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Spatial Divisions Of Labor Summary

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A central feature of capitalism is its tendency to concentrate resources and wealth in one region while leaving another barren. Spatial structures which feature headquarters in a metropolitan area and branch out industrial manufacturing to rural areas facilitate a transfer of wealth to urban centers. This leaves the rural branch locations dependent on the jobs provided by white collar workers in cities. Massey’s idea of uneven development is critical to understanding the rise of populism in the west. As automation eliminates jobs concentrated in what Massey regards as “branch” locations, anger is sparked which prompts displaced workers to vote for populist causes. Doreen Massey explains the process of how spatial structures create uneven development in her book Spatial Divisions of Labor. Massey holds that structures of dominance and subordination are determined by the way that production is organized over space. This occurs through a process that concentrates specific components of the production processes in certain regions; this explains why one region may only have blue collar manufacturing jobs while another is characterized by manual-labor, white collar jobs. This division of labor among regions increases profits in certain locations, just as the division of labor …show more content…

Blue collar workers become reliant on the dominance of a metropolitan headquarters to provide jobs. This is due to the fact that “certain parts of the functions of economic ownership and possession are missing,” or controlled externally. Manufacturing communities are dependent on their jobs in industry, as they do not own parts of the production process. Thus, the elimination of their small role in the production process could devastate the entire community. Contrastingly, metropolitan areas are resilient in the face of economic change, as headquarters located in metropolitan areas control the production process

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