider
changes that have affected the economic organisation of British society, both
at a national and at an international level .
 3
' There's no place like . . . ' :
cui tures of di fference1
J OH N C L A R K E

There is a mundane level at which everyone is familiar with a geography of

British culture. To visit a museum, art gallery, theatre or cinema is to be
confronted by the geography of cultural institutions. Trips to the town or city
centre consume time and money. To live outside London involves a recognition
of the concentration of cultural resources and institutions of all kinds which
divides the ' metropolis ' from the ' provinces ' . To visit Blackpool and
East bourne is to encounter the diverse sources of pleasure that are associated
with British h oli days .
These patterns bear the mark of social processes. Here, the ' civic pride '
of nineteenth-century philanthropists who stamped their mark on city centres
with galleries and museums, and there the ' economic rationality ' of the
cinema chains, closing the old suburban ' flea-pits ' and developing the city
centre multiple-screen complexes. Space and place are essential elements in
the patterns of British culture, and one of their most profound effects is to
be found in the way they structure cultural diversity. Blackpool and
Eastbourne offer different holiday pleasures, not solely because of where they
are, but because of the different social groups whose holiday needs they cater
for. The bank holidays and wakes weeks of a Northern working class,
stretched for fifty weeks a year by labour and poverty, required an intensity
of sensation and satisfaction garishly reflected in the distorting mirrors of
Blackpool's ' cheap thrills ' . 2 The inter-war middle classes of the Southeast,
by contrast, lived in a culture defined by the virtues of familiar decency and
respectability more adequately serviced by the genteel spaces and tea rooms
of the South Coast.
These class cultural differences, and their geographical placing, were well
understood in inter-war Britain . Cultural space - the placing of class
boundaries - had very sharp demarcations.

Culture and place

Pl ace - the regi o n , the city and the neighbou rhood - condenses a whole
complex hi story of eco nomic, social and poli tical processes into a simple
c u l tu ral image. The persistent opposi tion of North versus South expresses

54
 Cultures of difference 55

itself in cultural images (hard v . soft ; rough v . cultured ; straight v . sly) but
such stereotypes are meaningless without attention to the economic, social
and political differentiation which are condensed in these parodies. The
cultural division refracts the economic and industrial unevenness of Britain,
and the concentration of economic power and control in the Southeast. It
captures something of the distribution of · cultural capital ' which flows
alongside that concentration of economic capital, and it gestures knowingly
at the focus of political power that sits j ust around the corner from the City.
It is, of course, a parody. It subsumes class within region, as if there is neither
Southern working class nor Northern capitalists. But it is a parody which
contains a partial, and uncomfortable, recognition of the geography of
economic power and control in Britain.
The demarcation of Britain into distinctive cultural regions owed much to
the way capitalism focused its development. The North of England was
dominated by the urban centres in which the heavy industrial sectors and
textiles were concentrated. The M idlands, the Black Country and Birmingham
in particular, were organized around metal and secondary engineering
production, experiencing an influx of labour from Scotland and Wales. The
Southeast, although dominated by the centre of financial and political power
in London, was also becoming the favoured site for the development of the
new ' light industries ' in engineering, electrical and chemical industries. In the
Northeast, Scotland and Wales, the older skilled trades, in sectors such as
mining and shipbuilding, were bearing the brunt of the inter-war Depression .
This uneven distribution of industrial sectors explains something of the
differential impact of the Depression on British society. The decline of the
old ' staple ' industries, and the unemployment and pauperization which
followed, scarred the face of Northern England, Scotland and Wales in sharp
contrast to the self-confident expansion experienced in the Southeast. British
culture, the ways in which people experienced, understood and responded to
these material conditions, bore the marks of this uneven and unequal
economic structure. The different ' cultures ' which were present in inter-war
Britain reflected these disparate economic conditions through a variety of
national, regional and local identities. So, the Welsh working class, shaped
by chapel, rugby and Celtic cultural legacies, possessed a culture distinct from
that of the Northern working class, based around football and cricket, the
regi onal identities (and rivalries) of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and the ' civic
p ride ' of the mill and steel towns. In other ways, the presence or absence of
women as a primary group in the labour-force (textiles versus mining, for
example) shaped different traditions of trade unionism, local politics and the
nature of ' family life ' .
I t is impossible to deal with the full interplay of Britain's inter-war
ec o nomic, social and cultural patterns here. Each ' place ' was culturally
complex. Scotland contained the diversity of agricultural highlands, the
Glasgow working class, Edinburgh's ' cultural ' cosmopolitanism, and so on .
56 John Clarke

Similarly, within any town, different areas and neighbourhoods contained

specific cultural patterns from the ' exclusive ' residential districts to run-down
terraced housing. But what should be clear is that place - nationally,
regionally and locally - played a major role in organizing these cultural
differences, and was an essential symbol in the identification of difference.
Geordie, Glaswegian, Mancunian, Cockney : each local identity condensed
a whole range of economic, social and political references into a place.
But this geography of culture is subject to drift, erosion and dramatic
eruptions. The processes which forged the class cultures - and their places - of
the inter-war years did not stop, leaving these cultures frozen into a static
formation. Viewed from the 1 980s, these pictures of Blackpool and East bourne
become nostalgic snapshots of a different time, a different way of life now
transformed by social change. The clear boundaries of social distinction have
been washed away. Between then and now stands the Second World War,
affluence, new technology, the expansion of the mass media - and recession.
What, then, has happened to the old places, . boundaries and patterns, and,
more pertinently, what has replaced them ?
M aking sense of post-war Britain has preoccupied a variety of social
analysts, and their preoccupations have brought forward a variety of answers.
One of the most powerful responses to these changes was the assertion that
they had abolished difference and diversity and resulted in the creation of a
' mass culture ' .

A n absence of difference : the mass culture thesis

The mass culture thesis pointed to the massive post-war expansion of the
mass media (and television in particular) as the force which had abolished
cultural difference. The spread of television, and its penetration into the home,
were seen as the means through which a generalized culture was being
dispersed and absorbed . And since the commercial drive behind the media
was concerned for audience maximization, the programming which sought
to create these audiences would be based on the ' lowest common denominator '
approach. These three elements - spread, penetration and content - form the
core of the mass culture thesis.3
The spreading ownership of televisions allowed most of the nation to be
linked together as a mass receiver of transmitted culture. This linking of a
mass audience to a single message promised the obliteration of intranational
cultural differences, and even the disappearance of international cultural
differences. The communications revolution promised to make the world ' a
global village ' - the abolition of geography itself - with American its
common language.
Secondly, television penetrated to the ' sacred hearth ', the world appeared
in the living-room corner. I ts visual immediacy, allied to its domestic setting,
was understood to provide the culture it presented with especially powerful
 Cultures of difference 57

impact. Studies proliferated to examine the impact on the first ' telly
generation ', assessing the effects of Dixon of Dock Green and others on
violence, morals, schoolwork, and nightmares.
Thirdly, and here was the cultural rub, the content of mass culture
threatened to extinguish traditional standards. Since most mass cultural
theorists were, like most mass culture, American, they spoke of mass culture
displacing the values embodied in ' high ' and ' popular ' culture.
' High ' culture - the arts - was prized for its engagement of the emotions
and intellect in the quest for knowledge and ultimate human values. ' Popular '
culture, while not possessing these same virtues, was at least tolerable in that
it demonstrated the vitality and robustness of ' the people '. But mass culture
threatened to produce nothing but the ' cultural dupe ' - the passive and
indiscriminate sponge.
All of this would have been alarming enough as a theory, but there seemed
to be plenty of both quantitative and qualitative evidence to support it. The
post-war consumer boom seemed to indicate that the new-found affluence
would erode the distinctive way of life of the ' old ' working class. Consumption
and leisure patterns seemed set to converge into a mass culture. Hugh
Gaitskell pronounced the obituary of the working class after Labour's 1 959
election defeat with a rueful eye on the emerging mass culture of
consumerism :
In short, the changing character of labour, full employment, new housing, the new
way of life based on the telly, the fridge, the car and the glossy magazines - all have
had their effect on our political strength. (Quoted in Hall et a/. , 1 978, p. 230)

The successful Conservative leader put it more abruptly : " The class war is
over " (Macmillan, quoted in Hall et a/. , 1 978, p. 227).
M acmillan's conclusion is the pertinent British variation of mass culture,
for what its arrival in Britain promised to eliminate was not merely ' high '
and ' popular ' culture but the fractious and troubling irritant of class cultures.

From Leeds to Luton : the disappearance of class

Gaitskell's summary of the forces which had eroded Labourism were taken
up by cultural analysts concerned with the disappearance not only of working
cla ss politics, but also of a distinctive working class culture beneath the rolling
waves of affluence and mass culture. Studies such as Richard H oggart's The
Uses of Literacy ( 1 959) are ambiguous. They are, as Critcher has argued, " a
response to . . . the argument that the working class had ceased to exist " ( 1 979,
p. 1 6). While they celebrate the distinctiveness of working class culture, they
al so lament its anticipated disappearance. H oggart's study offers both a
sensitive description of a distinctive way of life, and an attempt to analyse
the causes of its destruction - those proceses which are " unbending the
mainsprings of action " . The studies of this period are diverse in their
58 John Clarke

identification of the main causes of change (affluence, mass culture, social

policy in housing, etc.) but each of them offers its testimony to the
disappearance of something distinctive. And each of them also recognizes that
one of the changes is the remaking of the geography of class.
The working class ' community ' dealt with in these studies marked the
convergence of geography and culture. Whether in a London housing estate
(Young and Willmott's study of Bethnal Green), a Northeast mining village
(Dennis et al. 's Ashton ') or H oggart's Leeds, what these studies celebrated
•

was a specific geographical density of social relationships and a shared and

distinctive way of life. • The economic, political and cultural changes of
post-war Britain were identified as destroying the strengths of these densely
supportive local class cultures. In their place, the future offered the affluent,
individualized, middle-class culture of mass society.
While these cultural and community studies looked to the old working class
estates, towns and villages for the distinctiveness of working class culture.
other sociologists were looking elsewhere for the signs of the future.
Gold thorpe, Lockwood, Bechofer and Platt, in thei r mammoth study of The
Affluent Worker ( 1 969), shook the dust of the North from their feet and set
off for the Southeast. There., in the mass production systems and high wage
economy of the car industry, the future culture of the working class m ig h t
be discerned. Consequently, in the 1 960s it became Luton (and the Vauxhall­
Bedford plants) whose entrails were examined for signs of the new working
class.
The signs were ambiguous and have been argued over ever since. The
' affluent worker ' was not becoming middle class (the victim of ' embour­
geoisification '), but nor was Luton the setting for the continuation of the old
culture of working class comm unity. I nstead the · new ' working class seemed
to show an instrumental or calculative approach to employment, trade
unionism and politics. Social life - the culture of these workers - had lost the
focus of communal sociability and solidarity of the ' comm uni ty ' and replaced
it with a privatized ' or family-centred lifestyle, in which · place · played no
•

significant part. The factory and the home - not Luton - were the only places
which counted .
The Affluent Worker st udies suggested that although class (identified in the
conditions of work) was not being abolished, there was a ' convergence ' in
terms oflifestyle, atti tudes and beliefs - a cultural convergence. The privatized
affluent working class were adopting a way of life - a culture - closer to that
of their middle class counterparts.

A difficult phase : youth and cultural diversity

The post-wa r outbrea k of youth c u l t u re ' seemed to rep resent fu rther ev i ­
•

dence of this ' convergence ' of l i festyles. C u l t u ral d i ffe rence seemed n o w
to be ba sed on age rathe r t h a n class. ' Teenage c u l t u re · appea red to b e a
 Cultures of difference 59

classless world of distinctive music, clothes, clubs and behaviour. For those
searching anxiously for the portents of mass culture, the signs were hardly
encouraging. Youth, like the affluent workers, represented a · vanguard · - the
first generation exposed to classlessness, affluence and the mass media. And
the behaviour of this new generation reinforced all the fears of the mass
culture pessimists : immorality, declining standards, drugs, violence and an
apparent surrender to mindless consumption.

Both T.V. channels now run weekly programmes in which popular records are played
to teenagers and judged. While the music is performed, the cameras linger savagely
over the faces of the audience. What a bottomless chasm of vacuity they reveal. Huge
faces, bloated with cheap confectionery and smeared with chain store make-up, the
open, sagging mouths and glazed eyes, the hands mindlessly drumming in time to the
music, the broken stiletto heels, the shoddy, stereotyped, ' with-i t ' clothes : here,
apparently, is a portrait of a generation enslaved by a commercial machine. (Johnson,
1 964).

The obsessive attention to the ' generation gap ' as the basis of youth culture
successfully prevented any recognition that youth was far from being
classless. What was read as being a youth culture was in fact composed of
a diversity of youth subcultures in which the structuring hand of class played
a powerful role. What was held up as the image of a classless - mass
culture - was its opposite - the re-emergence of distinctive lifestyles heavily
determi ned by class. By the time that skinheads were beating up hippies, it
was clear that - for them, at least - the class war was not over. &

Between the old and the new

I n the end, of course, the secret had to come out : class had not gone away
after all . A growing body of research indicated the persistence of poverty,
gross inequalities of income and life chances and the stubborn refusal of class
to be magically forgotten . In part, the excitement and despair about the
arrival of mass culture - and the variety of analyses it generated - had been
based on a misunderstanding. The very distinctiveness of the inter-war class
cultures had deceived the eyes and minds of the analysts. The end of
traditional working class culture was understood as marking the end of the
wor king class. The cult ural forms of class were taken as being the reality of
cla ss.
Because the distinctive working class communities were no longer visible
geographically, and because the cultures were no longer visible socially, the
assumption was made that class itself must have disappeared. The error was
to assume that the culture was inseparable from the economic and social basis
of class. Li ttle thought was given to the ways in which the basis of class might
be refracted through new and changing cultural expressions and practices.
Watching television, taking package tours abroad, having a car changed
60 John Clarke

working class culture but did not mark the end of class as an economic and
social division. •
This mistaken identification of culture with class was intensified by the
distinction between the ' new ' and the ' traditional ' working class. I nstead of
dealing with the historical process of how classes and cultures have changed
and developed, this distinction reduces history to one abrupt change - from
the old to the new. The idea of the ' traditional ' stops us thinking about
history as a process, and leaves history only as a frozen image to be contrasted
with the present. But those cultures now described as ' traditional ' were
themselves the product of economic and social processes, and the responses
of social groups to their circumstances.
This is not to suggest that really nothing has changed since the Second
World War : that because ' deep down ' the class relations of capitalism are
still firmly in place, no attention needs to be paid to superficial changes. At
a very abstract level, the fundamental dynamic of labour and capital still
obtains. But the studies of class cultures of the 19 50s do, however erroneously,
point to significant changes in the composition of class and culture.
The economic, occ u pational and social composition of the working class
has been reworked by both the dynamic of capital in its search for new
products, new markets and new profits and by policies of the state (in housing
and other welfare areas). Although all of these processes are interconnected,
it is worth briefly separating out some of their impacts. The last forty years
have seen a constant process of capital redeployment in Britain - a search for
new forms of profitable investment and a wish to escape those with declining
profitability. The expansion of the home market for consumer durables ­
Gaitskell's cars, fridges and tellys - provided the basis for the post-war
expansion of light engineering and the car industry in sites largely away from
the ' old ' heavy industries of the North. Gold thorpe et a/. 's mission to Luton
to find the ' new ' (and affluent) worker caught something of this changing
geography of the working class.
As the working class became mobile, so the attachments to familiar places
became disconnected. New Towns and new housing estates replaced the old
communities. Pulled by the promise of affluent lifestyles, and pushed by the
changing geography of employment (with the assistance of government
regional policies), the working class set out to establish themselves in new
places.
But these changes, in the period of post-war expansion, did not become
the permanent basis of new social and cultural patterns. By the 1 970s, it was
becoming clear that the processes of boom and affluence that had produced
the new working class were in decline. British manufacturing was entering
a deep recession, and the domestic market was bei ng increasingly serviced by
cheaper imported goods. Unemployment - the demon of the Depression
which seemed to have been exorcised in the post-war boom - was returning.
As closures and red undancies i ncreased, capital once again looked around
for new sites for profitable i nvestment.
 Cultures of difference 61

The rise and fall o f the car industry i s only one (though perhaps the most
spectacular) of the occupational shifts, but others are equally significant for
the composition of class. The growth of the service sector ' (both state and
•

private) ; the decline of the traditional male ' skilled ' working class ; the
expansion of increasingly proletarianized white-collar occupations in technical
and administrative systems have played a part in reorganizing the economic
physiognomy of class. They have also had profound effects on the sexual
division of waged labour. One aspect of the search for profitability has been
the attempt to find sources of green ' (inexperienced and non-unionized)
•

labour, which has (together with the expansion of state and commercial
• service ') fuelled the increase of women's employment. This, too, though is
uneven - some sectors of ' traditional ' women's work (e.g. textiles and
clothing) have suffered a similar fate to that of their male equivalent in the
manufacturing sectors. 7
These changing occupational patterns and their uneasy rhythms of decline
and expansion have further reshaped the social geography of Britain. The
concentration of decline in the old manufacturing industries has been
particularly hard on the industrial-urban patterns of the North, M idlands,
Scotland and Wales. The major cities and towns have suffered economically
and socially, and within each, the process of decline has been most intense
in what has become known as the ' inner city ' . Equally acute has been the
experience of towns dependent on single industries. The rationalization ' of
•

pits under the NCB removed the economic basis of whole villages and towns,
while British Steel's closures at places such as Corby devastated whole local
economies.
The rise of new industries has taken place on new sites : oil-based industries
in the East of Scotland, electronics in the Southeast sun belt ' and small
•

manufacturing operations around the New Towns and the industrial ' parks '
on the peripheries of old towns. The once stable connection between urban
and industrial patterns in British capitalism has been broken - both people
and work are moving out of the big cities.
Once more, the patterns are uneven : nationally, regionally and locally.
Scotland experienced simultaneous recession (in shipbuilding and the car
industry, for example) and expansion (through the North Sea oil fields).
Towns given the benefit of industrial enterprise zones to encourage growth
lost jobs from companies outside such zones. As the rhythms of expansion
and contraction have grown quicker through the post-war period (and as the
depths of contraction have intensified), so the certainty of place ' has been
•

dismantled . Fluidity and mobility became the cornerstones of economic

policy, and the ties of place have been loosened in their wake.
Nor can it be said that mobility itself was in any way a guarantee of a
new place in the order of things. Workers who moved from Glasgow to the
New Town of Linwood to work in the new Rootes car plant at the end of
the 1 960s experienced several changes of ownership which presided over a
declining labour-force before the plant was finally closed ."
62 John Clarke

The economic basis and social geography of class have undergone profound
changes. But class is not solely a matter of production - of the organization
of work within capi talism . The dynamics of capitalism also affect cultural
patterns through the systems of distribution and consumption. The old
cultures of region and locality owed as much to the social patterns of home,
family and neighbourhood as they did to the conditions of employment. And
the post-war period has seen equally substantial changes at this level.
The residential patterns of towns and cities have been reshaped through
the expansion of home-ownership, particularly concentrated in the new
peripheral estates and New Towns - moving the more affluent out of the older
inner city areas. Increasingly, the inner areas have been left to council
redevelopment or to owner-occupation of older housing. The rise of the
' property-owning democracy ' has intensified the social division and distinc­
tions between centre and periphery in urban areas.•
This movement to the peripheries involves the social reorganization of
family life - making private transport an essential rather than luxury item .
Individual mobility - the ability to get to work, to the shops, to social and
leisure activities - has become a necessity for social mobility. The car, while
valued for the independence which it provides, has simultaneously created
dependence. When public transport has been steadily reduced almost every­
where, those without access to a car have experienced growing social
isolation. For the elderly, the unemployed, the young and a majority of
women, the ' privatization ' of British society, its increasing home-centred ness,
is as much an enforced condition as it is a freely chosen way of life.
The pressure towards mobility has been intensified by changes in the system
of distribution of consumer goods and services. The extent of concentration
and rationalization of capitalist production is well understood, but rather less
attention has been paid to the consequences of these changes in distribution.
The ' old ' working class culture had its characteristic commercial institutions ­
the local shop, pub, cinema, betting shop, and so on. These once familiar
elements of the · comm unity ' have also changed with the dynamics of post-war
capitalism. Like the industrial sector, they too have been subject to concen­
tration, rationalization - and disappearance.
Consumption, leisure and pleasure now demand mobility. Local pubs were
closed or transformed by the marketing expertise of the ' big five ' breweries ;
local cinemas were closed in favour of the city centre multi-screen complexes ;
betting shops have been subject to take-overs (and the inevitable ' rationaliza­
tion ' ) by the big leisure companies. The dense sociability (as well as the
backbiting and local gossi p) of the corner shop has been displaced by the
depersonalized relationships of the super- (or hyper-) market . 10
The local geography of cult ural institutions, and the networks of social
relations which they make possible, has cha nged dramatically (except on
Coronation Street). Occasionally, the conseq uences of this wholesale destruc­
tion of stable geographical patterns has generated a wish to revive ' com-
 Cultures of difference 63

munity ' . Through the 1 960s and ' 70s, both local and central government
confronted urban blight, · pockets of poverty ' , vandalism and other symptoms
of decay with a deep sense of nostalgia for · community spiri t ' .
The response was t o sponsor a whole variety o f ' community ' based
initiatives and projects aimed at reconstructing local pride, local networks,
local action - the social virtues which had somehow got lost in the geographical
reconstruction of class. Some of these projects were directed to the new estates
(which appeared to lack a sense of identity) and others to the unreconstructed
inner-city areas still populated by those too old, too poor to too stubborn
to take advantage of the benefits of redevelopment. There, some of the ' old
ways ' lingered on rubbing uneasily alongside an arrival of ' new ways ' - of
migrant workers seeking housing which escaped the discrimination of both
private and state sectors, and of ' young professionals ' in search of areas with
· character ' .

Traces, sediments and ne w formations

The transition from the old to the new working class is not an abrupt one,
and the trajectory of the inner cities highlights some of the processes of
change. Residual groups of the old (and white) working class were left behind
in the rush of affluence. Often the elderly, with patterns of life dominated by
the lessons and habits of the past, regulated by the routines of shop, pub,
club or chapel, preserved - with little choice - some of the old ways, even as
the conditions which had supported that culture were eroded around them .
As Coates and Silburn ( 1 970) put it in their study ofSt Anne's in Nottingham,
they were the ' forgotten Englishmen ' - although they were also the forgotten
•

Englishwomen ' . Working class culture always had its defensive features - the
mutual supports of ' us ' againt ' them ' - but under these conditions, these
defences became both increasingly desperate and nostalgic. The mobility and
hedonism of affluence sat uncomfortably with the locatedness and respect­
ability which were powerful themes of inter-war working class culture. In, but
not of, this world of change, the old was defended because the new had no
meaning or reality. These defensive traditions came to coexist uneasily with
more assertive cultural forms which developed in the inner cities. Some areas
experienced ' gentrification ' - the rehabilitation of old terraces by the new
middle classes : mobile, in search of housing but scornful of the new suburbia
and its visage of bland respectability. Habitat lived next door to the Coop.
This mix of youth and age was one form of recomposition of the inner cities
but race was its other - more visible - axis.
Just as the inter-war working class had found the location and density of
the inner city suitable conditions for a defensive and supportive culture, so
too ethnic cultures, confronted by the increasingly overt racism of white
British society, found a suitable base there, and began to develop their own
cultural institutions. This intersection of ' new ' ethnic cultures with the old
64 John Clarke

geography of class is not coincidental . In the 1 950s, migrant labour was

wanted for those · old ' sectors of the British economy (textiles, clothing, heavy
manufacturing) where the demand for cheap labour to feed the fires of
Britain's industrial expansion was at its highest. Necessarily, then, thei r
economic character as cheap labour meant their distribution followed the
pattern of the old industries and their urban centres : M anchester, Leeds,
Bradford, the East and West M idlands, and London .
Similarly, within these cities, the residential and social fonns for ethnic
groups became the old inner-city areas. Excluded from council housing and
from the ' good ' areas of private housing through a variety of racist
mechanisms, they found that some of the old housing of the inner cities (like
jobs in the old industries) was available because it was being left behind by
the mobile and affluent sections of the white working class. In the Handsworths,
Toxteths and Brixtons, the decline of ' traditional ' working class culture took
place alongside the growth of ethnic cultures. The decaying M ethodist chapel
was overlooked by the new Sikh temple ; local cinemas not rescued by Mecca
or Ladbrokes to be bingo halls were reopened to show Asian films ; the groups
of youths hanging about on street corners became dreadlocked West Indians
rather than white skinheads. In these ways, then, the diversity of ethnic
cultures came to be overlaid on the geographical pattern of old working class
cultures . 1 1
M eanwhile, what of the newer, more mobile working class - o ff t o the New
Towns and new estates ? It would be misleading to see this movement as a
simple and total surrender to the new privatized consumer society. No doubt
there was an increase of ' home-based leisure ' and a rise in the purchase of
consumer goods. But the _conditions of class are not so easily removed.
Affluence, while it lasted, was always fragile - hedged by the possibilities of
sickness and unemployment, and underpinned as much by the increase in hire
purchase as by rising incomes. The ' never-never ' was the route to the
consumer paradise. Here, too, traces of the old ways persisted - drink,
gambling and sport remained the predominant male working class leisure
pursuits. And new fonns of cultural difference were constructed out of the
new conditions : working men's clubs ' modernized ' themselves in the image
of market taste in decor and entertainment while stubbonly retaining their
distinctive membership structures, internal democracy and institutionalized
male dominance.
In surveys of the new leisure society, the working class consistently
participate less - retaining a degree of cultural separation even in television
viewing. BBC-2 still encounters a stubborn resistance to Reithian cultural
improvement, only winning working class audiences for its forays into
televised sport. The patterns of life are being remade, but hardly completely
anew. Aspects of old structures persist along with traces of old cultures.
Women's changing position in paid employment has not undermined their
primary responsibility for domestic labour - the re-creation of labour power.
 Cultures of difference 65

Equally, the increasing mechanization of domestic labour has not abolished

its gender specificity. The home remains the site of the woman's ' labour of
love ' .
I t is too early t o tell what ' new ' cultures may emerge around this new
geography. The old patterns have been undermined, but new ways of life have
not yet solidified into distintive cultural shapes. This is not particularly
surprising. The old cultures stood in the way of a very powerful vision of
Britain's future - an expanding economy, full employment, high wages and
the consumer paradise. But that dream has turned into a nightmare. The
economic, geographical and cultural consequences of boom do not fit easily
with those accompanying recession. One example may suffice to show the
speed of this turn around.
I n the 1 960s, the search for the ' new ' working class focused on the car
workers. They - the affluent, mobile, mass-production workers - were the
vanguard of change and progress. Fifteen years after The Affluent Worker was
published, this identification of car workers as the advance guard seems true
only in the most cruelly ironic way. The car industry (and its workers) has
faithfully reflected the dynamics of British capitalism : closures, redundancies,
increasing proportions of production transferred overseas, the substitution
of new technology for labour, and British plants becoming assembly rather
than manufacturing enterprises. H alewood, Dagenham, Longbridge, Ryton,
Linwood, Luton and the new estates surrounding them may still be the
' vanguard ' - a signpost to the future. But the future which they now
represent is a long way from the self-confident assertion of affluence and the
end of class. It is a future of decline.

In search of the new Britain

This chapter began by tracing the way in which class and class cultures were
embedded in the geography of British capitalism. Nation, region and locality
had contours along which stable and well understood class boundaries took
shape in the inter-war period. I have tried to show how changes in post-war
British capitalism have transformed these once stable patterns. The economic
composition of class has bee n changed ; the patterns of class cultures have
been disrupted ; and the geography of class and culture has been restructured.
Nor have these processes of economic, cultural and spatial rearrangement
come to a standstill. No new certainties have emerged to replace the old
familiar patterns.
Nostalgia for a sense of place that once was is built into this dynamic of
change, as the disruption of the familiar is softened by a sense of the past.
The new geography of difference may acquire its own stable cultural patterns
and boundaries, but as yet, the contemporary cultures of difference are an
unstable and uncertain mix of the old and the new.
I n this process of change, there is no simple replacement of old cul tures
66 John Clarke

by new cultural forms. As was indicated earlier, old patterns are defended
and maintained in the face of destabilizing social experience. Resistance to
the threat of the new takes many forms, ranging from trade union defence
ofjobs and working practices in the face of new technology to the maintenance
of church and chapel attendance in the face of growing secularization. At
other points, old cultural patterns cross-cut and slide into emerging ones - the
growing involvement of women trade unionists in previously male-dominated
organizations, or the growth of new religious activity (the temples and West
Indian fundamentalist Christianity) alongside the established practices of
church and chapel. This process is one in which resistance and negotiation
are combined in the transformation of cultural forms and practices.
In all of these processes, place - the social geography of Britain - has
played a central role. Economic change has had a disti nctive geographical
shape. As before, Britain is divided along the North-South axis but it is not
the same pattern of difference. Scotland, Wales, the Northeast, the Northwest,
the Midlands are marked by the process of decline, while the new hi-tech
ind ustries in the Southeast and East promise a new economic miracle. The
old urban centres have borne the brunt of the dynamics of both expansion
and contraction - losing jobs and population to the peripheries and leaving
the inner city as the desolate symbol of economic and social decline.
This changing geography has not simply reflected economic change, it is
itself part of the process of change as capital and labour face one another
in new locations, each bringing their own distinctive history to bear upon the
direction of cultural change. The geographical attachments of class cultures
have been fractured, and new cultures of class may emerge, attempting to
solidify a new sense of place on the shifting sands of British society in the
1 980s.

Notes

This article draws heavily on collaborative work with Chas Critcher, and
has benefited from discussions with John Allen and Doreen Massey. I am
grateful to all three.
2 Bennett ( 1 983) and Thompson ( 1 983) provide suggestive analyses of the
cultural ' pleasures ' of Blackpool. As far as I know, Eastbourne has not
received comparable attention.
3 The mass culture thesis can be found in Rosenberg and White, eds.
• •

( 1 957). Hall and Whannel ( 1 964) provides an early critical response.

4 The studies cited here are : Young and Willmott ( 1 962) ; Dennis et a/.
( 1 969) and Hoggart ( 1 959).
5 For analyses of the relationship between youth and class see Hall and
Jefferson, eds. ( 1 976).
6 For a fuller discussion of this point, see Critcher ( 1 979) and Clarke
( 1 979).
7 Massey ( 1 983) traces this reorganization of labour and its geographical
conseq uences.
 Cultures of difference 67

8 Darner ( 1 983) analyses the economic and social policies affecting

Linwood and their consequences for the local working class.
9 Ham nett ( 1 983) provides a survey of changing housing patterns in
post-war Britain.
10 A fuller analysis of the changes in consumption and the market is
provided in Clarke and Critcher ( 1 985), chapter 4.
I I Hall et a/. ( 1 978), chapter 1 0, and Rex and Tomlinson ( 1 979) provide
fuller accounts of ethnic cultures and their place in the inner city.

References

T. Bennett ( 1 983). " A thousand and one troubles : Blackpool Pleasure

Beach ", in Formations of Pleasure. Routledge and Kegan Paul,
London.
J . Clarke ( 1 979). " Culture and Capital : the post-war working class
revisited ", in Clarke et a/., 1 979.
J. Clarke et al. ( 1 979). Working Class Culture : studies in history and
theory. Hutchinson, London.
J. Clarke and C. Critcher ( 1 985). The Devil Makes Work : Leisure in
Capitalist Britain. Macmillan, London.
K. Coates and A. Silburn ( 1 970). Poverty : The Forgotten Englishmen.
Penguin, Harmondsworth.
C. Critcher ( 1 979). " Sociology, cultural studies and the working class ",
in Clarke et al. , 1 979.
S. Darner ( 1 983). " Life after Linwood ? " , paper to British Sociological
Association Annual conference, April 1 983.
N . Dennis et al. ( 1 969). Coal Is Our Life. Tavistock, London.
J . Goldthorpe et al. ( 1 969). The Affluent Worker : 3 vols. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
S. Hall and P. Whannel ( 1 964). The Popular A rts. Chatto and Windus,
London.
S. Hall and T. Jefferson, eds ( 1 976). Resistance through Rituals.
Hutchinson, London.
S. Hall et al. ( 1 978). Policing the Crisis. Macmillan, London.
C. Hamnett ( 1 983). " The New Geography of Britain's Housing ", New
Society, I S December.
R. Hoggart ( 1 959). The Uses of Literacy. Penguin, Harmondsworth.
P. Johnson ( 1 964). " The menace of Beatlism ", New Statesman, 28
February.
D. M assey ( 1 983). " The shape of things to come ", Marxism Today,
March.
J. Rex and S. Tomlinson ( 1 979). Colonia/ Immigrants in a British City.
Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
B. Rosenberg and D. White, eds. ( 1 957). Mass Culture. Glencoe Free
Press, New York.
G. Thompson ( 1 983). " Carnival and the calculable ", in Formations of
Pleasure. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
M. Young and P. Willmott ( 1 962). Family and Kinship in East London.
Penguin, Harmondsworth.
 4
The spaced out urban economy
M ICHAEL BALL

Introduction
It is commonplace to anyone that has ever lived in or seen a large city that
you have to travel to do almost anything. Going to work, to the shops, to
the cinema, a restaurant, to the hospital, school, community centre - then
back home - are just a few of the daily activities that involve some form of
travel. The journeys themselves could be made in different ways : by walking,
by cycle or car ; or by some form of public transport, like the bus or train.
And as you travel around a city, it is equally obvious that, to varying degrees,
activities are functionally clustered. The city centre has offices and the
principal shops ; there are factory districts ; warehousing centres ; residential
areas separated by social status and date of construction ; an entertainments
district ; out-of-town megastores, and so on. Once you look in detail at these
broad, functional spatial separations, even closer specialisations emerge. The
City of London, for example, is often just regarded as the financial centre, but
within it there is a myriad of specialist centres : legal, printing, jewellery,
insurance, banking, stock dealing, shipping and commodities dealing. Once
such spatial specializations emerge, they have a remarkable tendency to
survive for a long time. Yet they are not immutable, as the waves of
deindustrialization that have hit Britain have shown.
Empirically it is difficult to deny that space matters when looking at
economic life. Even the most casual observer of a city has to conclude that
spatial differentiation is important for the way in which economic activities
in a city operate. Yet translating that empirical obviousness into a coherent
economic analysis of cities is not so easy.
Two types of question can be asked about how economic processes work
across space. The first is : what does the barrier of distance do to the economic
activities that have to confront it? This type of question leads to the general
issues of why cities exist and how activities within any urban area relate
together. The second type of question recognizes that such abstract notions
of space are not enough. It asks the question : what does the existence of an
already entrenched spatial differentiation of economic and social life do to
the current operation of economic activity ?
Space is not simply a friction which economic activities have to overcome.
68
 The spaced out urban economy 69

Instead, spatial differentiation also implants a fixity on economic activities.

Cities are where they are, and take the historic forms they have because they
cannot be moved round at will. This is what makes analysis of the effects of
spatial differentiation on the economic life of cities so difficult, yet so
fascinating.
I shall start with the features that draw the network of economic activities
in an urban area together. Once having looked at them, the chapter moves
on to some of the equally important features of space that make the economic
life of each urban area so distinct.

Why towm?
A good way to start considering the spatial relations associated with urban
life is to ask a basic question : what is the economic rationale of towns? Why
do all the economic activities associated with urban life cluster together, rather
than spread out across the countryside ? The answer obviously has something
to do with the barriers created by space. Two types of enquiry can be made
into the advantages of such clustering. One concerns the clustering together
in reasonably close spatial proximity of the different facets of urban life :
workplaces, homes, shops, and transportation networks. These different
facets of urban life are functionally interlinked.
A description of the emergence of a township around a new steelworks,
for example, brings out the interlinkages. First, housing for the steelworkers
is built along with shops and rudimentary entertainment and community
facilities. Businesses set up to sell to and service the population and the
steelworks itself. Other firms might also be attracted by the labour force pool
that emerges in the town and by the developing transportation links with other
parts of the economy. Eventually, as the town grows, employment in the
steelworks might become only a relatively small part of the jobs available in
the town.
Such stories can be told particularly for nineteenth-century and early
twentieth-century towns, when low incomes and limited transportation
systems made travel difficult for much of the population. The emergence of
large governmental or military centres produces similar results (Washington
DC and Canberra, Australia, being two good examples). Docks and trans­
portation nodes would add other case studies. But each of these examples does
not explain why so many similar activities cluster closely together in urban
a reas. They ignore, in other words, one of the major pulls of urban areas :
agglomeration economies, which are the second general explanation for the
existence of towns. Agglomeration economies refer to the economic benefits
activities gain from clustering together. Agglomeration economies bring out
clearly some of the causes and effects of spatial differentiation in urban areas,
so they will be considered prior to a more detailed examination of functional
interlinkages.
70 Michael Ball

The pull of agglomeration economies

Spatial differentiation creates a communications barrier. If two people are
working at different locations, and need to talk face-to-face, one of them (or
both) has to travel to their meeting place. If they have to be in frequent direct
contact, there are considerable advantages in being permanently located near
each other, as it avoids the costs and inconvenience of many long journeys.
It similarly costs time and money to ship goods around. So suppliers of parts
to a factory might find it expedient to locate near to that factory. So far only
two examples of agglomeration economies have been specified . In fact, such
benefits are extremely varied, and depend on the particular activity in
question. Many, though not all, arise from the nature of exchange across
space. The trading of commodities, in other words, reacts to the information,
time and money costs of distance by creating clusters of economic activity.
Agglomeration economies start to reveal some of the economic mechanisms
that structure activities in a city, and show how important spatial differentiation
is to them . The benefits of agglomeration can be understood only in the
context of their opposite, namely the potential gains to be derived from using
distance to minimize the threat of competitors or to avoid the high land costs
of locations where many activities want to cluster. So discussion of
agglomeration economies will have to look at the push and pull of locational
attraction. Moreover, the success of agglomeration economies can lead to
their own undoing by creating subsequent diseconomies in the form of high
rents and congestion .
Retailing illustrates the attractions and disattractions of clustering together.
Customers have to travel to shops, so the further they have to go the stronger
must be the pull of the shop, either because it is cheaper or because it offers
services not available at closer locations. The costs of crossing space create
two pulls on the location of shops. The first is that of monopoly. Benefits
can be derived by having a relatively captive clientele that has to travel long
distances to buy at a competitor's outlet. The traditional corner shop is a
mini-example of the monopolistic position retailers can gain because of the
barrier of distance. It takes time to travel to the next shop, so shopkeepers
can pitch their prices accordingly, and survive on low turnovers which do not
gain the economies associated with the high volumes of the major multiples.
Yet such monopolistic advantages frequently are outweighed by the con­
venience shoppers find in having shops clustered together. In the local
shopping street, the benefits to the retailer of clustering can be combined with
those of monopoly when the shops sell different things.
Other retailers are far more concerned to maximize the catchment area from
which they draw thei r customers than to use the barrier of space to create
a localised monopolistic advantage. Out-of-town stores take advantage oflow
land prices and good road networks to attract customers from a wide area.
Their low overhead costs combined with the economies derived from a high
 The spaced out urban economy 71

turnover enable them to lower prices below those of their localised smaller
competitors.
City centres, as the ' central place ' of minimum average travelling ti me from
all points in an urban area (and beyond), are ideal locations for specialist
shops and department stores. Both need a large catchment area to generate
sufficient custom. The city centre and suburban shopping nodes, therefore,
are ideal locations for them. The city centre has particular benefits for the
retailers of commodities which customers like to compare before they buy,
as occurs with clothes, furniture and hi-fi equipment, for example. In large
cities, the central shopping area may develop distinct specialist shopping
districts as a result.
Specialist shops clustering together provide one example of the impact of
information when it is spread across a number of points in space. Mistakes
in the acts of buying and selling can result if an exchange transaction is not
made with the best information available. This point can be generalized to
many other city centre activities. This is clearly the case for financial markets
and commodity dealing. The informal networks which surround such
markets become readily available to the individual participant who locates
at the centre-of-things. Trends on the Stock Exchange and world money
markets need to be known fairly instantaneously. M ost activities that have
a high element of fashion consciousness in their products similarly benefit
from clustering in the city centre. Clothes designers, the media and the
entertainments industries find it difficult not to have at least part of thei r
activities located centrally.

