SPACE AND SOCIETY FROM KARL MARX CONTRIBUTION

SPACE AND SOCIETY FROM KARL MARX CONTRIBUTION

Nildo Viana *

The Karl Marx's theory has nothing to do with the question of space because he did not write anything about it. This statement is apparently correct. The great thing is that Marx did not write any work or Direct article on the concept of space or with the focus on this issue, but made several analyzes of the society surrounding it. This is our topic in this article.

The conception of Marx is admittedly marked by historicity. He reviewed the history of humanity and developed a theory of history. This is known by the succession of modes of production. The historical specificity idea is another key element of his thought (KORSCH, 1983). If this is recognized with relative ease and consensus, the same does not occur with the space issue. However, Marx's work also points to a perception of space. This perception of space, in turn, is inextricably linked to social and historical. A given space is a form of manifestation of certain social relations entered a region, territory, etc. No doubt, he made no such claim, but it can be deduced from the way he works the issue of space. That is why we will discuss initially its analysis of space in the historical process of development of humanity and subsequently in the case of capitalist society.

When Marx analyzes the passage of classless societies to class society, he notes a process of expansion of the social division of labor that keeps intimate relationship with a spatial division of society. In this context, he notes the opposition town and country (Marx and Engels 2002), a product of the expansion of social division of labor, it generates, in turn, a space division. But beyond this question of origins, there is also the historic district of certain companies in certain regions. That's why it may be the Asiatic mode of production concepts and Germanic mode of production (Marx, 1985). Asian mode of production is confined to a particular region, such as the German production. Obviously, the two terms are problematic because it is not the issue in the region that characterizes these modes of production (although impact on him, as the issue of irrigation in the Asiatic mode of production), but this is due to the fact that he not produced a developed theory of such modes of production, and its analysis focused more on the case of existing modes of production in Western Europe.

The deformation of Marx's thought, which was presented to consist of a positivist conception of laws of history, which was marked by the succession required four modes of production is an obstacle to be overcome in order to understand its method and conception of reality, as something concrete and not as a mere manifestation of social laws. Undoubtedly, it addresses the succession of the Asiatic mode of production, ancient, feudal and bourgeois in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Marx, 1983), but this exposure, "in general terms" is not the presentation of an evolution General of humanity. In this text he does not have the primitive communities preceding these production methods that are already social classes, are modes of production of class societies.

In the Grundrisse (Marx 2011), drafts of Capital (Marx, 1988) in the chapter which was later published under the title of Economic Formations Pre-capitalists (Marx, 1985), he examines more deeply than in Ideology German (Marx and Engels 2002), the development of other modes of production beyond the classics of Western Europe (slavery, feudalism and capitalism). The Asiatic mode of production, and the "German", are ways of class-production, despite the controversy surrounding it, as already constituted and production and appropriation of surplus, or exploitative relationships. But what interests us here is to reaffirm the relationship between space and society. These modes of production existed in certain regions, making certain types of company and a particular spatial organization. Of course, then, some historians have identified the existence of an Asian mode of production originated outside the region, which, however, only means that the name "Asian" is inaccurate and similar forms have emerged in other regions (such as some claim have existed in the Americas). In other words, a mode of production and a corresponding shape society are historical and are organized in a particular territorial space, establishing specific relationships derived from social processes and suffering influences, whose intensity and shape depend both on social relations as the local environment.

However, the relationship between space and society becomes more concrete and depth in Marx's analysis when it comes to the capitalist society. The analysis that Marx makes the rise and development of the capitalist mode of production points to your continuous process of spatial expansion and transformation of space. Since the revival of cities and redefining the space with the gradual creation of an urban space, the expulsion of peasants from their lands and the reconfiguration of rural space, through the analysis of primitive accumulation of capital and derived spatial transformations, including the tax process by absolutist and colonial system state (Marx, 1988b), until the constitution of the new urban landscape with the industrial revolution and capitalist accumulation consolidation itself and its International Space rebound, Marx makes a set of tests that show the close relationship between capital, state capitalist, class struggle and reconstitution of space.

In this sense, the analysis of the capitalist mode of production by Marx is key to understanding the changes in urban, rural and international space. Articles about colonialism (Marx and Engels 1978) point to the perception that the space setting is something constituted socially and in capitalist society, capital of the movement, the state action, class struggles, the workers' struggle, They are key to understanding this process. Undoubtedly, not only what he actually wrote about the social, as well as the spatial changes that accompany them, but two other elements of his work are central to an analysis of space in modern society: his theory of capitalism and the dialectical method.

The dialectical method is essential to the realization that the space must be analyzed not as "thing" in the Durkheimian sense (Durkheim, 2008), metaphysical conception, and not under the empiricist way. The fetishism of the space is to give life to it, thinking that it acts on its own, which has its own life. A Durkheim's approach would end it, but even some supposedly Marxist end up gestating similar ideologies (VIANA, 2002). The space does not have life. Undoubtedly, there is the environment and its characteristics, possibilities, resistances to certain human actions. You can tell that the environment (and not something abstract like "space") is one of the determinations of the constitution of the human, social space. The empiricist view, in turn, is also totally lacking in a position to explain the space because it isolates loses sight of its historicity (its social constitution process). The dialectical method points to a theory of reality that comprises the same as something concrete, set in a whole and being the product of a historical constitution. If space inhabited by human beings, it is a socially constituted space, inserted in the totality of social relationships that generate certain spatial configuration, and had a historical process of formation and mutation. Once constituted any social space (urban, rural, etc.), it obviously produces limits, assumes forms, which are often inherited from the current generations by previous generations. Space does not builds on itself, it is only the reproduction of previous social relations and that they continue to exist and have strong roots and underpinnings that make it difficult to overcome it.

