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Capital and labour in the urbanised world
Book Reviews Agriculture in Ireland: a Census Atlas, A.A. Homer et al.. 1984, Department of Geography, University College Dublin, Iw12.00
Computer-assisted cartography is of growing importance in geography and the GKMMS computer mapping package, developed at Edinburgh University in the mid-1970s. has been successfully adopted by the authors in their production of a census atlas of Irish agriculture. On the surface. this is an interesting exercise, even if the digitising of the coastline and boundaries of the mapping units took three months alone. The atlas updates and extends the earlier works of Gillmor and it provides a useful base and sampling framework for more-detailed research. More specifically, after an introduction which outlines the objectives and methods used, the atlas is divided into six sections. The first deals with the broad land-uses, from tillage and pasture to rough grazing and woodland. Tillage crops and livestock enterprises are the focus of attention in the next two sections, whereas the last three parts deal with holdings, machinery and employment respectively. This results in a total of 36 pages of maps and 52 tables. When one begins to delve into the book in more detail various questions are raised. The first concerns the essentially superficial nature of the discussion on changing trends and patterns of land use. Few real insights into the processes affecting Irish agriculture are given and, although only an outline was Intended by the authors, rather more could have been made of the data and such trends as increasing farm size and fragmentation, specialisation of production, marketing, the increasing dependence on inputs from outside agriculture, and the role of government policies and intervention. For example, with regards to the last factor, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Community has aided Irish agriculture yet was only mentioned once, in relation to the decline in sheep farming. The effects of other EC schemes, such as guaranteed prices and the Less Favoured Areas Directive, were ignored even though a major growth in cereals and especially barley occurred during the 1970s. Therefore, it is unlikely that the atlas promotes ‘greater understanding’, as suggested; rather it helps to highlight spatial differences. The second point relates to the units used for spatial analysis. Whilst the 189 rural districts may be ‘especially useful’, they vary in size from 8000 to 140,000 hectares. As with the administrative parish, this creates numerous problems relating to accuracy, generalisation and comparability. Although a solution to these problems is not readily available, the reader should at least be made aware of such limitations. Another problem is apparent when the scale of analysis is increased and six regions are used. These are clearly shown on the very first map and used throughout the tables. However, in the discussion of patterns and trends the authors often refer to parts of Munster, Leinster, Connaught and Ulster. Whilst the counties in each of these administrative ‘regions’ are listed, the divisions themselves are not mapped and do not coincide with the six regions used. Thus, it would have been more consistent to have kept to the straightforward division of Ireland into south-west, south-east, west. north-west. etc. A third point one is inclined to make relates back to the superficial nature of the text. As one of the stated objectives of this series of different atlases is to look at the
79
main regional characteristics of the economy. it is surprising that the authors do not attempt to provide greater integration between the chapters by producing an overall regionalisation or ‘type-of-farming’ classification of Irish agriculture, which links together the pastoral and arable Failing that. the increased spatial farming activities. concentration or dispersion of declining and/or expanding land-uses could have been quickly measured by simple statistical techniquqs. The final point is on a more practical note and concerns the difficulty of gauging the market for a specialised monography of this nature. However, unlike the major publishers, it is possible that the Geography Department of the University College of Dublin does not have volume of sales as a top priority. This is a comforting thought as the atlas is well produced and the use of different colour schemes for the 1980 pattern and the 1970-80 change is a good idea. The format is quite pleasing in parts, although I am not quite sure whether a collection of maps at the end of the book is better than integrating them in with the text and tables.
Coventry
BRIAN ILBERY Polytechnic, U.K.