Fixing locational pressures

The agglomeration economies discussed so far have placed emphasis on
economic advantages to individual firms. All such arguments can suggest is
that firms gain advantages from clustering together. Yet the clustering can
take place at any location. Nothing that has been said so far .fixes the
agglomerations at particular points. The historical evolution of an urban area
and the permanence and fixity of its built environment turns such location-free
pressures to agglomerate into actual pressures to locate at a specific point in
a particular city.
A cumulative inertia builds up because, once a cluster of activities has
emerged to take advantage of agglomeration economies, those economies can
be achieved only by locating there. Apart from the need to locate where others
do, the provision of buildings in the district to house those activities and a
street pattern and transportation network to service its needs grad ually
emerge. Their existence continues to create advantages long after the initial
impetus for locating in a district has passed .
Transportation networks are one of the most important features creating
attractive nodes for agglomeration. Once tran spo rt at i on systems evolve. they
72 Michael Ball

tend to be augmented gradually rather than radically transformed . Only with

major shifts in the dominant form of transport (say, from the horse-drawn
carriage to the motor car), or when governments decide to overhaul
intra-urban road systems with urban motorways, or to introduce new
mass-transit systems, are there dramatic shifts in pre-existing transportation
networks. The sheer cost of radical change in transportation systems implants
an inertia to points of agglomeration. Moreover, as central areas generate
the greatest congestion, new transport networks are added to feed them, so
the inertia is encouraged by mutually reinforcing processes. However, even
new investments might be insufficient to overcome an increasing congestion
of nodal locations, which can act as a major disincentive to further agglomera­
tion. Such transportation networks can then make decentralization feasible
as they enable links to the city centre to be sustained.
The history of technical evolutions in transportation has had an important
influence on the structure of cities and the spatial distribution of their
economic activities. The slow speed and high cost oflocal horse transportation
in the nineteenth century, for example, forced wholesaling and warehousing
activities to cluster centrally near to railheads, canals and docks. Late
twentieth-century motorway networks, on the other hand, encourage the
decentralization of much warehousing activity. Spacious, mechanized, low
rent warehouses at the crossing points of two motorways are now frequently
far more attractive than their outmoded forebears in the congested streets of
city centres. The relative permanence of the built environment, nonetheless,
means that the patterns of urban structure laid down under a now non-existent
economic rationale still exert a strong influence on current patterns of
economic life. The basic pattern of street and rail networks, for example, may
have emerged in past centuries. The buildings of the past often still remain
as well. Returning to the warehousing example, most city centres that used
to have substantial warehousing districts now see the warehouses that remain
converted into offices, studios, shops, restaurants and art galleries ; everything,
in fact, that goes to make up a Covent Garden in London or a Soho in New
York.
The physical inertia of city structures is complemented by a similar inertia
in the spatial distribution of people. This complementarity is not surprising
as living patterns are determined to a large extent by the distribution of the
existing built environment as well as by job opportunities (everyone, for
instance, needs somewhere to live). Patterns of population distribution exert
another set of historically determined influences on location decisions.
Populations need servicing with their everyday requirements (schools, medical
facilities, shops, entertainments, etc.), and they constitute a potential work­
force. These characteristics are further drives for firms to set up in urban areas.
The characteristics of the populations distributed across space also vary .
Some localities might have a tradition of a particular skill, whereas others
might have pools of cheap, unskilled labour. Such variations attract particular
firms to areas where their workforce requirements are most easily met.
 The spaced out urban economy 73

Pressures for locational change

Other features encouraging agglomeration could be added to the list given
so far. But at this stage it is important to stress that, although the nature of
the built environment and its historical evolution generate considerable
inertia to urban location patterns, there is still a dynamic process of change
continually going on. The built environment gets refashioned, slowly but
surely, by both the state and private development interests. Populations shift
through the cumulative process of thousands of different moves. Accumulation
processes in industries lead to changes in production methods and in
workforce requirements.
The importance of changes in methods of production and the means by
which they occur place agglomeration economies in context. The significance
of agglomeration economies depends on : the production process in question ;
the degree to which it can be segmented spatially ; and the conditions of
commodity exchange in which production is placed - including workforce
requirements, as well as the buying of other inputs for production and the
selling of the final output. The changing location patterns of warehousing,
for example, have already been mentioned. They are a case where the pull
of centre city locations has been severely weakened over time, so that the
propensity to cluster has been transferred to other non-city centre sites. Cases
arise with other activities where changes in production involve a segmentation
of its location. In this way, the new production methods may enable the firm
to take advantage both of centrality and of locating elsewhere.
Certain types of office employment illustrate the potential advantages that
can be derived from such a strategy. M ost benefits of locating in centre city
offices for, say, a large multinational corporation or a financial institution
relate only to certain functions. For the administrative headquarters of a large
multinational firm, the benefits of personal contacts, international travel
connections, the cultural and entertainments milieux and the prestige of the
big city address are essentially characteristics affecting a relatively small layer
of management and its financial support staff. Yet often such management
functions can only be spatially separated from the other routinized, clerical
functions of administration by incurring substantial organization inefficiencies
and high travel costs. The high rents and the greater labour costs of centre
city locations may consequently have to be paid for all office functions, even
if only a few of them actually gained benefits from locating there. A similar
argument holds for many financial activities.
Locational options are at the centre of the choices open to a firm when
changing its office technology. Computers, for instance, replace administrative
staff, reducing the overall cost of an administrative operation staying in a city
centre. Alternatively, some activities can remain at a much reduced city centre
headquarters, whilst others are decentralized to take advantage of lower rents
and cheaper labour costs. The enhanced ability to separate functions with the
advent of new computer-based office technology could lead to a firm setting
74 Michael Ball

up a number of offices at different locations to tap specific advantages : say,

a pool of cheap, part-time female labour for routine administrative functions
in one office, and a research and development centre located elsewhere in an
attractive ' rural ' envi ronment to attract scarce research staff. Alternatively,
the whole operation could be decentralized. Each option has advantages and
disadvantages which vary for the precise activity in question. It is fairly
obvious, however, that the choice of option influences the content of the
technology adopted. The new spatial patterns that emerge are not, therefore,
simply results of the technology in question but influence its form and the
potential future developments it can take.

Functional linkages in the urban economy

Clearly patterns of economic life in cities do not happen by chance. One
important systematic component is the functional relations between different
types of economic activity. When describing such interconnected activities,
it does not matter which component you start with, as the linkages are not
linear but constitute complex, multi-connected, never-ending circles of
production, exchange and consumption. The factories of industrial capital,
for instance, need a transport system to ship their inputs and outputs around,
and a workforce to produce their commodities ; those workers, in turn, need
housing, places to buy food and the other necessities of life ; the need for
schools, hospitals, libraries, public transport and assorted welfare services
encourages state intervention ; private agencies emerge to service the popula­
tion ; factories develop to provide commodities for those private agencies, for
the state, or directly to consumers. Such interconnections, of course, extend
beyond the boundary of a single urban area to the world economy as a whole.
Some, obviously, have to be localized and limited to the city and its environs :
those elements associated with the built environment, such as housing,
hospitals, and transport systems are obvious, but not the only case of such
necessary localization . In addition, the larger the town the greater are the
number of functions that take place within it and, hence, the greater the
interlinkages at the urban level itself.
Descriptions of functional linkages at the urban level can be extensive and
complicated, but there are likely to be descriptions with which more or less
everybody agrees. Theories, however, are needed to explain how and why
those particular linkages arise. There has been much disagreement over the
explanations that have emerged (and the theories underlying them). M any
analysts have interpreted the functional linkages that exist at the urban level
as separable from the wider economy. There is consequently said to be an
identifiable urban economy and theories of how it ' works ' . Alternatively, it
has been suggested that the urban areas have one prime function, the
maintenance of the workforce, and that this general economic function can
be understood only by looking at urban areas.
 The spaced out urban economy 75

No theory which gives primacy to a particular spatial level seems very

satisfactory. The closure of a steelworks, for example, might decimate the
economic life of the town in which it is situated, but the cause of the closure
is as likely to be a world slump in steel demand as much as any locational
factor. Yet locational factors in the broadest sense must be part of the
explanation of why it was that steel plant which closed rather than another.
The reasons obviously depend on the precise historical circumstances. The
works might have been full of outmoded plant, for example ; or the workforce
may have been particularly successful in resisting management speed-ups and
changes in work practices in the past ; or the plant may be part of a company
that is in financial difficulty as a whole, whereas it would have survived as
part of a financially stronger enterprise. But to explain the closure of that
steelworks, spatial differentiation has to play a central part in combination
with the general level of economic activity. It is not possible, in other words,
to give primacy to one spatial level. If this is so for one urban economic
activity, it is also true for others and, hence, for the linkages between them .
Assertion of the primacy of particular urban linkages, however, has artificially
to close off such complex reactions between different spatial levels.
Even issues associated with state provision have such similarly complex
spatial interlinkages. The spate of closures of much needed hospitals in
Bri tain in the 1 980s has been undertaken by local area health authorities with
substantial implications for the spatial distribution of health care facilities.
Yet explanations of why those hospitals went has to range over a whole
variety of issues, some local and some not. The physical state and size of the
hospital, the population it served, the degree of local mass political
mobilization, the politics of the health authority itself are all localized
elements of the explanation. Yet interspliced with them has to be an
understanding of why the health cuts occurred and the reasons for the forms
they took. In part, such questions concern administrative structures and
powers, such as the legal powers M inisters of Health have to direct health
authorities, but other issues are raised as well. Why, for example, were cuts
directed at service provision, instead of at the procurement policies of the
National Health Service (NHS), and at the profits of the drug companies from
whom the NHS is forced to buy ? (M any services and hospitals had
disappeared before any attempt was made to reduce these costs.)
The point of both of these examples is to suggest that it is very difficult
to understand any economic event occurring in an urban area by limiting the
explanation to one spatial level, such as the urban '. In this sense, there is
•

nothing that can be conceptualized as the urban economy (in the jargon, it
is not a theoretical object). The term is perhaps a useful descriptive one but
its role cannot be extended to provide the basis for a theory of the urban
economy. In one way or another, to do so is to grant an unfounded primacy
to one spatial level .
But, just as it is impossible to limit economic analysis to the urban lev!-! 1
76 Michael Ball

alone, it is also impossible to substitute a simple spatial hierarchy instead .

Explanation cannot cascade down a spatial hierarchy, starting with develop­
ments in world capitalism and ending up with some particular urban locality.
Such approaches treat spatial differentiation as essentially residual, as
something to be considered once the big stuff is out of the way. This ignores
the complexity of spatial linkages, suggested earlier. In particular, it ignores
by default the historical and spatial contexts in which global events, like the
accumulation of capital, are played out.
To point out the weaknesses of urban theories which start off from the idea
of an interlinked urban economy does not mean, of course, that more
adequate theories should ignore those linkages. Two points, in particular, can
be made at this stage : one relates to the fact that linkages do not necessarily
emerge, and the other to the role of space in understanding the linkages that
exist.

(i) The absence offunctional necessity

I t is easy to describe, as was done earlier, the evolution of a town in terms
of a large industrial plant setting up. Such a pattern of urban growth,
however, describes a likely pattern of development rather than an inevitable
one. In it, the functional linkages did emerge but there was no explanation
of how they developed. Once that question is asked, it can be seen that often
the functions do not emerge, or do so only in a limited way. There are
numerous cases when, say, a housing estate is built with few or no shopping
or community facilities provided, or with an inadequate bus service. Similarly,
there might be insufficient housing available for all the workers needed by
the factories in a town : a problem which plagued many industrial centres in
Britain in the 1 950s and 60s.
Although the notion of function linkages has been couched in somewhat
neutral, almost technical, terms, absences in those linkages in fact create
differential social effects for each social class (and groupings within classes).
A housing shortage in a locality, for instance, might be a problem for
capitalist employers, as they cannot get the workforce they need from the
available population. But the shortage obviously affects that population itself
much more directly in rising housing costs, long waiting lists and poor
housing conditions. Moreover, it is those in the weakest position in the
housing system that lose out the most.

(ii) Functional interlinkages across space

The linkages between the different aspects of urban life imply that the
spatial dimension is crucial to them . Yet, while some activities must interlink
within a limited urban area, they have to compete with each other for space
within that city. No two activities can share the same locality, each has to
 The spaced out urban economy 77

be at a different point in space. Spatial differentiation within an urban area

is a physical necessity. That physical necessity gives the owners of land and
property within the urban area enormous power as they own the sites and
buildings where any activity has to locate. So the competition for land leads
once again into the question of how activities that exist in urban areas get
their bit of the city provided for them.
Spatial differentiation within urban areas creates the possibility of an
unequal distribution of facilities across space. Some areas might have good
health care facilities and schools whilst others are poorly provided . Such
differentiations are important down to quite local districts, given such
boundaries as the demarcation of school catchment areas. As social groups
are similarly arrayed unequally across space, localities of multiple deprivation
are likely to arise. The less spatially mobile are likely to suffer the most from
such an uneven distribution. Again, they are likely to be lower income
families. Households without cars cannot afford, or public transport networks
make it physically impossible, to travel to the cheapest shopping districts, or
to range across the urban area looking for housing or for work. It makes little
difference to an unemployed, low wage manual worker living in an inner city
district that equivalent, low paid work is available in some suburb. H ousing
costs are likely to make it impossible to move to the suburb and transportation
costs make it difficult to travel there from hisjher present home.
The picture of functional interlinkage within an urban area, therefore, is
complex. Specific social groups mesh in with particular activities, yet that
meshing requires linkages to be made between specific districts of the city.
Problems arise which can affect the functioning of the whole city. These
problems are historically contingent. An example from modern office activity
illustrates the point. The office uses that push up ground rents in central city
areas rely on the existence of a large, low wage, manual workforce to service
the buildings themselves, and to attend to the daily needs of office employees
in the transportation systems, shops, restaurants, bars and cinemas used by
them, and literally to clean up the city centre ready for another working day.
Yet increasingly the demands on land by these offices and their effects on land
costs make it difficult to sustain even the meanest ofcentre city accommodation
for that low income workforce. Long journeys to work result or labour
shortages arise despite high unemployment elsewhere.
Functional linkages across urban space may cut across different political
jurisdictions. An urban agglomeration may have a number oflocal government
areas within it, and a hierarchy of metropolitan government, as has existed
throughout Britain since 1 974. Other public service agencies, such as those
associated with health, the police, transportation and water, may also have
different geographical boundaries. The ability of local government and other
public agencies to provide services and intervene into particular urban
problems is constrained by the existence of such a political geography.
In some instances, distinct local municipalities become arenas of social
78 Michael Ball

conflict with certain social groups using their control of them to exclude others
from the locali ty or to keep their tax bills low at the expense of others. The
large number of suburban municipalities surrounding most large cities in the
U nited States are used in this way, for example. Devices such as zoning
ordinances ensure that lower income households cannot move into a wealthy
area, while suburbanites gain the benefits of using city centre public facilities
without having to pay for them or for the other services provided by the
central city government. Successive local government reforms in Britain have
limited such a fragmentation of local government (although the proposed
abolition of the metropolitan authorities threatens to enhance it again). Yet
still there are clear examples of such political manipulation at the local level.
Suburban local authorities under pressure from their local populations have
managed successfully to forestall widespread development of suburban
council housing since 1 945, while London provides one of the best known
examples in the field of public transport, when an outer London borough,
Bromley, forced the G reater London Council to reverse its cheap fares policy
in 1 98 1 .

The social creation of the built environment

Consideration of how the activities of an urban area get fixed in space
requi res an examination of the way in which buildings and the physical
infrastructure (i.e. the built environment) are created. M any urban theories
see urban areas simply as places where things happen, and the built
environment as just a passive backdrop. But the built forms of cities have
to be produced and maintained as much as the activities that take place within
them . Under capitalism, moreover, enormous revenues are appropriated
through the provision and ownership of buildings : by landowners, property
developers, landlords and other building owners, financial capital and the
state (especially via property taxes).
The bui lt environment gets created and reproduced in many ways. If we
look at the agencies instigating new building work this variety can be seen
clearly : central government builds the main roads ; other public authorities
(with central government approval) build hospitals and water, sewage, gas
and electricity transmission systems ; whilst local au thorities build schools,
community facilities and counci l housing. The public sector generally builds
the infrastructure and public facili ties around which private developers build
offices, shops and most housing. As private developers need the state to
provide the necessary infrastructure for their construction projects, the state
becomes involved in one way or another with most facets of urban develop­
ment. In modern Britain. this interface between the state and the private
developer is often mediated through the land-use planning system .
Looking at the instigators of development alone is not sufficient to tell us
how development takes place, beca use a number of social agents have to be
 The spaced out urban economy 79

brought together to get building done. Land has to be acqui red, finance
obtained, and the project constructed. There are. in other words, a series of
social relations of building provision rather than simply different types of
building product and owners of them. Housing illustrates the variety of social
relations that can arise.
M odern-day owner occupied housing in Britain is mainly built by speculative
housebuilders. They acq uire land from private landowners and need planning
permission from the state before development can start. New owner occupied
houses are sold on the general market for owner occupied housing, where they
have to compete with existing owner occupiers selling thei r houses, and with
conversions from other tenures. House purchasers, moreover, generally have
to obtain mortgages to finance their purchases. So the social relations of owner
occupied housing provision involve relations between private landowners,
speculative housebuilders, building workers, market exchange professionals
(such as estate agents and surveyors), mortgage finance institutions (particu­
larly building societies), and owner occupiers as purchasers and sellers of
housing.
Council housing, on the other hand, is associated with very different social
relations of provision. The relationship to landowners has some similarities,
as local authori ties try to assemble sites on the open market. Powers of
compulsory acquisition, however, make it difficult for a recalci trant landowner
to hold out for an exorbi tant price. To finance their housing projects, councils
are required to take out sixty-year loans at interest rates set by a combination
of administrative procedures and contemporary market rates. The building
of council housing is generally undertaken by capitalist building contractors,
who employ other building firms and workers in complex patterns of
subcontracting. Sometimes councils employ their own direct labour depart­
ments instead of contractors. Tenants enter council housing through admin­
istrative procedures (waiting lists, housing points, etc.) and are subject to
similarly set rent levels and management procedures.
Both the detailed content and the overall nature of present day owner
occupied and council housing provision are historical products. The broad
lines of each evolved during the inter-war years, but considerable detai led
change has gone on since then.
The historically specific social relations associated with a type of building
provision can be called a structure of building provision. Each one has
important consequences for the spatial organization of a city and whether
any particular function, described earlier, is provided or not. Speculative
house builders, for example, like to build on suburban greenfield si tes to avoid
the costs of site clearance and servicing in inner city areas. Precisely where
and how much they build depends on the power of landowners, the
inducements of the planning system, and the contemporary state of the owner
occupied housing market. In the inter-war years, the result was suburban
sprawl with minimal community facilities. In the 1 980s, their developments
80 M ichae/ Ball

are spatially more spread out and much smaller in scale. Council housing,
on the other hand, has been associated with inner city clearance schemes and
large scale suburban overspill. Considerably more planned in nature, the
extent of council housebuilding, its location and the built form it takes are
partly products of what its structure of provision can cope with (contractors,
for example, do not seem to be able to build cheaply or, often, very well).
But much depends on the political and administrative processes of central
government.
The historical development of a city and the spatial patterns that have
emerged within it affect the locations of developments in each housing form .
The clearing of slums and the building of new council housing obviously can
only take place where slums exist. Alternatively, up-market owner occupied
schemes generally have to gravitate towards already existing high income
areas. The future development of an urban area cannot be understood, in
other words, without knowledge of its past patterns of development.
Perhaps the clearest instance of the significance for building provision of
the spatial patterns that emerged in the past occurs in the relationship between
the existing housing stock and new housebuilding. In most urban areas, new
housebuilding is usually only a small proportion of the total housing stock .
M uch of the existing housing, furthermore, might have been built in
structures of housing provision long superseded (e.g. nineteenth-century
private rental provision). Yet what goes on in new housebuilding has a
profound influence on what happens to the existing stock, which depends on
the structure of provision in question. Where parts of the existing stock are
municipalized, they might be demolished as part of a rebuilding scheme, or
renovated and subdivided into flats, or left as they are through shortage of
funds. When the existing stock is taken over for owner occupation, the
process is often called gentrification, as homeowners tend to have higher
incomes than the tenants of the housing in its previous private rental use.
Small builders and do-it-yourself enthusiasts convert parts of the existing
housing stock for owner occupation (and often the results are far inferior to
those of the public sector). Yet, as in the public sector case, the viability of
undertaking conversions depends on the cost, quality and location of new
owner occupied housing. As where people live is influenced by the tenure in
which they live, their incomes and the available housing choices, the relations
between new building and renovation have considerable effects on the class
structures of towns.
Spatial differentiation, however, is not just about how the creators of new
buildings have to come to terms with geography and the urban patterns and
built environments created over time. Spatial factors also influence the power
relations within building provision. Spatial differentiation gives private
landowners a monopoly over plots of land. I n a context like modern Britain,
where the state provides considerable infrastructure facilities which substan­
tially enhance the attractiveness of particular land sites, yet hardly taxes the
 The spaced out urban economy 81

increments i n land values that arise (unless the landowner has a poor
accountant), the spatial monopoly power of landowners enables them to
extract high revenues from urban development. Speculative housebuilders, to
name but one type of private developer, are unlikely, however, to acquiesce
to the loss of profit that results from landowners appropriating much of the
gains from development in land prices. To avoid such situations housebuilders
try to break down landowners' monopolistic power by building at many
separate locations across regions, or even nationally. If one landowner has
to be paid too high a price, the builder can withdraw his/her offer and build
elsewhere. A land bank of sites at different locations considerably enhances
the negotiating power of housebuilders as they are then not forced to buy
land, whatever its current price, to remain in business. Such spatial strategies,
furthermore, influence the nature of house building firms. Small, local house­
builders do not have the locational flexibility of large scale volume house­
builders. Attempts to avoid high land prices, therefore, have helped to
encourage the centralization of the housebuilding industry over the past
twenty years into an industry dominated by a handful of large producers.
Spatial differentiation is also important for the ways in which council
housing is provided. Council housing, after all, is provision by a local
authority. The housing problems of local areas, and the politics and policies
of their councils, are highly varied. Yet, within the structure of council
housing provision, central government has increasingly tried to impose
uniformity over the way in which council housing is provided. The options
open to individual councils in dealing with their area's housing problems are
consequently extremely limited. Out of the variety across space of housing
problems and housing politics, the structure of council housing provision has
created a deadening uniformity.
The discussion of housing provision has raised again the theoretical point
that it is impossible to separate out patterns of change in an urban area from
the wider economic and social processes of which those changes are part.
Spatial factors are intertwined with general social and economic trends in a
way in which it is impossible to separate one out from the other.
Emphasis has been placed on housing provision when discussing the
provision of the built environment because it illustrates most of the main
points that need to be raised. Similar points could be made for other types
of land-use. One aspect of office development is worth brief consideration as
it brings out the importance of spatial differentiation. It is well known that
office developments are often financed by pension funds and insurance
companies and bought by them on completion. Offices are seen by them as
' safe ' investments with a long profile of income returns that match the
revenues they need. As a result of those institutions' activity, the rate of return
required to make an office development worthwhile (i.e. its expected yield)
is low. M oreover, there is evidence that the rate of return varies inversely with
the rate of return on other investments, as the institutions switch more funds
82 Michael Ball

into property away from less attractive investments. So office booms tend to
occur at the onset of downturns in the economy. For example, a record
amount of office space was bei ng built in central London during the early 1 980s
economic slump.
There is a strong locational element in the office investments of pension
funds and insurance companies. To minimise ri sk, they are interested
pri ncipally in · prime ' developments at central or well-proven suburban
locations. The yield on offices in these areas, therefore, is likely to be the
lowest. The overall result is that the investment requirements of these financial
institutions have an enormous influence on the amount of office development
at any poi nt in time and its location. The mass crowding of office blocks
together in city centres consequently is not simply a result of demand factors,
but also from this particular aspect of supply. Paradoxically, other land-uses
have to show a much higher rate of return than offices to be built at those
· prime ' locations. It is quite likely, for instance, that the public transport
systems req ui red by the congestion created by such concentrated office
development have to show an implicit rate of return perhaps ten times or more
higher than an office block . The competition for scarce urban land is an
extremely uneven one !

A theoretical overview
At this stage it is worth drawing together the variety of points that have been
made into a broad theoretical position statement.
When looking at the economic activities existing within urban areas and
trying to understand their patterns, problems and linkages, a diverse set of
factors is bei ng confronted . A t the risk of oversimplification, it is possible to
group them into three broad types. Economic life in a city is the outcome
of three interlinked processes :
- the spatial division of labour, i.e. the points where people do waged work,
either for capitalist enterprises or the public sector.
- the spatial distribution of the population. This refers to the places where
people live. Obviously there are some links to the spatial division of labour,
as waged workers need somewhere to live within reasonable commuting
limits. But this does not mean there is an exact correspondence. There can
be localized labour shortages, while not all of the population is involved in
waged labour. The unemployed by definition are excluded, so are the elderly,
children, full-time students, and women involved in domestic labour alone.
The location of these groups may bear only a weak relation to the spatial
division of labour.
- the spatial distribution of the built en vironment. The built environment also
has a particular distribution across space which may or may not correspond
to the requirements of either production or the population at large. One could
go through each building type and note the variations in its cost and
 The spaced out urban economy 83

availability across space. As structures of building provision are motivated

by their own independent drives, it is difficult to expect a movement of
building provision towards an equilibrium satisfying the needs of building
users. In particular, the longevity of built structures means that their initial
reason for existence may have long passed, but that they still stamp their mark
on the city in question ; sometimes to its benefit, at other times to its detriment.
Because of the nature of contemporary structures of building provision,
furthermore, it seems more easy to destroy the built environment than to
create pleasant new ones. This gives an overwhelming significance to the
historical development of the built structures in a city.
A number of points can be made about the three processes and their
interlinkages :
(i) The first point to note is the dynamic character of these processes. Each
is the outcome of changing and conflicting relations between social agents.
The spatial distribution of the population illustrates this dynamic. To an
extent, it is reactive to the spatial distribution of job opportunities and the
built environment ; in other words, it is the product of the historical
development of the society in question. Yet there are less passive trends. The
flight from the urban agglomerations, seen both in North America and
Northern Europe since the 1 950s, is in part a reaction by people to the
lifestyles imposed by large urban agglomerations (as has been the partial move
back to the bright lights of the city in the 1 970s and 1 980s). People do have
a degree of autonomy over their lifestyles, and the exercise of that autonomy
in aggregate affects the spatial distribution of the population. The possibilities
of choice, however, are considerably structured by wider social processes. The
services offered by the welfare ' state, whatever their actual nature, have si nce
•

the Second World War influenced kinship relationships and, hence, where and
how people live. Similarly, the widespread introduction of occupational
pension schemes for white collar workers plus the growth of owner occupation
have created new location patterns of retired people. Spatial mobility,
however, is not equally open to all sectors of the population . The least
spatially mobile are likely to be those in the lower status occupational groups,
the poor, and households such as single parent families.
(ii) There are obviously links between the mechanisms influencing the
dynamic of each of the three processes. Yet, when trying to understand the
geographical patterns that emerge, it is difficult to suggest that one of the three
processes is always the dominant underlying causal factor.
(iii) Changes in any of the three processes take place within a pregiven
historical context. There already exists a geography of production, population
and built form . The dynamics of spatial change add to and modify that
pre-existing geography, rather than start afresh. This historical context is the
basis for understanding the place of particular urban areas within the
dynamic of the three processes. They are the sites where changes are played
out. Yet one urban area cannot be seen in isolation .
84 Michael Ball

Conclusion
This chapter has tried to show why and how spatial differentiation is
important when trying to understand the nature of the economic activities
existing in urban areas. The economic life of a city cannot be treated as if
it were either spaceless or disembodied from a long process of historical
change. It is not possible, using the old adage, to treat urban economic life
as though it existed on the head of a pin. Economists, however, have
frequently tried to use economic models of the urban economy which abstract
from some or all of the fundamental characteristics of spatial differentiation.
Not surprisingly, these models have been rather unsuccessful. Hopefully this
chapter has shown why an economic analysis of urban areas cannot proceed
without a healthy respect for their geography and their position in wider
patterns of spatial change.
Another point, however, has also been emphasised, namely the impossibility
of giving primacy to particular types of spatial interlinkage. When looking
at economic life in an urban area, you must stick your head over the ' urban '
parapet. This chapter has suggested that, theoretically, the notion of the urban
economy is likely to hinder rather than advance our understanding of the
economic problems that beset life in the cities. The title of this chapter, in
other words, has a serious as well as a humorous side.
 5
Jurisdictional conflicts ,
international law and the
international state system*
S O L P I C C I OTTO

Introduction
Over the past few years there have been increasing conflicts between the
U.S.A. and several of her main political allies over the extraterritorial
assertion of U.S. juri sdiction. Complaints, mainly from European countries
and in particular Britain, about the application of U.S. ' long-arm ' legislation
outside the U.S.A. have led to retaliation against the application of U.S. laws
and to U.S. justifications and assertions that some European regulation of
international business is also extraterritorial in scope. From the point of view
ofinternational lawyers, technical questions of public and private international
law are involved, concerning the devising of adequate positive rules for the
allocation of regulatory jurisdiction. From the political point of view, policy
conflicts are involved which raise the question of whether the Western alliance
can maintain a common policy towards such questions as the use of trade
sanctions against the Soviet bloc in a period of economic depression (for
example, Woolcock, 1 982). Both of these approaches assume that the
international state system is essentially a functional one, and that provided
the correct technical solutions can be found, it is merely a matter of resolving
and accommodating national policy differences.
A different perspective on the matter is provided by looking at the literature
on the internationalisation of capital and the growth of the multinational
corporation. Some 1 0 years ago, Robin M urray pointed to the growing
" territorial non-coincidence " between an increasingly interdependent inter­
national economic system and the traditional capitalist (or socialist) nation­
state. M urray based himself on the then nascent research on multinational
corporations, which proved a major growth industry in the 1 970s and now
even has its very own United Nations specialized agency, the Commission

• Source : I n ternational Journal of the Sociology of Law ( 1 983), 1 1 -40.

Editors' note : All footnotes in the a rticle have been removed .

Readers who wish to consult these should refer to the original.

85
86 Sol Piccio tto

on Transnation al Cor porations. Par alle ling the famous remark by Kindle­
berger, " the national state is just about through as an economic unit "
( K i ndleberger, 1 969, p. 207), M urray posed the question " whether . . . national
capitalist states will continue to be the primary structures within the
international economic system, or whether the expanded territorial range of
capitalist production will require the parallel expansion of co-ordinated state
functions " (M urray, 1 97 1 , p. 86). He received a rapid, perhaps over-hasty,
reply from Bill Warren, who in addition to making some good points about
the limitations of M urray's theoretical and empirical treatment of the
internationalization of capital, was rash enough to prophesy that since the
contradictions between capital and the state are essentially non-antagonistic,
new international regulatory measures would quickly be forthcoming : " the
tax authorities are rapidly getting control of the internal transfer price
problem and it is clearly not going to be long before the central bankers,
international organizations and State policy-making bodies chain down the
Euro-dollar monster so that it is no longer available to do the bidding of large
firms " (Warren, 1 97 1 , p. 88).
M urray's provocative question sparked a considerable amount of subse­
quent analysis and discussion, both on the nature and the implications of the
internationalization of capital, as well as the theory of capital and the state.
It was readily apparent that M urray's essentially structural-functionalist view
of the relationship between capital and the state was responsible for the
starkness of the alternative he posed : either capital would outgrow the
nation-state and lay the necessary basis for new co-ordinated interstate or
supranational structures, or its growth would be contained within the
boundaries of existing or merged nation-states. Nevertheless, much of his
work on multinationals has been seminal, and his raising of the question of
territoriality was important and has not been followed up adequately.
Subsequent debates have emphasized that there is a contradictory process
in which the national state is increasingly involved in intervention to ensure
the social and economic processes of expanded reproduction of capital, yet
at the same time these processes are increasingly transcending the nation-state.
The internationalization not only of the circuits of commodity-capital and
money-capital but also prod uctive-capital is creating an increasingly inter­
nationally integrated world economy and social structure. However, this does
not take place as a smooth process of symmetrical interpenetration of capitals
to be followed eventually by a merging of social patterns and political
superstructures. The internationalization of production itself entails an
internationalized socialization of productive labour as well as international
patterns of commodity circulation, both of which are as much social as
economic processes, and involve developing patterns of international class
formation and conflict (Van der Pijl, 1 979). These developments and the
different specific forms they take often owe as much to ideological, legal and
even military interventions by states and through international state structures
 International law and the state system 87

as they do to technological factors. For instance, as we will consider in more

detail below, the specific way in which U.S. antitrust law was interpreted and
enforced after 1 940 played a major part in shaping the characteristic form
of U . S . multinational capital using wholly owned foreign subsidiaries. Thus
-

the state has both been a contributor to the process of internationalization,

as well as being affected by it. In Europe, where the international state system
ori ginated and which has also been the source of many of the impulses for
its subsequent transformations, the development of the European Community
involves new and unique processes for interstate integration, and yet the
national states still play a vital role, inter-state conflicts continue, and the
creation of a single unified super-state is not envisaged by even the most
dedicated Europeanist. Yet the impulse to European integration has been as
much political as economic (Holloway and Picciotto, 1 980).
To summarize, the changes in the international system involve a contra­
dictory and conflictual process of internationalization both of capital and of
the state ; and the international crisis of capital is also a crisis of the
international state system .

State sovereignty and jurisdiction

I n this chapter, I will examine one aspect of this, the growing problems of
jurisdictional definition and conflict between the main capitalist states,
especially the United States and Europe. It is not surprising that jurisdictional
conflicts have occurred mainly between the most powerful states, and in
relation to economic regulation, for it is through such forms of economic
regulation that the main capitalist states have been involved in shaping the
patterns of internationalization of capital . These assertions of national state
power in relation to the structuri ng of international business, and the conflicts
and attempts at co-ordination that have ensued, have been in many ways more
important than the other more prominent and formalized mechanisms of
international law. The increasingly dense network of international organiza­
tions of diverse kinds and powers as well as the proliferation of treaties and
international arrangements and agreements covering thousands of matters
major and minor, have grown in the last thirty years both to express and to
mask the i ncreasing powerlessness of the dominated peoples of the world .
However, the problem ofjurisdiction is more clearly symptomatic of the crisis
of international law and of the international system.
The principle of territoriality of juri sdiction is the cornerstone of the
international system based on the nation-state. The transition from the
personal sovereign to an abstract sovereignty of public authorities over a
defined territory was a key element i n the development of the capitalist
international system, since it provided a multifarious framework which
permitted and facilitated the global circulation of commodities and capital .
The independent and equal sovereign nation-state is therefore a fetishized
88 So/ Picciotto

form of appearance, for the world system is not made up of an aggregation

of compartmentalized units, but is rather a single system in which state power
is allocated between different territorial entities. This is important, since
exclusive jurisdiction is impossible to define, so that in practice there is a
network of interlocking and overlapping jurisdictions.
Historically, the development of the notion of the sovereign state with
exclusive powers within its own territory and unable to exercise jurisdiction
within the territory of others was also strongly influenced by ideas embodying
an overriding universality of law. [ . . . ] This was not in accordance with
absolutist versions of national sovereignty however, and was eventually
eclipsed by nineteenth-century positivism [ . . . ] This led to the voluntarist
interpretation which held that since the rules of international law emanate
from the free will of independent states, no restriction by denial of a claim
of j urisdiction over acts taking place abroad was possible unless based on
explicit agreement or a universally accepted general rule.
Positivist definitions of state sovereignty and jurisdiction are more or less
adequate for liberal forms of regulation, since they can rely on the separation
of prescription and enforcement that characterizes such liberal forms. Hence,
standard approaches to jurisdiction distinguish between the j urisdiction to
prescribe and the jurisdiction to enforce. Jurisdiction to prescribe can be fairly
broad in scope and involve a degree of overlap, indeed this may be inevitable.
It has been accepted that jurisdiction is not limited to the territory but can
also include jurisdiction to regulate the activities of nationals outside the
territory . Even territorial jurisdiction involves overlap, since it requires an
assessment of the place where the acts to be regulated ' take place ' . This
question is traditionally resolved by asking where the ' constituent elements '
of a regulated activity take place. Thus the classic textbook example of a
person in state A shooting a person in state 8 is used to illustrate the point
that juri sdiction depends on whether the rule being applied concerns the acts
and intention of the person shooting or the nature of the damage caused to
the victim. It is therefore enforcement that acts as the limit to jurisdictional
claims, since the actual organization of states as public authorities with
defined powers over specific territory means that to be effective a claim to
regulate must either involve persons or property within that territory, or must
be acceptable to another state which can assist with enforcement. The
territoriality of enforcement is sometimes expressed by saying that admin­
istrative or executive jurisdiction is territorial.
This approach inevitably comes under great pressure both from the
increasing international interdependence especially of economic activity, and
from the transcending of liberal forms of state regulation to more direct
interventionism, in which there is far less separation between prescription and
enforcement of rules. Increasing international interdependence not only
means that more than one state is frequently likely to be involved with a
particular activity ; it also makes it easier for a state interest in juri sdiction
 International law and the state system 89

to be made effective through actual control within the territory of some person
or property connected with the activity. Thus a multinational company can
be fined through a subsidiary or permanent establishment in a country even
in respect of actions which it claims took place elsewhere. Of course,
conversely it is possible for a multinational to arrange for particular physical
actions, such as the signing of a contract or the meeting of a board of
directors, to take place wherever it might be convenient.
It is such considerations that have led to the move to redefine the
territoriality of jurisdiction in terms of ' effects ' instead of a physical notion
of where actions take place. Such a redefinition is necessary to prevent the
sheer evasion of regulations, for example, by arranging for transactions to
take place elsewhere. On the other hand, the ' effects ' doctrine can in principle
involve very broad jurisdictional claims. [ . . . ]
Academic commentators have shown an increasing awareness of the
inadequacy of the traditional approach to territorial juri sdiction. Akehurst
( 1 972 - 1 973) acknowledges that as long as the ' effects ' doctrine is limited
to ' primary effects ', it could even be a better means of keeping j urisdictional
claims within reasonable bounds than the ' constituent elements ' approach
(p. 1 55). Lowe, however, goes further, and concludes that the principle of
territorial allocation of sovereignty is now unworkable, and calls boldly for
a refinement of the concept of sovereignty in international law, so that it can
accommodate both notions of the independence of states and of the increasing
interdependence of states, without losing its coherence as a legal principle.
(Lowe, 1 98 1 , p. 28 1 )
To this, the even bolder American response has been that the concept of
sovereignty is the wrong starting point (Lowenfeld, 1 98 1 ). [ . . . ] It is plain that
the international law principles determining and rationalizing the allocation
ofjuri sdiction between states reflect some of the strains of internationalization
which I outlined in the introduction. In the remainder of this paper I will
discuss in greater detail some of the specific forms which these strains have
taken.