And it is then that becomes important to Marx's theory of capitalism, another indirect contribution of this author to understand the relationship between space and society under capitalism. The spatial organization in capitalist society reproduces the social organization, social division of labor. The social division of labor creates a spatial division of labor. However, this is not static, it changes historically and can perform mergers and hybrid processes. The class struggle is the fundamental concept to explain this process of social constitution of space in capitalism. The essence of capitalism is the production of surplus value, which expresses a relation of exploitation and domination that occurs in the labor and production process, which has a strong impact on the spatial organization of a city and, derivatively, of society as a whole. Industrial production is not deployed anywhere and where it settles interfere in other social relations and social space. The impact of industrial centers is much stronger than that of isolated industries, but even in the case of the latter can not think not. The impact covers public transport, pollution, trade, services and creates different needs that have to be met, such as training of the workforce, consumer media, etc. It also generates spaces of resistance, struggle and reconciliation and distraction, such as the various forms of organization of workers (unions, clubs, etc.), support services, locations and times of mobilization, etc. However, this is only an apparent element of the whole process, for the production of surplus value not only creates struggle and derived needs them (legal and repressive apparatus, for example), but beyond the walls of factories, creates the need for realization of surplus value, distribution relationships, circulation and trade. Here engage numerous other social relations, we can not name. The capitalist state is responsible for organizing the space so to allow the reproduction of capitalist relations of production as to prevent social change. The Paris Commune produced mutations in urban areas to prevent the recurrence of similar experiences (Engels, 1986).

However, the struggles of classes do not do just because of the domination and exploitation process in the labor process, they reproduce in the instance of the distribution of surplus value in the distribution and circulation relationships. The acquisition of means of consumption, more or less possible for certain sectors of society, in forms and varying degrees, are sources of conflict as well as the services and the state's role in the distribution of surplus value, usually benefiting the capital, capitalists and bureaucrats. Other classes enter the fight: lumpenproletariat, peasants, intellectuals, domestic workers, etc. The very spatial organization and the segregation process creates new conflicts and various agents: the real estate capital and speculation, government, homeless, residents of the suburbs, etc.

However, capitalist relations of production generate a process of expanded reproduction of capital, growing accumulation, concentration and centralization. This causes national spatial disparities, regional, local. This produces urban growth and various other problems. In short, it is a diverse set of complex and intertwined social relations that affect the space, giving it a configuration and create conflicts and struggles, more materials for state action, spatial intervention. But this is a permanent process of capitalism and can not forget the historicity and fail to see that it only reproduces widening and does this through mutations.

The capitalist mode of production changes and this creates changes in the spatial organization. However, despite Marx have done a historical approach of the constitution and early evolution of capitalism, could not parse its subsequent evolution to the 19th century and, in this case, it is expanding the capitalist theory to observe its historical development. The theory of accumulation regimes points to a perception of historical development based on capitalist theory of Marx (VIANA, 2003; VIANA, 2009), which, however, goes beyond the limits of this discussion. It is only to note that the successive regimes of accumulation space are international, national, regional and local changes, affecting the daily lives of people, as in the case of full accumulation regime, the current accumulation regime, which increases poverty, violence, etc., because of its search to increase the exploration process in general, creating new space phenomena, such as the creation of gated communities, living with the "slums" of society (Davis, 2006), to name just two examples.

In short, the contribution of Karl Marx to think the relationship between space and society encompasses a complex set of issues and problems that can only to list its main aspects. This contribution is included not only the direct references to Marx the process of relationship between space and society, but also its theoretical and methodological contribution and must be added the possible subsequent developments made by others. The whole of Marx's work offers a wealth of material on the question of the relationship between space and society, which is dispersed in a number of texts and excerpts of works that have not won a collection and has won his writings scattered about education, art and various other social phenomena. When this work is done, the studies on its direct contribution will be increased and facilitated. Its methodological contribution is fundamental and opens broad analytical perspectives not fully developed yet, partly by the historical process of impoverishment and deformation of the dialectical method, from the early 20th century this sense, the rescue of authentic dialectical method that has been carried out, is resuming the works of Marx or others who sought to retrieve it from deforming concepts such as Karl Korsch (1977; 1983), to name just one example, it is also part of a process of recognition of this contribution. Its theoretical contribution with his analysis of the capitalist mode of production follows the same logic and dynamic of its methodological contribution and the reading of Marx and those who rescued their design is also key. Finally, it is necessary to abandon the dogmatic readings as Korsch had demanded, and recognize that the whole of Marx's contribution is not only essential, but should be viewed critically and inserted in the social and historical context in which it was produced and as the perception that the story did not stop and he did not say anything, which means the need to update, develop, advance, deepen, the set of such contribution, including analyzing the changes occurred thanks to the historical development of capitalism. However, the perception of historicity was already in the works of Marx himself. So the key is to keep the essence of Marx's contribution: to analyze the reality of critical and revolutionary way, dispelling all illusions and naturalizations to contribute to the creation of the new.

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