The Ways of the World – David Harvey
The Ways of the World – David Harvey
David Harvey is a Professor of Anthropology and Geography at the City
University of New York City, a position he combines with providing
some of the world’s leading academic Marxist critiques of society in
recent decades. If at first Marxism and geography may seem an unusual
mix, Harvey has devoted much of his career to confounding this
expectation, ademonstrating how Marxian conceptions of society can
come to explain both the physical spaces in which we work and live,
and how these in turn come back to influence our own actions and
social relations (and how, in true ‘dialectic’ symbiotic form the
latter come to inform the former once more, ad infinitum.) This book
is a collection of some of his key essays on the subject, spanning
from all the way back from 1969 to just last year.
Whilst the continual theme is an examination of how the evolving
processes of capitalism leave their physical mark in the city and
townscape and the effect this has on class and social relations, the
actual subjects are eclectic and varied. Broader topics include the
nature of what constitutes ‘environment’ given the interplay between
nature and humankind’s own conscious manipulation of its own
surroundings; the transition of capitalism in more recent decades from
a more managerialist to entrepreneurial model; and the inherent
limitations in any form of urban planning within this process to
mitigate its excesses (e.g. ‘rejuvenating’ and gentrifying city
centres does not abolish poverty, but simply moves it elsewhere.)
More closely focussed pieces include the conflicts between the trade
union representatives on the shop floor and their more airily abstract
allies in the socialist movement with reference to the industrial
disputes around the Rover car plant in the Oxford of the 1970s, and
the myriad social, political, religious and cultural conflicts which
went into the building of the Sacre-Coeur building in the Paris of the
late 19th and early 20th century.
For readers coming from a socialist perspective there is a multitude
of original ideas and observations here
- not least an analysis of how the unbridled property market
was just as much to blame for the 2007-9 credit crunch as the banking
sector – and how China managed to avoid
the slump with a hyper-charged neo-Keynesian building
programme. The problem for a reader not fully conversant with the most
arcane and advanced Marxist terminology is that it can at times be an
arid read; the words
‘production’, ‘accumulation’, ‘surplus value’, ‘capital circuit’ et al
bearing down with oppressive regularity.
Even for someone moderately
au fait with the lingo (such
as myself) may find themselves losing their way. I did lose grasp of
some of the more cerebral and inter-spatial concepts at work at times,
a failure on my part perhaps, though indicating the book is unlikely
to find much of an audience beyond the academic. The frustration for
me is that when Harvey does home in on more concrete concepts and uses
abstract language more sparingly he can and does write in a clearer
and more engaging manner. No
doubt he would counter his more purely theoretical work is the
necessary underpinning for the rest, without which all else falls
down. Still, I would argue one doesn’t need to resort to the
showboating tactics of a Slavoj Zizek to inject just a little more
‘human interest’.
Ironically Harvey acknowledges this very tension in one of the book’s
best sections – ‘Militant particularism and global ambition’ showing
the conflict between the theoretical revolution and the lived struggle
in both the works of Raymond Williams, and the clashes between the
Marxist academic Harvey himself and his trade union allies during the
1970s Oxford Rover dispute. By far the most enjoyable chapter for me
was that on Sacre-Coeur, which brings to real life the clashes between
revolutionary and reactionary forces which brought the structure into
being, though perhaps that simply shows my own prejudice for history
and the political over geography and the sociological.
Stylistic concerns aside, there is a wealth of wisdom to dwell on
here. From the revolution of the Paris Commune onward, Harvey
demonstrates repeatedly and convincingly
how the human environment in its broader is just
as vital as narrower definitions of class relations to both an
analysis and a revolutionary critique of
society. A serious and
realistic modern Marxist work, the assiduous examination of the
entrenched nature of capitalist hegemony and the seemingly
unsurmountable barriers anyone seeking to change this society will
face can ironically seem like a council of despair. But you need to
know what you’re up against, and Harvey is a thorough and honest
scholar in unearthing that knowledge.
Any cop? This is not an easy read, but there’s treasure here if you dig deep enough.
[First published on Bookmunch, 2016]
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