Conflicts over extraterritorial antitrust law

The Sherman Act
An ideological rallying-cry much used by U.S. policy-makers in the inter­
national arena is the strong commitment of U.S. law to the regulation of
business to ensure competition for the benefit of the consumer and society
as a whole. Certainly, modem competition law was born out of the populist
movement against the big trusts that quickly came to dominate U.S. business
in the last part of the nineteenth-century (Josephson, 1 934). While the
increasing strength of working class organizations, especially the rapidly
growing unions, led to direct and fierce conflicts with big capital, the broader
soc i a l oppo sit ion to big capital among farmers, consumers and smaller
90 Sol Picciotto

property owners of all kinds, led to the passing of the Sherman Act in 1 890.
The broad scope of the Act, its use against some of the Trusts, and even some
initial court decisions seemed to hold out the hope that it could be used to
dismantle the Trusts. But this evaporated with its interpretation by the courts
as a pro-competition law based on the ' rule of reason ', the development of
new devices for company incorporation by lawyers, and the emergence of a
corporatist consensus between big business and the state embodied in the
setting up of the state regulatory commissions. Thereafter, the Sherman Act
was caught in the basic contradiction that bedevils all competition law, since
striking down agreements between firms that are held to restrict competition
has the effect of laying them open directly to market forces whose tendency
is towards the concentration and centralization of capital (i .e. increasingly
large units and fewer firms in particular industries or economies) by the
elimination of weaker firms and growth or merger of others.
The Sherman Act was broadly stated to apply to all combinations or
contracts in restraint of trade or monopolies affecting trade or commerce
within the U . S.A. or with foreign nations. I n the first case that arose in relation
to foreign trade, Justice Holmes gave a landmark judgment whose echoes
have been in dissonance with virtually every subsequent opinion by U . S .
judges and writers. In American Banana v . United Fruit Co. ( 1 909) 2 1 3 U . S .
347, the case involved a dispute between two American entrepreneurs with
interests in banana plantation operations in Central America, and the
plaintiff complained that the defendant had used a variety of predatory tactics
to drive him out of the business, including bribery of officials of the
government of Costa Rica which had seized his railway (used to export the
bananas). Justice Holmes found the plaintiff's case based on the " startling
proposition " that acts causing damage which took place entirely outside the
United States could be governed by an Act of Congress, and he stated firmly
that the legality of an act must be determined by the law of the place where
it took place. Although Justice Holmes' opinion was expressed in sweeping
terms, its actual effects were subsequently limited . [ . . . ]
I n the first fifty years' of its life the application of the Sherman Act to
international trade affecting the United States, potentially broad, was in
practice confined mainly to monopolization of foreign sources of raw
materials in order to push up import prices into the U.S.A. Before 1 940 there
were only a dozen cases begun by the U . S . authorities relating to international
commerce, and all were in this category. Yet the period 1 890- 1 940 was one
in which world trade was dominated by cartels, which often had the
connivance of governments. The major large firms in the main industrialized
countries attempted to control international trade and investment in many
industries through various type of cartel agreement. These typically involved
the controlling of levels of production and the allocation of markets between
member firms, each keeping control of its home markets and those in
dependent economies.
 International law and the state system 91

I t was not until the late 1 930s that the U . S . authorities initiated a policy
of attacking this type of international cartel. This anticartel policy formed
part of the wartime planning for a new framework for post-war international
economic relations. Freedom for big firms to compete by selling and investing
in each other's markets was seen as the key to avoiding the nationalistic
politico-economic rivalries and state protectionisms of the prewar period.
Thus the planning of the postwar international institutions which would
guarantee a liberalized system of trade, payments and investment (the
International Trade Organisation, established in stunted form as the
G . A.T.T., the I . M . F. and the World Bank) had to be preceded by the elim­
ination of restraints on international competition embodied in the cartels.
After 1 940 there began a veritable flood of cases involving some of the main
prewar cartels, in which American firms had been involved with European
and other companies, especially in chemicals, electrical equipment, and
high-technology industries, such as metal alloys and equipment such as
gyroscopes and optical instruments. The gathering of information for many
of these cases was facilitated by the fact that under wartime regulations the
U . S . assets of enemy firms were taken over by a U . S. custodian. M ost of these
cases resulted in the cartel arrangements being abrogated by agreement, often
embodied in a ' consent decree ' approved by the Courts.
The most visible legal results of this new policy were the postwar landmark
court judgments, of which the A lcqa case is the foremost. This case involved
the prewar aluminium cartel set up under the umbrella of a Swiss corporation
by French, German, Swiss and British monopolies and with the participation
of A rthur V. Davis and the Mellons who dominated the U .S . market through
Alcoa (the Aluminium Corporation of America) and who had set up a
Canadian corporation, largely it seemed to enable them to participate
discreetly in the cartel. Since the court held that the existence of a common
group of connecting shareholders was not sufficient to ignore the separate
legal identity of Alcoa and the Canadian company, it was faced with a
conspiracy made up entirely of non- U . S . firms and whose meetings had all
taken place outside the U . S.A., even though, of course, it affected the U . S .
economy, a s part o f the world economy. Justice Learned Hand however
hesitated little in holding the Sherman Act to apply, on the grounds that " it
is settled law that any state may impose liabilities, even upon persons not
within its allegiance, for conduct outside its borders which the state reprehends ;
and these liabilities other states will ordinarily recognise " .
This dictum initiated the so-called ' effects ' doctrine o f jurisdiction. As
applied to antitrust law this policy had a significant effect on postwar
developments in foreign investment. The broad effect of this policy, which
was backed up by strong court judgments, was to invalidate the involvement
of any U .S. firm in any arrangement or agreement having the effect of limiting
competition, which incl uded not only the classic international cartel but even
a joint venture to set up a company abroad .
92 Sol Picciotto

This policy of application of the U . S. laws had a significant effect on the

form taken by the postwar expansion of large American firms in world
markets. The sweeping away of the cartels removed any legal barrier to U . S .
firms wishing t o make incursions into foreign markets, and the doubts cast
on the legality of any form of joint venture made a significant contribution
to the feature that the postwar foreign expansion of U.S. based firms typically
took the form of the 1 00 % -owned foreign subsidiary abroad could be said
to involve a ' conspiracy ' (between the parent company and its legally
separate offspring) and could be argued to ' affect U. S . trade ' by e.g. reducing
exports from the U . S . A . in favour of local production, in practice the U . S.
authorities did not take this view and started no action on this basis.
It was during the 1 950s that foreign firms and governments began to object
to the application of U . S. antitrust law in circumstances which it was alleged
involved ' extraterritoriality ' . In many cases the invalidation of agreements
under U . S . law affected only the private legal rights of the parties, and the
requirements of the enforcement of the U .S. assertion of jurisdiction meant
that non-U.S. firms could attempt to evade the effects of the legal cases, if
they were willing to do no business in the U . S.A. However, the power of U. S .
authori ties over U .S . firm s meant that the continuation of any arrangements
with them was impossible. However, no direct legal conflict arose from the
U . S . assertion of jurisdiction unless third party rights or foreign state
regulation were involved. One such case involved the British chemicals giant,
I .C . I . , whose involvement in a number of chemicals cartels with firms
including the U .S . firm Du Pont, had been attacked in the U . S . courts. One
aspect of the cartel with Du Pont involved patent-pooling, and I. C. I. assigned
British patents that it had received from Du Pont to an affiliated company
which it part-owned, British Nylon Spinners. The New York court had
ordered the mutual return of the patents that had been exchanged by I .C . I .
and Du Pont, but the decree (drawn u p no doubt b y acute negotiations
between Wall Street firms) had included a proviso that nothing it required
should oblige a defendant to act contrary to any laws or orders of a foreign
state " or instrumentality thereof". British Nylon Spinners brought an action
against I. C. I. to enforce its rights under the assignment of the British patent,
and Lord Denning was only too happy to proclaim that " the writ of the
United States does not run in this country ", and enforce those assigned rights.
He also carefully pointed to the savings clauses in the New York court's
decree, which effectively prevented I .C. I. from being subjected to contradictory
court orders. However, the U . S. courts subsequently further elaborated this
" foreign sovereign compulsion " defence, and required proof of a bona fide
attempt by the foreign defendant to carry out the order. [ . . ] .
 International law and the state system 93

Retaliation and attempts to accommodate jurisdictional conflicts

The assertion ofjurisdiction to regulate international business by various U.S.
agencies led to increasing conflicts, in particular in relation to matters such
as shipping liner conferences. These led various governments to pass legislation
attempting to prevent U.S. authorities from carrying out investigations which
it was claimed infringed the jurisdiction of other states. For example, the
British Shipping Contracts and Commercial Documents Act of 1 694 em­
powered the government to prohibit those carrying on business in the U . K .
from complying with foreign government measures which appeared to
" constitute an infringement of the j urisdiction which, under international
law, belongs to the U . K . " . Attempts were made through bodies such as the
O.E.C.D. to coordinate western countries' policies to matters such as
shipping liner conferences.
At the same time, the U . S . also attempted to modify the expression of its
jurisdictional claims in ways that most clearly recognise the interests of other
states in the regulation of international business. To clarify the applicability
of the antitrust law to international business and attempt to mollify criticism,
the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice in 1 977 produced a
detailed A ntitrust Guide for International Operations. At the same time, two
lower court decisions have reviewed in detail the jurisdictional problem and
adopted a modified approach. In particular, J udge Choy in the Timberlane
case enunciated a "j urisdictional rule of reason " which required courts
carefully to weigh the foreign relations impact of an assertion of j urisdiction
over international business. On the other hand, some writers have argued that
the introduction of the "jurisdictional rule of reason " by U.S. courts has
failed to appease other states because the balancing of policy interests of
national states in regulating a particular activity " will usually reflect an
understandable bias in favour of the forum's policy " (Maier, 1 982). Maier
argues that the weighing of contracts in determining whether the assertion of
j u risdiction is " reasonable " should not be in terms of competing local law
policies, but should be informed by the common needs of the international
system [ . . . ]. However, this approach does assume that there is some sort of
political or ideological basis for the formulation of generally acceptable
principles that express the " common needs of the international system ".
I n practice, the increasingly acute crisis of capital has led to further
competitive conflicts between giant firms and protectionist interventions by
states. The most notable occurred when the U.S. firm Westinghouse defaulted
on fixed-price contracts to supply uranium to nuclear power stations it had
built, and alleged that world uranium prices had been pushed up by a secret
cartel of uranium producers. It instituted private treble-damage actions under
the Sherman Act against the mining companies, including the British-based
RTZ, claiming billions of dollars in damages, and the U. S . Attorney-General
began a grand jury investigation . Other governments, some of whom such
94 Sol Pic:ciollo

as Canada and Australia were reported to have backed the cartel, moved to
block the U . S. proceedings. The British government, largely as a result of the
Westinghouse affair as well as the American action against North Atlantic
shipping conferences, moved to replace the 1 964 Act with the Protection of
Trading Interests Act 1 980.[ . . . )
The basic provisions of the Act are designed to apply not merely to an
infringement of U . K . jurisdiction, but to enable retaliation, in concert with
other states if necessary, against an extraterritorial assertion of jurisdiction
which threatened U . K . interests. Thus persons (including companies) carrying
on business in the U . K . could be given instructions, or could be permitted
to recover the penal element of multiple damage judgments, even if the
assertion of jurisdictioin complained of did not infringe that of the U . K . at
all, so long as the Minister considered U . K . trading interests were involved .
This involves two separate possibilities. One is that the jurisdiction of a
third state is infringed in circumstances which involve damage to British
trading interests. The other is that the initial assertion of jurisdiction,
although it is ' extraterritorial ' does not involve an infringement of a
jurisdiction which could be said to be exclusively British. I n other words, it
provides the basis for a retaliation in defence of British trading interests
against an assertion by another state of jurisdiction to regulate international
activities that might be considered to fall within the concurrent jurisdiction
of both states. Thus the comments by the U . S . government that the British
Act itself involves some ' extraterritoriality ' (U.S. Government, 1 979) slightly
misses the poi nt. The 1 980 British Act is important because it abandons the
attempt to define mutually exclusive spheres of jurisdiction between states
under international law. I nstead it recognizes that where one state unilaterally
regulates an activity that cannot be said to take place entirely within its
territory, other states must establish a competing or conflicting regulation if
they wish to compel an attempt at international co-ordination.

Conflicts over embargo policies

Over the same period, conflicts have occurred over other areas of ' extra­
territorial ' assertions of U .S. jurisdiction. These have mainly involved the
application of U.S. business regulations to foreign companies owned or
controlled by U . S . citizens or U . S . companies - that is to say essentially,
foreign subsidiaries of U . S . multinationals. One significant area has been U . S.
embargo policies, initially against the Soviet bloc and China, then Cuba, and
more recently the financial sanctions a gain st I ran.

The Cold War embargoes

The hi story of U . S. a t tempts to o rchestrate western economic wa r fare agai nst
com m u n i s t nation dates back to the veriod 1 947-50 (Adler-Karlsson , 1 968).
 International law and the state system 95

I nitially, the emphasis was on achieving the economic isolation of the Soviet
bloc through co-ordinated export controls by the U.S.A. and its allies. The
Export Control Act 1 949 stated it to be U . S . policy to use trade as a political
weapon, by empowering the government to prohibit the export of goods or
technical data which might make a significant contribution to the military
or economic potential of any nation or combination of nations threatening
the security of the United States.[ . . . ]
Using a combination of inducements and threats, the U. S . quickly
developed a fairly effective economic isolation of the Soviet bloc between
1 948 and 1 953, which however also had the effect of reinforcing Stalin's aim
of consolidating Soviet domination over eastern Europe.
The emphasis of U . S . controls in this period was on exports from the
U . S . A . , although the Export Control Act also covered the use abroad of
U . S . -origin technical data. The strength of U.S. industry and the greater
attraction of U .S. aid to countries that had emerged weakened from the
Second World War, could be used to ensure international co-ordination .
However, there is some evidence that the extent of European co-operation
was made to seem greater than in practice it was, due to the problems of
definition and enforcement. Adler-Karlsson in his thorough study of this
period concludes that it was largely the threat of the loss of the significant
quantities of Marshall Aid that ensured compliance by the European
countries.
Amongst the main capitalist countries co-ordination was established in the
form of an obscure but apparently powerful mechanism, the C.G.-Co.Com .
(Consultative Group-Co-ordinating Committee) set up in 1 950. Although the
U . S.A. put the initial proposals for this mechanism to the O.E. E.C., it
thought that this would be too open and public a body for the purpose, and
C.G. -Co.Com. apparently has existed merely as a ' commi ttee ' independent
of any formal international organization. Almost total secrecy has surrounded
it - even its innocuous name was considered ' classified ' as late as 1 953. It is
thought to be based on no written agreement or treaty, but simply a
' gentlemen's agreement ' that the lists of embargoed items, agreed on the basis
of unanimity, will be enforced by each member state. Members have been
the N.A.T.O. countries with the exception of Iceland and the addition of
Japan. The main issue throughout has been disagreement over the concept
of ' strategic ' materials. A strong current in U . S . views has been that any items
that help to build the Soviet industrial base assist its preparations for war.
Hence, an early disagreement with Europe was over British exports of steel.
Vociferous anticommunists in Congress specified that " not even a shirt
button " should be exported to the enemy. This led to Khrushchev's satirical
response that buttons are obviously the most strategic commodity since
without them a soldier would have to fight with one hand, the other being
required to hold up his trousers (Adler-Karlsson, 1 968, ch. 3). It was after
1 953 that the embargo lists apparently began to shrink as the European view
96 Sol Picciotto

that they sho uld cove r militarily signi ficant items began to predominate. In
1 958 there was a further relaxatio n. From that point on, there was a
significant gap between the U . S.A.'s own total ban, and the internationally
agreed embargo, which involved the continual re-interpretation of the
ambiguous notion of ' strategic ' items.
It was at this point that the potentiality for jurisdictional conflict became
a real one. By the late 1 950s foreign direct investment by U . S . corporations
had begun to build up substantially, especially in Europe. In any case where
there was a disagreement between the U . S . and European governments as to
whether a particular commodity was ' strategic ' and should be embargoed,
a dilemma could arise for the U . S . A . and for U . S. multinationals whether
a U . S . corporation prohibited from selling an item to a communist country
could do so from one of its foreign subsidiaries. This was prevented, both
by the extension of export control procedure to cover re-exports and by
transaction regulations passed under the Trading With the Enemy Act,
Section 5b. This was a typical wartime emergency legislative enactment first
passed in 1 9 1 7, giving the President wide powers in times of war or declared
national emergency to regulate transactions or expropriate property. It was
revised and activated in the Cold War era, when President Truman declared
a " national emergency " to be in effect on 1 6 December 1 950, after the
outbreak of the Korean War ; this was apparently considered to be still in
effect up to thirty years thereafter. Finally, the embarrassment of this
permanent state of declared national emergency, combined with the need to
rationalize U . S . powers of economic retaliation following the Arab oil
boycott of 1 973-4, led to the passing of a slightly more restricted empowering
statute to replace the Trading With the Enemy Act, the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act 1 977. In the meantime, foreign assets
control regulations were applied under the former Act throughout the 1 950s
and 1 960s, first against eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, then the
People's Republic of China, and later North Vietnam and Cuba. These
regulations applied not only to persons resident or companies doing business
in the U . S . A . , but also to any enterprises wherever organized or doing
business which could be said to be " owned or controlled " by U . S . nationals
or companies. Under the wide definition of' control ' adopted, even a minority
shareholding in a foreign company could be held to constitute ' control ' . Thus
a U.S. company could be warned that a transaction being entered into by
a foreign affiliate, even if it was jointly owned with foreign investors or
companies, constituted a criminal offence by that affiliate under U.S. law. The
Department of the Treasury frankly admitted that the enforcement of these
regulations inevitably raised foreign policy questions with America's allies.
I nevitably, also, they raised legal problems of jurisdictional conflict (Berman
and Garson, 1 967).
One notable case arose in France in 1 964. Fruehauf-France, a two-thirds
subsidiary of the U . S . Fruehauf Corporation, contracted with the French
 International law and the state system 97

company Berliet to supply trailers for trucks, which were to be supplied to

China. It seems that initially this destination was not known in the U . S.A.,
but once it became known, the Fruehauf parent company was ordered not
to allow the trailers to be supplied . It is not clear whether the U . S.
multinational covertly sought a way to evade this order, or whether there was
a genuine disagreement between the U . S . parent and the French subsidiary's
management but, for whatever reason, the French minority directors applied
to the French courts for support. In the event, the Paris Court of Appeals took
the view that the interests and personality of the French company should be
safeguarded even against those of its majority owners, and it appointed an
administrator over the Company for three months to execute the contract.
One factor revealed by the Fruehauf case and similar incidents was that
the subsidiaries of U . S . multinationals abroad were put at a competitive
disadvantage in relation to other firms operating in the same country by the
gap between the embargo policies of the U.S.A. and other countries. This
became more acute during the late 1 960s and 1 970s with increasing com­
petitiveness of international markets and increasing pressure, especially in
western Europe, for detente with the Soviet Union and the further relaxation
of trade bans. The American export control legislation was amended several
times to relax the procedures, and to make it easier for the substance of the
controls to be varied according to the variable winds of detente policy. This
culminated in the Export Administration Act of 1 979, amending and
re-enacting the 1 949 Act. Crucially, however, the 1 979 Act no longer applied
merely to the export of goods and technology from the U.S.A., but explicitly
covered the " export of any goods or technology subject to the jurisdiction
of the United States or exported by any person subject to the jurisdiction of
the United States " [Section 4(a)( l )] . This provided the powers to apply export
control to foreign subsidiaries of U . S . multinationals, on both ' national
security ' and ' foreign policy ' grounds, and even where no national emergency
had been declared as required by the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act. It was clear that, whatever happened with detente policy, the
U.S.A. had by no means renounced the economic embargo weapon nor its
application as widely as U.S. economic power could reach. Indeed, it is clear
that, especially after the Arab oil boycott of 1 973-4, U.S. policy-makers were
preparing defences against such economic threats to the U.S.A. and for the
activation of U.S. economic power on a suitable or necessary occasion.

The Iranian freeze and the Eurodollar

I t seems that this occasion was the Iranian crisis of 1 979-80. Whatever the
background of the deterioration of political relations between the U .S.A. and
I ran, it seems that part of the motivation for the scope and type of sanctions
applied was to test the effectiveness of U . S . control of international economic
weapons. In terms of U .S. apologetics, the justification is that economic
98 Sol Piccio llo

warfare saves l i ve s . The main problematic aspect of the financial sanctions

was thei r app l i ca tion to Eurodollar deposits made by I ran outside the U.S.A.
Si nce the loans made to I ran far exceede d I ran's depo sits in the U . S . A .
alone i t was imperative that the sanctions should apply t o a l l Iran's foreign
holdings in the international banking system . It does not seem that any
attempt was made to co-ordinate such a policy with the western allies, and
it seems unlikely that such a co-ordination could have been possible. Instead,
the U . S . freeze regulations were unilaterally made applicable to dollar
deposits in U . S. bank branches abroad as well as in the U.S.A. In addition,
the U . S . banks sought the means to put pressure on other international banks
to go along with the policy, by creating a sort of ' domino effect ' . The U . S .
regulations were amended s o that U . S . bank branches abroad were not only
required to freeze Iranian deposits, but also were permitted to ' set off' against
these frozen deposits any payments due from Iranian entities. The set-off was
not allowed within the U . S . A . , apparently because a number of smaller U.S.
banks were involved in consortia with loans t o Iran without having any
I ranian deposits. Once the freeze was applied by the U.S. banks the Iranian
authorities found themselves short of funds to service the extensive loans
negotiated under the Shah ; they naturally brought legal actions in European
courts, notably in London and Paris, to secure the release of their funds there.
I n the meantime, the refusal of the U . S. banks to accept instructions regarding
these deposits meant that Iran was exposed to potential default on her
Eurodollar loans, and indeed the U . S . banks that had led the consortia for
these loans took steps to trigger the default clauses in the agreements. This
action put pressure on the European international banks involved in the
loans also to use legal rights of set-off against Iranian deposits, since once
default is declared all participating banks are under an obligation to make
their best efforts to seek satisfaction of the loan.
These unilateral legal and banking moves were of course accompanied by
a major ideological campaign, as well as diplomatic initiatives to rally
America's allies. Despite obvious hesitations, what was obtained was at least
silent compliance. The actual sanctions applied by European states were
minimal since they did not apply to the performance of contracts concluded
prior to the hostage seizure (and in Britain a parliamentary move further
exempted contracts concluded prior to the legislation itself). But most
importantly, no retaliatory action was taken in respect of what had amounted
to an assertion of U. S. jurisdiction over the entire international financial
system . Carswell's ( 1 982) retrospective evaluation admits that it was the
unique and short-lived nature of the emergency that enabled the U. S. freeze
to be effective. ( . . ]
.
 International law and the state system 99

The Soviet gas pipeline

That the acquiescence by the European governments in the way the I ran
embargo affected Eurocurrency transactions did not imply any general
acceptance of the application of U.S. embargo regulations to the international
econoni y · was shown by the conflict that developed in 1 982 over the gas
pipeline embargo. At the end of December 1 98 1 the Reagan administration
decided to tighten the foreign policy embargo applied against the Soviet
Union as a means of demonstrating U.S. pressure on the Soviet Union over
events in Poland, as much for domestic and international propaganda as
anything else. Carter's wheat embargo over Afghanistan had been a mistake,
costly both in subsidies for, and in political support from, American
farmers.[ . . . ]
At the same time, there was opposition from significant elements in the new
administration to the involvement of western Europe in the Soviet Union's
major project of connecting its Urengoi natural gas field by pipeline to the
western European grid, to sell gas, for valuable foreign exchange. Since little
of this technology had military applications it would amount to a declaration
of economic warfare, and the allies of the U . S . , far from being ready to give
the necessary co-operation to ensure that competing suppliers did not fill U.S.
contracts, had already set their face against any interferences with the
pipeline. Nevertheless, the President issued regulations in December 1 98 1
which applied controls on the export to the U . S . S . R . of oil and gas
transmission and refining technology (exploration and production technology
had already been embargoed for some years).
The main contractors for the compressor stations for the pipeline were
European firms (a Mannesmann-Creusot Loire consortium and Nuovo
Pignone of I taly), as were the suppliers of the turbines for the compressors
(AEG-Kanis, John Brown and Nuovo Pignone). However, the turbines were
designed by General Electric of the U . S . A . and manufactured in Europe under
licence. Also, some of the components for the turbines were contracted for
by U.S. firms : notably GE itself, which under the terms of the licence
agreement was to supply rotor blades and moving parts, and Dresser, whose
French subsidiary was contracted to deliver compressors. In addition, there
was a network of smaller suppliers, some of them subsidiaries in Europe of
U.S. firms or licensees of U.S.-origin technology patented in Europe.
The applica tion of the December regulations to the pipeline contracts was
far from clear. GE quickly announced that the embargo prevented it from
delivering the components contracted for. From one point of view, the
European firms were unwilling to court American displeasure and run the risk
of losing other contracts based on licensed technology : however, both AEG
and John Brown were in severe economic difficulties and the work for the
contracts was important for them, in the short run. The U . S.S. R . spoke boldly
of finding alternative suppliers or diverting some of its own capacity to build
the pipeline.
1 00 So/ Piccio tto

N egotia ti on s be tween the U . S . and its European al lies took place in the
1 982. The European govern ments expressed their objection to the
first ha l f of
use o f the Polish question to revive U .S . opposition to the pipeline project,
and stated that while they were willing to take measu res such as tightening
of credit for Poland and the U.S.S.R. to express displeasure, they were not
prepared to " wage economic warfare ", especially not by cancelling the
pipeline contracts. With additional pressures from Japan and from U.S. firms
linked with the contracts such as GE and Caterpillar, it seemed that the
anti-pipeline elements would be forced to retreat. I nstead, a National Security
Council meeting in June 1 982 authorized the President to move forward.
The additional regulations, effective from 22 June, clarified that the
embargo applied to goods produced abroad by companies or organisations
" owned or controlled " by U . S . citizens, residents or corporations. But they
also went further. The embargo applied to non-U .S. companies located
outside the U .S.A. in respect of goods produced on the basis of technology
patented abroad but ' originating' in the U.S.A. A particularly striking feature
of these provisions was the way in which private contractual arrangements
made abroad were used as the basis for the imposition of U.S. regulations.
This is reminiscent of the so-called tertiary ' aspects of the Arab boycott of
•

Israel, whereby main contractors for projects in Arab countries have been
required to ensure that sub-contractors are not black-listed persons. Ironically,
this has been objected to by the United States as an infringement of U.S.
jurisdiction, and is the target of counter-boycott actions.
The explicit application of the embargo to European firms and U . S .
subsidiaries in Europe quickly led t o a highly publicized wrangle between the
U . S . and its European allies. Bonn, London and Paris were quick to attack
the unilateral application of the embargo to European firms, and began to
apply diplomatic pressures in combination with counter-controls on the firms
concerned to achieve a reversal of the measures. The governments of France,
I taly and Germany made statements during July and August objecting to the
embargo and instructing their companies to fulfil contracts with the U.S.S.R.
They appeared in general to use no legal power, but merely to write to the
companies communicating the government's expectations. The case of
Dresser France created some difficulty however. A senior Vice-President of
the Dallas-based company revealed that it had instructed its French subsidiary
in June not to proceed with filling the gas pipeline orders, in compliance with
the U. S . regulations ; but the French subsidiary had received contrary
instructions from the French government, as well as being the target of
demonstrations organised by the French trade unions demanding the con­
tinuation of the work. An application by Dresser to a U.S. court for an
interim order invalidating the U . S . regulations failed ; but the French
government then invoked powers under 1 959 emergency legislation to
req uisition the company in the national interest to fulfil the contracts. The
U . S. authorities immediately retaliated by declaring a " denial of U.S. export
 International law and the state system 101

privileges " against Dresser France, the usual administrative sanction against
such violations of export controls.
In this situation, the companies did seem genuinely caught in a cleft stick.
Although noncompliance with the U.S. embargo would certainly enable the
continuation of much-needed work in their plants and the avoidance of
contractual penalties, both U.S. subsidiaries and U.S. licensees of U.S.
technology were dependent on their U . S . links for much of their work. U.S.
sanctions could lead to immediate losses. However, GE and other U.S. firms
also benefit from such links with European companies and would lose if the
Europeans started to use competing technology, as well as relying to some
extent themselves on contracts with the European firms. Clearly the working
out of who could suffer most would involve a major trade war. Already U.S.
foreign policy had greatly suffered from having converted a show of strength
against the U.S.S.R. into a major row with its own allies.
Although the European governments each took their own retaliatory
measures, there were obvious advantages in co-ordinating these, since the
U.S.A. would be less likely to risk enforcing the embargo by trade sanctions
against a co-ordinated European response. Diplomatic co-ordination took
place directly between governments ; but the European common interest, and
the effect on European trade, provided a basis for an intervention by the
Commission of the European Communities.
The Commission was obliged to handle the arguments relating to jurisdiction
very carefully, because the strongly held views of some member states on
extra-territoriality could be interpreted to conflict with the views of the
Commission itself, particularly those of its Competition Directorate, which
accepts the ' effects ' doctrine. European exports for the U.S.S.R. pipeline
could hardly be said to produce direct and substantial effects on the United
States ; so even under the effects doctrine the measures were of dubious
validity. This was supported by the fact that they had been adopted under
the ' foreign policy ' and not the ' national security ' provisions of the 1 979 Act.
I ndeed, although the legal argument did not bring out this political point,
the gas pipeline had been chosen for the embargo precisely because its
suspension would produce little harmful effect on the U.S.A. The replacement
of the Carter wheat embargo by the Reagan measures against the pipeline
resulted precisely from the convenience for the American ruling class to fight
its battles, by using its predominance in the world economy, in a way that
caused least economic and political difficulties for the U.S. state and its
companies, and most for their allies and competitors.
The eventual retreat from the brink of an internecine trade war took place
on terms as replete with ambiguities as were the circumstances that nearly
precipitated it. Throughout the crisis, U.S. sources had argued that their
unilateral measures resulted from the failure of their allies to agree to more
effective measures against the Soviet bloc, notably by tighter credit restrictions
and a strengthening of Co.Com. President Reagan's announcement of the
1 02 Sol Picciotto

end of the pipeline sanctions, in Novem ber, stated that it had been enabled by
the achievement of agreement with U.S. allies that multi-lateral controls on
technology exports and credit facilities would be strengthened and no new
gas supply contracts would be signed pending the conclusion of a joint energy
study. H owever, France immediately denied that any agreement had been
reached, and European official sources generally stated that no new initiatives
were envisaged : the Co.Com negotiations would continue, as would discus­
sions in O. E.C.D. on export credit and in the I . E.A. on energy. Certainly,
these bodies will provide the forums for continuing negotiation both of the
substantive policy issues and of the jurisdiction question .

Conclusions
It is not difficult to discern the political and economic reasons for the specific
policy conflicts involved in the conflicts of jurisdiction that have occurred,
especially between the U . S.A. and Europe. In addition to the main incidents
of which I have given an outline, the jurisdictional issue has arisen also in
relation to other matters, such as the application of U . S . securities and stock
exchange regulation. Indeed , no sooner had the gas pipeline matter dropped
out of the headli nes than another conflict replaced it, this time mainly between
the U. S . and the U . K . , over the liquidation of Laker Airways, and whether
the claim by its liquidator that the airline's collapse was due to a conspiracy
between other airlines and ai rframe makers could be litigated in U . S . courts.
The regulation of transatlantic air traffic is clearly an area of concurrent
jurisdiction, and the Bri tish use once again of the Protection of Trading
Interests Act was aimed at blocking U.S. intervention and forcing international
negotiations.
One of the reasons for the frequent allegations of extraterritoriality against
the U . S . A . has been the rapid expansion of its direct foreign investment,
mostly in the form of 1 00 % owned subsidiaries, and especially into Europe,
coupled with the American predilection for a formalistic regulation of
business, compared to the more informal corporatist concertation often
practised in Europe. Nevertheless, European authorities have now been
obliged to examine more closely their jurisdictional policies in relation to
business regulation, especially where multinational companies are concerned.
Americans have not been slow to point to European regulations which could
have an extraterritorial scope (see e.g. Vagts 1 982). Indeed, in the aftermath
of the pipeline dispute, the European Commission has felt it necessary to
attempt to co-ordinate internally its policy on jurisdiction, so that its ob­
jections to other states' claims do not contradict too starkly with its own
assertions of jurisdiction. However, the contradictions and differences of
viewpoint within the Community are so great that it is unlikely that any such
guidelines on E . E.C. jurisdiction will actually be achieved, let alone be
publicly issued as a Statement of Policy. Other ideas such as a European
 International law and the state system 1 03

antiboycott statute, also face big political and legal objections. Nevertheless,
the Commission has had to take some note of U .S. objections to extra­
territoriality in some of its proposals, however spurious some of the
objections seem . I ndeed, in general, European regulations applying to
international business have been framed much more cautiously than U . S .
ones. However, U.S. lobbyists such a s the American Chamber of Commerce
in Brussels, have objected to European Community proposals on jurisdictional
grounds, notably the Vredeling proposal for a directive to require multi-plant
and multinational firms to establish machinery for consultation with worker
representatives ; and also the seventh Company Law directive requiring
consolidated accounts for groups of companies. I n both of these cases the
question has been whether a parent company outside the E. E.C. could be
obliged to furnish information relating to its global activities, in view of its
operations in the E. E.C. through a subsidiary or branch. In such cases it is
not difficult to see how the obligations can be laid on the subsidiary in such
a way as to leave the parent little choice. Another area where there are
continuing objections to jurisdiction is competition law. Notably, the current
proceeding by the Commission against the computer giant I BM has involved
both the company and the U . S . government arguing that the Commission's
attempt to make IBM change its marketing practices to make them more
' transparent ' and open to competition from pl ug-compatible competitors
goes far beyond the jurisdiction of the E.E.C.
As I have argued, it is very hard to maintai n that the issue in such cases
is about the delimitation of an area of exclusive jurisdiction. In practice, the
principle of territoriality can be just as broadly applied as the effects doctrine.
The underlying issue is that the increased internationalisation and integration
of the world economy has created large areas of overlapping jurisdiction, in
which conflicts are found to occur unless national regulations are either to be
ineffective, or are co-ordinated. Combined with this, the very differen t nature
of the relationship between capital and the state makes liberal forms of
accommodation of jurisdictional overlaps ineffective. In the past private law
jurisdictional overlaps could be accommodated by conflicts of law rules, and
public law was penal and confined to the territory. Now there is a wide range
of state regulation of business that is not considered strictly penal (although
penal sanctions are applied very often) and that must be applied to
multinational business if it is to be effective. The nature of this form of
regulation also negates the other method of accommodating jurisdictional
conflicts that is most often suggested : to allow a broad overlap of jurisdiction
to prescribe while limiting enforcement strictly to terri tory, si nce in any case
state enforcement agencies have no powers beyond their borders without
agreement.
As the examples I have outlined show, sanctions such as the " denial of
export privileges " can be very effective against international business even
if only applied territorially. It is not so much the territoriality of enforcement
1 04 Sol Picciotto

that sets a limit to jurisdiction as rather the creation of conflicts with other
states' policies or laws. Sometimes there may be conflicts only with private
legal rights which may be privately adjusted by the parties or by provisions
such as for ce majeure clauses ; or the conflict with law or policy may be
(reluctantly) tolerated by the other state for a period (as with the I ran freeze).
But the move towards the creation of counteracting administrative powers
such as the British provisions for the " protection of trading interests " shows
that concurrent regulation of international business is increasingly difficult
to tolerate or accommodate through liberal forms. Therefore, what is being
attempted increasingly is the setting up of direct processes of co-ordination
between state agencies, which provide arenas within which negotiations
between those agencies and the giant multi nationals can be played out. Within
such i nternationalized neo-corporatist state structures it is likely to be the
multinational corporations who will dominate, even more so than on the
national plane. Nevertheless, there are serious contradictions for capital
involved in the disjunction between ecQnomic and political processes of
internationalisation, and the redefinition of the international state system is
by no means an automatic and straightforward process.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to many students, colleagues and friends for stimulating

discussions and comments on drafts of this paper, especially to Julio Faundez
B. and to members of the European Conference on Critical Legal Studies.
I also obtained valuable help from officials of the British Department of
Trade.

References

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Almquist & Wiksell : Stockholm.
Akehurst, M. ( 1 972- 1 973). Jurisdiction in international law. British
Yearbook of International Law XLVI, 1 45-257.
Berman, H. J. & Garson, J. R. ( 1 967). United States export
controls - past, present and future. Columbia Law Review 67, 868.
Carswell, R. ( 1 982). Economic sanctions and the Iran experience. Foreixn
Affairs 60, 247-265.
Holloway, J. & Picciotto, S. ( 1 980). Capital, the state and European
integration. Research in Political Economy 3, 1 23- 1 54.
Josephson, M. ( 1 934). The Robber Barons. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich :
New York.
Kindleberger, C. P. ( 1 969). American Business Abroad - Six Lectures on
Direct Investment. Yale University Press : New Haven and London.
Lowe, A. V. ( 1 98 1 ). Blocking extraterritorial jurisdiction : the British
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protection of Trading Interests Act, 1 980. American Journal of

International Law 19, 257.
Lowenfeld, A. F. ( 1 979). Public law in the international arena. Receuil des
cours, Hague Academy of International Law 163, 3 1 5-445.
Lowenfeld, A. F. ( 1 98 1 ). Sovereignty, jurisdiction and reasonableness : a
reply to A. V. Lowe. American Journal of International Law 15,
629-638.
Maier, H. G. ( 1 982). Extraterritorial jurisdiction at a crossroads : an
intersection between public and private international law. A merican
Journal of International Law 76, 280-320.
Murray, R. ( 1 97 1 ). The internationalization of capital and the
nation-state. New Left Review 67, 84- 1 09.
U.S. Government ( 1 979). Diplomatic Note No. 56 dated 9 November
1 979 from the U.S. Ambassador to British Secretary of State for
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together with U . K . Diplomatic Note No. 225 of 27 November 1 979 in
reply.
Vagts Detlev, F. ( 1 982). A turnabout in extraterritoriality. A merican
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Van der Pijl, K . ( 1 979). Class formation at the international level.
Refiections on the political economy of Atlantic unity. Capital &: Class
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London.
 PA RT 3

Introduction
Synthesis : interdependence and
the uniqueness of place
JOHN ALLEN

I n the preceding section each of the three chapters focused upon the internal
characteristics and relations of a particular aspect of society and drew out
their geographical significance . It was apparent, however, that none of the
three social aspects - cultural forms, urban economic activity, and the
processes of international law - could be conceived in isolation from other
aspects of society. Although a series of interrelationships was lightly sketched
between cultural, political and economic processes in varying degrees in the
analyses, the actual links and connections between the social processes that
shape and structure the different aspects of the social world were not
developed. This development involves a process of synthesis, a process that
takes the results of analysis, the detailed studies of particular aspects of
society, and draws out the web of relationships that integrates and binds them
to the wider social sphere. Sketched in this manner, the task of synthesis is
to construct a more complex geography of social relations from the different
geographies of culture, housing, employment, law, and so forth.
By synthesis, however, we wish to convey something more than a simple
integration of the various subdivisions of the subject matter of geography.
The conception of synthesis we wish to employ is not one of an exhaustive
quest for each and every social relationship down to the last detail that
comprises the geography of an area. Synthesis addresses the methodological
issue raised in the introduction to this book : how the general and the
particular are combined in explanation, how the particularity of place is
preserved and modified within the generality of social change to produce
different outcomes in different places. Clarke's analysis of culture (Chapter
3) caught something of the flavour of the type of synthetic combination that
guides the readings in this section when he spoke of cultural change as a
product of negotiation and resistance between past and present cultural
forms. The distinctiveness of local cultural patterns, he argued, is a product
of older cultural strands affecting the shape of new cultural forms. In different
places this combination of the old and the new takes different forms
depending upon which cultural strands persist, which disappear, and which
1 07
1 08 John A llen

elements are transformed in the process of change. The result is the

geographical unevenness of culture.
The type of explanation Clarke is moving towards, then, is not exhaustive,
it is not the geography of all and sundry ; a synthesis of elements should be
restricted to the interaction between particular social processes, be they
economic, political or cultural, and the social characteristics of a specific
geographical area. The aim of this type of synthesis is to unravel how broad
social processes affect the social structure of certain areas and how, in turn,
the economic organization, political character, cultural form and mediated
environmental attributes of particular areas shape the actual manner in which
the social processes operate. The focus of this mode of synthesis is specific ;
it attempts to capture the interrelationship of social processes - the links in
the social relationships between town and country, region and nation, and
between nations - without losing sight of the distinctive history and character
which different places bring to bear upon the impact of those processes.
The point can be illustrated by taking the example of urban areas. In the
previous section, Ball (Chapter 4) analysed the urban form in terms of its
geography of production, population and built environment. He pulled out
the detail of each aspect and the links between population movement,
location of housing, offices, and so forth and the changing spatial distribution
of jobs. Changes in the latter feature, the geography of employment, have
received much attention of late as the location of production has moved
outwards from the major urban conurbations. This is a general process of
capital restructuring that links various cities, towns and regions up and down
the country, but what is lost in this general statement is the uneven impact
of this process upon particular urban areas. Rising levels of unemployment,
for example, are likely to have a varied impact in different urban locations
depending upon the organization of social life, political and cultural traditions,
and historical experience of an area .
M oreover, the process of restructuring has not led to job loss in all urban
areas ; some towns have benefited from the changing spatial division of
labour. A different geographical pattern of employment and class relations
is taking shape. To unravel the impact of the different dimensions of one
general process upon particular areas is to understand, first, how the different
social elements within an area modify and influence one another to produce
a unique place ; and second, how the distinctive character of places, towns,
cities, fuse with general patterns of social change to produce a geographically
uneven social impact.
The two aspects of synthesis are integral to one another and cannot be
separated in explanation, although an emphasis upon one or the other aspect
leads to a different type of study.
The first aspect is drawn out through an examination of the changing
pattern of social relations within particular areas, and is illustrated in this
section by McDowell and M assey's account of the uneven geography of
 Interdependence and the uniqueness of place 1 09
gender relations (Chapter 7). The second aspect is best seen through a focus
upon the interrelationships between areas, the social links that bind places
together to produce a geographically uneven yet interdependent process of
change. M urgatroyd and Urry illustrate this aspect of synthesis in Chapter 6.
In their account of local economic change, they are careful to point out
that the effects upon one local economy, Lancaster, of the general restructuring
of manufacturing capital over the last decade cannot be deduced from a
knowledge of contemporary changes within the nature of industrial capital.
The changes in the local pattern of employment are considered as a product
of the interaction between, on the one hand, the cultural, political and
economic characteristics of the locality, which, in part, stem from the area's
historical role in wider successive spatial divisions of labour ; and on the other
hand, a national and international process of capital restructuring. The
ensuing combination of this economic process and the social fabric of
Lancaster, which is specific in time, produces, as M urgatroyd and Urry point
out, a unique social outcome.
This local pattern of industrial change cannot be accounted for as part of
a general industrial decline of the Northwest region of England. The authors
point to considerable variations in the past industrial structure of areas in
the region, and indeed, to more recent contrasts in the patterns of employment
and unemployment within the region. They argue that there is no magical
formula which can predict how the process of industrial restructuring will
affect different local economies. The effects will be different in different
localities, and will be dependent upon the role of the local economy in past
and present forms of the spatial division of labour.
In Lancaster, the peculiar characteristics of the locality : the structure of
ownership, control, and type of manufacturing and service capital, the
paternalistic character of social relations that marks the workforce, the
pattern of gender relations outside of the workplace, the local political
composition, and physical location of the town, have all contributed towards
the contemporary reorganization of the local economy in a new national
spatial division of labour.
The thrust of their argument, therefore, is both substantive and conceptual.
Conceptual, because they have attempted to synthesize national economic
trends with particular historical local circumstances. Both sides of the coin,
the general and the unique, are preserved within their conceptual framework .
The authors do not offer a local or regional synthesis that is restricted to
factors that are to be found only within the boundaries of a particular area ;
they attempt to integrate a broad process of economic restructuring and
reorganization that links a number of geographical localities with the
specificity of one local economy. It is this double-sided characteristic of their
practice of synthesis that distinguishes it from much of the traditional
regional synthesis within geography. Places are not conceived as separate and
unrelated ; social processes that traverse conventional spatial boundaries such
1 10 John A llen

as the region or the nation are integral to an understanding and explanation

of the shape and direction of social change at the local or regional level. The
interdependence of areas is as important as the uniqueness of areas.
Chapter 7 develops the second aspect of this mode of synthesis in relation
to the geography of gender relations : how the uniqueness of areas is
constructed and reproduced over time within the context of wider social
change. The authors, McDowell and M assey, offer two snapshots in time of
four geographical areas to show how the gender relations and women's roles
change in different ways in different areas in response, in part, to previous
patterns of gender relations in an area, and the wider processes lying behind
them .
The structure of the gender relations of an area is conceived by the authors
as the product of a combination of historical layers, in which each layer
represents a geographically specific articulation of economic and patriarchal
relations. Changes in the wider economic organization of society, the
successive roles that an area has played within a wider national and
international division of labour, are shown to structure and restructure the
division of labour between men and women. But there is more to their
argument ; changes within gender relations are not conceived as a simple effect
of economic change - the relation is reciprocal, rather than in one direction.
Subsequent changes in the economic base of an area are, to a certain degree,
also a reaction to the established pattern of gender relations laid down within
previous articulated layers. The two complex layers combine to produce a
qualitatively new pattern of gender relations which will vary in its form from
area to area.
Conceptualizing the geography of gender relations in this way allows the
authors to show how areas characterized by different gender histories,
differences in gender roles at home and work, ideologies and attitudes, and
so forth, when drawn into similar roles in a new spatial division of labour,
throw up distinctive patterns of gender relations. Variety is captured within
the interstices of the general .
Chapter 8 offers a synthesis at a different geographical level. Richards and
Martin's account of labour migration in the M iddle East illustrates the varied
impact within Arab nation states of the increase in migrant workers that has
accompanied the changing role of M iddle Eastern economies in the capitalist
world economy. The authors show that the practice of synthesis is not limited
to an account of the interactions that occur between, on the one side, the local
or regional social structures, and, on the other side, a set of expansive social
processes that operate across regional and national spatial boundaries. It is
equally possible to talk of syntheses between international forces and national
social structures, as it is possible to develop a synthesis between national
changes and their local social effect . The difference is merely one of scale,
rather than legi timacy. (The categories of geographical area - locality, region,
town, city, nation and so forth - do not in themselves carry any explanatory
 Interdependence and the uniqueness of place Ill

significance : they act merely as a convenient shorthand to describe the

geographical extent of social processes and phenomena.)
Our reason, however, for including this article rests upon the authors'
detailed account of how geographically located cultural forms have shaped
wider economic forces to the extent that the two features are inextricably
interrelated . At a general level, the authors point out that economic forces
in the form of the oil boom have reinforced a long-standing tradition of labour
migration between Arab nations rooted in M uslim culture. A strong demand
for labour exists at all levels of skills in the oil exporting countries of Saudi
Arabia, Libya, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It is at this point that
religious culture and economic interests fuse to facilitate a social trend . But
the reasons for this demand for migrant labour are not simply economic (a
shortage of indigenous labour), they are culturally specific to the area : the
low rate of female participation in the workforce and the disdain of the
Bedouin population for any kind of manual labour. Both factors derive from
historical val ues that predate the penetration of industrial capital in the
Middle East, yet both operate to shape a distinctive process of labour
migration that has mushroomed through the integration of M iddle Eastern
economies in a new international capitalist division of labour. The past has
combined with the present to produce a distinctive outcome ; the cultural and
the economic have qualitatively modified one another in a unique fashion.
The one is constitutive of the other.
Richards and Martin go on to show that this rather general synthesis has
had more detailed political implications for a number of M iddle Eastern
states. In their view, the different nationalities of the migrants, the different
religious ideologies held, and the different political sympathies of migrant
groups produce a complex and varied picture of political interaction.
Different countries in the M iddle East experience the process of labour
migration in different ways, in response to their own political, cultural and
economic complexion. Moreover, this structured uneven impact is not limi ted
to the countries that receive migrant labour. The impact of the monetary
remi ttances upon the economies of the sending countries is portrayed as
equally varied in response to the different structures of the economies
involved . Variety and uniqueness of place are reproduced within the general
dynamics of social change .
 6
The restructuring of a local
economy : the case of Lancaster
L I N DA M U RGATROYD A N D JOHN U R RY

