Dialectical Space Of Capital Hegemony And Political Resistance In Geographical Vision

Harvey’s new imperialist theory is the promotion and expansion of the concretization andactualization of his historical geographical materialism. Historical geographical materialism deeplyexplores the relationship between the development of the capitalist mode of production and geospatialchanges by fully integrating Marxism and geospatial theory, and then it constantly enriches the panoramicview of the Marxist in the experience of geography. Geography and history respectively correspond to thespace and time which describe the social experience of human, and the former, in fact, is a reflection of aseries of social relations. Capital accumulation is the dynamic mechanism which relates the capitalist modeof production to spatiography. Based on this, he fully applies the meta-theory of Marxism to his research onspatiography. By exploring in depth the inner relationship between spatiography and capitalist production,he aims at emphasizing the inevitable connection between spatial production and capital accumulation, soas to thoroughly criticize the practice of capital-power hegemony in contemporary capitalist society.Harvey’s new imperialism theory is based on the real background of new changes of capitalism in theprocess of globalization and the transition of its mode of production to Post Fordism. It’s also based on thetheoretical background of theoretical field of Late Marxism, internal crisis of classical theories ofimperialism and the contemporary revival of historical materialism. Base on this two background, it tries todescribe the dialectical space of capital hegemony and political opposition in geography.In terms of the overall theoretical structure, firstly, it considers the dialectical relationship betweenterritorial logic and capital logic as its logic starting point, then it thoroughly analyzes the binaryframework which is dominated and depended: capital logic dominates while territorial logic providessafeguard mechanism and develops with it and both constitute the fundamental driving force of theevolution of contemporary capitalist society. Secondly, it takes the form and nature of the neo-liberalismmodeled by the U.S. and the depriving accumulation. Capital accumulation can be achieved by theprotection of state power and the effective combination of capital and space. The U.S. maintains itshegemonic position just by exercising new-liberalism with the financial tool. The neo-liberalism tries tobreak the original institutional framework to achieve complete commercialization and privatization, and to reconstruct a new relationship of class forces so as to promote the process of globalization of capitalaccumulation. Meanwhile, depriving accumulation as the nature of new imperialism changes the primitiveaccumulation of violent looting. Under the guise of “liberty, equality, democracy” and by using state power,it solves the problem of excessive accumulation through domestic privatization while plunders othercountries by expanding space, exporting capital, devaluating currency and causing crisis. Furthermore, itconsiders the resistance movement triggered by the inevitability of the internal crisis of capitalism as thereal foothold. The capitalism crisis during the process of globalization is caused by excessive accumulation.Space-time repair mechanism that expands external space of capitalism to slow internal crisis alleviates theintensification of the crisis, but it can’t eradicate the ills. To achieve continuous production of profit andsurplus value, the neo-liberal hegemony seriously violates the basic principle of supremacy of personalinterests by exercising falsity and deprivation. It reconstructs the distribution pattern of class interest groups,thus contributing to a new round of opposition movements on a global scale. The multiple contradiction inthe capitalist society determines the diversity of the opposition movement, while the dialectical unity of theexpanded reproduction and depriving accumulation constitute the social roots which generate theopposition movement. As a result, Harvey further sketches a kind of alternative form of society which isbase on the Kautsky sense and with core of “New Deal” allied by capitalist countries.Overall, by means of Marxism, Harvey’s new imperialism theory thoroughly explores the thoughtresources of Marxism, and through the contemporary social transition of capitalism, it tries to openinfinitely to the future alternative society. It considers the unity of capital logic and space production as thelogic starting point of seeing through the capitalism. It differs from Marx and Engels who based on theintrinsic necessity of the basic contradictions of capitalism to reveal the capitalist mode of production andtransiency, thus resulting as the fundamental cause to be reduced as the positive political to maintain thehegemony of capitalism. It not only differs from the classical imperialism theory which centers on nationand country, but also differs from the post-imperialism which is base on capital logic and tries to eliminatebounds of nation and country. Based on the framework of dominant-dependent of the territorial logic andcapital logic, it not only emphasizes the overall dominance of capital logic, but also emphasizes the realeffectiveness of the framework of country-territory and dependent-center. Based on the development ofcapitalism, it enhances the theoretic areas of classic imperialism to some extent, but in the nature of deconstruction, it is weaker than the radical roots of post-imperialism. Meanwhile, the revolutionarypolitics and alternative society which are its real footholds are based on the lack of subject and social basis.It violates the scientific basic of Marx’s theory of human liberation. In terms of the subjective dimension,even though it reconstructs the traditional concept of the proletariat and the class politics of Marxism andexpands the scope of the revolutionaries, but it still can’t find a powerful revolutionary subject which has aunified class consciousness, class will and political practice. Therefore, it can’t take the historical burden ofliberating human. In terms of the objective dimension, it doesn’t create a systematic instructiverevolutionary program, organization form and revolutionary line, nor determine a powerful materialfoundation and historical condition which a alterative society should have. All this directly lead to theUtopia roots of its revolutionary politics.