I agree with much of what you say. I came to human geography 
from economics partly because, at the time, it appeared that it was 
human geographers who were tackling some of the most interesting 
issues with radical political economy. In the 1980s there were many 
stimulating debates in the UK informed by varieties of radical 
political economy - Marxism, regulation theory, long-wave theory, 
institutional economics, radical Keynesian and neo-Ricardian theories 
etc etc.

However, it would seem that interest in these theories and debates 
has waned significantly over the past ten years. I fear that many 
human geographers today would dismiss your concern to root analysis 
in critical political economy as mere 'essentialism' or 
'reductionism.' The quality of many of the arguments for 
rejecting, for example, Marxist political economy are appalling - 
offering an 'anti-essentialism' which merely reproduces old-fashioned 
pluralism with an avant-garde gloss. The superficial embrace of 
radical political economy in the 1970s and 1980s has given way to 
it's superficial rejection in the 1990s. 

It is ironic that Edward Thompson's acid remarks on the quality of 
much structuralist theorising in the opening pages of The Poverty of 
Theory apply with equal force to many of today's post-structuralist 
anti-essentialists. Human geographers, like all others, are prone to 
intellectual fashion and shifts in political-ideological climate.

The most interesting work in radical political economy today does 
not, on the whole, appear to being  undertaken within critical human 
geography. The work that stimulates and challenges me is being done 
by radical economists, sociologists and political scientists around 
journals such as Capital & Class and the Review of Radical Political 
Economy, among others.

Maybe a radical political economy group would help channel and focus 
debate in a way that lets those interested in the detail of theory 
learn from each other - while the anti-essentialists pursue their 
cultural-turn. 

Michael Fisher
Centre for Urban & Regional Development Studies
University of Newcastle
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE1 7RU

  

Organization:  Dundee University
Date:          Wed, 17 Nov 1999 10:07:42 GMT
Reply-to:      [log in to unmask]
Priority:      normal
Subject:       what about radical political economy? is it not critical enough?
From:          "Raju Das" <[log in to unmask]>
To:            [log in to unmask]

Dear All,

I have seen some but not many responses to my e-mails about 
capitalism, war, poverty etc and the parochialism of radical 
development geography. I have been waiting to learn something from 
people.

Can I/we assume that one or more of the following is true?:

a) most of you agreed with everything I said, so there is nothing to 
discuss; b) what I said was trash, so it's not worth responding to 
at all; c) we as critical human geographers have, generally speaking, 
a relatively poor understanding of ('technicalities') of how class 
relations and capitalism work; d) the center of gravity of critical 
geographic work has moved away from radical political economy. 

I had thought that by criticising each other politely and 
constructively, we would learn from each other. When it comes to 
radical political economy, the crit. geog. forum does not seem to be 
facilitative mutual learning.

I used to subscribe to a radical political eocnomy e-mail group based 
in the western US. But since I moved to the UK last year, I have lost 
their address. That group, which is heavily dominated by radical 
'economists' and which discusses, among other things, the economic, 
political, ecological, etc aspects of (global) capitalism as well as 
racism and gender, frankly, was much more productive and interesting 
than the critical geog forum. We would discuss things like state 
policies, organic composition of capital, globalization, films and 
capitalism, and so on. 

One important problem with the critical geog forum is that 
_often_ what we say is _not_ explicitly rooted in or, at least 
related to,critical political economy, to the social-material 
aspects of our lives. Or perhaps, I am expecting us to do too much? 

It is perfectly ok to 'trash' a submission: otherwise what is the 
point in being critical? As Marx said, we should be 'ruthlessly' 
critical of everything that exists. I would just add: politely and 
humbly.

Raju
Raju J Das
Department of Geography
University of Dundee
Dundee DD1 4HN
United Kingdom
Phone 01382 348073 work
      01382 737097 home


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