1. Introduction
In this chapter we will consider how one particular local economy within
Britain has been reorganized over the past twenty or thirty years. We will
suggest that this reorganization, reflected in the apparently simple changes
in the relative size of manufacturing and service employment, is in fact the
product of complex relationships between the underlying ' restructuring ' of
the various industrial sectors pertinent to the locality. Thus, industrial
location and employment changes are not simply the consequence of certain
general processes which are merely developed to a lesser or greater extent in
any particular local economy. Any such economy must rather be seen as a
specific conjuncture, in both time and space, of the particular forms of
capitalist and state restructuring within manufacturing and service industries.
As M assey argues,

the social and economic structure of any given local area will be a complex result
or the combination of that area's succession of roles within the series of wider, national
and international, spatial divisions of labour.
(Massey, 1 978, p. 1 1 6)

There are three important implications of this ' structural ' approach for the
analysis of industrial location and employment change. First, the changing
forms of the spatial division of labour, especially the shift away from a high
degree of regional specialization, derive from new patterns of capital
accumulation. In particular, they reflect the internationalization of capitalist
accumulation and the development of ' n�o-Fordist ' methods by which the
labour process is controlled.
Second, changes in the location of industry are not to be explained simply
in terms of ' economic ' or ' political ' factors ; location is rather to be
Editors' footnote : The original contained very extensive references and substantial
data most of which are excl uded from this version because of length considerations.
Source : Redundant Spaces in Cities and Regions ? Studies in Industrial Decline and
Social Change, J. Anderson, S. Duncan and R. H udson (ed s . ) ( Academic Press,
London, 1 983), ch. 4, pp. 67-98.

1 12
 The re-structuring of a local economy 1 13

understood in relation to those forms of economic restructuring within and

between industrial sectors which are necessitated by the requirements of
capital accumulation. H owever, relations between classes, and other social
forces, also significantly affect patterns of economic restructuring, and the
latter themselves influence social relations within particular localities to a
substantial extent.
Third, problems of uneven development cannot be analysed simply in terms
of ' regions ' and of regional growth or decline. With the growth of national
and international branch circuits there has been a decrease in the degree to
which productive systems are centred upon a particular region. This is related
to the dispersal of new manufacturing employment on a periphery-centre
pattern and to some consequential decline in regional variations in unemploy­
ment and economic activity rates between the mid- 1 960s and the late 1 970s.
This homogenization among the peripheral regions has also been partly
reinforced by the growing concentration of the functions of conception and
control within the South East region of the U . K . Similarly, in terms of
industrial change, Fothergill and Gudgin ( 1 979, p. 1 57) conclude that " there
are much greater contrasts within any region than between the regions
themselves " .
I n this chapter w e shall consider these three points in relation t o the
de-industrialization of the Lancaster sub-region (which we will refer to simply
as ' Lancaster '). This local economy is situated in the north of the North-West
Planning Region (north of Preston and Blackburn) and consists of the former
urban districts of Lancaster, and M orecambe and Heysham, as well as
extensive surrounding rural areas from the Fylde to the Lake District, and
from M orecambe Bay in the west to the Pennines in the east. It constitutes
a relatively self-contained labour market, with only 7.6% of residents in the
district travelling elsewhere to work and 8 . 7 % of those working in it living
outside (Census of Population, 1 97 1 ).
Recently, Lancaster has, like much of the rest of the U K , been ' de­
industrialized ', with a shift out of manufacturing into either service employ­
ment or unemployment. This resulted from a number of underlying processes
whose impact in different regions and localities varies greatly. In other words,
there is no simple ' de-industrializing ' process by which national and
subnation a l economies develop, with one kind of economic activity auto­
matically replacing another as dominant. [ . . . ) Therefore to say that a local,
regional, or national economy has been ' de-industrialized ' is merely a way
of describing certain shifts in the structure of employment ; it does not provide
an explanation [ . . . ].
I n the following we shall show how the ' de-industrialization ' of Lancaster
has resulted from a combination of processes. Although during the 1 950s and
early 1 960s this subregion was an important site for private manufacturi ng
investment, the national and international reorganization of capital produced
a rapid decline in Lancaster's manufacturing base from the 1 960s onwards.
1 14 Linda Murgatroyd and John Urry

We shall focus on three manufacturing industries i n greater detail, to show

how their particular forms of restructuring had the effect that most of the
new employment generated was located outside Lancaster, whether abroad
or elsewhere in the U K . We shall also briefly consider the restructuring of
the service industries in the locality. We then turn to some of the implications
of the process of capitalist restructuring in Lancaster, for local politics and
for the state. [ . . . )

2. The restructuring of Lancaster's economy

2. 1 . Employment in Lancaster

The main changes in the structure ofemployment in Lancaster, the North· West
Planning Region and the UK between 1 9 5 1 and 1 977 can be summarized as
follows. Overall, there was a major reduction in manufacturing employment
in Lancaster, from around 1 7000 to 9000 jobs. At the same time, there have
been major increases in many of the service industries, with employment
increased by 5000 over the period, 1 95 1 -77. Female employment and
unemployment both grew, and while the total population had expanded by
1 3 % , there was an I I % fall in the employed population.
These overall changes did not occur smoothly over the thirty-year period.
M anufacturing and service employment both grew considerably, by 9. 5 % and
by 1 3 . 2 % respectively between 1 952 and 1 964 (Fulcher et a/. , 1 966).
Employment in a number of manufacturing industries grew substantially :
textiles by 32. 3 % ( 1 349 employees), engineering by 56. 5 % (360), clothing and
footwear by 1 7 % ( 1 24) and floor-coverings and coated fabrics by 25 % ( I 002).
Although the long-established local furniture industry was run down (the
main factory closed in 1 962), an oil refinery and chemical plant were
developed and became major local employers. Certain categories of service
employment also showed very substantial rates of employment growth ;
notably distribution 38 % , insurance, banking 3 5 % , professional services
42 % , and public administration 1 9 % .
During this period, there was a strong demand for labour, and unemploy­
ment was minimal. The labour force increased by over 4000 , at a rate about
equivalent to the national rate but faster than the average for the North-West
region. M uch of this increase was accounted for by in-migration, and female
employment also increased slowly, but even with these expansions in the
labour force, local employers found increasing difficulty in recruiting labour
in the early 1 960s.
Over the next fifteen years, the situation altered dramatically. M anufacturing
employment fell from 1 6700 in 1 96 1 to 1 1 200 in 1 97 1 , dropping to 9000 in
1 977 (Department of Employment). By contrast, employment in the service
sector expanded steadily from 23000 in 1 96 1 to 26800 in 1 97 1 , and rose more
sharply during the early 1 970s to reach 29400 in 1 977, that is, from just over
one-half to two-thirds of total employment between 1 96 1 and 1 977.
 The re-structuring of a local economy 1 15

This structural shift has had significant effects upon the differential
employment of men and women locally. Between 1 95 1 and 1 97 1 , male
employment fell by 1 200, while female employment rose to 4900. The
economic activity rates for men fell from 8 1 .4 % to 72 % (with 67 .4% in
employment), while the female rate rose from 3 1 . 8 % to 36. 8 % (Census of
Population, 1 95 1 , 1 97 1 ). As a result there was an increase in the ratio of female
to male workers in the subregion . The general shift towards the service
industries is related to the increased feminization of the Lancaster labour force
since the proportion of women employed in these industries is high. H owever,
there has also been a shi ft within the service sector towards increased
feminization (from 49. 1 % to 54 % between 1 9 7 1 and 1 976 ; Department of
Employment, ERI I ).
There has also been a considerable growth in declared part-time employment
especially during the 1 970s, and like elsewhere, there has been a long-term
increase in the numbers of registered unemployed.
Up to the mid- 1 960s, Lancaster was a significant centre for capital
accumulation, and this led to a considerable labour shortage. H owever, from
1 965 this became less the case, and the local unemployment rate rose above
the national average. The male rate in particular has increased steeply, and
a growing gap between the national and local rates has developed.
What explanation can we provide for this shift in the pattern of employment
over the post-war period ? One obvious explanation of this is that the
industries present in Lancaster 1 956-60 were those which were about to
decline in employment nationally (such as cotton textiles and related indus­
tries). However, Fothergill and Gudgin ( 1 979) show that the industrial
structure in Lancaster's manufacturing sector in the late fifties was in fact
exceedingly favourable in comparison with other areas, and it remained
favourable throughout the sixties, when those manufacturing sectors
represented in Lancaster expanded in the UK as a whole.
The explanation of the decline in manufacturing employment (3300
between 1 959 and 1 975) cannot, therefore, be the existing industrial structure.
The alternative is that established firms failed to grow, or at least to expand
employment, and closed or shrunk instead, while the locality failed to attract
mobile employment which was being generated elsewhere in the sixties and
early seventies. Conversely, the relatively large expansion of Lancaster's
service sector could not have been predicted from the structure of service
industries in 1 959, but was due rather to the movement of services (such as
the University) into the subregion, and the disproportionate growth (or lesser
decline) of those already present, such as health services and tourist-related
trades. This pattern in Lancaster was directly the converse of that in
neighbouring subregions which had a highly unfavourable industrial structure
for manufacturing, while that for services was favourable.
This suggests then that the decline of Lancaster's manufacturing base rests
with the ' poor performance ' of existing capital combined with the inability
1 16 Linda Murgatroyd and John Urry

to attract substantial new plants into the subregion during the 1 960s. Hence
at a time of very considerable industrial restructuring, with considerable new
plant mobility, Lancaster failed to attract such investments and its existing
capital became progressively unable to compete with the new plants being
established elsewhere.
Fothergill and Gudgin have attempted to explain the overall pattern of
employment change in terms of the division between urban conurbations and
semi-rural areas. It was in the former, and especially in the large conurbations,
that manufacturing employment decline was most marked . This has resulted
from the in situ contraction of employment and plant closures. And it was
in the less industrialized, semi-rural areas that the most substantial relative
increases in both manufacturing employment and total employment have
been recorded . The Lancaster subregion, in terms of its rural/urban character­
istics, fits into the latter category. H owever, manufacturing employment in
Lancaster actually fell by 22 % between 1 959 and 1 975.
Lancaster should have experienced considerable increases in manufacturing
employment, given both its industrial structure in 1 959 and the ' performance '
of similar less heavily industrialized subregions. But second, identifying a
locality in terms of its urbanjrural characteristics glosses over a number of
highly diverse determinants of employment change. Overall it is more
important to identify the place that a particular locality occupies in relationship
to the changing spatial division of labour, and hence why in certain cases in
situ expansion or new plants will be developed within smaller less urbanized
centres. We will now consider the forms of restructuring of the manufacturing
and service sectors in the Lancaster economy.

2.2. Restructuring in the manufacturing sector

First, there has been a significant increase in the numbers of establishments

and of enterprises. In 1 964 there were 58 manufacturing firms in the Lancaster
subregion while by 1 979 there were at least 1 3 5 separate manufacturing
establishments employing over ten people, but the increase was largely in the
small firms sector. By 1 979 there were 1 09 firms employing between ten and
a hundred employees compared with 35 employing below I 00 in 1 964. Indeed
it is interesting to note how successful the subregion has been in establishing
and attracting small manufacturing firms. Partly this may have resulted from
the efforts of the City Council to encourage the establishment and growth
of such firms, not simply because this is the only alternative, but also because
of the perceived problems caused by dependence on ' externally controlled '
capital, graphically highlighted when the Lansil works owned by British
Celanese (part of Courtaulds) closed in 1 980. This episode also shows very
wel l the limitations of the popular ' small firm solution ' to industrial decline.
This one closure caused more jobs to be lost than had been created by small
firms during the whole of the 1 970s.
 The re-structuring of a local economy 1 17

Since the late 1 950s, a high proportion of manufacturing employment has

been in firms which were controlled from outside the immediate area ; and
there has been a slight increase in this proportion. Subsidiaries or branches of
large companies tended to be the larger establishments. A considerable
number of locally based firms were taken over by, or merged with, other
companies over this period .( . . . ] This dependence of the local economy upon
a small number of large externally controlled firms was noted by the local
planning department :
. . . it is significant that a very high proportion of closures and redundancies declared
during recent periods of recession have been in firms who are under external control,
i.e. ' pruning the branches to encourage growth ' .
(Lancaster City Council : 1 977, Appendix I l lc)

The ' branches ' are located in Lancaster.

It is also important to note here that all the large manufacturing firms in
Lancaster are now externally controlled, while independent ownership is
much more characteristic of the very small firms. Moreover, hardly any of
the large plants were established by major multinationals ; rather they were
locally-owned firms which were acquired by (or merged with) large companies
based elsewhere. In other words, external takeovers have been far more
important for the employment structure of Lancaster than have patterns of
branch-plant migration (except in the 1 940s and 1 950s with the establishment
of a fertilizer and ammonia plant by ICI and a refinery by Shell). I n general,
Lancaster has not developed as a branch-plant economy in the sense of
branch-plants moving in ; rather, existing plants have become branches. ( . . . . ]
We will now consider three forms of restructuring of industrial sectors
which will generate different spatial patterns of employment decline (see
Massey and Meegan, 1 982). They are ' intensification ', ' investment and
technical change ', and ' rationalization ' . Intensification is the process of
increasing the productivity of labour with little, if any, loss of capacity and
no investment in new forms of production. Such a reorganization of
production will generally en tail less change in the distribution of employment
than any of the other forms of reorganization. In the second type, investment
and technical change, there is heavy capital investment in new forms of
production and as a result considerable job-loss, often highly unequally
distributed among job-types and skills. The third form, rationalization,
produces closure of capacity without new investment or change in
technique. [ . . . ]
The restructuring of the British economy in this way has had important
spatial implications, and Lancaster seems to have been one of the casualties.
Lancaster's manufacturing employment was concentrated in industries in
which ' investment and technical change ' , or ' rationalization ' were to occur,
rather than ' intensification ' . To demonstrate this in detail is beyond the scope
of this chapter ; instead, we will discuss the broad trends in the th ree p ri ncipa l
1 18 Linda Murgatroyd and John Urry

manufacturi ngindustries. l n June, 1 97 1 , linoleum, plastics and floor-coverings,

made-made fibres and fertilizers employed 2502, 20 1 5, and 9 1 1 people
respectively, and between them acco unted for 46 % of all manufacturing
employment in Lancaster. By 1 977, employment in these industries had fallen
by 4 1 % , 66 % and 32% compared with their 1 97 1 levels. What, then, were the
forms in which production in these industries was reorganized, to produce
such a fall in their employment in Lancaster?

( I ) Floorcoverings. linoleum, plastics, etc.

[.. . . ] During the 1 950s this was a relatively buoyant industrial sector with a
2 5 % increase in the local employed labour force. However, during the 1 960s
there was a sharp decline in employment within this sector. The local results
were that :
. . . the major company since the 1 860s, the Mills [Williamsons], were forced into a
defensive merger with a major rival ; the merger led to considerable rationalisation,
the disposal of surplus assets and the consolidation of both administration and
production at the headquarters of the former rival [Naims], in a government
development area [Kirkcaldy).
(Martin and Freyer, 1 973, p. 1 68 : names in brackets added).

In fact, all floor-covering production was transferred to Kirkcaldy and the

Lancaster plant mainly concentrated on PVC wall-coverings instead.
Linoleum manufacture had long been established in Lancaster, having
developed from sail-cloth and oil-cloth production in the nineteenth century,
and much of the equipment was therefore outdated . The market for these
products deteriorated sharply with the development of plastics, and later of
cheap carpets based on man-made fibres. Local firms did diversify into PVC
sheeting and various kinds of coated fabrics and wall-coverings, but much
of this was achieved by the adaptation of old machinery rather than by
substantial new capital investments and the use of new forms of production
technology. The main production change within this industry has been the
decline in linoleum and the development of plastic floor coverings. This
resulted from a combination of two processes : rationalization and the almost
complete disappearance of manufacturing capacity in linoleum, and technical
change and investment within plastic floor and wall-coverings. This has had
dramatic employment effects.
Overall, the rate of decline in this sector has been far faster in Lancaster
than in the U K as a whole. Nationally, restructuring (including closures) has
been accompanied by some expansion, but this has not occurred in Lancaster.

(2) Fertilizers

In contrast to the floor-coverings industry, there have been enormous

increases in output, capital expenditure and prod uctivity in this industry
 The re-structuring of a local economy 1 19

nationally. Both output and productivity increased ten tirnes over the period
1 963-78, while capital investment increased nine times between 1 968 and 1 978
(all in money terms). The increases in productivity in fertilizers were greater
than for any other branch of the chemicals industry between 1 970 and 1 975,
but the capital investment was concentrated in the development of new, very
large, low cost manufacturing plant : by the late 1 960s there were six major
plants in the U K . As a consequence there was a 20 % red uction in the numbers
of both establishments and enterprises between 1 963 and 1 978. Moreover,
these enormous increases in output were achieved with little or no increase
in total employment in the fertilizer industry. The fertilizer industry is a very
good example of ' jobless growth ' where the process of restructuring took the
form of ' investment and technical change ' . What then were the consequences
for the Lancaster economy ?
[Employment in fertilizer production in Lancaster fell from 2285 in 1 952
to 624 i n 1 977.) The workforce fell in the main local plant (ICI at Heysham)
for two main reasons. First, ammonia production was abandoned in 1 977,
and concentrated in the larger plants, especially in the North-East. And
second, the fertilizer made at Heysham (Nitrogel) could not compete with the
new fertilizer (Nitran) which had been developed by ICI in the mid- 1 960s.
The Heysham plant is disadvantaged in that its capacity is too small (500 tons
per day compared to 1 500/2000 tons at more modern plants) and because
none of its main production capacity dates from later than 1 962. Again we
see how capital accumulation in manufacturing industry has not led to
reinvestment in Lancaster, and that this decline results from the development
elsewhere of newer, cheaper manufacturing capacity.

(3) Man-made fibres

Production of man-made fibres began in Lancaster in 1 928 with the establish­

ment of Cellulose Acetate Silk Co. Ltd (later known as Lansils), in an area
of considerable national expansion in the production of rayons. By 1 929 there
were 32 national competi tors ; yet in the next 30 years one finn, Courtaulds,
came to dominate rayon production. However by the early 1 950s the market
for rayon was being eroded by the development of synthetic fibres (especially
nylon and later polyesters) and of improved cotton. Courtaulds itself
diversified and came to dominate production in all sections of the textile
industry, except weaving which remained rather fragmented, and in 1 973-4
it acquired Lansils in Lancaster.
Two points are important here. First, man-made fibres constitute a sector
in which investment and technical change has been particularly marked,
especially in the period up to 1 970. Courtaulds has been able to enlarge its
monopoly position by moving into synthetics, and by vertical integration.
Second, the effect of this in Lancaster has been the closure of Lansils in 1 980,
after a long period of decline. Courtaulds j ustify closure with reference to
1 20 Linda Murgatroyd and John Urry

annual losses of £9 1 000, but more fundamentally this resulted from failure
to update or replace machinery since first installation in 1 952. I t is true that
the reorganization of the textile industry as a whole : mergers, acquisitions,
technical changes, and new plants in development areas and abroad, produced
new accumulation away from the traditional Lancashire textile towns. But
we might have expected Lancaster to have been protected from some of the
worst consequences of this process because of its involvement in the
production of man-made fibres rather than cotton . However, this did not
occur. Accumulation in the 1 950s was followed by disinvestment in Lancaster
in the 1 960s and 1 970s. The total number of textile workers in the travel­
to-work-area has declined from 5500 in 1 964 to 1 800 in 1 977.

To summarize, Lancaster benefited from accumulation in manufacturing

industry in the 1 950s, and by the end of the decade had high representation
in a number of growing industrial sectors. However, these were sectors that
were to experience ' investment and technical change ', and ' rationalization ',
particularly because of the increased centralization of ownership. New plants
were established elsewhere, while existing plants based on earlier technologies
shed labour. Local branches of multi-plant companies were run down, as
these companies restructured their production away from Lancaster. While
the number of small manufacturing enterprises swelled during the later
period, these did not provide sufficient employment to offset the decline in
the larger establishments. It is interesting to note that of those industries in
which there was much less job-loss in Lancaster, two appear as ' i ntensifiers '
between 1 968 and 1 973, according to Massey and Meegan ( 1 982, ch. 3). These
are textile finishing, whose employment in Lancaster fell from 432 to 278
between 1 97 1 -7, and footwear whose employment fell from 549 to 4 1 4.

2.3. The reorganization of services

We will now consider how restructuring in service sector industries has

affected Lancaster. First of all, however, it is necessary to distinguish between
service industries and service occupations. The former are those industries
with a product which is classified as a service rather than a tangible good,
and include transport and communications, distribution, professional ser­
vices, and so on. The latter, service occ u pations, are like service industries
in that they are normally defined in contrast with the physical production of
commodities, and include managers, professionals, clerical and sales workers,
health and educational workers and so on. The most important implication
of this distinction is that there are many workers within manufacturing
industry who are located within the service occupations. Crum and Gudgin
( 1 978, 5) estimate that by 1 97 1 , 34. 6 % o f manufacturi ng workers in the U K
were what they term ' non-productive ' i n this sense. So another way of
expressing the ' de-industrialization ' thesis is to point out that the absolute
 The re-structuring of a local economy 121

number of ' direct production workers' had fallen from 6.5 m . i n the late 1 950s
to 5 . 2 m. in 1 975.
Partly this reflects the changing industrial structure, so that roughly
speaking the later an industry develops, the higher the proportion of
non-productive workers employed within it. It also reflects the socialization
of non-productive labour within firms, and the differentiation of the functions
of management between a large number of agents as conception is increasingly
separated from execution .
We can also identify some distinctive factors which affect the labour
process within service work . First, labour-power has to be expended more
closely to where the consumer demands it, and this has implications for the
spatial structuring of such industry . It is also more difficult to standardize
the product and hence to fragment the labour process as in manufacturing
industry. There is also some degree of control maintained by many service
workers over the nature of their work. This is true even within distribution,
clerical and secretarial work, and is particularly marked in the case of work
involving personal contacts with ' clients ' (e.g. in the Health Service).
I n the service sector, capital (and the state) tend to economize on labour
costs, not principally through direct increases in productivity (though this of
course happens) but rather through the employment of sectors of the labour
force which can be employed at less than the average wage for white males.
In most of the major capitalist economies, there have been much larger
increases in the employment of women than of men in the growing service
sector. (A significant exception to this is West Germany, where large numbers
of ' guestworkers ' have been employed.) In the UK, women are now five times
more likely to be employed in service than manufacturing industry. This
development is connected to some de-skilling of service employment. We
should note that such variations in women's participation rates will have
significant implications for the cost of reproducing labour power, the size of
local labour reserves, and the levels of organization and politicization of the
labour force ; all of which may in turn affect patterns of industrial restructuring
(see Chapter 7).
What then has happened to the service industries in Lancaster ? Between
1 95 1 and 1 977, the numbers employed in them increased by 2 1 % , as com­
pared with a 23 % increase nationally. This constituted an increase of over
5000, at the same time that total employment had fallen by nearly 6000. How­
ever, this overall expansion conceals a number of divergent trends.
Between 1 960 and 1 979 employment in transport and communication
declined by over one third, while that in professional and scientific services
almost trebled (up 1 80 % ). Other service industries maintained fairly steady
levels of employment. In the relatively large size of the transport sector, and
the small numbers employed in financial services and government administra­
tion, Lancaster was fairly typical of the North-West as a whole. During the
1 950s Lancaster had a lower proportion of people employed in professional
1 22 Linda Murgatroyd and John Urry

and scientific services than was the nation al average (7. 5 % compared with
7 . 9 % nationally), and in this also it resembled the average for the North-West
Region. However, during the 1 960s and 1 970s, the expansion of the sector
resulted in strong local concentration of employment in these services. Of the
employed labour force in Lancaster, 20 % were in this sector in 1 977,
compared with 1 6 % nationally.
M any of these shifts result not from changes in local markets or other
indigenous factors, but from decisions taken at a national level, mainly
concerning changes in the railway, education and health system . As in the
case of manufacturing industry, the domination of the transport and the
professional and scientific services by organizations which extended beyond
the boundaries of Lancaster resulted in reorganization which affected the
locality to a disproportionate extent. While the ' market ' for many of these
services is local, in the sense that health and education authorities cater for
those living within their boundaries, there has also been a concentration in
Lancaster of specialized areas of health care (e.g. mental hospitals, geriatrics),
and of higher education which serve a population far wider than that
permanently living in the travel-to-work area. Both employees and clients in
these services are geographically mobile and moved into the area in order to
take up the jobs or services available in Lancaster.
The tourist industry is the other major employer in the area. Here again,
there is a net invisible export from Lancaster via the geographic mobility of
the clientele, a large proportion of whom travel from other parts of the
North-West. ' Miscellaneous services ' afld ' Distribution ' are the two industries
most closely connected with tourism.
I n 1 95 1 ' miscellaneous services ' (which includes cinemas and theatre, sport
and recreation, betting and gambling, hotels, restaurants, public houses,
clubs, etc . . . . ) was by far the largest service industry in the area, accounting
for 1 3 . 5 % of all local employment ; double the proportion nationally. There
were fluctuations in the level of employment in this sector, but by 1 977 the
net increase since 1 95 1 was minimal, despite their increased share of
employment locally.
Similarly, distributive trades maintained a steady level of employment over
the period, apart from a drop in the mid- 1 960s attributable to selective
employment tax. The steady level of employment in this sector resulted from
two opposing forces ; nationally, retailing employment declined due to a shift
towards large-scale outlets, but the population serviced by retailers in the
Lancaster district increased, due to a high rate of in-migration of professional
and retired families. The local multiplier effects of the expanded health and
education services, more than made up for the slight decline in tourist-related
employment over the period.
Although little detailed information is available concerning changing
ownership patterns in the local service sector, it is clear that there is a trend
towards external ownership of the large enterprises in this sector, just like in
 The re-structuring of a local economy 1 23

manufacturing. There is also an increased local dependence on public sector

employment in educational and health services. Not only has an increasing
proportion of the local population come to depend directly on the state sector
for employment, but also a great deal of employment in other services
depends on the incomes generated by these sectors. As manufacturing
employment declines, the economy of Lancaster has become increasingly
dependent on the level and direction of state expenditure.

2.4. Summary

In conclusion to this section we should note how there has been a substantial
shift in the character of this locality over the past thirty years. In 1 950 the
local economy was dominated by a small number of private manufacturing
employers, who were involved in numerous commodity and interpersonal
linkages with the locality and with the surrounding textile-based region. I n
1 980, the state is the dominant employer, and the fortunes of the small private
employers depend upon the expansion or contraction of state expenditure,
principally within the service sector. Relatively few large manufacturing
establishments remain, and they have limited linkages with other locally based
firms.[ . . . ] In the next section we will briefly discuss some of the local and
policy factors involved in these changes and how these changes in turn
affected the forms of economic and political struggle within Lancaster.

3. State policies, politics and struggle

There are three significant issues to deal with here. First, why was Lancaster
unable to attract the mobile new employment that was generated in those
industries undergoing technical change and making new investments?
Second, what have been the characteristic features of the economic and social
relations in Lancaster that have influenced this failure ? And third what have
been the consequences of the changes in the ownership and the structure of
employment upon local struggles?

3. 1 . Regional and local industrial policies

On the first question we may begin by noting that Lancaster is part of the
North-West Region, and this region has performed very badly in employment
terms over the recent period. Stillwell maintains that the North-West was
among " the least attractive regions in which to locate industry " ( 1 968, p. 1 0) .

This meant that other regions attracted the mobile plants which made a major
difference in employment terms. This produced cumulative disadvantages for
those less-favoured areas, as the age of the region's capital stock got
progressively older and less competitive with the new plant being established
elsewhere.
1 24 Linda Murgatroyd and John Urry

Lancaster should have been partly protected from this effect, given its
relative expansion in the 1 940s and 1 950s. H owever, this was not sustained,
partly because the North-West Region has not constituted an important force
politically (in comparison with Scotland or Wales, for example), and partly
because Lancaster has had little chance of making effective representation on
its own (although it has maintained Intermediate Area Status). The labour
movement never developed a strong regional base here, by contrast, for
example, with South Wales or the North-East of England . One crude
indicator of this is given by the fact that the proportion of people voting
Labour in Lancashire has generally been lower than in corresponding regions.
(In 1 974, 50. 1 % in Lancashire voted Labour, compared with 59.4% in the
North-East.) Lancaster itself comprses two constituencies, yet the first
Labour M . P. was not elected until 1 966, although the proportion of manual
workers in the labour force was over 50 % until the 1 960s.
The local state has concentrated upon two policies : first, to attract new
service employment within the public sector, hence the university and
expanded hospital ser� ices ; and second, to develop small manufacturing
firms. The latter policy was introduced in the early 1 960s and it was
consolidated in the late 1 960s and 1 970s. This has not been substantially
changed, even when unemployment began to rise. Land and technical and
financial assistance were made available and a ' seed-bed ' experiment was set
up to help very small firms to become established. Preference for these
facilities was actively given to those small firms, with ' high quality ' products,
in technologically-based industries. A substantial number of such firms were
successfully brought to (or started in) Lancaster, using the facilities provided
by the council and the university through Enterprise Lancaster, and also
helped by the Small Firms Club initiated by the city council . Large-scale
manufacturing investments were less strongly encouraged by the local counci l
throughout the sixties and early seventies, and Lancaster's designation as an
Intermediate Area during the era of Regional Policy after 1 972 did not
facilitate the attraction of large-scale capital during a period of massive
industrial restructuri ng. In general, regional policy has benefited those areas
which experienced full special Development Area status during the central
period of regional policy (c. 1 965-75) at lhe expense of other regions.
However, the impact of regional policy should not be over-estimated, since
the period in which it was particularly developed was also that in which the
most substantial restructuring of capitalist industry took place.

3.2. Restructuring class relations and local politics

We have already noted that the Lancaster subregion has not been an area
with a strong labour movement, but contrary to right-wing commentators,
this did not result in the attraction of large flows of capital to the subregion,
so that they might profit from the quiescent (or ' realistic ') labour force. It
has been argued that the quiescence of the Lancaster labour force has resulted
 The re-structuring of a local economy 1 25

from the traditional paternalist character of social relations both within

work-places and between the local firms and the city. Norris ( 1 978, pp. 47 1 -2)
defines paternalism (of the sort once found in Lancaster) as existing where
inequalities of economic and political power are " stabilized through the
legitimating ideology of traditionalism " . He suggests that there are four
components to such an ideology : " gentlemanly ethic ", " personal depen­
dence ", " localism ", and a " gift relationship " .
While traditional forms o f paternalism clearly n o longer existed b y the
1 960s and 1 970s, vestiges of these practices are indicated by the responses of
the local labour movement to the mass redundancies and plant closures which
have characterized 1 980 and 1 98 1 . These events elicited fatalistic responses
from the labour force, and the only negotiations that took place were about
the terms of redundancies, their necessity being accepted from the start.
Despite an understanding that the closure of Lansil plant ( 1 980) by Courtaulds
was caused, not simply by low company profits, but by the company's
worldwide restructuring plans, the workers from Lansil's eventually appeared
grateful to accept the minimal redundancy payments made by Courtaulds
(source : interview with shop steward). This kind of response was in sharp
contrast to the occupation simultaneously taking place at Gardners in Eccles,
only 40 miles away, and to similar protests elsewhere. Such action was not
seriously considered in Lancaster by any of the workforces affected by
redundancies, rather notions of the " gentlemanly ethic " and the " gift­
relationship " prevailed .
The main active response was also characterized by attitudes associated
with paternalism, namely localism and personal dependence. The Save
Lancaster Campaign was established by the Trades Council late in 1 980, in
the wake of several redundancy announcements, and the emphasis of the
campaign was firmly on the locality rather than on class politics. This
campaign did not gain much active support even at this time, and it withered
away after a few weeks. M ost of those affected preferred either to depend on
the provisions of the state and the efforts of the city council, or to find
individualistic solutions to unemployment. It may well be that the blossoming
of small businesses during the 1 970s was an accommodating local response
to the decline in employment in older manufacturing firms ; in addition, the
existence of a large (traditional) petit bourgeoisie (the self-employed) probably
undermined collectivist protests. [ . . . ]
To some extent it appears that the labour movement had more involve­
ment i n trying to ' save ' the city's industry than had most other groupings.
However, its efforts to preserve capitalist manufacturing activity in the
locality clearly deflected labourist struggles away from the traditional issues
of the wage-relation or the forms of capitalist control, concentrating them
instead on presenting the city as a suitable site for capitalist accumulation.
To some extent the labour movement has also put its weight behind the ' small
firms strategy ', being apparently unaware of th e deficiencies of such strategy.
To the extent that social relations in Lancaster were o nce characterized
1 26 Linda Murgatroyd and John Urry

by ' corporate paternalism ', this may have been replaced by a kind of state
paternalism. Clearly the local labour force (and indeed the local economy) is
dependent to a crucial degree upon the state, and it has responded gratefully
when announced cutbacks are less than they might have been . A good recent
example has been the attitudes of gratitude and deference exhibited locally
when the Manpower Services Commission created considerable temporary
employment in the area. However, it may be more appropriate to regard the
responses to heightened ' external control ' of the local economy as charac­
terized more by fatalism than by paternalism .
A number o f other developments in local politics can also be mentioned .
In particular, various ' oppositional fragments ' have emerged, which have
been concerned with struggles in the area of consumption as well as
production. Such issues as ecology, sexual politics, transport, leisure and the
arts have grown in importance locally, as the service sector has come to
dominate the area's industry ; many of those active in such ' fragments ' being
either employed in the service sector, or unemployed. The restructuring of
the local economy has therefore involved not only the undermining of
[already weakly developed] traditional forms of class conflict, but also the
development of new struggles and a restructuring of local (political activity] .

4. Conclusion

We have thus tried to show how the Lancaster economy has been transformed
as a consequence of its location within the changing forms of the spatial
division of labour. During the period of post-war reconstruction, based on
the expansion of national capital, Lancaster benefited and developed in a
number of growing industrial sectors. But with the industrial restructuring
of the 1 960s and early 70s, a new, in part international, spatial division of
labour developed from which Lancaster failed to benefit. I ndeed since its
fixed capital was of a previous vintage, the effect of the new round of
accumulation was to undermine those industries established within the
previous round. The main expansion was in state service employment, and
partly in private service employment. There was an increasing gap between
the relatively skilled employment available in the service sector (especially that
of the state) and that de-skilled employment available in the private
manufacturing sector. The political composition of Lancaster interestingly
reflects this particular combination of forms under which the local economy
has been restructured .

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful for the assistance, advice and encouragement of other
members of the Lancaster Regionalism Group. We are also indebted to the
Department of Employment, to M r R. H . Kelsall of Enterprise Lancaster,
 The re-structuring of a local economy 1 27

and others, for providing us with information, and to M r M . Lee for

assistance in processing it. This work was financed by the H uman Geography
Committee of the S.S. R.C., 1 980-- 1 .

