On Marx’s Theory Of Social Space

Space, as a concept known by us all, is a word which generally will remind us of itsproperties of objects in movement in dialectical materialism, that is the three dimensional,such as an image of a “container” or Some fixed geographic space and so on. However, Marxelaborated on the social attributes of space through the historical materialism. In many of theclassical texts of Marx, such as The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, Economicsmanuscript in1857-1858and Das Kapital, he, through the origin, formation, developmentand expansion of capital, demonstrated that how the social relations of capital graduallyoccupy space and attribute social nature to it during its expanding process.In this paper, aforesaid theory will be sorted out and interpreted by three parts. In the firstpart, from microscopic view and through the formation of capital and the appearance ofindustrial cities, Marx revealed the naissance of the social space of capital. Then, after theIndustrial Revolution, due to the rapid development of productivity, capital started to expandto country, and caused the opposition between rural and urban areas, thus formed the binarydivision of social space, namely the confrontation between the space formed under theproduction relationship of capital and that formed under the mode of production of feudalsociety. In the industrial cities, meanwhile, the aggregation effect of capital aroused thebooming of productive forces, which caused the inadaptation of productive relations to forces.Thus, the capital started its global expansion. Hence, in the second part, from macroscopicview, Marx revealed that how the capital gradatim established its specific space during itsglobal expansion. Taking advantage of the New Sea Routes, the capital gradually set upcolonies abroad. Capitalists mainly pursued more surplus value by the reproduction of socialspace, and eased the domestic economic crisis besides. So, Marx’s theory, Time Shrinks Space,aimed at the nature of capital in the process of expansion. Besides the previous violence,making use of its typical idea, such as the idea of freedom and equality, capital furtherconsolidate the social space of its reproduction, so as to make the working class accept and becontent with the status quo, thus the capitalists are able to exploit them. Whereas, the capitalitself is contradictory. So, during its crazy expansion, capital eventually will inevitably sublateitself because of sharpening contradiction of itself at the same time. Therefore, the third partaims at the space of the communist society after the capital’s sublating itself. Marx’s pointingout the direction of social development is on the basis of scientific analysis, though he did not and would not put a detailed description on the future society.In this paper, the author will highlight its position in the historical materialism through thestudy of this theory, and break the traditional dimension “history-----time” to understand thereality of historical materialism and human liberation from a brand new perspective.