References
Crum, R. E. and Gudgin, G. ( 1 977). " Non-production activities in the
UK manufacturing industry ", Brussels Commission of the European
Community Regional Policy Series, 3.
Fothergill, S. and Gudgin, G. ( 1 979). " Regional employment change : a
subregional explanation ", Progress and Planning, 1 2 , 1 55-220.
Fulcher, M. N . , Rhodes, J. and Taylor, J. ( 1 966). " The economy of the
Lancaster sub-region ", University of Lancaster Economics
Department, Occasional Paper 1 0.
Lancaster City Council. ( 1 977). " I ndustrial strategy for Lancaster ",
Lancaster Town Hall, unpublished.
Martin, R. and Freyer, B. ( 1 973). Redundancy and Paternalist Capitalism,
Allen and Unwin, London.
Massey, D. ( 1 978). " Regionalism : some current issues ", Capital and
Class, 6, 1 06-- 1 25.
Massey, D. and Meegan R. ( 1 978). " Industrial restructuring versus the
cities ", Urban Studies, 15, 3.
Massey, D. and Meegan, R. ( 1 982). The Anatomy of Job Loss : The How,
Why and Where of Employment Decline, Methuen, London.
Norris, G. ( 1 978). " I ndustrial paternalism, capitalism and local labour
markets ", Sociology, l l, 469-89.
 7
A woman's place ?
L I N DA M c DOW E L L AND DO R E EN M ASSEY

The nineteenth century saw the expansion of capitalist relations of production

in Britain. It was a geographically uneven and differentiated process, and the
resulting economic differences between regions are well known : the rise of
the coalfields, of the textile areas, the dramatic social and economic changes
in the organization of agriculture, and so forth. Each was both a reflection
of and a basis for the period of dominance which the �K economy enjoyed
within the nineteenth-century international division of labour. In this wider
spatial division of labour, in other words, different regions of Britain played
different roles, and their economic and employment structures in consequence
also developed along different paths.
But the spread of capitalist relations of production was also accompanied
by other changes. In particular it disrupted the existing relations between
women and men. The old patriarchal form of domestic production was torn
apart, the established pattern of relations between the sexes was thrown into
question. This, too, was a process which varied in its extent and in its nature
between parts of the country, and one of the crucial influences on this
variation was the nature of the emerging economic structures. In each of these
different areas ' capitalism ' and ' patriarchy ' were articulated together,
accommodated themselves to each other, in different ways . .
It is this process that we wish to examine here. Schematically, what we are
arguing is that the contrasting forms of economic development in different
parts of the country presented distinct conditions for the maintenance of male
dominance. Extremely schematically, capitalism presented patriarchy with
different challenges in different parts of the country. The question was in what
ways the terms of male dominance would be reformulated within these
changed conditions. Further, this process of accommodation between
capitalism and patriarchy produced a different synthesis of the two in
different places. It was a synthesis which was clearly visible in the nature of
gender relations, and in the lives of women.
This issue of the synthesis of aspects of society within different places is
what we examine in the following four subsections of this chapter. What we
are interested in, in other words, is one complex in that whole constellation
of factors which go to make up the uniqueness of place.
1 28
 A woman's place ? 1 29

We have chosen four areas to look at. They are places where not only
different ' industries ' in the sectoral sense, but also different social forms of
production, dominated : coal mining in the north-east of England, the factory
work of the cotton towns, the sweated labour of inner London, and the
agricultural gang-work of the Fens. In one chapter we cannot do justice to
the complexity of the syntheses which were established in these very different
areas. All we attempt is to illustrate our argument by highlighting the most
significant lines of contrast.
Since the construction of that nineteenth-century mosaic of differences all
these regions have undergone further changes. In the second group of sections
we leap ahead to the last decades of the twentieth century and ask ' where
are they now ? ' . What is clear is that, in spite of all the major national changes
which might have been expected to iron out the contrasts, the areas, in terms
of gender relations and the lives of women, are still distinct. But they are
distinct in different ways now. Each is still unique, though each has changed.
I n this later section we focus on two threads in this reproduction and
transformation of uniqueness. First, there have been different changes in the
economic structure of the areas. They have been incorporated in different
ways into the new, wider spatial division oflabour, indeed the new international
division of labour. The national processes of change in the UK economy, in
other words, have not operated in the same way in each of the areas. The
new layers of economic activity, or inactivity, which have been superimposed
on the old are, just as was the old, different in different places. Second,
however, the impact of the more recent changes has itself been moulded by
the different existing conditions, the accumulated inheritance of the past, to
produce distinct resulting combinations. ' The local ' has had its impact on
the operation of ' the national ' .

The nineteenth century

Coal is our life : whose life ?
Danger and drudgery ; male solidarity and female oppression - this sums up
life in the colliery villages of Co. Durham during much of the nineteenth
century. Here the separation of men and women's lives was virtually total :
men were the breadwinners, women the domestic labourers, though hardly
the ' angels of the house ' that featured so large in the miqdle class Victorian's
idealization of women. The coal mining areas of Durham provide a clear
example of how changes in the economic organization of Victorian England
interacted with a particular view of women's place to produce a rigidly
hierarchial and patriarchal society. These villages were dominated by the pits
and by the mine owners. Virtually all the men earned their livelihood in the
mines and the mines were an almost exclusively male preserve, once women's
labour was forbidden from the middle of the century. Men were the industrial
1 30 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

proletariat selling their labour power to a monopoly employer, who also

owned the home. Mining was a dirty, dangerous and hazardous job. Daily,
men risked their lives in appalling conditions. The shared risks contributed
to a particular form of male solidarity, and the endowment of their manual
labour itself with the attributes of masculinity and virility. The shared dangers
at work led to shared i nterests between men outside work : a shared pit
language, shared clubs and pubs, a shared interest in rugby. Women's
banishment from the male world of work was thus compounded by thei r
exclusion from the local political and social life.
Jobs for women in these areas were few. Domestic service for the younger
girls ; for married women poorly paid and haphazard work such as laundry,
decorating or child care. But most of the families were in the same position :
there was little cash to spare for this type of service in families often depending
on a single source of male wages. For miners' wives almost without exception,
and for many of their daughters, unpaid work in the home was the only and
time-consuming option. And here the unequal economic and social
relationships between men and women i mposed by the social organization
of mining increased the subordinate position of women. A miner's work
resulted in enormous domestic burdens for his wife and family. Underground
work was filthy and this was long before the installation of pithead showers
and protective clothing. Working clothes had to be boiled in coppers over
the fire which had to heat all the hot water for washing clothes, people and
floors. Shift work for the men i ncreased women's domestic work : clothes had
to be washed, backs scrubbed and hot meals prepared at all times of the day
and night :
'Igo to bed only on Saturday nights ', said a miner's wife ; ' my husband and our three
sons are all in different shifts, and one or other of them is leaving or entering the house
and requiring a meal every three hours of the twenty four.'
(Webb, 1 92 1 , pp. 7 1 -2)

An extreme example, perhaps, but not exceptional.

These Durham miners, themselves oppressed at work, were often tyrants
in their own home, dominating their wives in an often oppressive and bullying
fashion. They seem to have " reacted to [their own] exploitation by fighting
not as a class against capitalism, but as a gender group against women - or
rather within a framework of sex solidarity against a specific woman chosen
and caged for this express purpose " ( Frankenberg, 1 976, p. 40). Men were
the masters at home. Here is a Durham man, who himself went down the
pits in the 1 920s, describing his father :

He was a selfish man. If there was three scones he'd want the biggest one. He'd sit
at the table with his knife and fork on the table before the meal was even
prepared . . . Nobody would get the newspaper till he had read it.
(Strong Words Collective, 1 977, pp. 1 1 - 1 2)
Thus gender relations took a particular form in these colliery villages.
 A woman's place ? 131

National ideologies and local conditions worked together to produce a unique

set of patriarchal relations based on the extreme separation of men's and
women's lives. M asculine supremacy, male predominance in every area of
economic and social life became an established, and almost unchallenged,
fact. Patriarchal power in this part of the country remained hardly disturbed
until the middle of the next century.

Cotton towns : the home turned upside down ?

The images of homemaker and breadwinner are of course national ones,
common to the whole of capitalist Britain, and not just to coalfield areas. But
they were more extreme in these regions, and they took a particular form ;
there were differences between the coalfields and others parts of the country.
The cotton towns of the north-west of England are probably the best-known
example from, as it were, the other end of the spectrum, and a major element
in this has been the long history of paid labour outside the home for women.
It is often forgotten to what extent women were the first labour-force of
factory-based, industrial capitalism. " In this sense, modern industry was a
direct challenge to the traditional sexual division of labour in social produc­
tion " (Alexander, 1 982, p. 4 1 ). And it was in the cotton industry around
Manchester that the challenge was first laid down.
M aintaining patriarchal relations in such a situation was (and has been)
a different and in many ways a more difficult job than in Durham. The
challenge was nonetheless taken up. Indeed spinning, which had in the
domestic organization of the textile industry been done by women, was taken
over by men. Work on the mule came to be classified as ' heavy ', as,
consequently, to be done by men, and (also consequently) as skilled (Hall,
1 982). The maintenance of male prerogative in the face of threats from
women's employment, was conscious and was organized :
The mule spinners did not leave their dominance to chance . . . At their meeting in the
Isle of Man in 1 829 the spinners stipulated ' that no person be learned or allowed to
spin except the son, brother, or orphan nephew of spinners '. Those women spinners
who had managed to maintain their position were advised to form their own union.
From then on the entry to the trade was very tightly controlled and the days of the
female spinners were indeed n u mbered.
(Hall, 1 982, p. 22)

But if men won in spinning, they lost (in those terms) in weaving. The
introduction of the power loom was crucial. With it, the factory system took
over from the handloom weavers, and in the factories it was mainly women
and children who were employed. This did present a real challenge :

The men who had been at the heads of productive households were unemployed or
deriving a pittance from their work whilst their wives and children were driven out
to the factories.
(Hall, 1 982, p. 24)
1 32 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

Nor was ' the problem ' confined to weavers. For the fact that in some towns
a significant number of married women went out to work weaving meant that
further jobs were created for other women, doing for money aspects of
domestic labour (washing and sewing, for example) that would otherwise have
been done for nothing by the women weavers. Further, the shortage of
employment for men, and low wages, provided another incentive for women
to earn a wage for themselves (Anderson, 1 97 1 ).
The situation caused moral outrage among the Victorian middle classes and
presented serious competition to working-class men. There was " what has
been described as ' coincidence of interests ' between philanthropists, the
state - representing the collective interests of capital - and the male working
class who were represented by the trade union movement and Chartism -
which cooperated to reduce female and child labour and to limit the length
of the working day " (Hall, 1 982, p. 25). In the same way, it was at national
level that arguments about ' the family wage ' came to be developed and
refined as a further means of subordinating women's paid labour (for pin
money) to that of men's (to support a family). The transformation from
domestic to factory production, a transformation which took place first in
the cotton towns,
provoked, as can be seen, a period of transition and re-accommodation in the sexual
division of labour. The break-up of the family economy, with the threat this could
present to the male head of household, who was already faced with a loss of control
over his own labour, demanded a re-assertion of male authority.
(Hall, 1 982, p. 27)

Yet in spite of that reassertion, the distinctiveness of the cotton areas

continued. There were more women in paid work, and particularly in
relatively skilled paid work, in the textile industry and in this part of the
country, than elsewhere :
In many cases the family is not wholly dissolved by the employment of the wife, but
turned upside down. The wife supports the family, the husband sits at home, tends
the children, sweeps the room and cooks. This case happens very frequently : in
Manchester alone, many hundred such men could be cited, condemned to domestic
occupations. It is easy to imagine the wrath aroused among the working-men by this
reversal of all relations within the family, while the other social conditions remain
unchanged.
(Engels, 1 969 edn, p. 1 73)

This tradition of waged-labour for Lancashire women, more developed than

in other parts of the country, has lasted. Of the early twentieth century,
Liddington writes " Why did so many Lancashire women go out to work ?
By the turn of the century economic factors had become further reinforced
by three generations of social conventions. It became almost unthinkable for
women not to work " ( 1 979, pp. 98-9).
And this tradition in its turn had wider effects. Lancashire women joined
 A woman's place ? 1 33

trade unions on a scale unknown elsewhere in the country : " union membership
was accepted as part of normal female behaviour in the cotton towns "
( Liddington, 1 979, p. 99). I n the nineteenth century the independent mill-girls
were renowned for their cheekiness ; of the women of the tum-of-the-century
cotton towns, Liddington writes : " Lancashire women, trade unionists on a
massive scale unmatched elsewhere, were organized, independent and proud "
( 1 979, p. 99). And it was from this base of organized working women that
arose the local suffrage campaign of the early twentieth century. " Lancashire
must occupy a special place in the minds of feminist historians. The radical
suffragists sprang from an industrial culture which enabled them to organize
a widespread political campaign for working women like themselves " (p. 98).
The radical suffragists mixed working-class and feminist politics in a way
which challenged both middle-class suffragettes and working-class men. I n
the end, though, it was precisely their uniqueness which left them isolated -
their uniq ueness as radical trade unionists and women, and, ironically, their
highly regionalized base :
The radical suffragists fai led in the end to achieve the political impact they sought.
The reforms for which they campaigned - of which the most important was the
parliamentary vote - demanded the backing of the national legislature at Westminster.
Thousands of working women in the Lancashire cotton towns supported their
campaign, and cotton workers represented five out of six of all women trade union
members. No other group of women workers could match their level of organization,
their (relatively) high wages and the confidence they had in their own status as skilled
workers. Their strength, however, was regional rather than national, and when they
tried to apply their tactics to working-class women elsewhere or to the national
political arena, they met with little success. Ultimately the radical suffragists' localised
strength proved to be a long-term weakness.
(Liddington, 1 979, p. 1 1 0)

The rag-trade in Hackney : a suitable job for a woman ?

But there were other industries in other parts of the country where women
were equally involved in paid labour, where conditions were as bad as in the
cotton mills, yet where at this period not a murmur was raised against their
employment. One such area was Hackney, dominated by industries where
sweated labour was the main form of labour-organization.
What was different about this form of wage relation for women from men's
point of view ? What was so threatening about women working? Hall ( 1 982)
enumerates a number of threads to the threat. The first was that labour was
now waged labour. Women with a wage of their own had a degree of
potentially unsettling financial independence. But Lancashire textiles and the
London sweated trades had this in common. The thing that distinguished
them was the spatial separation of home and workplace. The dominant form
of organization of the labour-process in the London sweated trades was
homeworking. The waged- l abo u r was carried out in the home ; in Lancashire,
1 34 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

birthplace of the factory-system, waged-labour by now meant leaving the

house and going to the mill. It wasn't so much work as going out to ' work
• • •

which was the threat to the patriarchal order. And this in two ways : it
threatened the ability of women adequately to perform their domestic role
as homemaker for men and children, and it gave them an entry into public
life, mixed company, a life not defined by family and husband.
It was, then, a change in the social and the spatial organization of work
which was crucial. And that change mattered to women as well as men.
Lancashire women did get out of the home. The effects of homeworking are
different : the worker remains confined to the privatized space of the home,
and individualized, isolated from other workers. Unionization of women in
cotton textiles has always been far higher than amongst the homeworking
women in London.
Nor was this all . For the nature of the job also mattered in terms of its
potential impact on gender relations :

Only those sorts of work that coincided with a woman's natural sphere were to be
encouraged. Such discrimination had little to do with the danger or unpleasantness
of the work concerned. There was not much to choose for example - if our criterion
is risk to life or health - between work in the mines, and work in the London
dressmaking trades. But no one suggested that sweated needlework should be
prohibited to women.
(Alexander, 1 982, p. 33)

Thinking back to the contrast between the coalfields and the cotton towns
and the relationship in each between economic structure and gender relations
and roles, it is clear that the difference between the two areas was not simply
based on the presence/absence of waged labour. We have, indeed, already
suggested other elements, such as the whole ideology of virility attached to
mining. But it was also to do with the kind of work for women in Lancashire :
that it was factory work, with machines, and outside the home. In the sweated
trades of nineteenth-century London, capitalism and patriarchy together
produced less immediate threat to men's domination.
There were other ways, too, in which capitalism and patriarchy interrelated
in the inner London of that time to produce a specific outcome. The sweated
trades in which the women worked, and in particular clothing, were located
in the inner areas of the metropolis for a whole variety of reasons, among
them the classic one of quick access to fast-changing markets. But they also
needed labour, and they needed cheap labour. H omeworking, besides being
less of an affront to patriarchal relations, was one means by which costs were
kept down . But costs (wages) were also kept down by the very availability
of labour. In part this was a result of immigration and the vulnerable position
ofimmigrants in the labour market. But it was also related to the predominantly
low-paid and irregular nature ofjobs for men ( Harrison, 1 983, p. 42). Women
in Hackney needed t o work for a wage. A nd this particular Hackney
 A woman's place ? 1 35

articulation of patriarchal infl uences and other ' location factors ' worked well
enough for the clothing industry.
But even given that in H ackney the social organization and nature of
women's work was less threatening to men than in the cotton towns, there
were still defensive battles to be fought. The labour-force of newly arrived
immigrants also included men. Clearly, were the two sexes to do the same
jobs, or be accorded the same status, or the same pay, this would be disruptive
of male dominance. The story of the emergence of a sexual division of labour
within the clothing industry was intimately bound up with the maintenance
of dominance by males in the immigrant community. They did not use the
confused and contradictory criteria of ' skill ' and ' heavy work ' employed so
successfully in Lancashire. In clothing any differentiation would do. Phillips
and Taylor ( 1 980) have told the story, of the establishment of the sexual
division of labour in production, based on the minutest of differences of job,
changes in those differences over time, and the use of them in whatever form
they took to establish the men's job as skilled and the women's as less so.

Rural life and labour

Our final example is drawn from the Fenlands of East Anglia, where the
division of labour and gender relations took a different form again. In the
rural villages and hamlets of nineteenth-century East Anglia, as in the
Lancashire cotton towns, many women ' went out to work ' . But here there
was no coal industry, no factory production of textiles, no sweated labour
in the rag trade. Economic life was still overwhelmingly dominated by
agriculture. And in this part of the country farms were large, and the bulk
of the population was landless, an agricultural proletariat. The black soils
demanded lots of labour in dyking, ditching, claying, stone-picking and
weeding to bring them under the ' New Husbandry ', the nineteenth-century
extension of arable land (Samuel, 1 975, pp. 1 2 and 1 8). Women were an
integral part of this agricultural workforce, doing heavy work of all sorts on
the land, and provoking much the same moral outrage as did the employment
of women in mills in Lancashire :

. . . the poor wage which most labourers could earn forced their wi ves to sell their labour
too, and continue working in the fields. In Victorian eyes, this was anathema for it
gave women an independence and freedom unbecoming to their sex. ' That which
seems most to lower the moral or decent tone of the peasant girl s ' , wrote Dr. Henry
Hunter in his report to the Privy Council in 1 864, ' is the sensation of independence
of society which they acq uire when they have remunerative labour in their hands, either
in the fields or at home as straw-plaiters etc. All gregarious employment gives a slang
character to the girls appearance and habits. while dependence on the man for support
is the spring of modest and pleasing deportment · . The first report of the Commissioners
on The Employment of Children, Young Persons and Women in Agriculture in 1 867,
put it more strongly, for not only did landwork almost unsex a woman ·. but it
•
1 36 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

· generates a further very pregnant social mischief by unfitting or indisposing her for
a woman's proper duties at home ' .
(Chamberlain, 1 975, p . 1 7)

The social and spatial structure of the rural communities of this area also
influenced the availability and the nature of work . Apart from work on the
land, there were few opportunities for women to earn a wage. Even if they
did not leave the village permanently, it was often necessary to travel long
distances, frequently in groups, with even more serious repercussions in the
eyes of the Victorian establishment. :
The worst form of girl labour. from the point of view of bourgeois respectability, was
the ' gang ' system, which provoked a special commission of inq uiry, and a great deal
of outraged commentary, in the 1 860s. It was most firmly established in the Fen
districts of East Anglia and in the East M idlands. The farms in these parts tended
to be large but the labouring population was scattered . . . The labour to work the land
then had to be brought from afar, often i n the form of travelling gangs, who went
from farm to farm to perform specific tasks.
(Kitt� ringham. 1 975, p. 98)

There are here some familiar echoes from Lancashire. And yet things were
different in the Fens. In spite of all the potential threats to morality, dom­
esticity, femininity and general female subordination, ' going out to work '
on the land for women in the Fens, even going off in gangs for spells away
from the village, does not seem to have resulted in the kinds of social changes,
and the real disruption to established ways, that occurred in Lancashire. In
this area, women's waged-labour did not seem to present a threat to male
supremacy within the home. Part of the explanation lies in the different nature
of the work for women . This farm labour was often seasonal. The social and
spatial organization of farmwork was quite different from that of factory
work, and always insecure. Each gang negotiated wage rates independently
with the large landowners, the women were not unionized, did not work in
factories, were not an industrial proletariat in the same sense as the female
mill workers in the cotton towns. Part of the explanation too, as in the colliery
villages, lies in the organization of male work . Men, too, were predominantly
agricultural labourers, though employed on an annual rather than a seasonal
basis, and like mining, agricultural work was heavy and dirty, imposing a
similar domestic burden on rural women.
A further influence was the life of the rural village, which was overwhelmingly
conservative - socially, sexually and politically. Women on the land in this
area did not become radicalized like women in the cotton towns. Relations
between the sexes continued unchanged . Women served their menfolk, and
both men and women served the local landowner ; nobody rocked the boat
politically :
When the Coatesworths ruled the village to vote Tory was to get and keep a job. The
Liberals were the party of the unemployed and the undeserving . . . Concern over
 A woman's place ? 1 37
politics was not confined to men. The women took an interest, too. They had to. Their
man's political choice crucially affected his employment, and their lives.
(Chamberlain, 1 975, p. 1 30)

Where are they now ?

What is life like in these areas now ? H ave the traditional attitudes about
women's place in the home in the heavy industrial areas survived post-war
changes? Have Lancashire women managed to retain the independence that
so worried the Victorian middle class ? In this century there have been
enormous changes in many areas of economic and social life. The communica­
tions revolution has linked all parts of the country together, TV, radio, video
and a national press have reduced regional isolation and increased the ease
with which new ideas and attitudes spread . Changes in social mores, in the
role of the family, in the labour process of domestic work, increased divorce
rates and a rapid rise in women's participation. in waged-labour between the
Second World War and the end of the seventies have all had an impact. And
yet, we shall argue here, regional differences remain.
There are, as we said in the introduction, two threads which we shall follow
in this process of the reproduction of local uniqueness. The first concerns the
geographically differentiated operation of national processes. Over 40 % of
the national paid labour-force in the UK now consists of women : a vast
majority of them married . One of the consequences of this growth of jobs
' for women ' has paradoxically been both an increase and a reduction in
regional differences. The gender division of labour is changing in different
ways in different areas, in part in response to previous patterns. Regional
disparities in the proportion of women at work are closing, but the corollary
of this, of course, is that the highest proportions of new and expanding jobs
are in those very regions where previously few women have bee n involved
in waged-labour. The four regions are being drawn in different ways into a
new national structure of employment and unemployment. We cannot here
attempt to explain this new spatial pattern. One thing we do hint at, though,
is that the form of gender relations themselves, and the previous economic
and social history of women in each of these places, may be one, though only
one, thread in that explanation.
The areas, then, have experienced different types of change in their
economic structure. In many ways the growth of jobs for women has been
of greater significance in the north-east and in East Anglia than in the cotton
towns or in Hackney. But that is not the end of the story. For those changes
have themselves been combined with existing local conditions and this has
influenced their operation and their effect. The impact of an increase in jobs
for women has not been the same in the Fens as it has been in the coalfields
of the north-east. This, then, is the second thread in our discussion of the
reproduction of local uniqueness.
1 38 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

I n the rest of this chapter we try to show the links between past and present
patterns, how changing attitudes to women and men's roles at work and in
the family in different parts of the country (themselves related to previous
economic roles) both influence and are influenced by national changes in the
nature and organization of paid employment over time. The present gender
division of labour in particular places is the outcome of the combination over
time of successive phases. Space and location still matter. The structure of
relationships between men and women varies between, and within, regions.
Life in inner London is still not the same as in the Fenlands, in the coalfields
of the north-east, as in the textile towns round Manchester. The current
division of labour between women and men is different, paid employment is
differently structured and organized, and even its spatial form varies between
one part of the country and another.

Coal was our life ?

The. decline of work i n the pits i s a well-known aspect of post-war economic
changes in Britain. How have the men and women of the north-east reacted
to this decline in their traditional livelihood '! Have the changes challenged
or strengthened the traditional machismo of the north-eastern male ? What
is happening in the north-east today in many ways recalls some of the
images - and the social alarm - generated by the cotton towns a hundred
years earlier. It is now in the north-east that homes are being ' turned upside
down ' and patriarchy threatened by women going out to work. At the
beginning of the 1 960s, still something less than a quarter of all adult women
in the old colliery areas worked outside their homes for wages. The figure
has more than doubled since then. And part of the explanation lies in the local
distinctiveness, the uniqueness of these areas that has its origins in the
nineteenth century. The women of this area have no tradition of waged-labour,
no union experience. It was, of course, these very features that proved
attractive to the female-employing industries that opened branch plants in
increasing numbers in Co. Durham in the sixties and seventies.
The new jobs that came to the north-east, then, were mainly for women.
They were located on trading estates and in the region's two New Towns built
to attract industrial investment and also to improve housing conditions. The
women who moved into the New Towns of Peterlee and Washington
provided a cheap, flexible, untrained and trapped pool of labour for incoming
firms. And added to this, the loss of jobs for men together with the rent rises
entailed by a move to new housing pushed women into the labour market.
M ale antagonism to the new gender division of labour was almost
univer sal . Outrage at women ' taking men's jobs ' , pleas for ' proper jobs ', an
assum ption that the packing, processing and as sembly line work that loomed
ever larger in the economic structure of the are a was an affront to ma sculine
dignity : " I think a lot of men feel that assembl y work wouldn't be acceptable ;
 A woman's place ? 1 39

they'd be a bit proud about doing that type of work in this area. North East
ideas are ingrained in the men in this area " ( Lewis, 1 983, p. 1 9). These
assumptions appear to be shared by the new employers : " we are predominantly
female labour orientated . . . the work is more suited to women, it's very boring,
I suppose we're old-fashioned and still consider it as women's work . . . the
men aren't interested " .
This lack o f interest plays right into the hands o f the employers : once
defined as ' women's work ', the jobs are then classified as semi- or unskilled
and hence low paid. An advantage that can be further exploited, as this
factory director explains :
" we changed from full-time to part-time women( ! ) . . . especially on the packing . . .
because two part-timers are cheaper than one full-timer . . . we don't have to pay
national insurance if they earn less than £27.00 a week, and the women don't have
to pay the stamp . . . the hours we offer suit their social lifes " .
( Lewis, Ph . D . , forthcoming)

So if men aren' t doing jobs outside the house, what are they doing instead ?
Are men here, like their Lancashire forebears ' condemned to domestic
occupations ? ' . Unlikely. An ex-miner's wife speaking on Woman's Hour
in 1 983 recalled that her husband would only reluctantly help in the home,
pegging out the washing, for example, under cover of darkness !
Things are changing, though . Men are seen pushing prams in Peterlee,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Council has a women's committee, TV crews come to
inquire into the progress of the domestication of the unemployed north-eastern
male and the social and psychological problems it is presumed to bring with
it. Working-class culture is still dominated by the club and the pub but even
their male exclusivity is now threatened. The 1 984 miners' strike seems set
to transform gender relations evern further. New battle lines between the sexes
are being drawn . The old traditional pattern of relations between the sexes,
which was an important condition for the new gender division being forged
in the labour market, is now under attack.

Industry in the country ?

How has life changed in the Fens? In some ways, continuity rather than
change is the link between the past and present here. For many women,
especially the older ones, work on the land is still their main source of
employment :
hard work , in uncompromising weather, in rough old working clothes padded out with
newspaper against the wind . . . Marriage for convenience or marriage to conform . . .
Land-worker, home servicer. Poverty and exploitation - of men and women by the
landowners, of women by their men .
(Chamberlain, 1 975, p. I I )

Not much different from their grandmothers and great-grandmothers before

them. Gangs are still a common feature and the nature of fieldwork has hardly
1 40 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

Women harvesting in nineteenth-century Norfolk (reproduced by kind

permission of the Coleman and Rye Library of Local History, Norwich).

changed either. Flowers are weeded and picked by hand. Celery and beet are
sown and picked manually too. And this type of work is considered · women's
work ' . It is poorly paid, seasonal and backbreaking. M ale fieldworkers, on
the other hand, have the status of ' labourers ', relative permanence and the
benefits associated with full-time employment. And they are the ones who
have machinery to assist them .
Life has changed though. Small towns and rural areas such as the Fens have
been favoured locations for the new branch plants and decentralizing
industries of the sixties and seventies. Labour is cheap here - particularly with
so few alternatives available - and relatively unorganized. Especially for
younger women, the influx of new jobs has opened up the range of
employment opportunities. It provides a means, still, both of supplementing
low male wages, and of meeting people - of getting out of the small world
of the village.
The impact of such jobs on women's lives, though, even the possibility of
taking them, has been structured by local conditions, including gender
relations. This is still a very rural area. The new jobs are in the nearby town .
So unless factories provide their own transport (which a number do), access
is a major problem. Public transport is extremely limited, and becoming more
so. There are buses - but only once a week to most places. Not all families
have a car, and very few women have daily use of one, let alone own ' their
own ' car. For many women, a bicycle is the only means of getting about.
This in turn has wider effects. For those who do m ake the journey to a fac­
tory job the effective working day ( i ncluding travel time) can be ve ry long. The
A landworker at Gislea Fen, 1 974 (photograph by A ngela Phillips, and reproduced with her kind permission).
1 42 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

time for domestic labour is squeezed, the work process consequently intensified .
Those who remain in the village become increasingly isolated . The industrial
workers, be they husbands or women friends, are absent for long hours, and
services - shops, doctors, libraries - gradually have been withdrawn from
villages.
I t seems that the expansion of industrial jobs ' for women ' has had
relatively little impact on social relations in the rural Fens. In part, this is
to do with the local conditions into which the jobs were introduced : the impact
back of local factors on national changes. The Fenland villages today are still
Conservative - politically and socially. Divorce, left-wing politics, women's
independence are very much the exception .
Old cultural forms, transmitted, have remained remarkably intact :
Although love potions and true-lovers' knots made of straw have disappeared, Lent
and May weddings are still considered unlucky. The Churching of Women - an
ancient post-natal cleansing ceremony - is still carried on, and pre-marital intercourse
and the resulting pregnancy is as much a hangover from an older utilitarian ap­
proach to marriage as a result of the permissive society. In a farming community
sons are important and there would be little point in marrying an infertile woman.
(Chamberlain, 1 975, p. 7 1 )

Attitudes to domestic responsibilities also remain traditional :

No women go out to work while the children are small - tho' there isn't much work
anyway, and no facilities for childcare. Few women allow their children to play in the
streets, or let them be seen in less than immaculate dress. Many men come home to
lunch and expect a hot meal waiting for them. (p. 7 1 )

I t takes more than the availability of a few jobs, i t seems, substantially to

alter the pattern of life for women in this area :

Although employment is no longer dependent on a correct political line, the village

is still rigidly hierarchic in its attitudes, and follows the pattern of the constituency
in voting solidly Conservative. And in a rigidly hierarchical society, when the masters
are also the men, most women see little point in taking an interest in politics, or voting
against the established order of their homes or the community as a whole . . . Most
women must of necessi ty stick to the life they know. Their husbands are still the
all-provider. The masters of their lives.
(Chamberlain, 1 975, pp. 1 30- 1 )

Gender relations i n East Anglia apparently have hardly been affected by the
new jobs, let alone ' turned upside down ' .

A regional problem for women ?

The contrast with the cotton towns of Lancashire is striking. Here, where
empl oymen t for women in the major industry had been declining for decades,
was a major source of female la bo ur, alre ady skilled, already accustomed to
 A woman's place ? 1 43

factory work, plainly as dexterous as elsewhere. And yet the new industries
of the sixties and seventies, seeking out female labour, did not come here, or
not to the extent that they went to other places.
The reasons are complex, but they are bound up once again with the
intricate relationship between capitalist and patriarchal structures. For one
thing, here there was no regional policy assistance. There has, for much of
this century, been massive decline in employment in the cotton industry in
Lancashire. Declines comparable to those in coalmining, for instance, and
in areas dominated by it. Yet the cotton towns were never awarded
Development Area status. To the extent that associated areas were not
designated on the basis of unemployment rates, the explanation lies at the
level of taxes and benefits which define women as dependent. There is often
less point in signing on. A loss of jobs does not necessarily show up,
therefore, in a corresponding increase in regional unemployment. Develop­
ment Areas, however, were not designated simply on the basis of unemployment
rates. They were wider concepts, and wider regions, designated on the basis
of a more general economic decline and need for regeneration . To that extent
the non-designation of the cotton towns was due in part to a more general
political blindness to questions of women's employment.
So the lack of regional policy incentives must have been, relatively, a
deterrent to those industries scanning the country for new locations. But it
cannot have been the whole explanation. New industries moved to other
non-assisted areas - East Anglia, for instance. Many factors were in play, but
one of them surely was that the women of the cotton towns were not, either
individually or collectively in thei r history, ' green labour ' . The long tradition
of women working in factory jobs, and their relative financial independence,
has continued . In spite of the decline of cotton textiles the region still has a
high female activity rate. And with this there continued, in modified form,
some of those other characteristics. Kate Purcell, doing research in the
Stockport of the 1 970s, found that :
It is clear that traditions of female employment and current rates of economic activity
affect not only women's activity per se, but also their attitudes to, and experience of,
employment. The married women I interviewed in Stockport, where female activity
rates are 45 per cent and have always been high, define their work as normal and
necessary, whereas those women interviewed in the course of a similar exercise in Hull,
where the widespread employment of married women is more recent and male
unemployment rates are higher, frequently made references to the fortuitous nature
of their work.
(Purcell, 1 979, p. 1 1 9)

As has so often been noted in the case of male workers, confidence and
independence are not attributes likely to attract new investment. It may well
be that here there is a case where the same reasoning has applied to women.
But whatever the precise structure of explanation, the women of the cotton
towns are now facing very different changes from those being faced by th e
1 44 Linda McDowell and Doreen Massey

women of the coalfields. Here they are not gaining a new independence from
men ; to some extent in places it may even be decreasing. Women's
unemployment is not seen to · disrupt ' family life, or cause TV programmes
to be made about challenges to gender relations, for women do the domestic
work anyway. Having lost one of thei r jobs, they carry on (unpaid) with the
other.

Hackney : still putting out

What has happened in Hackney is an intensification of the old patterns of

exploitation and subordination rather than the superimposition of new
patterns. Here manufacturing jobs have declined, but the rag trade remains
a major employer. The women of Hackney possess, apparently, some of the
same advantages to capital as do those of the coalfields and the Fens : they
are cheap and unorganized (less than 1 0 % are in a union - Harrison, 1 983,
pp. 69-70). I n Inner London, moreover, the spatial organization of the
labour-force, the lack of separation of home and w�rk, strengthens the
advantages : overheads (light, heat, maintenance of machinery) are borne by
the workers themselves ; workers are not eligible for social security benefits ;
their spatial separation one from another makes it virtually impossible for
them to combine to force up wage rates, and so on.
So given the clear advantages to capital of such a vulnerable potential
workforce, why has there been no influx of branch plants of multinationals,
of electronics assembly-lines and suchlike ? Recent decades have of course
seen the growth of new types of jobs for women, particularly in the service
sector, if not within H ackney itself then within travelling distance (for some),
in the centre of London. But, at the moment, for big manufacturing capital
and for the clerical-mass production operations which in the sixties and
seventies established themselves in the Development Areas and more rural
regions of the country, this vulnerable labour of the capital . city holds out
few advantages. Even the larger clothing firms (with longer production runs,
a factory labour process, locational flexibility and the capital to establish new
plant) have set up thei r new branch plants elsewhere, either in the peripheral
regions of Britain or in the Third World. So why not in Hackney ? In part
the women of Hackney have been left behind in the wake of the more general
decentralization, the desertion by manufacturing industry of the conurbations
of the First World. In part they are the victims of the changing international
division of labour within the clothing industry itself. But in part, too, the
reasons lie in the nature of the available labour. Homeworking does have
advantages for capital, but this way of making female labour cheap is no use
for electronics assembly-lines or for other kinds of less individualized
production. The usefulness of this way of making labour vulnerable is
confined to certain types of labour process.
The influx of service jobs in central London has outbid manufacturing
 A woman's place ? 1 45

for female labour, in terms both of wages and of conditions of work (see
Massey, 1 984, ch. 4). But working in service jobs has not been an option
available to all. For women in one way or another tied to the home, or to
the very local area, homeworking in industries such as clothing has become
increasingly the only available option. Given the sexual division of labour in
the home, homeworking benefits some women :

Homework when properly paid, suits many women : women who wish to stay at home
with small children, women who dislike the discipline and timekeeping of factory work
and wish to work at their own pace. Muslim women observing semi-purdah.
(Harrison, 1 983, p. 64)

But homework seldom is ' properly paid ' . Harrison again, on types of work
and rates of pay in Hackney in 1 982 :
There are many other types of homework in Hackney : making handbags, stringing
buttons on cards, wrapping greeting cards, filling Christmas crackers, assembling
plugs and ballpens, sticking insoles in shoes, threading necklaces. Rates of pay vary
enormously according to the type of work and the speed of the worker, but it is rare
to find any that better the average female hourly earnings in the clothing trade in 1 98 1 ,
£ 1 .75 an hour, itself the lowest for any branch o f industry. And many work out worse
than the Wages Council minimum for the clothing trade of £ 1 .42 per hour (in 1 982).
Given these rates of pay, sometimes the whole family, kids and all, are dragooned
in : . . . one mother had her three daughters and son helping to stick eyes and tails on
cuddly toys.
(Harrison, 1 983, pp. 67-8)

The involvement of all members of a family in homework or working as a

team in small family-owned factories is not uncommon, especially among
ethnic minorities. For small companies the extended family may be essential
to survival :
the flexibility comes from the family : none of their wages are fixed. When times are
good, they may be paid more. When they are bad, they are paid less. They get the
same pay whether their hours are short or long.

The fact that women are employed in the context of an extended family is
important not only in the organization of the industry but also for the lives
of the women themselves. They may have a wage, but they do not get the
other forms of independence which can come with a job. They do not get out
of the sphere of the family, they do not make independent circles of friends
and contacts, nor establish a spatially separate sphere of existence. Within
the family itself the double subordination of women is fixed through the
mixing in one person of the role of husband or father with that of boss and
employer.
But it is not that there have been no changes in recent decades for the
homeworkers of H ackney. They too have been caught up in and affected by
the r�nt changes in the international division of labour. The c l oth i ng
1 46 Linda McDo well and Doreen Massey

industry of London in the second half of the twentieth century finds itself
caught between cheap imports on the one hand and competition for labour
from the better working conditions of the service sector on the other. The
clothing firms with the ability to do so have long since left. For those that
remain. cutting labour costs is a priority, and homeworking a means to do
it. So an increasing proportion of the industry's work in the metropolis is now
done on this social system while the amount of work overall, and the real
wages paid, decline dramatically. For the women who work in this industry
there is thus more competition for available work, increasing vulnerability
to employers and intensification of the labour process. And this change in
employment conditions brings increased pressures on home life too, though
very different ones from those in the north-east, or the Fens. For these women
in Hackney their workplace is also their home.
Here's M ary, a forty-five-year-old English woman with teenage children
describing the pressures she feels :
I've been machining since I was fifteen, and with thirty years' experience I'm really
fast now . . . But I'm having to work twice as hard to earn the money. The governors
used to go on their knees to get you to take work if they had a rush to meet a delivery
date. But they're not begging no more. I t's take it or leave it. If you argue about the
price they say we can always find others to do it. I t's like one big blackmail. Three
years ago we used to get 35p to 40p for a blouse, but now [ 1 982] you only get 1 5 p
to 20p . . .
I used to get my work done in five hours, now I work ten or twelve hours a day . . . The
kids say, mum, I don't know why you sit there all those hours. I tell them, I don't
do it for love, I've got to feed and clothe us. I won't work Sundays though. I have
to think about the noise . . . I'm cooped up in a cupboard all day - I keep my machine
in the storage cupboard, it's about three feet square with no windows. I get pains in
my shoulders where the tension builds up. I've got one lot of skirts to do now, I've
got to do sixteen in an hour to earn £ 1 .75 an hour, that means I can't let up for half
a second between each skirt. I can't afford the time to make a cup of tea. With that
much pressure, at the end of the day you're at screaming pitch. If I wasn't on
tranquillizers, I couldn't cope. I'm not good company, I lose my temper easily. Once
I might have been able to tolerate my kids' adolescence, with this I haven't bee n able
to, I haven't been able to help them - I need someone to help me at the end of the
day.
(Harrison, 1 983, pp. 65-7)

Reflected in this woman's personal experience, her sweated labour and family
tensions, is a new spatial division of labour at an international scale. Low
wage, non-unionized workers in Hackney are competing directly with the
same type of low-technology, labour-intensive industries in the Third World .
But it is precisely the history of the rag trade in Hackney, the previous layers
of economic and social life, that have forced this competition on them. The
intersection of national and international trends, of family and economic
relationships, of patriarchy and capitalism have produced this particular set
of relationships in one area of I nner London.
A woman's place ? 1 47

References

Alexander, S. ( 1 982) ' Women's work in nineteenth-century London : a

study of the years 1 820-50 ', pp. 30-40 in E. Whitelegg et a/. (eds.), The
Changing Experience of Women, Martin Robertson, Oxford.
Anderson, M. ( 1 97 1 ) Family and Structure in Nineteenth-Century
Lancashire, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Chamberlain, M. ( 1 975) Fenwomen, Virago, London.
Engels, F. ( 1 969 edn) The Conditions of the Working Class in England,
Panther, St Albans.
Frankenberg, R. ( 1 976) ' I n the production of their lives, man ( ?) . . . sex
and gender in British community studies ', chapter 2, pp. 25-5 1 in
D. L. Barker and A. Allen (eds.), Sexual Divisions and Society : Process
and Change, Tavistock, London.
Hall, C. ( 1 982) ' The home turned upside down ? The working class family
in cotton textiles 1 780- 1 850 ', in E. Whitelegg et a/. (eds.), The
Changing Experience of Women, Martin Robertson, Oxford.
Harrison, P. ( 1 983) Inside the Inner City, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Kitteringham, J. ( 1 975) ' Country work girls in nineteenth-century
England ', Part 3, pp. 73- 1 38, in R. Samuel (ed.), Village Life and
Labour, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Lewis, J . ( 1 983) ' Women, work and regional development ', Northern
Economic Review, no. 7. Summer, pp. 1 0-24.
Lewis, J. (forthcoming) Ph. D Thesis, Department of Geography, Queen
Mary College, London.
Liddington, J . ( 1 979) ' Women cotton workers and the suffrage campaign :
the radical suffragists in Lancashire, 1 893- 1 9 1 4 ' , chapter 4, pp. 64-97,
in S. Burman (ed.), Fit Work for Women, Croom Helm, London.
Massey, D. ( 1 984) Spatial Divisions of Labour : Social Structures and the
Geography of Production, M acmillan, London.
Phillips, A. and Taylor, B. ( 1 980) ' Notes towards a feminist economics ',
Feminist Review, vol. 6, p p . 79-88.
Purcell, K . ( 1 979) ' M ilitancy and acquiescence amongst women workers ',
chapter 5, pp. 98- 1 1 1 , in S. Burman (ed.), Fit Work for Women,
Croom Helm, London.
Samuel, R. ( 1 975) Village Life and Labour, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
London.
Strong Words Collective ( 1 977) Hello, are you working ? Erdesdun
Publications, Whitley Bay.
Strong Words Collective ( 1 979) But the world goes on the same, Erdesdun
Publications, Whitley Bay.
Webb, S. ( 1 92 1 ) The Story of the Durham Miners, Fabian Society,
London.
 8
The laissez-faire approach to
international labor migration :
the case of the Arab Middle
East*
A L A N R I C H A R D S A N D P H I L I P L. M A R T I N

A n estimated 1 4-20 million persons are currently living and working in

countries where they a&e neither citizens nor immigrants. Half of these
nonimmigrant workers are legally admitted ' guestworkers ' ; the rest are
' illegal aliens ' or ' undocumented workers. ' These migrant workers must be
distinguished from two other transient groups : the 1 million permanent
immigrants who begin anew in another country each year and the 1 3 million
refugees living outside their country of citizenship and liable to prosecution
if they return . The distinctions between the three groups are often blurred,
as when migrant workers become immigrants.
The migration familiar to Americans moved transients and settlers from
East to West. The migratory chain established in the nineteenth century recurs
today - single males migrate first and later are joined by their dependents.
Family reunification and formation establish a community in the receiving
area to which later migrants come. Thus is forged the migratory chain which
moves people between two areas. From 1 800 to 1 920, some 50 million
Europeans arrived in the Americas. Early waves of immigrants intended (or
were forced) to effect a relatively clean break with their homeland.
M igration streams mature over time. The second wave of immigrants in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries contained many ' target
earners ' ; young men who hoped to work hard, live frugally, save money, and
return home to marry, buy a farm, build a house, or open a small store . 1 Of
course, many never returned . M ost of today's migrants are also target
earners - skilled and unskilled laborers moving from poor to rich countries.
Since there are relatively few permanent immigrant slots, most workers have

• Source : Economic Development and Cultural Change. vol. 3 1 , no. 3, April 1 98 3 , pp.
455-7 1 . © U n i versity of Chicago Press, 1 98 3 . All rights reserved.
Edi tors' note : we have omit ted the majority of the references and detailed footnotes
in the original. Readers interested in the sources used by the authors should refer to
the journal .

1 48
 International labor migration 1 49

no choice but to be temporary workers, often moving back and forth between
their home country and their place of work.
Economists believe that voluntary migration benefits not only individual
migrants and employers but also sending and receiving countries. Drawing
on the theory of competitive equilibrium, usually in the form of simple
international trade theory, they commonly assert that since labor is a
commodity like any other, if two nations have unequal resource endowments
exchange is mutually beneficial. The importing country is able to fill job slots
at a lower cost than would otherwise be possible, which reduces inflationary
pressures. Labor-importing countries are thought to derive dynamic benefits
as well : flexible and elastic labor supplies allegedly prevent industrial
expansion from bidding up wages, reducing profits, and retarding
investment. 2
Exporting countries are also believed to gain : by exporting a relatively
abundant factor (labor), they raise home wages and generate a return flow
of human and financial capital. Migration tends to equalize input and output
prices, increasing efficiency and welfare for all concerned. In this view,
economic benefits are maximized by minimizing the barriers to migration, a
laissez-faire policy. Free trade in labor is no different from free trade in goods,
and both are desirable.
For years some countries have followed the economists' lead in endorsing
and encouraging international labor migration. Industrial nations thought
they could obtain the additional labor needed to sustain noninflationary
growth, and labor-exporting nations hoped to reduce unemployment and
obtain remittance incomes. Recently both sending and receiving countries
have reversed their previous policies : laissez-faire has fewer supporters these
days. Labor importers found that migrants did not solve basic structural
problems. Instead, the presence and availability of migrants may preserve
low-wage, labor-intensive industries and make it more difficult to reduce trade
barriers or promote productivity-increasing innovations. M any people began
to feel that it was " morally wrong to build the development of our wealth
on the backs of foreign manpower . . . a group of people who are identifiably
of another race to do the despised menial work . "3
Sending countries also began to question the wisdom of laissez-faire
policies which sent the " best and brightest " abroad more or less permanently.
Algeria and Yugoslavia, for example, have drastically reduced labor emigra­
tion. The government of South Yemen has prohibited labor emigration
altogether. Even countries with a free enterprise ideology, such as the
Kingdom of Jordan, have called for an international fund to compensate
sending countries for the losses that labor exports impose upon them .4
What went wrong with the laissez-faire policy prescription ? Why were the
expectations created by orthodox theory not fulfilled ? This paper examines
these questions for sending countries by reviewing contemporary labor
migration in the M iddle East . This region provides a useful case study for
1 50 A lan Richards and Philip Mar tin

an analysis of laissez-faire policies. First, labor flows are quite large : at least
3 million aliens are living and working in the principal receiving countries.
Second, although receiving countries have placed some legal restrictions on
labor migration, these are often unenforced, while the sending countries of
the region have until recently pursued almost textbook laissez-faire policies.
An analysis of the Middle Eastern case not only provides insights into the
development dilemmas in this vital region but also may help to pinpoint the
weaknesses of laissez-faire theories and policies on labor migration.

Middle East labor migration : an overview

Estimates of M iddle East labor flows vary considerably. The most compre­
hensive survey to date is that of Birks and Sinclair. 6 Their numbers should
probably be regarded as lower bounds, even for their 1 975 cut-off point. The
strength of their estimates lies in the fact that they cross-check the claims of
sending and receiving countries. However, it is widely believed that their
estimates are too low. For example, the major exporters of skilled labor are
Egypt and Yemen. Choucri, Eckaus, and M ohi ei-Din believe that at least
1 million Egyptians were abroad in 1 978 (as opposed to Birks and Sinclair's
estimate of 400,000), while the Egyptian government places the figure at 1 .2
million. The World Bank estimates the numbers of North Yemenis abroad
at over 1 . 2 million in 1 978 . Higher estimates for the main labor importers
place Saudi Arabia's migrant population at 1 . 5 million, Libya's at 0. 5 million,
the United Arab Emirates' at 400,000, and Kuwait's at 3 50,000, with smaller
numbers in Qatar and Bahrain. Some countries, like Algeria, Iraq, and
especially Jordan and Oman, both import and export labor. Because census
avoidance is widespread in the M iddle East, and because the situation is
changing rapidly, these numbers can only give us a very general notion of
the magnitude of the flows.
Receiving countries are highly dependent on migrants, who often comprise
more than 50 % of the work force. Figure 8. 1 . provides comparisons of mi­
grant workers to domestic populations, illustrating the fact that migrant work
forces exceed the domestic populations of the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait, while
the migrant work forces of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Libya are 30 % -40 %
o f the host country's total population. Estimates o f the share and distribution
of migrant workers are only approximations, but it appears that the UAE,
with a work force that is 90 % foreign, has the highest migrant dependence
ratio. In Kuwait, where oil was discovered in 1 946 and where 50 % of the
population was foreign in 1 958, the work force today is about 80 % foreign,
the same percentage as in Saudi Arabia .
Within the Middle East, migration for employment occurs in a funda­
mentally laissez-faire environment. Although there are stringent restrictions
on migration for settlement, labor emigration is relatively unimpeded . Egypt
places no formal barriers in a migrant's path ; Yemenis do not need work
 International labor migration 151

Oil draws the crowds Total

e m ploy ment
so 1S 1 25 I SO '000

e
U n ited A ra b
Emirates

Qa tar
0
K uwait
e
Sa udi A rabia As % of indige nous Q
0
e
popula t ion , I 97 S

Bahrain .. em ployed indigenous

Libya � employed nOnilationals e
Fig. 8 . 1 . Comparisons of migrant workers to domestic populations i n
various oil-prod ucing countries. (Source : Third World Quarterly, April 1 979)

permits in Saudi Arabia. Those restrictions which do exist often go unenforced ;

for example, Egyptian migration to Libya, occasionally ' prohibited ' for pol­
itical reasons, continues either clandestinely or by migration first to a third
country (typically Tunisia) and then on to Libya. The Yemen Arab Republic's
attempt to limit migration in order to increase the pool of men of military
age is proving impossible to enforce because the central government has little
or no control over the northern tribal areas, which border Saudi Arabia.
Two forces have produced this environment : ( I ) a migratory tradition and
(2) the fundamental transformations which the oil boom has wrought in the
political economy of the region. As many historians of the Islamic world have
pointed out, educated M uslims have long travelled freely from one end of
the Dar a/-Islam (House of I slam) to the other. Speaking of medieval Islam,
M arshall Hodgson wrote : " Practically every well-known M uslim lived in
many cities : soldiers travelled . . . in the way of conquest ; scholars travelled to
find new teachers and new libraries and also to find more appreciative a udi­
ences. " 8 Nor was such movement limited to elites : the hajj, or pilgrimage,
is one of the five Pillars of lslam ; millions of M uslims from virtually all s ocial
strata have completed the ritual. I t is almost certainly the largest m ultinatio nal
gath ering on earth, with some 1 . 5 million pilgrims coming every year.
National boundaries and the nation-state itself coexist uneasily with the
tradition of mobility, rooted in long-distance commerce, and with Islamic
political thought. Although in fact different political units have characterized
the M uslim world almost from its inception, such realities have been
rationalized as necessary evils. Cosmopolitan mobility, not civic loyalty, has
been accorded primary legi timacy. The parallel yet distinct modern heritage
of pan-Arab nationalism further weakens the legitimacy of restrictions on
1 52 A lan Richards and Philip Martin

labor migration. This highly influential ideology holds that all boundaries
from M orocco to the Shatt-al-Arab are artificial : there is only one indivisible
Arab nation. I t is true that the Arab region is bound by common ties of
language, religion, and social custom. Yet, as with Islamic political theory,
there has long been a gap between theory and reality. Arab nation-states
obviously exist, and attempts at unity have repeatedly foundered. Ironically,
the most passionately Arab nationalist regimes, such as Nasser's Egypt or
Baathist Syria, have placed the most restrictions on the movement of labor
within the Arab world . Nevertheless, the ideological view of artificial borders,
coupled with Islamic beliefs and practices, provides considerably less legitimacy
for restricting labor migration than do the political traditions of, say, Western
Europe.
But fundamentally it has been economic forces, not religion or ideology,
that have shaped the size and structure of contemporary labor migration. The
1 0-fold increase in oil prices since 1 973, ambitious development plans, and
small populations provided the motor for an accumulation process that
required external labor. Although large sums were 9 evoted to importing
military hardware and Western consumption (often luxury) goods, all oil
exporting countries have established and at least partially implemented
extensive economic development programs. Saudi Arabia spent $ 1 80 billion
from 1 975 to 1 980 and plans to spend some $290 billion more by 1 985. Libya
spent $39.9 billion from 1 973 to 1 980. Even small states like Qatar and the
UAE devoted considerable sums - $ 1 0 billion and $9 billion, respectively - to
development. This created a very strong demand for labor in the oil exporting
countries.
Small populations, the low rate of labor force participation by women, and
the aversion of many Bedouins to manual labor meant that the supply of labor
from the indigenous population fell far short of this demand . The oil boom
itself helped to create other sources of supply : by shifting the political balance
of forces in the region away from radical nationalist regimes and toward
conservative and tradi tionalist ones, the oil boom contributed to the shift in
the foreign economic policy of Egypt, the number one labor exporter in the
area. The process began in 1 967 but greatly accelerated after 1 973, culminating
in Sadat's market-oriented Jnfitah (opening up) policies. M ost commentators
have stressed the resulting inflow of foreign good s ; perhaps more important
has been the outflow of people. The open door swings both ways.
The oil boom reinforced and extended the previous pattern of large-scale
emigration of skilled and professional workers but also created largely new
flows of semiskilled and unskilled workers. As noted above, there is a very
long tradition of educated labor migration in the region. In the post-World
War II era, such flows have been primarily movements of skilled, professional
Egyptians, Palestinians, and Lebanese into the oil-rich states. This is under­
standable, given educational traditions in the sending countries. The Pales­
tinians, of course, had little choice but to seek employment abroad.
 International labor migration 1 53

Remunerative jobs for the educated were also scarce in Lebanon and
especially in Egypt.
The oil boom reinforced this trend . The oil states desperately need high­
level, Arabic-speaking workers. All of the OAPEC (Organization of Arab
Petroleum Exporting Countries) nations have embarked on large-scale
expansions of their educational systems ; most of the teachers are Egyptians
or Levantines. Further, since oil wealth flows directly into the coffers of the
state and since all OAPEC states need highly skilled technocrats to supervise
their vastly expanded development plans and projects, Arab migration for
government employment has likewise increased. The high salaries available
in the oil countries, coupled with an expansion in their demand for high­
level workers, strengthened and augmented a well-established pattern of
migration.
The oil boom also stimulated large flows of less skilled labor. Such workers
range from building craftsmen to common laborers. They are employed
primarily in services and construction. Indeed, construction workers form a
significant proportion of the total work force. As many as one-third of the
300,000 Egyptians estimated to be in Saudi Arabia are employed in
construction. Almost 29 % of the nonagricultural Saudi work force was
employed in construction in 1 975 ( 5 % in the United States). M ost of these
construction workers are migrants, usually Egyptians, Yemenis, and, in­
creasingly, non-Arab Asians. As we shall see in the next section, the high
proportion of construction workers in the total flow of migrants has very
important implications for future migrant labor needs. M any, perhaps most,
of the migrants are building factories and infrastructure that will require few
workers to operate and maintain. Western Europe, in contrast, imported
migrant labor to staff labor-intensive factories and services on a continuous
basis.
The labor flows in the Arab Middle East differ from those in Western
Europe or the United States in several other respects as well . Unskilled
migrants in all of these cases typically fill jobs that local workers disdain. But
in the advanced industrial countries, prolonged economic growth and
structural change have generated complex job hierarchies and stimulated a
desire among workers for upward mobility. Native workers, who are often
the children or grandchildren of migrants, want jobs with higher status and
pay, leaving openings at the bottom of the hierarchy to be filled by new
migrants.
No such historical process has occurred in the M iddle East. There the native
workers' disdain for manual labor derives from preindustrial social norms
and from the role of a paternalistic state. The age-old symbiotic tension
between agriculturalists and pastoralists in the region underlies the latter's
rejection of manual labor. Former Bedouins typically become soldiers or
drivers, shunning manual labor as a task for fellahin (peasants) and thus
beneath their dignity. Consequently, a principal potential source of manual
1 54 A lan Richards and Philip Martin

labor has bypassed any industrial work rather than having ' moved through '
it. Direct government payments and subsidies for housing, medical care,
education, and other services further reduce the incentives for the local
population to assume jobs in the construction or service sectors.
A final distinctive feature of M ideast labor migration should be noted .
Unlike flows from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe or from Latin
America to the United States, M ideast workers are not moving from
structurally less developed countries to more developed areas. Indeed, for
Egyptians, Palestinians, and Lebanese, the reverse is true : workers move from
their homelands of higher literacy and more developed industry (especially
true for Egypt) to less industrialized, less well-educated nations. Workers
move to oil rich - not highly industrialized - economies. This implies, of
course, that one of the commonly alleged benefits of labor migration,
acquisition of skills, has little relevance for the M iddle Eastern case.
In summary, labor flows in the Middle East ( I ) bulk very large in the labor
markets of the importing countries, (2) occ u r in a basically laissez-faire
environment, (3) compri se both highly skilled and unskilled labor, (4) contain
a relatively high proportion of workers producing investment (largely
construction) goods, (5) fill jobs which locals either are untrained for or
disdain because of preindustrial tradition and state policy, and (6) move from
poor to rich countries but not from structurally less developed to more
industrialized nations. We now turn to the problems such labor flows have
created for the sending countries.

Problems of labor migration for sending countries

Labor migration has created three types of problems for the principal sending
countries : ( I ) uncertainty for both economic and political reasons about the
continuation or expansion of the current flows ; (2) micro effects of remittance
spending and labor migration ; and (3) the selectivity of migration and its
impact on certain key sectors. We examine these in turn .
A principal difficulty facing planners in a labor sending country is
uncertainty about how long the main benefits of migration (namely, reduced
unemployment and inflows of remittances) will last. Regardless of whether
or not the remitted funds are in a form directly usable for investment spending
(an issue examined below), planners need to have a fairly clear idea how much
money will be flowing out and how much flowing in if they are to formulate
realistic development plans and projects. Unfortunately, these flows in the
M iddle East are subject to political and economic uncertainty. In all cases
labor migration is a response to increased demand for specific kinds of labor.
Labor flows may be affected both by changes in the aggregate level of
economic activity and by shifts in the composition of the demand for
labor. [ . . . ]
It is probable that the rate of growth of oil government revenues will not
 International labor migration 1 55

increase at the same speed during the 1 980s as in the middle and late 1 970s.
This alone will lead to a reduction in demand for migrant labor, unless we
assume that the composition of demand will shift toward more labor-intensive
techniques and commodities. However, precisely the opposite shift seems
more likely. [ . . . ]
In the M iddle East, there is a further issue : much of the current investment
is in construction. Because of construction's very long life, at some point,
even abstracting from financially generated ' busts ' in construction typical of
more advanced market economics, the demand for construction labor must
decline. Further, it is clear that oil exporting countries are building energy­
and petroleum-intensive industries, such as oil refining, ammonium fertilizer,
and aluminium refining and fabrication. Such plants use very little labor. This
pattern of investment leaves little room for continued, much less expanded,
labor migration. Some observers have also observed a tendency for construc­
tion techniques to become increasingly capital intensive.
Two caveats are in order. While it seems clear that the demand for
construction labor will decline at some point, it is unclear just when this will
occur. This, of course, is part of the problem : the uncertainty of the foreign
demand for labor upon which several exporting countries have come to
depend. The evidence on the length of the construction boom is mixed. Some
observers predicted that Saudi construction spending will actually decline
some 1 5 % over the next 2 years, but the recently unveiled Five Year Plan
projects very large increases in construction. Nevertheless, there can be little
doubt that construction spending will slow down, even in Saudi Arabia,
during this decade. Recent research by over 1 50 British banks with M iddle
Eastern branches predicts a deceleration in construction activity in the
principal labor-importing states, simply because basic infrastructure is now
well in place. Kuwait, a more structurally developed oil exporter, shows the
others what their future may be. Although construction occ u rs in Kuwait,
the rate of increase in current government expenditure is merely keeping up
with inflation and relatively few new investment projects are planned . The
economy seems to be settling into the role of ' mature rentier.'
Further, even if there were no economic reasons to expect a decline in the
demand for imported labor, there are political reasons to anticipate moves
in that di rection . The ' I ranian model,' of course, stands out as an example
of a disruptive transformation. The recent conspiracy against the House of
Saud that culminated in the occupation of the Great M osque in M ecca
underlines the dangers of rapid structural transformation which offends local
mores and leaves a substantial portion of the rural population behind.
Especially younger members of the elite, whose influence can only increase
with time, do not want to inherit oil fields pumped dry, bank accounts ravaged
by inflation, industrial facilities not competitive in world markets, and
societies so churned up that their own positions would be much eroded.
H ost country governments clearly perceive migrants as a necessary evil .
I 56 A lan Richards and Philip Martin

Arab migrants in particular are viewed with suspiCion. The case of the
Palestinians is the most obvious : nervousness over their role in Kuwait is
endemic in ruling circles. Egyptian migrants face the delicate problem that
their main destination, Libya, is now perceived as the principal enemy by the
Egyptian military, while next-in-line Saudi Arabia is at odds with Cairo over
the Camp David treaty. Yemeni-Saudi antagonism dates at least to the latter's
seizure of Asim province in the 1 920s. It is reinforced by the disdain with
which many Saudis treat Yemeni manual workers. It may be said that
antagonism toward the Saudis is one of the ties binding the otherwise
ideologically hostile regimes of North and South Yemen. The Saudis, in turn
regard the Yemenis as potential subversives, since Yemeni migrants often
have strong republican sympathies.
The Saudi response has been an increasing tendency to import non-Arab
labor, such as Thais, Filipinos, and Koreans. The latter are especially favored.
In I 979, for example, Korean firms won all the new construction contracts
let in Saudi Arabia. Korean firms now have nearly one-quarter of the total
Middle Eastern construction market. Because Korean firms provide most of
their own laborers, who work very long hours and live in isolation from the
local population, their increasing popularity in the politically jittery Kingdom
is not surprising. Should this trend continue, it would ensure a slowdown in
the rate of in-migration of Arab labor. Even a net decline in the number of
Arab workers in the oil countries cannot be ruled out. So far economic need
has restrained politically motivated expulsion of migrant labor but it is a
possibility that workforce planners in this volatile region cannot ignore.
Political uncertainty rei nforces economic uncertainty ; both raise serious
doubts about the long-run viability of large-scale Arab migration for
employment.
Such uncertainty also surrounds the return flow of remittances. So long as
such flows continue, their macroeconomic impact seems clearly beneficial.
This effect is independent of the micro effects of remittances and the extent
to which governments can tap these funds directly. By relaxing the foreign
exchange constraint, such flows improve receiving countries' international
credit positions ; governments have an expanded capacity to borrow for
development projects or alternatively, can reduce their foreign indebtedness.
Governments are then free to concentrate their energies and funds on
economic development projects rather than worrying constantly about the
next debt payment. This seems to have occurred in Egypt : foreign debt fell
from $4 billion to $2 billion between 1 975 and 1 979, largely as a result of
worker remittances. Of course, these benefits accrue only so long as workers
remain abroad .
The uncertainty surrounding these flows reduces their usefulness for
development planning. I f a regime incurs debts on the basis of such flows,
it may create serious problems for the future if its expectations are not
fulfilled . For example, Turkey embarked upon ambitious development plans
 International labor migration 1 57

while 650,000 Turkish workers were abroad, borrowing from foreign banks
in the process. Turkish foreign debt now exceeds $ 1 4 billion (half of Turkey's
export earnings) just as the return flow of remittances has been reduced. A
regime which depends largely on workers' remittances as a source of foreign
exchange is in the same position as any other one-commodity exporter.
Unstable, fluctuating remittances are no more an unmixed blessing than
unstable, fluctuating sugar sales.
We now turn to the second set of problems which surround labor
migration : the microeconomic impacts of labor and remittance flows. [ . . . ]
Although there is little direct evidence for the M iddle East, the M editerranean
and M exican experiences indicate that remittance funds generally flow into
consumption rather than investment. M uch of the investment that does occur
is in housing. There are several reasons why such spending is rational from
the point of view of the individual migrant. First, many of the migrants are
very poor and quite naturally tend to spend foreign earnings to increase their
immediate standard of living. Second, even if they should have a preference
for saving, financial institutions in their home countries are typically very
weak, especially in the rural areas ; there is often no efficient vehicle for saving.
Third, many of the needed investments in the rural (and some urban) areas
are collective goods - wells, sewage systems, irrigation networks, roads, etc.
Since remittances typically flow into rural home communities in small
amounts, and it is quite rational for migrants or their families to spend money
on personal consumption goods, there is little evidence that migrant re­
mittances are available for the kind of investment spending which many of
these areas need.
Personal consumption spending should not automatically be condemned -
individual migrants and their families are clearly better off. I t is also possible
that such spending has beneficial social effects. The size of the income and
employment multipliers depends on the import content and the labor
intensity of locally produced goods. What little evidence there is suggests that
M iddle Eastern migrants, like those in other parts of the world, spend their
incomes on improved food, clothing, housing, and household effects. The
economic impact of such spending varies from country to country, but in
general only the last two kinds of spending seem to be of the labor-intensive
employment-generating type.
In some countries (e.g., Yemen) emigration is so massive that local labor
cannot easily provide newly demanded goods, prompting increased imports.
This is not true for housing, a nontradable, but appears to be so for the other
major commodity categories, especially for food. Remittances lead to an
increase in the demand for high value crops, such as vegetables. But since
these are labor intensive, and since labor is often not available or is very
expensive because of emigration, the increased demand is supplied by
imports. In Yemen the value of food imports has increased 1 0-fold from
1 97 1 -2 to 1 978. In Egypt also, increased remittances have stimulated food
1 58 A lan Richards and Philip Martin

imports. The economic and political risks of such increased reliance on

(largely Western) food imports for M iddle Eastern countries are vividly
illustrated by the suspension of US food exports to the USSR and the
frequent proposals to cut them off to Iran.
This agricultural impact is the result, not merely of increased demand, but
also of bottlenecks in supply. Such effects seem to induce agricultural
mechanization in Egypt, Yemen, and Oman. The increase in tractor use due
to wage increases is not surprising. The income effect of increased farm family
income from remittances may also contribute to mechanization.
At first glance, tractors appear to be an important advance for agricultural
development and are so treated by numerous authors. Yet there are several
potential problems with agricultural mechanization in M iddle Eastern
countries. First, there are serious maintenance problems, since those with
mechanical skills are most likely to migrate. Second, agricultural machinery,
especially tractors, typically has a high import content. Third, and most
important, there is the uncertainty problem again. Agricultural mechanization,
like many technical changes, is usually an irreversible phenomenon. If a
million migrants returned, countries like Egypt would be stuck with tech­
nologies highly inappropriate for their changed factor endowments. Some
kinds of mechanization may actually undermine long-run agricultural pro­
duction potential through misuse. In both Oman and I ran, the purchase of
internal-combustion water pumps has led to overexploitation of ground water
and the decline and collapse of older irrigation systems. Labor migration i tself
may have other detrimental consequences for food production, as terraces
fall into disrepair (Yemen), irrigation systems are not maintained (Oman and
Iran), and farmers shift to labor-saving, nonfood crops (qat in Yemen).
Mechanization may maintain food production by factor substitution, but i ts
relative irreversibility may cause future problems.
The selectivity oflabor emigration may exacerbate these problems. The skill
and age composition of migrants, coupled with low substitutability among
different categories of workers, can cause serious supply bottlenecks in
sending countries. The magnitude of this effect will depend on the speed with
which new workers can acquire the necessary skills. [ . . . ] M igration selectivity
may mean the loss of highly skilled workers. The ' brain drain,' of course,
has long been a concern of sending countries throughout the world. One might
argue that such problems should not arise in a country such as Egypt, which
bursts at the seams with educated, underemployed labor. No doubt there
are indeed some benefits in exporting such workers. It is still likely, however,
that the best professionals depart ; their special talents and skills are then lost
to the home country. Insofar as this occurs in Egypt, the home government's
policies may help to push out such talent. Not only are wages very low relative
to OPEC countries, but the strict seniority pay system provides few incentives
or challenges to the most productive professionals.
 International labor migration 1 59

Conclusion
The M iddle East provides an interesting test cast of laissez-faire migration
policies and theories. We have argued that, while individual migrants and
individual employers obviously benefit, the impacts on sending societies as
a whole are not so unambiguously benign. Such a disjuncture between
individual and social welfare presumably would not occur in an environment
where all of the conditions for a competitive equilibrium are present. If we
are correct that social and individual costs and benefits diverge, then we must
be able to point to departures from the assumptions of competitive equilibrium
theory in the realities of M iddle Eastern labor migration.
We find five such divergences : ( I ) widespread uncertainty ; (2) less rapid
growth of demand for labor in receiving countries as infrastructure is put in
place ; (3) the nature of labor power, that is, the fact that workers cannot be
separated from their work and can possess destabilizing political convictions ;
(4) problems of investment opportunities, factor proportions, and the like
(usually due to a market imperfection) that reduce the volume and distort
the structure of job-creating investment financed by remittances ; (5) the
nature of labor markets and technical irreversibilities in agriculture leading
to patterns of supply and demand in the agricultural sector that may not be
viable over the long term . Any of these features taken singly would be
sufficient to weaken severely the relevance of models in which an unaided price
system generated an optimal outcome. Taken together, the five divergences
make laissez-faire policies, necessarily based upon such a model, highly
questionable.
None of this means that labor flows should be deliberately reduced or
stopped by sending governments (although some, like Yemen and Algeria,
have taken steps in this direction). Nor do we propose an alternative policy at
the same level of generality or alleged universal applicability as laissez-faire.
Rather, we are arguing that such a general theoretical framework is unhelpful.
The problems of labor migration arise from the specificity of the political and
economic problems of both sending and receiving countries. The appropriate
policies should be equally specific. They would, however, be policies, not the
absence of policy implied by the laissez-faire model.

Notes

• This research was partially supported by a grant from the Agricultural

Development Systems Project jointly sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry
of Agriculture, University of California, and USAI D. The views
expressed are solely those of the authors. This article originally appeared
as Giannini Foundation Paper 6 1 5.
M ichael J. Piore, Birds of Passage : Long-Distance Migrants in Industrial
Societies (New York : Cambridge University Press, 1 978).
1 60 A lan Richards and Philip Martin

2 Charles P. Kindleberger, Europe's Postwar Growth (Cambridge, Mass. :

Harvard University Press, 1 967).
3 Jonathon Power, " Faulty Foundations for Europe's Growth." New York
Times (5 February 1 973).
4 W. R. Bohning, " International Migration in Western Europe : Reflections
on the Past Five Years," International Labour Review 1 1 8, no. 4 ( 1 979) :
40 1 - 1 4.
5 J. S. Birks and C. A. Sinclair, International Migration and Development in
the Arab Region (Geneva : International Labour Organisation, 1 980).
6 Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago : University of
Chicago Press, 1 974), vol. 2, p. 1 1 7.
 PART 4

Introduction
Geography and society
DOREEN MASSEY

The fact that ' Geography matters ' has been an underlying argument of the
whole of this book, but in each section we have treated it in a different way.
In the first section we looked at the social significance of conceptualization
and at its relationship to developments both within and between societies. In
the second section we looked at the significance of ' geography ' in the
constitution and operation of a number of very different social processes. Our
argument there, and throughout, has been not only that the geography of
society is socially constructed and that, to understand it, that fact must be
recognized, but also that social processes and phenomena are constituted
geographically. The corollary, therefore, is that to understand them account
must be taken of their geography. In that second section, we considered this
proposition in relation to the organization of the city, the constitution and
reproduction of cultural forms, and the operation of international law. In the
third section we turned our attention to the central question of the construction
of ' place ' and of geographical variation within the wider system, whether that
be international or national.
I n this final section we tackle the question at the broadest level of all, the
level which allows us to pull together all our arguments : why does geography,
in the sense in which we have defined it, matter to the development of society
as a whole? Let us take an example which builds upon the conclusions of the
last section. Having constructed our syntheses, having recognized that the
international world, or the individual nation state, is a set of spatially
organized interdependencies, a mosaic of unique places - what does it matter?
I t matters because internal variation, and the mechanisms which that sets in
train, can alter the development of the whole. The geography of a society is
a fundamental component of how that society will reproduce itself, develop,
a nd be changed.
For example, since the 1 960s in the United Kingdom a whole range of
well-recognized ' national ' changes have been taking place. The British
economy, and British manufacturing in particular, has been in a state of
more or less unrelieved crisis. The occupational structure of employment has
changed dramatically, and so has the social structure. Skilled manual jobs
have declined in number, white-collar ones have increased, as has employment
161
1 62 Doreen Massey

in managerial and technical functions. The proportion of married women in

the waged labour force has grown considerably (see Chapters 6 and 7). And
with these changes in occupation have gone changes too in social structure ;
there has once again been talk of ' the end of the working class as we know
i t ' (see Chapter 3). The level of employment in relation to the potentially
economically active population has changed - unemployment, in other words,
has increased beyond what was imaginable in the sixties. The industrial
structure of the economy has shifted : both primary and manufacturing
industries have declined in the proportion of the population they employ,
while service industries have grown. And, of course, the governing politics
have shifted too, from the technological-revolution-plus-reform of Harold
Wilson to the right-wing radicalism of M argaret Thatcher.
Geographical structure and geographical reorganization have been central
elements in all of this. For British industry, locational flexibility has been a
way oflowering labour costs in the face ofincreasing international competition.
Both internationally and nationally it has sought out reserves of cheaper and
more vulnerable labour, in the Third World or in the less urban areas and
the peripheral regions of Britain. That movement, together with the spatially
uneven impact of the more general decline of manufacturing, has left behind
it huge problems of dereliction and unemployment. The concentration of
these in the inner cities and the responses which such a situation in part
provoked have consistently been issues on the national political agenda.
Whether it be urban riots, conflict between national and local government,
or political clashes over what should be the form of metropolitan government,
the big cities are a national political issue. The geographical unevenness of
unemployment more generally has had other repercussions, too. The con­
sistently high levels in the peripheral regions of declining heavy industry have
claimed attention ever since the end of the long boom. The regional policy
which on the surface was a response to geographical unevenness in fact played
a complex role. Calming the anger of those in the regions on the one hand,
it was also the lever used to enable further jobs to be lost as the nationalized
industries were restructured (don't worry, if we close your mine/steelworks,
we'll give you Special Development Area status and new jobs will arrive to
take their place). But if regional policy was a response to the demands of some
parts of labour, it was also, more widely, a means of undermining labour's
strength. Wage bargaining had become led by the central regions and any
spreading around ofjobs (and also therefore of unemployment) also slackened
that bargaining power. And the political function of regional policy was
important in the sixties, for it was in the regions that was found the social
base of the governing ( Labour) party, and the demands of that highly
geographically localized base had to be responded to. Over the two decades
since then the geographical outlines of party-political bases have, if anything,
become more entrenched . Tht' national changes in occupational structure and
social class have been taking place differentially between regions, and in
 Geography and society 1 63

certain ways have reinforced some of the old north-south divisions, if in a

changed form . Indeed, the geography of social change may even have
reinforced its social content. The ' new middle class ' of the outer south-east
may be clearer in its social distance from ' the working class ' because of its
very geographical separation from the heartlands of production. And that
social divide in turn reinforces the political divide.
And so on ; any thorough understanding of the enormous changes which
have occurred in Britain over the last few decades must take account also
of the geographical changes which have taken place. And this is not just be­
cause a knowledge of spatial change will add to the detail, put flesh on the
bones. It is also because without the knowledge of the spatial change, some
of the national processes will be very hard to understand. M ore generally,
understanding society entails also understanding its geography. To do this
it is necessary to pull together and build on the arguments in the central
sections of the book. It is to this that this final section is addressed. And it
is through two issues of central current significance that we have chosen to
illustrate our thesis.
The increasing degree of international capitalist interdependence has been
a theme throughout this Reader. In his chapter in this section, Martin
Kolinsky looks at its impact upon one of the basic political entities in the
geographical organization of the modern world - the nation-state. Robert
Sack, in his contribution in the first section of the Reader, stressed the
centrality of the nation-state, with its fundamentally spatial/ territorial
connotations, to the functioning of modern society. And yet, in some ways,
both the centrality and the coherence of the nation-state might seem to be
under threat - the centrality because of the proliferation of supranational
organizations, and the coherence as a result of the growth of sub-national
regionalisms (or nationalisms).
A whole range of causes (considerations of defence, of culture, of politics,
of economics) lie behind these conflicting trends. Important among them,
once again, is the fact of a shifting international division of labour. This
changing geographical structure of the world economic order on the one hand
tends to pull states together in an attempt to increase their leverage on wider
forces (the relationship here to Picciotto's argument about law is clear), and
on the other hand by reducing regional economies to incoherent branch-plant
appendages of distant economic structures, tends to provoke regional
nationalisms. The second direction of this tension, the tendency towards
regional nationalism, recalls Clarke's arguments in an earlier section, that
geographical cultural variations are by no means dead and that indeed the
very disruption of accustomed patterns can itself lead to a nostalgia for
cultural roots in place and region. What is at issue in this dual movement,
above and below the nation-state, is precisely the tension between inter­
dependence and uniqueness.
Within countries, Kolinsky's chapter brings out clearly the number of
1 64 Doreen Massey

different ways in which internal geographical variation, in different forms, has

been important in different countries. In Germany the fact that Franz Josef
Strauss has such a strong regional base has had its effect on national politics.
In the United Kingdom there has been both regional nationalism and the
infinite (and changing) complexities of regionally based economic demands.
In France there has been both nationalism and, very importantly, the
decentralizing demands of regional economic planning. In Italy constitutional
delays were caused by the problem (for the central government) of simul­
taneously responding to regional pressures and of keeping out of power a
political party in opposition to the national ruling party. In Belgium a mixture
of linguistic and cultural contrasts reinforced by highly unequal economic
fortunes, and exacerbated by recent internal geographical movements, has at
times severely disrupted national politics.
These issues are immediate and current, and they change fast. The
economic strength of the regions of Belgium has reversed in the last decades.
In the UK at the time of writing the West M idlands looks like getting some
regional aid - a product not just of uneven economic decline but also,
probably, of the changing political map. At a supranational level the need
to coordinate is still made problematical by the internal diversity of interests
and by national political assertion. The interplay between interdependence
and uniqueness continues.
Kolinsky's article concerns the impact back on society of its spatial
organization. But arguments apply at the same level to questions of the
relationship between the social and the natural - the presently dominant form
of that relationship currently threatens serious repercussions for society. I t
is this question which the article b y Francis Sandbach addresses, in the final
contribution to this collection.
Sand bach rejects the simplistic polarization of views which has sometimes
characterized arguments on the issue of ecodoom : on the one hand the
prophets of inevitable catastrophe, on the other those who pin their faith in
market mechanisms and new technology as averters of disaster. What
Sandbach explores is the far deeper argum�nt of the relation between
economic and social organization and resource-scarcity and pollution. I f
nature is hitting back in particular ways, h e argues, it is because o f the
dominance of certain underlying principles of economic and social organ­
ization. And if we are to respond it is those principles of organization which
must be addressed.
Some of the examples which Sand bach gives of alternatives to the presently
dominant way recall the discussion in Chapter I , by Gold, and insist again
on the variety of ways in which it is possible to organize the relation between
the social and the natural . A subsidiary aspect which emerges in this
discussion (for instance in the example of China) is the importance of spatial
structure itself in the relation between the social and the natural . I f, in other
words, it is not just development, but the form of development which is
 Geography and society 1 65

important in structuring the social/natural relation, then one aspect of the

form of development is precisely its spatial form. Two of our themes weave
together here.
This position, by stressing that many of our environmental problems are
socially produced, does not thereby nullify the existence or impact of the
•

Natural ' . On the contrary, the problems are real and what they demand (the
real substance of their impact) will - hopefully - not be ecodoom, but a
change in the way we organize society.
 9
The nation-state in western
Europe : erosion from ' above '
and ' below ' ?
M A RTIN KOLINKSY*

The centralized nation-state was the outcome of political evolution. Whatever

the merits of the nation-state, it became apparent in the twentieth century
that it did not prevent the mounting horrors of war, and that alone it could
not ensure economic prosperity. As a result, efforts were made to develop new
political devices. The preferred solution among those of liberal outlook was
the ' international institution ' . The aftermath of the First World War saw an
attempt at institutional order through the League of Nations ; the close of
the Second World War brought the United Nations and a range of other more
specialized bodies, some almost worldwide, others of lesser scope.
In Europe, the cradle of the nation-state, the most advanced attempts to
develop a new institutional order are to be found. The idea of the nation-state
as an ultimate, compelling reality was brought into question in Western
Europe by the Second World War more widely and profoundly than had been
the case after the First World War. The governments that had fused extreme
nationalism and dictatorship, Nazi Germany and fascist I taly, were buried
in the war of aggressive brutality they had unleashed. I nternational relations
were restructured by alignments of states dominated by the new military
superpowers. The battered nations of Europe were corralled into one or other
of the two great blocs as world politics became dominated by the Cold War.
In the West, the nation-states retained their sovereignty (or gradually attained
it in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany), but had to recognize the
limitations on its exercise given their military, economic and financial
dependence on the United States of America. M oreover, the perception of
the threat of totalitarian communism, soon after the harrowing struggle
against Nazism, made closer coordination of policies desirable and necessary
to protect the shared values of democracy and liberty. Although the notion
of a politically united Europe proved to be a fragile flower, important
international structures were established such as the Organisation for

• Source : L. Tivey (ed . ), The Nation-State ( M artin Robertson, Oxford, 1 98 1 ), chapter

4, pp. 82- 1 0 3 .

Editors' note : M ost of t h e references, t h e footnotes, a n d small parts of t h e original

have been removed in this version of the chapter.

1 66
 The nation-state in western Europe 1 67

European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) in 1 948, which was transformed

in 1 960 into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), the Western European Union (WEU) in 1 954, the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1 949, the European Coal and Steel Com­
munity (ECSC) in 1 952, Euratom in 1 958, and the European Economic
Community (EEC) in 1 958.
The various organizations differed in type, but represented permanent
alliances for specific purposes of policy alignment and coordination. The real
issue was not surrendering political sovereignty but ascertaining common
goals and finding methods of working together. The outcome was that the
operation of government in Western Europe was not merely determined
negatively by dependence on the United States. I t was also influenced in a
positive manner by participation in the increasingly dense network of
international organization. For the newly created state of Western Germany,
participation in European integration was a means of acquiring respectability
and legitimacy, both requisites for the removal of the Occupation Statute and
for winning independent, sovereign status. For I taly and the smaller countries,
participation in the European organizations also represented a gain in status
and a strengthening of their political integrity. Participation meant a defined
place in the international order, formal recognition of its voice and interests,
security and material benefits and, most important of all, a basis for positive
action and influence. Dependence on a large neighbouring state, as was later
to be repeated in the case of Ireland vis-a-vis Great Britain, was reduced and
replaced by an acknowledged, formal (proportionate) equality.
H owever, the situation appeared to be more complex to British and French
governments. Under both Labour and Conservative administration, Britain
was not interested in anything beyond multi-lateral, loosely structured
cooperation and consequently remained aloof from the initial phases of
European integration. H owever, the economic success of these institutions,
and the search for a new political role in Europe, led to a reversal of policy
by the leaders of both major parties in the 1 960s. The situation in France was
almost the opposite, with governments seeking military independence while
accepting some degree of economic integration with nei ghbouring countries.
Nevertheless in both cases the network of international organization created
a new environment for governments and significantly modified the traditional
notion of national sovereignty.

The changing notion of sovereignty

Sovereignty means that the state is the u l t i mate source of a u thority, law and
legitimate force within its boundaries. H o wever t he boundaries are not
impermeable, and no state can be taken in isolation : i ts i nd u stry, energy, raw
materials, finance and trade are dependen t o n world c i rcumsta nces ; its society
i s penetra ted by i n ternational trends and i n fl uences. The exerci se of sovereignty
1 68 Martin Kolinsky

is fu rther conditioned and modified by membership of international

organizations, the obligations incurred there and the concern for maintaining
positive relations with a great variety of other states. In reality, therefore,
sovereignty is a more diffuse and indeterminate notion than was understood
when the British Empire flourished and European states could act as world
powers. There a re some who a re concerned that the development of
supranational integration in the European Community ( EC) will lead to a
complete transfer of powers, so that countries such as Britain will become
reduced to the status of provinces. Such a surrender seems most unlikely, as
is discussed later, because of the reassertion ofthe authority of the nation-states
within the Comm unity. The somewhat paradoxical consequence of · integra­
tion ' in the EC is that national governments dominate the decision-making
and policy-making processes. The Commission, representing the supranational
element in the Community, is relatively weak compared with the representa­
tives of national governments (the Council of Ministers) and of national civil
services (Committee of Permanent Representatives, COREPER). M oreover,
national parliaments have for the most part not established effective methods
of controlling ministers in their dealings at Brussels, so that the authority of
national governments is enhanced by the executive-to-executive relationships
created in the Community. The diffusion of sovereignty is accompanied by
a strengthening of central government powers.
The traditional meaning of sovereignty in unitary states has also come into
question from ' below ' by moves towards regionalism, autonomy and
federalism in various countries. Although it did not arise from sub-state
nationalism, the most significant change occurred in Germany with the
establishment of the Federal Republic after the fusion of the western zones
of occupation. West German federalism, which arose from special circum­
stances, is discussed in the next section. While such a solution is advocated
by only minorities elsewhere, pressures for regional reforms have been
widespread, even in the staunchest of unitary states. The situations in Britain,
France, Italy, Belgi um and Spain are reviewed briefly below.
The causes of sub-state nationalism and regionalism are various, and each
case has its unique aspects. Suffice it to state here, without attempting to
elucidate causal explanations, that the pressures for decentralization, and in
some cases for autonomy, arose from the overwhelming concentration of
powers in central government at a time when the growing interdependence
of states seemed to bring the capabili ties and functions of the traditional
structure into question . It is somewhat paradoxical that while interdependence
rei nforces the concentration of powers (because the action is at a government­
to-government level), it represents at the same time limitations on traditional
capabili ties (in economic, military and diplomatic spheres), which in turn
reinforces the questioning of the validity of such concentration of powers.
In Britain, for example, the sense of political and economic decline, while
leading to membership of the EC, also contri buted to the erosion of some
 The nation-state in western Europe 1 69

of the links between Scotland and England. I t was in this context of change
that the rise of Scottish nationalism stimulated in the 1 970s intense discussion
of the political alternatives of devolution, independence, and even federalism.
The changes occurring ' above ' the level of the state, are not without
consequence for the patterns of authority and political integration within
national structures. There is posed the question of the redistribution of
functions for the sake of greater administrative efficiency and democracy (as
in the Royal Commission on the Constitution the Kilbrandon Report, 1 973) :
-

How to relieve the congestion of affairs at the centre?

How to promote regional development and planning to reduce socio-economic
imbalances ?
How to encourage democratic participation at sub-state levels ?
Although internal decentralization provides greater scope for cultural and
regional diversity, recent experience in Britain and France suggests strongly
that unitary state governments are determined to maintain full control over
whatever measures of change are introduced; The political circumstances
affecting the trends of change in various countries are examined in the next
section, which is followed by further consideration of the problem of
interdependence and the various national interpretations and reactions to it.

Pressures for decentralization : sub-state nationalism and

regionalism
M ost of the constitutions of the Western European countries provide for a
concentration of powers in central government. I n contrast to the unitary
states, there are only three examples of federalism : Switzerland, Austria and
West Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany, established in 1 949,
consists of eleven Liinder (including West Berlin). Legislative powers were
distributed between the federal and the Liin der governments. The former has
exclusive power in foreign affairs, citizenship, currency and communications,
while sharing powers (concurrent legislation) with the Liinder in less vital
matters. The powers of the Liinder are considerable, including control of
education, cultural affairs (radio and television) and police. M oreover, the
implementation of federal legislation is largely accomplished through the
Liinder. Hence the importance of the Bundesrat, the second parliamentary
chamber in which each Land is represented according to its size. The
Bundesrat, which has a suspensory veto on bills passed in the Bundestag, serves
as a meeting-place for officials of the central government and of the Liinder.
With the exception of Bavaria, regionalist feeling is not pronounced, and there
are constitutional provisions to even out regional discrepancies. In conformity
with the aim of ' unity of living standards ' in all Liinder, the federal
government redistributes certain taxes in favour of the poorer states. In
Bavaria, with its special historical and political traditions, there is a strong
sense of particularism. Although the Christian Social Union (CSU) is a
1 70 Martin Kolinsky

permanent coalition partner of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), it is

by no means passively acquiescent, and there have been threats to form a
separate national party of the ultra-conservative right. The political ethos of
the CSU is notably on the right-wing of Christian democracy and its powerful
leader Franz-Josef Strauss has led the opposition on such important issues
as the Os tpo li t ik Although his ambitions to become the Chancellor-candidate
.

were long frustrated, he was sufficiently mftuential to undermine two CDU

leaders (Barzel and Kohl) and in June 1 979 finally reached the top position
in the Christian Democratic coalition. It is his extremely powerful base in
Bavaria, the second largest state of some eleven millions, that has enabled
Strauss to stay for so long in the forefront of national politics.
Although the decentralization of power involves elected parliamentary
forums (the Landtage), there has been a constant decline in their legislative
power and a growth in the bureaucratic coordination of federal/ Liinder
relations. Kurt Sontheimer has summarized the process in the following
words :
The practice of co-ordination and co-operation in German federalism which is
supported by innumerable treaties and administrative agreements between the
Laender and between the Federation and the Laender is carried out mainly without
the Laender parliaments. Federalism as i t is practised is to a great extent a matter
for bureaucrats, not for politicians, and it has withdrawn in part from parliamentary
control. (Sontheimer, 1 972, p. 1 54)

The tendency, therefore, is towards a certain degree of recentralization of

power with a strong element of administrative devolution. The main actors
on the Land level are the minister-presidents and officials of the Liinder
ministries. The tendency towards recentralization has been reinforced by
several other trends. The problem of terrorism, for example, has necessitated
much closer coordination among the Lander police authorities and federal
security bodies. The issues of university and educational reforms have also
prompted efforts at greater coordination, as have economic questions. In all
these areas, the federal government has taken initiatives both for closer
cooperation with the Liinder authorities and to establish greater control for
itself. I ndeed, with the internationalization of European economies becoming
ever more pronounced - within the European Community and in terms of
dependence on world trade - the need for consistent national economic policy
is keenly felt in Germany. Moreover the huge success of the German
economy, and the financial transfers reducing regional discrepancies, have
largely overshadowed such problems as the growing obsolescence of much
industry in the Ruhr area. Such decline is offset by the extremely rapid
development of Liinder like Baden-Wurttemberg, which used to send its
surplus labour across the border to work i n Alsace, but by the mid- 1 960s
reversed the direction of migration as its i ndustries grew to contribute nearly
one-sixth of the Federal Republic s gross national product.
'

The trends toward recentralization have weakened the parliamentary

 The nation-state in western Europe 171

structures of the Lander, but have not undermined the federal system as such .
The federal institutions (Bundesrat, Liinder executives, Constitutional Court,
and the constitution itself) remain viable, and political party organization is
well adapted to the federal organization of the state. Unlike the situation of
the Weimar Republic the legitimacy of the political system is not in question.
Nevertheless it is clear that federalism as practised in West Germany is not
static, and there is a movement towards a degree of recentralization. This
contrasts with the situation in Canada, where there is a pronounced shift to
the provinces (Quebec nationalism, Alberta economic strength). It contrasts
also with the situations in which many European unitary states have found
themselves, where the pressures for decentralization have been often strong
enough to pose the question of altering the established constitutional order.
These pressures are strongest when reinforced by nationalist claims (Scotland,
Corsica, the Basque country, and in Belgium) though regional feeling based
on aspirations for economic development are also prevalent in such diverse
areas as the west of France, the south of I taly and the north of England.
The rise of nationalism in Scotland and Wales resulted first in the Royal
Commission on the Constitution 1969-73 (Kilbrandon Report) and then in
legislative proposals for devolution. The intense and prolonged debates on
these proposals were marked by back bench revolts that seriously embarrassed
the Labour government and contributed to its final downfall in M arch 1 979.
Considerable government activity during the 1 970s was focused on the
implications of the Kilbrandon Report. In addition to working out the
extremely complex devolution proposals, the cabinet and cabinet office
committees were concerned with mounting regional economic pressures.
Development agencies were established in Scotland, Wales and Northern
I reland, and regional policy generally became much more active. Grants for
industrial location and other aids under the Wilson/Callaghan administration
of 1 974-9 rose to over £400 million a year.
I nevitably the effect of government attention to the Celtic peripheries,
especially to Scotland, created concern in the less affluent English regions.
I t was most pronounced in the north of England, which felt that it was in
as much need of assistance as Scotland but had less political influence on the
government. Not surprisingly, then, Labour M Ps from the North East joined
the backbench rebels in voting against key aspects of the government's
devolution programme, and lobbied for the establishment of a Northeast
development agency. The repercussions were felt further afield . Although the
West M idlands was not as directly worried by the devolution proposals, the
sharp decline in the prosperity of the region led to growing resentment at not
being included in the government's category of assisted areas. The Birmingham
Chamber of Commerce, for example, has consistently argued that the city
has lost its growth industries by years of government direction of investment
away from the industrial heartland. M oreover, it cannot even tap the
European Regional Development Fund, because Westminster did not include
1 72 Martin Kolinsky

it among the assisted areas. The resentment is underlined by a feeling of

political weakness : unlike traditionally poor areas the organization of a
regional interest grouping through one of the major parties had not been
necessary in the past. However, in its situation of declining prosperity the lack
of a special channel to government bounty was keenly felt in the West
M idlands. These were the reactions of people concerned with industrial and
planning problems, but they were not more widely articulated into mass-based
political demands. Since political expressions of regional identity did not
emerge in other parts of England either, there were no parallels with the
Scottish and Welsh nationalist movements. For the latter, devolution was
see n only as a step along the way to independence, despite the fact that in
the government's view devolution was set out as a means of responding to
aspirations for democratic participation at an intermediate (regional) level of
government. In fact this, rather than national independence, was consistently
the most popular option in Scottish opinion polls. Despite the scrapping of
the Labour devolution bill, the question of change in the political and
administrative relationships of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom
remains open. Whatever the future outcome, however, it seems unlikely that
decentralization measures will reduce the essential controlling and mediating
capacities of central government in Westminster. This expectation is supported
by the French experience, where the 1 972 regional reforms were by no means
as far-reaching in their implications as the changes envisaged in the Scotland
Bill.
Unlike Britain, French government concern was impelled less by nationalist
movements than by a need for a new administrative framework for promoting
regional economic development. The administrative reform was limited
because the intention was not to replace the existing pattern of departements,
established by Napoleon, but to bring them into association for planning
purposes. The potential political significance of the regions was curtailed by
rejecting direct elections. Instead the regional councils represent for the most
part the established political interests of the parties and the local notables.
Nevertheless the departements are too small on their own, given the urban­
industrial development of France and the economic pressures exerted on it
by Common M arket competition. The relatively simple solution sought in
the 1 972 reforms - the coexistence of regions and departements - could lead
to greater tensions if nationalist or regionalist feeling should develop more
strongly, perhaps in response to prolonged recession, in sensitive areas such
as Brittany, the midi, or Corsica. Even if that does not happen, it has become
increasingly clear that strong-minded regional elites, such as those in the Pays
de Ia Loire and in the Lyon area, want more scope for themselves and less
constraint from Paris.
In I taly, the situation is dominated by the division between the industrial
North and the underdeveloped South (the Mezzogiorno), a problem recognized
in the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community,
 The nation-state in western Europe 1 73

as calling for special measures of assistance. These have come from both the
European I nvestment Bank and the European Regional Development Fund.
Despite these actions, which have conjoined with three decades of I talian
government development projects, the Mezzogiorno remains a special
problem, whether measured in terms of its low contribution to gross national
product, its poor living standards or its high rate of unemployment. The
regional disparities in Italy have remained the most pronounced in the
European Community, and continue to impede I taly's progress toward
greater economic stability. As the Community has recognized from the
beginning, it is not merely an I talian problem but is a serious threat to the
aim of creating integration, which requires greater similarity in economic
performance, standards of living and social opportunities.
Constitutionally Italy is a unitary state with regional administrations. As
a reaction against fascism, the 1 947 constitution provided for regions as an
integral part of the organization of the state. But the establishment of the
regions was held back until 1 970 because of the fear on the part of Christian
Democratic governments of Communist domination in the central regions of
Emilia, Tuscany and Umbria. However, the shift to centre-left coalitions
in the 1 960s finally resulted in the introduction of the regions because of the
insistence of the Socialists when invited to join the governing coalition. There
are twenty regions, each with a council elected by proportional representation
as in national elections. The council elects its executive and presiding officer.
The legislative powers include agriculture, health services, planning and
cultural affairs - a range considerably less than those of the German Liinder,
or even what was contemplated in the Scotland Bill, though Italian regions
do have limited powers for raising revenue. Five of the regions, including the
islands, are defined as special and have somewhat wider legislative powers.
An area of particular concern for all regions is industrial policy, which is
determined by central government, although the regions are responsible for
small business. The division is a cause of friction because the regions argue
that it is impossible to establish development plans without being able to
influence industrial policy. Nevertheless, dynamic regions such as Piedmont
have approved regional plans.
The transfer of powers to the regional administrations has proved to be
a slow and uneven process. As may be expected, those institutions, such as
the employment office, that are important sources of political patronage have
proved much harder to decentralize than less vital administrations. Another
problem is financial. Regional budgets are mainly financed from a common
fund (i.e. nationally raised revenue) distributed by central government. A
frequently voiced complaint is that Rome controls the purse-strings too
tightly. But there is some evidence that certain regions, particularly in the
Mezzogiorno, are seriously underspending their allocations, either because
of inefficiency or because of lack of programmes. However, these problems
have to be seen in perspective : the slow pace of devolving powers has meant
1 74 Martin Kolinsky

that operative regional government is a very recent phenomenon in I taly. It

is far too early to attempt to judge its effectiveness in the urgent tasks of
development, planning and administrative reform. I t is not made easier by
the frequency and apparent intractability of national government crises.
Belgium is another example of a unitary state with pronounced regional
differences. The most prominent aspect is a linguistic/cultural conflict
between Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, which has persisted over
decades, and which has more recently developed further into a dispute about
the status of Brussels. Over the past twenty years, with the decline of
traditional steel and mining industries, economic dominance has shifted from
Wallonia to the north, which has prospered on American and German
investment (the port of Antwerp in particular ; Flanders generally because of
its less strike-prone and less organized labour force). Whereas the Walloons
have reacted by demanding priority action to revitalize their obsolescent
industries, the Dutch-speaking Flemings who form a majority ofthe population
(5 . 3 out of 8 . 8 million) resent the cultural and political domination of the
French-speaking elite and are determined to preserve their newly acquired
economic advantages. The long simmering conflict increasingly focused on
the question of Brussels, a predominantly French-speaking city in the
southern part of Flanders. The steady shift of population from the city centre
to the suburbs has created politically significant pockets of French speakers.
The reaction of the Flemish communes has been strong. The government of
Leo Tindemans ( 1 977-8) attempted to resolve the tensions with a programme
of regional reform that proposed the replacement of the nine provincial
administrations by the three regions of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, with
a number of central government powers to be transferred to elected regional
and sub-regional councils. Although it had been agreed that Brussels'
boundaries would remain within the limits of its existing nineteen communes,
the prolonged negotiations over the regionalization legislation were seriously
interrupted in 1 978 by objections from the Flemish wing of Tindemans' own
party (the Social Christians, CVP). Tindemans resigned, but the subsequent
elections proved inconclusive, and the stalemate over constitutional reforms
continued to the end of the decade.
The irony of the situation is that until his resignation Tindemans was seen
in the larger EC context as one of the chief movers of European integration.
His sober and cautious report to the European Council, ' European Union '
(January 1 976), was widely discussed and, though criticized in detail,
regarded as heralding a more realistic and useful approach to the problem
of European unity. A more fundamental irony is that Brussels, the seat of
the Community, has become the centre of conflict over national unity.
The enlargement of the Community to include Spain is likely further to
intensify regional problems. First, there is the pressure of Spanish agriculture
on the poorer farming regions of France and I taly, in mutual competition
over Mediterranean products of cheap wines, and fruit and vegetables. This
 The nation-state in western Europe 1 75

created strong feeling in southern France and I taly once the prospect of
Spai n's entry became a reality. Secondly, the poor regions of Spai n, such as
Andalucia and Extramadura, like the Mezzogiorno, greatly intensify regional
disparities within the Community and will strain the limited resources of the
Regional and Social funds. Thirdly, within Spain itself, the long-standing
violence of the Basque situation threatens national unity and the fragile
democratic order. Basque and Catalan autonomy were ruthlessly suppressed
during the Franco dictatorship, but in the new constitution of 1 978 the right
to autonomy of the ' regions and nationalities ' of Spain is recognized and
guaranteed (article 2). However, somewhat as in I taly, fulfilment has taken
longer than expected, and the question of defining the extent of devolution
is subject to important political reservations.

Central government control

The trends in the various countries should be seen in the fluid international
context. The growth of the world economy, the energy crisis, and the claims
of the Third World during the 1 970s - notably in the United Nations
Committee on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and Lome Convention negotiations - have
contributed towards what has been described as ' the new nationalism ' among
Western countries. The effect of the ' new nationalism ' is to enhance the
importance of central government control, which, as is discussed below, is
being reinforced by the process of European integration. H owever, integration
carries with it a certain counter-pressure in regions on the periphery or in
economic decline to acquire more say in the management of their problems.
This may be fuelled by invidious comparisons : the feeling in North East
England of coming off second-best to Scotland in benefits and influence ; the
resentment in the West M idlands at being excluded from regional aids ; the
feeling in the West of France that not enough is being done to speed
decentralization of Paris industries and administrations ; the sense of neglect
in Alsace, which tends to measure itself against the standards achieved across
the border in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Switzerland. It is true that these
responses can be managed by central government through generous policies
of regional aid and through political payoffs where appropriate channels have
been established. But there remains the question of democratic participation
in decisions affecting the regions. For example, the seventy-one Scottish M Ps
in London are not well-placed to exercise control over the Scottish civil service
in St Andrews House, Edinburgh . Nor has regional reform in France
represented much improvement because the councils are not directly elected,
and the government has strongly resisted pressures to make them more viable
political institutions. H owever, as the case of West Germany illustrates,
elected assemblies in themselves are not the full answer to the problem of
democratic participation. The decline in the legislative powers of the Landtage
1 76 Martin Kolinsky

and the tendency to bureaucratize regional affairs indicate the general

difficulty that parliaments have become relatively marginal to decision-making
processes in many spheres. The multiplication of regional assemblies in itself
will not reduce the possibility that such institutions may be emptied of much
of their content and lose their potential influence. The problem is also posed
decisively at the level of the European Parliament, as will be considered later.
Pressures for decentralization affect the exercise of state power in that
political stability requires attention to the demands of sensitive regions. But
the central administration alone has the capacity and information to manage
the competition for limited resources and to exercise overall responsibility.
Therefore, although its authority may be questioned internally, and its means
in the world reduced, the political grip of the unitary state has not faltered,
nor is it li kely to do so.

International organization
The nation-states of Western Europe participate in numerous international
organizations, but the European Community is the only structure that
embodies the principle of supranational integration. The interpretation of the
supranational aim varies from federalism - that is, the creation of a United
States of Europe on the model of the USA, with transfer of sovereignty in
the fullest sense to a European government - to a permanent association of
independent states, retaining their capacity to decide their domestic and
foreign policies for themselves, but seeking common ground with thei r
partners by means of consultation and coordination. Whereas very few
partisans of federalism remain after the hard realities of de Gaulle's nationalism
in the 1 960s and the energy crises of the 1 970s, the EC has survived as an
association of nation-states. Its importance in world trade and economic
affairs is not in doubt ; it has elaborated a unique legal framework through
its treaties and the Court of Justice ; and it has strengthened the potential of
the European Parliament as a parliament-in-making through the introduction
of direct elections. While these supranational elements serve to buttress the
Community framework, the limitations have to be stressed as well. The
European Parliament is a consultative body and its restricted powers cannot
be extended without the agreement of all the governments and parliaments
throughout the Community. The Court of Justice has only theoretical
superiority over national institutions and does not have means of enforcing
its decisions. Of greater importance is the fact that the Commission, which
embodies the supranational animus of the Community, lost much of its
momentum after its collision with de Gaulle in the mid- 1 960s. The influence
of the national governments, which is exercised through the powerful Council
of M inisters and the Committee of Permanent Representatives, has been
enhanced by regular summit meetings of prime ministers and presidents. At
the same time, the power of central governments has increased domestically
 The nation-state in western Europe 1 77

because the intergovernmental bargaining, and the legislation arising from

it, is very difficult for parliaments to monitor and control.
Despite these limitations, which arise from a tangle of cross-purposes and
competitive bargaining about the terms of cooperation, the Community has
proved its capacity to survive the shattering of illusions about the progress
and prospects of supranational integration. What has endured is the underlying
interdependence of the member states and the importance of their multilateral
contacts, even in a less than ideal organization. [ . . . ] A major theme used to
justify the Community is that it is a safeguard of democracy against the threat
of a recurrence of totalitarianism (in its most doggerel form it portrays the
Second World War as the ' European civil war ' !).
The truth, of course, is that the EC by i tself has nowhere near the cohesion
to affect the basic political structures and trends within the member
states. [ . . . ] Nevertheless, the Community represents an important aspiration
that has imparted a wider sense of identity and belonging, especially to the
post-war generations and it is a source of pressure on applicant countries for
upholding democratic norms. The further enlargement of the Community to
include Greece, Spain and Portugal is a significant test. With luck, the
Community may accomplish what the military alliance was unable to do,
namely to underpin and strengthen the new, fragile democratic structures of
those countries by facilitating their economic development.
The existence of the Community, with its processes of political and
economic concentration, contributes in some degree to the cohesion of the
wider NATO alliance of fifteen countries. But it is indirect, a spin-off from
the multiplicity of contact, rather than an indication of the complementarity
of the two organizations. NATO, which is an intergovernmental structure,
represents a pooling of common defence and strategic interests under
American leadership. In this perspective the EC bloc dissolves into an
amorphous assembly of states grouped around a superpower. Even France,
which has withdrawn militarily, has consistently recognized its ultimate
reliance on American nuclear protection by remaining within the NATO
political alliance. [ . . . ]

National interpretations of interdependence

It is evident that notwithstanding the viability of the military alliance, the
political community underlying it has not progressed beyond embryonic
stages and remains in a state of flux. Economic discussions in various
international forums and political consultation in the EEC (a grouping
narrower than NATO) partially supplements it, but not sufficiently to create
an integral system of military - economic - political - diplomatic coordina­
tion. The instability or low-level crisis arises from the unbalanced nature of
the Atlantic alliance, as well as from the varying bilateral and multilateral
interests of the European partner states. The ambiguity was well characterized
1 78 Martin Kolinsky

by Hanrieder ( 1 979) as ' tendencies towards divergence and tendencies toward

integration ' . Ambiguity is also pronounced within the grouping of EC states
that are most similar in size. After two decades of cooperation, the degree
of supranational integration in the EC remains minimal, though consultations
have muffled all-out divergencies in some economic fields. M ost of the
governments recognize that interdependence compels cooperative relations ;
but these are much easier to achieve in periods of economic growth than in
situations of instability and insecuri ty. While economic vulnerability empha­
sizes the underlying interdependence, it raises postures of nationalistic
self-defence because national autonomy is, [according to M orse ( 1 979, p. 66)],
' the most secure framework for control ' . No state gives all : its general
willingness to coordinate policies is tempered by the reserve of seeking
competitive advantage where possible and by its anxiety to minimize its
vulnerability to unpredictable changes in the external world. A finger is given,
the hand held back.
When some grand vision emerges from an American or a French president,
the kind of political consultation i t inspires among the partner governments
is, not surprisingly, accompanied by scepticism and enquiry into motives.
From the point of view of the individual state, membership in the various
organizations is valued for the dual purposes already considered, that is,
coordination of policies and protection of one's own interests. The option of
falling back on national autonomy (at least in certain spheres) is always
possible because an important limiting characteristic of international organ­
izations is their lack of sanctions over member states. Thus France withdrew
its territory and military forces from NATO, but chose to remain a member
of the political alliance. There were no sanctions that could be applied to
modify France's behaviour. Sanctions may be applied against a smaller state,
but often with uncertain results. Turkey, for example, was not deterred by
arms sanctions after its invasion and occupation of Cyprus, and the American
ban was eventually lifted despite Greece's strong protests. Sanctions are
usually limited in value because international organizations are associations
of common interests, and it is difficult to apply sanctions without inflicting
deep wounds on the organization itself. The experience is not confined to
NATO ; the agreed rules of the International M onetary Fund ( I M F), General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), International Energy Agency
(l EA), European Community (EC), as well as of a host of lesser organizations,
have been breached on many occasions without serious consequences for the
undisciplined member states.
It is advantageous for the individual states to belong to several organizations,
each specializing in a policy field, rather than to belong to one large political
community that would permanently curtail the autonomy of the member
states and perhaps reduce them to the level of provinces. In fear of such
restraints Britain chose to stand clear of the early phases of European
integration in the 1 950s, while participating fully in the western military
 The nation-state in western Europe 1 79

alliance. France reversed that choice in the 1 960s and 1 970s. Hence the idea
of a Western European political bloc gradually achieving equality with the
United States was severely unrealistic. It was not possible either to consider
incorporating defence concerns into the EC or to achieve common policies
in sensitive matters such as energy and foreign affairs. In any case, most of
the issues stretch across the Atlantic, and usually across the Pacific too. While
it is all too obvious that defence is inconceivable without the USA, it is no
less true that the domestic and foreign economic policies of America are vital
determinants of European financial, economic and energy problems too. In
these spheres, bilateral interest relations (e.g. USA-Germany, USA-Britain)
have not in the slightest diminished in importance. These are among the many
reasons why the EC is so very far removed from becoming a European
government, which implies one executivejlegislative authority, one currency,
one army and, above all, one sense of political community that surpasses the
established orders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the rest.
In fact, the diversity of international organizations corresponds with the
diversity of interests of the nation-states and with the scope of those interests,
ranging far beyond Western Europe to the other continents. The game has
changed since the Second World War in that the conflict of national interests,
backed by armed forces, no longer rules. The game has become that of seeking
competitive advantage within coordinating organizations. I nstead of old­
fashioned trench warfare and civilian destruction, the present order is typified
by bloody noses on the faces of apparently bloodless civil servants on away
days in Brussels, and by ministerial managed-smiles after all-night conferences.
Boring, but a decided improvement.
The game is not without its paradoxes and dangers. The international
networks (including those with supranational elements) represent little more
than extensions of the existing states. Policy formulation, as well as imple­
mentation, still derives in the main from the central governments. The
discussions are on a government-to-government level for the purpose of
seeking coordination rather than to attempt common policies. Therefore, in
its role as coordinator and mediator of policies at both national and
transnational levels, central government remains in a key strategic position.
The diffusion of its sovereignty rather paradoxically serves to strengthen its
power of decision. Similarly at the sub-state level, where regional units exist
in non-federal systems, the same tendency prevails. The central administration
alone possesses the capacity and information necessary to oversee the entire
scope of the governmental process. A further paradox in the game is that the
introduction of additional democratic institutions (regional assemblies, the
directly elected European Parliament) does not necessarily lead to more
democracy . Since the process of decision-making has become so firmly on an
executive-to-executive basis, involving primarily ministers, higher civil servants
and representatives of organized interest groups, parliamentary bodies have
suffered a long-term decline in their relevance. Parliaments may not be
1 80 Martin Kolinsky

marginal institutions, but they are at a remove from the centres of policy
formulation and implementation. What occurs in the national context is all
the more likely to be repeated in newly emergent contexts. Where regional
assemblies exist, their powers are narrowly circumscribed by central govern­
ment, which moreover jealously protects its traditional prerogative of
exclusive right of representation abroad (i.e. prohibits formal relations
between a region and the Commission). The directly elected European
Parliament is less easily manageable, but is handicapped by restricted powers
and has to operate in an ill-defined situation of an embryonic political
community. These paradoxes give rise to the danger that national parliaments,
already weakened by a reduced capacity to control and scrutinize legislation
and budgets, are forced to cope with complex systems of decision-making in
which responsibility is much more elusive than the traditional doctrine of
ministerial responsibility would suggest. The loss of capacity is not compen­
sated by transfer of powers to the European Parliament or to regional
assemblies. The emergent situation of new circuits of consultation and
decision-making increases parliamentary weakness because power lost on the
national level does not accrue elsewhere. It simply disappears, leaving central
government with its bureaucracy freer of constraint. The danger is by no
means that of impending dictatorship, but the ease with which responsibilities
may be blurred. Public uncertainty as to where both power and responsibility
lie can diminish the vitality of democracy if more effective controls over
central government activity, appropriate to the changing circumstances, are
not found.

References

Wolfram F. Hanrieder, 1 979. ' Co-ordinating foreign policies ' in

Werner Link and Werner J . Feld (eds.) The New Nationalism (New
York/Oxford : Pergamon).
Edward L. Morse, 1 979. ' The new economic nationalism and the
coordi nation of economic policies ' in Link and Feld, op. cit.
Royal Commission on the Constitution / 9{;9- / 9 73 ( K ilbrandon Report) 2
vols, Cmnd 5460 (October 1 973).
K urt Sontheimer, 1 97 2 . The Government and Politics of West Germany
(London : H utchinson).
 10
Environmental futures
FRANCIS SANDBACH *

The question of whether or not there will be substantial physical and social
limits to economic growth cannot be answered with any degree of certainty.
While one can be certain that spring will follow winter, and autumn will follow
summer, the same kind of certainty does not exist when forecasting the state
of the environment in the future. The type of demands upon the environment
will depend as today upon the form and extent of social activity. It is necessary
to state the obvious, namely that different societies both today and in the past
have made different demands and impacts upon the environment. If, for
example, present-day energy consumption in different countries is compared,
one tends to find that high levels of consumption occur in countries with high
levels of economic activity. Nonetheless, there is a good deal of variation
between countries with similar levels of economic activity. G. Foley
comments :
Although Swedes and Canadians have roughly the same per capita GDP, Canadians
consume on average twice as much energy. West Germany and the UK, on the other
hand, have almost identical average energy consumption but the per capita GDP in
West Germany is over 70 per cent higher than in the UK. ( 1 976, p. 89)

Energy demands in the future will depend to a considerable extent upon

the form of economic development. U sing energy-accounting techniques,
P. Chapman, G. Leach and others have demonstrated vast differences in
energy consumption for different ways of producing similar objectives in
transport, agriculture, heating houses, packaging of goods, etc. (see Chapman,
1 975 ; Leach, 1 976). For example, changes in the transport policy could have
significant effects on energy demand. [ . . . ] However, environmental effects
depend not only upon the choice of technology, but upon how it is organized.
Hence, the policy of decentralization and local self-sufficiency in China has
reduced the need for freight transport in general.
Changes in technology policy and forms of social organization could have

• Source : Environment Ideology and Policy, Basil Blackwell , 1 980, pp. 200-23 .
Edi tors' note : I n red ucing t h e length of t h e original, w e have deleted many o f
Sandbach's sources a s well as some data a n d some elaborations of h i s arguments.
Readers interested in these should consult the original boo k .

181
1 82 Francis Sandbach

marked influences on future demands upon the environment without

necessarily affecting the level ofeconomic activity, as conventionally measured
in terms of GOP or GNP. Although it is stating the obvious to say that the
future predicament of society is dependent upon the type of economic activity
and planning that arises, it is nonetheless important to do so. There has been
a stubborn belief that the future can be predicted by projecting, with little
modification, trends from the past. [ . . . ] The question of whether such pro­
jections along the same path are desirable is seldom asked.
Those concerned with promoting alternative technology have, with some
success, despite the limitations of political strategy, emphasized the possibility
of alternative futures. There need not, for example, be an energy gap between
demand for and supply of energy in the year 2000 if no nuclear power
development takes place. Development of alternative technologies and
conservation of energy could enable a better future to exist. It makes sense
to consider various possible courses of action. These courses of action must,
however, be grounded in political reality rather than U topian blueprints.
Alternative policies cannot be divorced from the social commitment necessary
for their fruition . In the second part of this chapter, various policies will be
considered in terms of their plausibility.
An assessment offuture possibilities clearly depends upon an understanding
of the real and imagined physical and social constraints upon economic
development. So before discussing the merits of different policies, it is
necessary to establish the scientific and ideological aspects of the varying
opinions on the physical and social limits to growth. The ' limits to growth '
debate is not of recent origin ; many of its intellectual roots can be traced back
to some of the principal economists and writers of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. The views of Thomas M althus, David Ricardo. John
Stuart Mill, W. Stanley Jevons, Karl M arx and Friedrich Engels were all
concerned at one time or another with essentially the same issues. The ideas
are not new, nor indeed are many of their shortcomings.

The limits to growth debate

Scientific and ideological views on the limits to growth debate can be broadly
divided into three categories. In political terms they correspond to conservative,
liberal and radical views, but they are couched in theoretical language. The
first standpoint holds that there are physical and social limits of immediate
concern . Physical limits are supported by the neo-Malthusian argument about
exponential growth in a finite world, and the ' diminishing returns ' hypothesis
of Ricardo and Jevons. Social limits are supported by arguments concerning
the social strain caused by growth and the depletion of posi tional goods, a
view which can also be traced back to the writings of Ricardo, but which have
been popularized recently in the work of F. Hirsch.
The second and more optimistic outlook is the economic/technological fix
 Environmental futures 1 83

position of liberal economists. This stresses the mechanistic and economic

responses to resource scarcity and pollution in a market economy. The third
view is the Marxist political economy position. This stresses the inter­
dependence of, on the one hand, the social organization of production and
consumption and, on the other, the institutional superstructure that develops
to control resource flow through the economy and to bring instruments of
pollution control into action. According to this view, resource scarcity and
pollution depend upon underlying principles of economic and social
organization.

The neo-Malthusian position

In An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus argued for the existence
of a universal law governing the relations between population and resource
scarcity. Malthus argued that unless there are checks on population growth,
the problems of subsistence itself will constrain population - the reason being
that " population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio " ( 1 970 ; p. 7 1 ).
M althus used historical data of population growth in the United States and
Europe to give empirical justification to the geometrical increase in population.
Without checks from lack offood or " peculiar causes ofpremature mortality " ,
M althus argues that the natural rate of population increases involved a
doubling of the population every twenty-five years. M althus might possibly
be excused for assuming a cast-iron law of exponential growth, as demographic
sources of data have been notoriously weak until much more recent times.
Today, of course, it is known that improved standards of living and health,
resulting in the main from economic growth, have been responsible for a
decline in population growth rates in the world's developed nations. However,
M althus gave much less satisfactory evidence for the mere arithmetic growth
in subsistence. It was this part of his theory that was attacked most strongly
by nineteenth-century critics. Owenites refuted the assumption on the basis
that if the soil was properly managed, vast populations could be supported.
Engels ( 1 844) also took issue with M althus, claiming that he had offered
no proof that the productivity of the land could only increase arithmetically.
Engels argued that, on the contrary, if population grew exponentially so too
would the labour power employed to produce food. Furthermore, he went
on :

If we assume that the increase of output associated with this increase of labour is not
always proportionate to the latter, there still remains a third element - which the
economists, however, never consider as important - namely science, the progress of
which is just as limitless and at least as rapid as that of population (quoted from Meek,
1 97 1 ; p . 63)

In successive editions of his Essay, M althus came to rely inc r e asi n gly u p o n
1 84 Francis Sandbach

the law of diminishing returns more usually associated with Ricardo.

Ricardo's argument with respect to agriculture was that, as population grew,
inferior land would have to be used and hence a lowering of productivity
would follow. Jevons, in The Coal Question (first published 1 865), extended
the argument to the debate on coal resources. His M althusian contemporaries
argued that with the rate of coal consumption doubling every twenty years,
coal reserves would be depleted by the year 2034. Jevons, following the
diminishing returns argument, claimed that long before this the cost of fuel
would rise as it became harder to mine and as demand outstripped supply.
As Jevons thought that replacement by wind, geothermal or oil power was
totally improbable, it was clear to him that progress was unlikely to be
sustained.
This refined pessimistic view deserves close attention, especially with
respect to physical resources, for many experts now appear to agree that there
are not likely to be any constraints of an absolute type for many years to come.
The amount of most resources in the first mile of the earth's crust probably
exceeds presently known reserves by multiples ranging from thousands to
millions (see Connelly and Perlman, 1 975). And, contrary to the view that
resources would become harder to extract, there is every indication that the
opposite has occurred. Systematic studies by H. J. Barnett and C. M orse
( 1 965) of the trends of extraction costs over the period 1 870- 1 957 indicated
without exception (apart from forestry and possibly copper), that the costs
of exploitation had fallen significantly. Engels had been correct to assume the
importance of science, for these changes in exploitation costs can be
accounted for by technical change and substitution. To give a specific
example : in the United States, the amount of energy needed to generate a
kilowatt hour of electricity fell by just over 35 per cent between 1 948 and 1 968 ;
and in Great Britain, the energy demand to produce a ton of steel decreased
by 74 per cent between 1 962 and 1 972, chiefly as a consequence of the
introduction of the basic oxygen process. [ . . . ]
In the 1 960s, the M althusian view of population pressure on limited
resources regained its popularity. According to P. R. and A. H . Ehrlich
( 1 970), if the population were to remain at 3 . 3 billion, then at current levels
of demand lead would run out in 1 983, platinum in 1 984, uranium in 1 990,
oil in 2000, iron in 2375, coal in 2800, and so on. In The Limits to Growth
study by D. H. Meadows et a/. ( 1 972), Malthusian assumptions lie behind the
results of computer predictions. Data from 1 900 to 1 950 on the exponential
growth of materials use, population, pollution, and the like are projected into
a future which can only provide at best arithmetical growth in solving the
problems of physical constraints. It needed no computer to follow the
implications of the assumptions. As with earlier M althusian predictions, the
argument breaks down on empirical grounds because of the failure to allow
for the expansion of resources to meet demand. The postulate concerning the
fixity of exploitable resources has been proved wrong by scientific and
 Environmental futures 1 85

technological developments as well as by increased exploration of surface

minerals using currently known techniques. Moreover, as H . Kahn,
W. Brown and L. M artel ( 1 976) argue, there is little incentive to search for
more reserves than would meet a few decades of demand. There would be
little return on such investment and it might even be counter-productive as
more known reserves could put pressure on current prices.
A few examples will help to illustrate how known exploitable reserves have
increased in pace with industrial demand. For instance, in 1 944 the United
States prepared a study of its own known reserves of forty-one commodities.
H ad the predicted reserves remained static, then twenty-one of these com­
modities would now be exhausted (see Pehrson, 1 945 ; and Page, 1 973). Or
take the example of aluminium : between 1 94 1 and 1 953 the known world
bauxite reserves increased by an average of 50 million tons a year, and
between 1 950 and 1 958 the average annual increase was about 250 million
tons (Page, 1 973). Or if one were to take the current concern for oil reserves :
in 1 938 the known reserves were sufficient for fifteen years' use at contemporary
rates of consumption ; in the early 1 950s, after a doubling of consumption
rates, the known reserves were sufficient for twenty-five years ; in 1 972, after
a further trebling of consumption, the known reserves were sufficient for
thirty-five years.
A useful distinction may be made between absolute resources in the earth's
crust, exploitable resources, and currently known commercial reserves.
According to this distinction, Zambia is rich in copper ores, but these are
uneconomical to work under present conditions. Hence, Zambia has no
copper reserves but plenty of copper resources (see Roberts, 1 978). The
weakness of neo-M althusian arguments, as in The Limits to Growth, is that
they often talk about reserves as if they were total resources.
A. Shenfield, former economic director of the Confederation of British
Industry, dismisses the energy doom-mongers on three grounds. First,
resources are assumed to be fixed ; secondly, technological innovation is
disregarded ; and finally, predictions of doom in this field have so far proved
to be false :

Thus in 1 866 the United States Revenue Commission urged the development of
synthetic fuels against the day in the 1 890s when- petroleum would be played out. I n
1 89 1 the United States Geological Survey declared that there was little o r n o oil in
Texas. In 1 9 1 4 the United States Bureau of Mines estimated that output would be
six billion barrels in the whole remaining history of the country. This is now produced
about every eighteen months. ( 1 977, p. 1 6)

Neo-Malthusian arguments also pervaded the debate over pollution

control. The Limits to Growth claimed that ' virtually every pollutant that has
been measured as a function of time appears to be increasing exponentially '
( Meadows et a/., 1 972, p. 1 3 5). H owever, the dangers of projecting present
growth rates exponentially into �he future are well known. For example, it
1 86 Francis Sandbach

has been suggested that the trends of the 1 880s might have shown cities of
the 1 970s buried under horse manure (Du Boff, 1 974).
I n The Limits to Growth, empirical justification for exponential growth in
pollution is suggested from studies indicating rising levels of carbon dioxide,
waste heat generation in the Los Angeles basin, nuclear wastes, oxygen
content of the Baltic Sea, lead in the Greenland ice cap, and so on. The
evidence is, however, selectively chosen and covers only those areas of
pollution where little attention has been paid to control programmes. A
different picture is painted if one turns to those successful areas of legislation
involving often only small amounts of public expenditure. [ . . . ] Legislation,
such as the Clean Air Act 1 956 in Britain, has helped to effect pollution
control . Despite a ten per cent increase in population and a seventeen per cent
increase in energy consumption in the fifteen years following the Clean Air
Act, there has been a steady reduction i n smoke and sulphur dioxide
emissions into the air over Britain . In many large towns this has provided
the added bonus of increased winter sunshine. In Central London there has
been a 50 per cent improvement in mean sunshine hours per day, the
differential between previously less polluted areas such as Kew having
narrowed considerably (Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,
1 97 1 ).
There have been, of course, more recent problems arising from pesticides,
lead smelters, mercury poisoning and nuclear wastes. H owever, successful
pollution control in the past makes it plausible that such problems are just
as amenable to control as were the older forms of abuse. It might be argued
that if chemical pesticides do become a real threat to economic growth
through the pollution they cause, then alternative biological pest control (or
even changes in the use of agricultural land) could offer substitute means of
pest control without the same costs. Even without such dramatic changes,
W. Beckerman ( 1 974) claims that satisfactory pollution control programmes
are well within the grasp of advanced industrial economies.
Simple M althusian arguments have been countered in the main by his­
torical reference to technological improvements and substitution. However,
faith in technology as a saviour may well be unwise, for past experience (or
at least this kind of interpretation of the past) is not necessarily a good guide
to the future. The fact that the efficiency for generating electricity in the U K
was about eight per cent in 1 900 and is twenty-five per cent today i s no
guarantee of ever-increasing efficiency : indeed, the best possible practical
efficiency is predicted to be around forty per cent. Furthermore, improvements
in mining efficiency cannot be guaranteed to offset decreasing average grades
of ores. [ . . . ]
Energy analysis of food production demonstrates even more dramatically
diminishing returns from energy inputs. The example of maize (the most
important grain crop grown in the United States, and ranking third in world
production of food crops) illustrates the point : despite an increase in maize
 En vironmental futures 1 87

yields on United States farms from 34 bushels per acre in 1 945 to 8 1 bushels
per acre in 1 970, the mean energy inputs increased from 0.9 million kcal to
2.9 million kcal. The total maize yield can be translated into energy
equivalents so that in 1 945 the maize yield was equivalent to 3.4 million kcal,
and in 1 970 to 8 . 2 million kcal. Hence, the yield in maize calories decreased
from 3. 7 kcal per fuel kilocalorie input in 1 945 to a yield of about 2.8 kcal
in 1 970 (Pimentel et a/. , 1 973).[ . . . ]
The M althusian argument has greatest relevance in relation to those
resources that have least potential for expansion, especially those resources
that can be loosely defined as providing rural amenity. There has, for
example, been a huge loss of wetlands in America. The loss of rural land in
England and Wales to urban development will, according to estimates by
R . H. Best ( 1 976), have increased threefold from 1 900 to the year 2000. At
approximately one per cent growth in urban land per decade, some 14 per
cent of the total agricultural land will have been lost by the end of the century.
Furthermore, conflicts in the UK National Parks over mineral extractions,
water resources development, and the impact of an increasing number of
holiday-makers, all illustrate the problems of maintaining amenity for an
increased population with higher living standards. I n this respect, the
arguments for a stationary state put forward by John Stuart M i ll make
greater sense than many more recent arguments. He argued that the loss of
diversity in nature and of wilderness resulting from the need to produce more
and more food was undesirable.
A somewhat similar but less acceptable argument has recently been raised,
with a good deal of favourable response, by F. Hirsch in Social Limits to
Growth ( 1 977). H irsch makes a distinction between material goods such as
food, which can be enjoyed irrespective of what other people are eating, and
' positional goods ' . Positional goods can be enjoyed most if other people do
not have access to them . The beautiful view from the front window is only
enjoyed so long as there are not other houses in front enjoying the same view.
The peaceful drive in the country only remains peaceful so long as there are
not too many others searching for a peaceful drive. Now, according to Hirsch,
social limits to growth exist because with increased growth competition moves
increasingly from the material sector to the positional sector. As a consequence,
the number of positional goods is fast decreasing in quantity and value. ( . . . ]
The similarity with the Malthusian position is not hard to see. I t is
advanced in such a way as to support policies that might maintain positional
goods for the elite. It is also profoundly ideological in the sense of being an
ascientific delusion. Like Malthus, little or no allowance is made for the
creation of new ' positional ' goods. The example of a peaceful ride in the
motorcar is itself only possible given the invention of the car. New inventions
are forever creating new positional goods whether they be motorboats, yachts,
aeroplanes, hang-gliders, or whatever the latest plaything for the rich and
leisured classes may be. Moreover, the potential for producing better ways
1 88 Francis Sandbach

of enjoying amenities for the great majority of people would not seem to be
constrained by shortages of space or resources. There would be many ways
of enriching the quality oflife, access to privacy and sociability if greater effort
were allowed to be put in this direction.
Other social limits to growth have also been put forward, such as the trend
towards greater crime and violence, the psychological remoteness of industrial
society, the institutional chaos and complexity of wealth creating activity
involving multinationals, multiple unions, finance houses and government
(Robertson, 1 977 /78). These problems and potential concerns are real
enough, they certainly appear to be symptoms of a disease, but is the problem
really related to economic growth itself or advanced capitalism and the
monopoly power of big business? Surely none of these problems above need
be a consequence of higher standards of living. Indeed there seems to be little
hard empirical evidence that would support such an argument.

The economic technological fix position

The argument from this position is essentially that the scarcity of resources
is governed by market price factors which influence the search for new re­
sources, substitution, recycling and conservation measures. For instance,
Beckerman argues that ' the market mechanism has hitherto usually ensured
that, sooner or later, either increasing demand for materials has always been
matched by increasing supplies, or some other adjustment mechanism has
operated ' ( 1 974, pp. 34-5).
As already noted, optimists such as Kahn point out that known reserves
are more a reflection of mining companies' search policies than of total
resources. North Sea oil is another case in point. ( . . . ] During a twelve-month
period in 1 975--6 , the known North Sea oil reserves in the British sector
increased from I ,000 million tonnes to I ,350 million tonnes. There were
twenty-four oil discoveries, nearly as many as in the previous five years ; but
towards the end of this period the rate of discoveries was falling off, due to
cost inflation and strained finance (Guardian, 30 April 1 976). Production
costs, oil prices, finance and available technology are therefore of crucial
importance in assessing known and estimated reserves. [ . . . ]
The energy economist, M . Posner ( 1 974), has argued that North Sea oil,
as well as deep-mined coal or oil shales, may be only marginally profitable
if the price of oil falls to $5 per barrel at 1 974 prices. ( . . . ] Moreover, while the
availability of both oil and other resources bears some relation to demand,
the actual market price of natural resources appears to have little to do with
their physical scarcity, but much to do with monopoly positions.
The liberal economic view, as S. R. Eyre ( 1 978) points out, plays down the
importance of resource availability as a factor in the potential wealth and
growth of a nation. With the growth of nationalism and separatism which
has been taking place since the early twentieth century, there is every
 Environmental futures 1 89
indication that resource endowment will be more likely to play a crucial p art
in the wealth of nations.
Unfortunately, the distribution of resources in general is very uneven.
Non-ferrous minerals important for industry tend to be concentrated in
Southern Africa, South-East Asia and China, the USSR and the western part
of the Americas (Roberts, 1 978). For example, in the case of phosphorus some
80 per cent of the world's output is used in the manufacture of fertilizers and
there is no obvious possibility of substitution. Moreover, 75 per cent of the
production of phosphate rock is confined to three countries - the United
States, the Soviet Union and Morocco . Given the large domestic consumption
in the two super-powers, Morocco, with 34 per cent of the world trade, has
much influence over supply (and ultimately over the price) of phosphate rock.
This situation suggests that the availability of a crucial resource will be
determined not just by economic and technical factors but by the politics of
a few countries in a monopoly position. [ . . . ]

The Marxist political economy position

This perpective, like the previous one, claims that resources and pollution
control cannot be viewed apart from economic processes. However, unlike
other perspectives, the question of resource scarcity and pollution control are
linked to the organization of capital, the modes of production, and the power
bases within society. Marx's answer to Malthus was a rejection of the idea
of an absolute law dictating that there will always be more people on land
than can be maintained from the available means of subsistence unless
checked by famine, war, pestilence or artificial controls. M arx ( 1 970, pp.
59 1 -2) argued that every stage of economic development has its own law of
population. It was the surplus population of unemployed workers that, in the
capitalist system, led to poverty and the appearance of over-population. The
creation of the surplus population was not a product of resource scarcity but
of the capitalist mode of production. Capitalist accumulation decreased the
proportion of variable capital to constant capital . The amount of labour is
influenced by the amount of variable capital. Consequently, if the variable
capital fails to rise with population growth due to capital accumulation, then
a surplus population is created. In the words of Marx :

The fact that the means of production, and the productiveness of labour, increases
more rapidly than the productive population, expresses itself, therefore, capitalistically
in the inverse form that the labouring population always increases more rapidly than
conditions under which capital can employ this increase for its own self-expansion.
( 1 970, p. 604)

Even for those who are employed, low wages, influenced by a surplus
population of unemployed, create inadequate demand (rather than need) for
food and other products. There are no physical constraints on production,
1 90 Francis Sandbach

but the economic organization of society i s responsible for the lack of demand
among the poor. Engels rejected the ' limits ' argument of Mal thus as follows :

Too little is produced, that is the cause of the whole thing. But why is too little
produced ? Not because the limits of production - even today and with present-day
means - are exhausted . No, but because the limits of production are determined not
by the number of hungry bellies but by the number of purses able to buy and to pay.
Bourgeois society does not and cannot wish to produce any more. The moneyless
bellies, the labour which cannot be utilized for profit and therefore cannot buy, is left
to the death rate. (Meek, 1 97 1 , p. 87)

The problem of effective demand for resources is of crucial importance in

agriculture. There is, for instance, at present no absolute shortage of grains
in the world, and yet there are acute regional shortages. According to Jean
M ayer of Harvard University, the same amount of food consumed by 2 1 0
million Americans could adequately feed a population of 1 . 5 billion people
at the Chinese level of diet (Power and H olenstein, 1 976). N. Eberstadt ( 1 976)
has pointed out that the food production per capita rose by nine per cent in
fifteen years after 1 960, that there is more than enough food adequately to
feed the world population, and yet millions of people still starve (see also
Rothschild, 1 976). In Africa barley, beans, cattle, peanuts and vegetables are
exported despite the fact that malnutrition is worse in Africa than on any
other continent ( Lappe and Collins, 1 977). Poverty is due to maldistribution
of resources (both internationally and within nations), and not to the physical
limits of producing the resources themselves. Indeed, given the situation of
maldistribution of wealth, land and economic opportunity, the introduction
of more productive agriculture (as in the case of the Green Revolution) can
lead to a worse distribution of wealth and a lower effective demand for
agricultural resources. [ . . . ]
Scarcity, far from being a natural phenomenon or a state resulting from
economic growth, is managed in such a way as to maintain a demand that
exceeds supply and consequently results in a handsome profit. Only in such
terms can one understand the waste resulting from the dumping of surplus
milk by the Americans in the 1 960s - or the cut-back in wheat acreages from
1 20 million to 8 1 million acres in the US, Australia, Argentina and Canada
during 1 968-70, the stock-piling of beef and butter mountains in the EEC
which are sold off cheaply to the USSR, or the throwing away of vast
quantities of French apples during the autumn of 1 975. In the summer of 1 977
the US Administration were again planning to reduce the growing surplus of
world wheat by allowing millions of acres of productive farm land to become
fallow. Despite the persistence of world hunger, the surplus of US grain was
becoming unmanageable ; its reduction would help to halt the fall in wheat
prices, and so protect the American farmer. [ . . ] .

The question of whether or not resource scarcity and waste will be a

proble m i n the future is therefore inextricabl y linke d to further questions
 Environmental futures 191

concerning what type of social relations will exist in the future. Contradictions
leading to pollution and resources depletion are only one type of problem
that capitalism faces. ( . . . ) Advances in the micro-electronics industry, which
in B ritain alone ' threatens ' to release several millions from the ' labour
market ' in the late twentieth century are consequently greeted with widespread
alarm and despondency. Over-production and time-saving techniques can
bring about undesirable social problems in a market economy ; they may lead
to depression and economic crisis.
The Marxist position, like the economic/technological fix position, has
tended to ignore the importance of resource endowment in the development
of wealth. While social relations of production and economic organization
in general are obviously important there is, as Eyre ( 1 978) has pointed out,
a great geographical variation in resource endowments which certainly
constrain the path towards a higher standard of living. There has always been
a clash between M arxist and Malthusian theori sts about the relationship
between population growth and poverty. Nevertheless, for pragmatic reasons
a population policy in countries of low resource endowment in relation to
population size makes sense. To some extent China's policy on population
has from time to time (especially between 1 954 and 1 958, 1 962 and 1 966 and
since 1 969) recognized this argument, even though China herself is reasonably
well endowed with resources in comparison to other Asian countries such as
India. Small family size and later marriage in China have, on the other hand,
usually been encouraged for reasons of family health and prosperity.
Recently some Marxists have argued that scarcity of mineral reserves at
a cheap price threaten advanced capitalist states. A . Gedicks ( 1 977) claims
that M arx recognized the importance of low cost resources in order for the
process of capital accumulation to continue. [ . . . ] Gedicks goes on to argue that
scarcity of indigenous reserves will compel the United States to seek out stable
supplies of cheap resources against the trend of growing nationalist
tendencies.
The main example that Gedicks uses to support his thesis is that of
American imperialism in Chile, the object of which was to protect supplies
of cheap copper. Prior to the Allende Government in Chile, copper production
was geared to the requirements of the American market. When these mines
were nationalized, the US government began an economic and political
campaign to undermine Allende's government. Eventually, with United
States help, the Allende Government was overthrown and a military dic­
tatorship established.
The threat of nationalism and loss of control over physical resources, albeit
important, may not be quite as serious for the growth of capitalism as Gedicks
implies. There may well be a shift of manufacturing to the less developed
countries while the advanced countries shift increasingly towards becoming
' service ' economies. K . K umar ( 1 979) argues that this trend is already taking
place in Britain. Gone are the days when Britain was the major manufacturing
1 92 Francis Sandbach

exporter. In 1 870 her exports claimed 40 per cent of the world trade in
manufactures . In 1 976 this figure had fallen to below 9 per cent. On the other
hand, Britain is second only to the United States in the world trade of
' invisibles ' (services).
Nevertheless, aside from questions as to whether or not the capitalist social
order is about to break down, the M arxist account offers a plausible
explanation of why there is still resource scarcity for large numbers of the
population. Starvation and shortages of basic material requirements owe
more to the influences of capitalist ownership and consequent imperialism and
suppression of the working class, than to any real physical constraints on pro­
viding for those requirements. To this extent the pessimistic conclusions of
the Malthusian standpoint are ill-founded and based upon ideological rather
than scientific understanding. The economic/technical fix position is also
ideological in the sense of being limited to supply and demand equations
without considering the influence of capitalists in manipulating both in the
interests of capital accumulation rather than of meeting human needs.

Predictions for the future

In a review of future studies, S. Cole, J. Gershuny and I . M iles ( 1 978)
discovered no less than sixteen major reports on the predicament of mankind
which were published between 1 965 and 1 977. [ . . . ]A more serious appraisal
of these futuristic studies is appropriate here. This can be accomplished by
evaluating the same three views that were considered in the limits to growth
debate.

The neo-Malthusian position

Some of the predictions have started from Malthusian assumptions about the
limits to growth. R. L. Heilbroner's An Inquiry into the Human Prospect is
a good example. He identifies three major problem areas wh ich are externally
generated and threaten " the human prospect " . They are population, nuclear
war, and the physical limits of the environment to the sustainment of growth.
All of these problems he lays at the door of science and technology. The
population problem is a consequence of " a science-induced fall in death
rates " ( 1 975, p. 56). The possibilities of nuclear war and environmental
catastrophe are also linked to developments in science and technology. He
argues that industrial developments induce similar social consequences,
whether it be under capitalism or socialism.
Having decided that industrial growth will have to slow down because of
the three limiting problems outlined above, Heilbroner then goes on to discuss
the capacity of different political institutions to adjust. Acceptance of the
concept of limits to growth produces a prediction for the future which he
believes will probably require strong centralized political power. He doubts
 En vironmental futures 1 93
whether ' human nature ' would allow for peacefu l and organized changes in
life-style.
E. J . M ishan ( 1 977) falls into both the M althusian and technological
determinist trap. He argues that the predictions of Mal thus and Ricardo were
premature rather than wholly wrong. Recent economic and technological
growth has threatened humanity because of consequences arising from
improved transport and communications ; rapid innovations ; weapons tech­
nology ; urban size and concentration. Once again M ishan attributes these
dangers to economic and technological factors rather than to any underlying
characteristics of the social order. Like Heilbroner, M ishan believes that the
momentum of economic growth and technological development is only likely
to be controlled by a totalitarian state.
C. Taylor ( 1 978) also accepts that population, resource scarcity and
pollution threaten to limit growth, and as a consequence it will be necessary
to move towards a Byzantium-type steady state. He too believes that this
transition will probably come about under authori tarian regimes. The
problem a capitalist society faces, he argues, is that inequalities are only
bearable when there is economic growth. Stagnation would induce tension
between privileged and less privileged groups. This could only be contained
by more authoritarian regimes or even dictatorships which would either
uphold the inequalities or do something about them. [ . . . ]
These three predictions from Heilbroner, Mishan and Taylor bear close
similarities. They can all be dismissed on the grounds of holding false premises
derived from the Malthusian perspective and technological determinism.
Some of the radical views of the future which search for liberation from
industrialization also suffer from misinterpretation of the nature of the crisis
which would bring about this future. In the writings of I. Illich ( 1 973) and
T. Roszak ( 1 972) in America and E. F. Schumacher ( 1 973), J. Robertson
( 1 977 /78) and a good many of the radical technology theorists in Britain,
there is a common assumption that a crisis results from the independent
development of science and technology. As K. Kumar comments, " in this
account the crisis is the inevitable product of the long-term tendency of
industrialism towards the large-scale, greater centralization, a finer special­
ization and division of labour, and the replacement of human labour and
human skill by a resource-consuming machine technology " ( 1 979, p. 1 5).

The economic technological fix position

The next series of predictions are those based upon premises derived from
the economic/technological fix perspective. Futurologists such as Kahn
( 1 976), D. Bell ( 1 973) and P. F. Drucker ( 1 969) hold an essentially business­
as-usual position. They are optimistic about the industrial future. The way
the future is likely to differ from the present is considered in terms of the types
of technologies that will be developed in order to sustain growth. The shift
1 94 Francis Sandbach

will be from conventional manufacturing to high technology such as nuclear

fission and fusion . Widespread automation, further developments in trans­
portation, aerospace, telecommunications, computerization and even the
possibilities of space colonization will bring us into the hyper-industrial estate.
The problem facing governments is how to make the transition as smooth
as possible (see Robertson 1 977/78). [ . . . ]
In many respects the hyper-industrial future based upon liberal economic
principles is a likely prospect because it is a projection of numerous tendencies
that exist in the advanced capitalist nations today. The question that needs
to be raised when assessing its plausibility is whether or not the contradictions
of capitalism which today give rise to problems of pollution, resource scarcity
and risks from Flixborough, Seveso and giant oil-spillage disasters can be
overcome without both a change in social order and a change in the path of
technological development. Given the record of capitalist countries in
tackling these problems, and the tendency towards greater risks in industrial
development, the prospects of this prediction occurring are grave indeed.
Together with other contradictions of capitalism, such as poverty in the midst
of plenty and high levels of unemployment, it is not unlikely that movements
toward an alternative path of development will achieve some success.
H. Stretton ( 1 976) has described three possible directions for the future
based upon reformist policies. The first two directions involve a shift to the
right. The first is that a reactionary class-ruled regime which adopts
preservationist policies along strictly Malthusian lines will take control.
Inequalities will increase and the state will become more authoritarian : the
death penalty, strict population control policies and penal colonies may be
some of the instruments of social control.
His second prediction suggests that political influences slightly to the right
will bring about environmental reforms which mildly increase divisions and
inequalities within society. Just as the better off have benefited most from
environmental planning and pollution control in the past, so they will
continue to do so in the future.[ . . . ]
Stretton's third prediction involves a political shift to the left ; left-wing par­
ties gain in strength from the " cost-of-living troubles and rising inequalities
. . . urban and environmental troubles, quality of life issues, local and com­
munity initiatives, business scandals and property prices and the problems of
inflation " ( 1 976, pp. 97-8). The traditional Left and environmentalists, who
were estranged from each other in the late 1 960s and early 1 970s, would find
common ground in campaigning against environmental dangers to basic
necessities. While private enterprise continues, its activities are increasingly
governed by labour interests. Instead of the capitalist class controlling the
state, the reverse process would gradually take place. [ . . . ]
Stretton is right to point out alternative paths of reform under capitalism.
H owever, his predictions flirt with the possibilities of Malthusian constraints
without assessing their likelihood . It is also doubtful whether the type of
 Environmental futures 1 95
Leftist reforms which he envisages could take place while maintai ning the
capitalist economy intact. The histo ry of labour reformist interventi on to date
does not suggest that political reforms alone will be sufficient to erode
inequalities or the power of the capitalist ruling class (see Westergaard and
Resler, 1 976). There is obviously a spectrum of possibilities between a
laissez-faire economy and a socialist state where private ownership plays an
insignificant role. However, the most important areas for change are not the
state and policy-making institutions, but control over the forces of production.
It is only when product innovation, pollution controls and resources utilization
by firms are taken out of the control of management and entrepreneurs whose
prime aim is to maximize profits that true progress can be made towards a
healthier environment for all.

The Marxist political economy position

The last type of prediction stems from a M arxist viewpoint. I t assumes that
planning and technological choice and economic development will come
under the control of the workers and the local community rather than the
financial magnates of industry. Under both state and local control, economic
development could be planned to improve environmental working and living
conditions, and wastage would be reduced by avoiding unnecessary com­
petition. Food, shelter, energy and mineral resources would be regarded as
precious and not to be squandered as occ u rs today under the distortions of
a market economy. [ . . . ] Individuals would become freer to travel with improved
public transport, cycling and pedestrian conditions, and the wastage from
half-empty cars would be avoided.
Today polluting industries, traffic hazards and other environmental dis­
turbances are unevenly distributed so that the better off have prime access
to higher quality environments. The rich and dominant class have been able
to manipulate political institutions so that planning reinforces their narrow
needs. In the social future political institutions and planning would serve a
wider spectrum of interests. I ndustrial democracy and choice of products
according to need rather than profit would ensure a more efficient use of
resources. The struggle by the Lucas Aerospace shop stewards for their
corporate plan would be remembered as a milestone in the creation of a new
future where there was a real freedom of choice for the majori ty of people.
People and politics would be in command rather than the demands of capital
accumulation for its own sake.
Whether or not the socialist prediction would be constrained by the
availability and price of physical resources would still be debatable, especially
in countries with few resources. Exploration and development of physical
resources would not, however, be determined by profit implications, and there
would be less unnecessary exploitation for products which meet ' false needs ' .
The likelihood of this third prediction occurring i s in doubt, but one can claim
1 96 Francis Sandbach

that its development would ensure a safer and more fulfilling future. Whether
or not such changes are realized before the development of further major wars
or before some major disaster from bio-chemical pollution or radiation
remains to be seen.

Conclusions
In a typical liberal and pluralistic account, environmental problems arise at
various stages during the process of industrialization. Consequent strains lead
to the development of social movements. The state, pressure groups, and the
public react to these problems and, depending upon the nature of the political
system, there are varying degrees of consensus and conflict before acceptable
solutions are found. In the democratic capitalist economies dominant social
science and policy analysis implicitly deny that conflicts of material interest
play a significant part in generating and resolving social and environmental
problems. ' Scientific rationality ' is, however, closely integrated with a system
of capitalist production (see Gorz, 1 976(b)). Hence cost-benefit analysis and
technology assessment are legitimate and respected forms of policy analysis
whereas the activities of workers' organizations aimed at transforming work
organization and industrial production are regarded as political rather than
scientific.
I f the policy outcome of cost-benefit analysis, behavioural studies, environ­
mental impact assessment and technology assessment is shown to be politically
biased - favouring middle-class owner-occupiers, for example - then this is
often claimed to be due not to a political bias of the ideas governing policy
analysis themselves but an abuse of these ideas. The development of ideas
and theories governing policy and the understanding of social movements,
pressure groups, the behaviour of firms and the growth of the state are
assumed to be free from ideology. [ . . . )
A use/abuse model of scientific knowledge is supported in the main by
historians and philosophers of science. The development of science is seen
as following an independent and self-governing path. No significance is
granted to the influence of external economic and social conditions on the
nature and development of science.
Although there is a semblance of explanatory logic in pluralist, functionalist,
behavioural and neo-classical theories, which dominate the social scientific
analysis of environmental problems and policy, they can all be shown to be
defective, in as much as they neglect material interests. Systems of ideas,
whether they be idealist or economic, which are divorced from the real
material world serve to obscure the true basis of environmental and social
problems. Those who support systems of thinking that are independent of
the social organization of production and claim them to be ideologically
neutral are profoundly misleading. [ . . . ]
I n the social sciences the production of knowledge is distorted by special-
 En vironmental futures 1 97
ization and fragmentation of academic disciplines, and studies which play a
functional role of supporting the status quo are particularly promoted within
academic and policy institutions. The result is that the ' ruling ideas ' are, as
M arx asserted, the ideas of the ' ruling class ' . The solution to environmental
problems depends therefore not merely upon reforming the science and
technologies available but transforming the social relations of production -
production of policy, technology, and knowledge itself. Resistance to nuclear
fast-breeder reactors, to dangerous industrial developments, to impersonal
environmental planning, is not merely a matter of improving expertise and
the scientific basis of decision-making. It is a matter of claiming the right for
all to control what is produced and what is planned.

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 Index

analysis, I I , SO conflict
class, 1 24-6
branch plants cultural, SH6
externally controlled, 1 63 jurisdictional, S l -2, 52-3, 85-- 105
local, 1 1 7, 1 40 cotton towns, 1 3 1-3, 1 42--4
in the Third World, 1 44 cultural forms
built environment : spatial distribution of, local, SO-- l , SH
52, 72-3, 78-83 reproduction of, 1 42
culture
ethnic, 63--4
capital geographical variation in, 52--3, 54-66,
accumulation, l i S, 1 9 5 1 07-8
cultural SH mass, 56--7
decentralization of, 9, 140 M uslim, I l l , 1 45, l S I
internationalization of, 52, 86-7, 1 1 2 working class, 54-66 , 1 39
manufacturing, 6 1 , 1 09, I B--20, 1 9 1 -2
multinational, 86 ; see also multinational
Darwinism, environmental, 26--7
companies
Development Areas, 1 24, 1 43, 1 44, 1 62
reorganization of, S l , 52
differentiation
restructuring, 1 09, 1 1 6--2 3
geographical, 1 1 3
service, 6 1 , 1 09, 1 1 4, 1 20-- 3 , 1 44, 1 9 1 -2
spatial, 3, 68-78
capitalism, 7, 45--7, SS, 62, 65, 1 89-92
distance
contradiction of, 1 94
barriers of, S l , 68
mercantile, 1 6
measurement of, S
cities : physical inertia of, 72-3 ; see also
division of labour
inner city
international, 1 29, 1 44, 1 63
class
national, 1 53
disappearance of, 57-63
occupational, 5 1
geography of, 54-66
sexual, 37, 1 28--47
restructuring of: Lancaster, 1 1 3, 1 24-6
spatial, 5 1 , 52, 68, 82, 1 08, 1 1 2, 1 26,
see also middle class ; working class
1 53
coalfields : colliery villages, 4-- S , 1 29-3 1 ,
1 38-9
communications revolution, 28-30 ecodoom, I I , 1 64-- 5
communities economics
political, see European Economic as a discipline, I
Community international, 85-- 1 05
rural : social and spatial structure of, economy
1 36 British, 1 1 7, 1 9 1 -2
solidarity of, 37--40 deindustrialization of, 1 1 3
working class, 58-66 depression, 5, 65
companies : multinational, 73, 8 5 , 89, 96-- 7 , international, 85-- 1 0 5
1 1 7 ; see also firms local : restructuring of, 1 09, 1 1 2-27
conceptualization, 7, 1 0, 34-47, 1 6 1 recession, S, 65
20 1
202 Index

economy (cont.) ideology

regional, 1 1 2-27, 1 69-7 5 Islamic, 1 5 1
urban, 5 1 , 5 2, 68-84 o f virility, 1 30
employment impact back : of geography on society
in agriculture, 1 3 S-7, 1 39-42 of local on ' the national ', 54--6 7
female, 1 1 5, 1 3 1 -46 of the environment, 1 8 1 -97
geography of, 1 28-9 of the nation state, 1 66--80
local pattern of, 1 1 4-- 2 7 industrialization : M iddle East, 1 52-9
male, 1 1 5, 1 29-3 1 industry
in manufacturing, 6 1 , 1 09, 1 1 3-20 manufacturing, 6 1 , 1 09, 1 1 3-20, 1 62
occupational structure of, 6 1 , 1 6 1 restructuring, 1 1 2-27, 1 62
i n services, 6 1 , 1 09, 1 1 4, 1 20-3, 1 44-- 5 service, 6 1 , 1 09, 1 1 4, 1 20-3
energy inner city : decline, 8, 6 1 , 63
analysis of food production, 1 83, 1 86-- 7 interdependence
demands and consumption, 1 8 1 -2, 1 86 of areas, 1 63-4
enterprise zones, 6 1 capitalist, 1 63
envi ronment : physical /natural, I , 1 2 of nation states, 1 68-9, 1 77-80
envi ronmental and uniqueness, 6-- 8 , I I , 1 63-4
determinism, I , 6, 1 83-9, 1 93
futures, 1 64-- 5 , 1 8 1 -99
labour
European Economic Community, 1 02-3, 1 67
costs, 1 2 1 , 1 34
supernational integration, 87, 1 02-3, 1 68,
deskilled, 1 2 1 , 1 39
1 76-80
domestic, 1 29-30, 1 42
explanation : and local distinctiveness, 54--6
feminization of, 1 1 5, 1 2 1 , 1 3 1 -3, 1 38-9 ;
see also women
family
indigenous, I l l
extended, 37
reorganization of, 1 1 4--2 3
in homework, 1 45
sweated, 1 33-5, 1 44--6
life, 62
labour market 1 1 3, 1 1 4--2 3
nuclear, 37
labour migration, 1 1 0- 1 1 , 1 48-59
Fen lands
in the 1 950s in Britain, 64
and branch plants, 1 40
land
gender relations i n , 1 3 S-7, 1 39-42
prices, 77
Feudalism, Western, 43-5
property, 44, 46
firms, 73, 90-2, 99- 1 0 1 , 1 03, 1 1 6--20 ; see also
law
companies
international, 8 5- 1 04
u . s 87-94
..
gender relations, geography of, 1 09, 1 1 0,
layers, historical
1 28-47
combination of, 4 1 -3
geography, human
of economic activity, 74--6
radical, 3, 4
locality, see place ; uniqueness
regional, 2, 5
location
subdivisions of, 1 - 1 0
and agglomeration economies, 69-7 1
systematic, 2
centre city, 7 1 -4
flexibility of, 1 62
health care : spatial distribution, 7 5
industrial, 74, 1 1 2-20
housing
of production, 1 08
costs, 79
council, 78, 79-80, 8 1
and gentrification, 63, 80 middle class
market, 79-8 1 inter war, 54
owner occupied, 62, 79 new, 63, 1 63
production of, 76 Victorian, 1 29, 1 32, 1 37
see also class
identity mobility
European Community, 87 social, 62
local, 58 spatial, 60-- 3 , 83
and place, 54--6 tradition of: M uslim, 1 5 1
 Index 203
models politics
gravity, 1 7 and sovereignty, 1 66-80 ; see also nation
mathematical, 1 6- 1 7 state
monopoly working class, 1 24-6, 1 3 3, 1 36-7, 1 42
employer, 1 30 pollution
location : retailing, 1 22 control, 1 8>-6, 1 89, 1 93-5
power of big business, 1 88 in a market economy, 1 64
movement population
of capital, 5 Bedouin, I l l , 1 52, 1 53
of labour, 64, 1 48-59 distribution of, 52, 72, 82, 83
movement, 64, 1 1 0- 1 1 , 1 48-59
nation state and resource scarcity, 25, 1 64, 1 83-4,
Arab, 1 52 1 89-92
centrality of, 1 63 positivism
and territory, 8 >- 1 04 empirical generalization, 2
i n Western Europe, 1 66-80 general laws in, 88
see also state possibilism, 6
nationalism power
pan-Arab, 1 5 1-2 decentralization of, 1 70- 1
radical, 1 7 5 geography of, 1 66-80
regional, 1 63-4, 1 7 1 -5 rcccntralization of: Germany, 1 69-7 1
substitute, European, 1 7 1 territorial definition of, 40- 1
nature production
control of, 1 6- 1 7 decentralization of, 73, 1 08
history of, 1 0, 1 2-33 domestic, 1 28
' the natural ', I, 6-8, 1 64-5 factory, 1 3 1 -3
rearrangement of, 1 7-22 heartlands of, 1 63
society and, 6-8, 1 0 technology of, 1 93-5
see also the social and the natural profit
network and production, 60, 95

of internal organizations, 1 66-7, 1 76-7

transport, 7 1 -2 regional policy
new towns, 60, 64, 1 38 European Regional Development Fund,
1 7 1 , 1 73
offices and local industrial policies, 1 23-4
and land, 77, 8 1 -2 and women's employment, 1 42-4
location of, 73-4 resources
exploitable, 1 84-5, 1 88
natural, 1 � 1 6
paternalism, 1 09, 1 2>-6
scarcity of, 2 5 , 1 64, 1 83-5, 1 89-9 1
place
uneven distribution of, 1 89
certainty of, s-6
construction of, 35
and culture, 54-6 social
particularity of, 38-9, 42-3, 46-7 the social and the natural, I , 6-8, 1 0,
symbolism of, 38-40 1 64-5
and working women, 1 28--46 the social and the spatial, I , 2--6
planning social change
environmental, 1 8 1 -97 local, 57-8
utopian, 1 82 in the U.K. economy, 1 6 1-5
policy theory of, 1 63
economic, 1 70 social class, see class
European, 1 66-80 social sciences, I
population, 1 83-4, 1 89-92 analysis of environmental problems,
regional, 1 23-4, 1 42-4, 1 62, 1 7 1 -5 49-50
state, 1 23--6 society
technology, 28-30, 1 82, 1 93--6 British, 50- 1 , 54-66
transport, 7 1 -2, 78, 8 2 civilized, 1 0, 35, 36, 40-3
204 Index

society (cont.) primitive, 37

primitive, 1 0, 35, 36-40, 4 1 of production, 1 93-5
and space, 34-47 and spatial patterns, 45-7
sociology, discipline of, I territory (territorial)
space changes, 4 1 -2
construction of, 46-7 definition of society, I � I I , 34-S, 42-3
sacred, 47 and jurisdiction, S l -2, 87-9 ; see also
social conception of, 1 0, 34-47 conflict : jurisdictional
and society, 2; see also the spatial and the political, 52
social and sovereignty, 40- 1
spatial trade unions
analysis, 2, 5 organizers, 4-S
change, 1 63 traditions of, 1 43
distribution, 68-84 and women, 66, 1 32-3, 1 44
inequality, 1 95
interaction, I , 3 unemployment
linkages, urban, 74-84 female, l 4�
organization, 2 1 , 1 64 male, 1 39
processe s , 3 unevenness of, 1 62
structure, 5, 1 64-5 uneven development, 9, 6 1 , 1 1 3, 1 28
spatial and the social, I , 2-ti, 3 5--4 7 ; see also uniqueness
space and society and interdependence : of areas, 8- 1 0, I I ,
spatial division of labour 1 6�
changing forms of, 1 1 2, 1 26 reproduction and transformation : of
international, 1 29, 1 4 5-ti areas, 1 07- 1 1
national, I 53 see also place ; specificity
urban, 5 I, 82 urban
within the clothing industry, 1 45-ti blight, 8, 6 1 , 63
see also division of labour economy, S l , 52, 68-84
specificity life, S l , 52
labour in the Middle East : sending and
receiving countries, 1 49 women
state married, 1 37, 1 62
international, 8 5- I OS, 1 66-7 and place, SS, 1 1 0, 1 2�
policy, 1 23-ti, 1 67-76 and work, 6 1 , 64-S, l i S, 1 2 1 , 1 28-46
power of, 40- 1 , 1 75-ti ; see also power see also gender relations
structuralism, 8 working class
symbolism : of place, 6, 38-9, 46-7 new, 60, 65
synthesis, 1 1 , 1 07- 1 1 Northern, 54-S
regional, 1 09- 1 0, 1 28-9 old, 57, 60, 63
Southern, 54-S
technology Welsh, SS
alternative, 1 82 see also class
and environmental effects, 3 1 , 1 86
new, 28-30