Capital and Labour in the Urbanised World, J. Walton (ed.), Sage Studies in International Sociology 31, 1985, 237 pp., Sage, Beverly Hills, f21.95
The current phase of the internationalisation of capital has provided considerable problems for those working in the tradition of political economy and, in particular, the problem of how to relate broad-based international economic trends to particular localities has proved particularly difficult to come to terms with. Such is the complexity of this problem that, as Walton quite correctly points out in his editorial introduction to this collection of papers, ‘if the shared perspective on political economy is a potent means of framing . . . questions, it also highlights the fragmentary state of our present knowledge - that large category of things dubbed “local variation”. Humbling, to be sure, that fact also suggests some theoretical sophistication. We are beginning to know what we do not know’ (p. 8). Still, this is not to say that the problem is so complex that we should all pack up and go home. As the papers in this volume show, progress is being made. The book starts with a set of three mainly theoretical papers. Singer gives a clear exposition of the contours of the internationalisation of capital, concentrating upon the ‘contradiction’ between the international activities of multinational corporations and the system of nation states. (I am less sure than Singer that there is a contradiction here. True, Marx’s view of the internationalisation of capital is predicted upon the eventual genesis of a world state within which capital could flow freely but an alternative argument could be made: namely. that the existence of a system of nation states is an Important determinant of internationalisation.) Llpple’s paper has a most interesting critique and development of Massey’s work but then tails off into a rather conventional account of the new international division of labour. Slater’s paper is a translation of Massey’s classic, ‘In what sense a regional problem?’ article to the circumstances of Latin America. It is an outstanding piece of work. The
Book Reviews theoretical papers are followed by two more focussed but still quite general papers. Portes considers migration in Latin America. Abu-Lughod’s paper is a straightforward account of urbanisation in the Arab states. Finally, a series of four papers are accounts of particular places as they are affected by the internationalisation process. Arias and Roberts consider work and household strategies in Guadalajara. Mexico. I found this a particularly valuable piece of work. Jaramillo and Schteingart review forms of housing provision in Colombia and IMexico. Rakowski looks at the workforce of Guyana, Venezuela. Finally, in an unusual and engaging paper Lomnitz and Perez-Lizuar tell the history of one family of Mexican entrepreneurs from 1850 to the present. Unlike most books made up of papers that originate from conference sessions this book holds together fairly well. It would, perhaps, have been better to excise Abu-Lughod’s paper to keep the Latin American theme unadulterated but this is a carping criticism of a useful set of papers. What is the relevance of an avowedly ‘urban’ book like this one to rural studies? First of all. the political economy approach is vital to any serious account of regions and localities, whether they are urban or rural. Second, the internationalisation of capital is the most important
economic process happening in the world today and its effects are as great on rural as on urban areas. Finally. the redefinition of state policy (at national. regional and local scales) as a response to increasing inability to control pressures from the international economy has important economic and political consequences for rural areas. Thus rural areas are captive to the condition of the world economy in just the same way as urban areas. Take just three examples: floating exchange rates have brought the strong U.S. dollar which makes it difficult for U.S. farmers to export grain which has contributed to the crisis of the rural mid west; the world sugar industry is in spasm because nation states have tried to cartelise world sugar production - growers in Australia, Brazil and Fiji are going out of business; productive decentralisation of manufacturing industry in response to the need to bring down labour costs as a result of international competitive processes has meant an increase in manufacturing employment in many rural areas. The list of examples is just about endless. The point is that a book which is ‘urban’ in orientation may, with other such volumes now appearing, be pivotal to the understanding of rural areas in the 1980s. NIGEL THRIFT Snint Dmd’s
University College Lampeter, I/. K.
Book Reviewers If you would like your name to be added to the book review roster for Journal providing your address and resume of fields of
Studies please
to the
Computer-assisted cartography is of growing importance in geography and the GKMMS computer mapping package, developed at Edinburgh University in the mid-1970s. has been successfully adopted by the authors in their production of a census atlas of Irish agriculture. On the surface. this is an interesting exercise, even if the digitising of the coastline and boundaries of the mapping units took three months alone. The atlas updates and extends the earlier works of Gillmor and it provides a useful base and sampling framework for more-detailed research. More specifically, after an introduction which outlines the objectives and methods used, the atlas is divided into six sections. The first deals with the broad land-uses, from tillage and pasture to rough grazing and woodland. Tillage crops and livestock enterprises are the focus of attention in the next two sections, whereas the last three parts deal with holdings, machinery and employment respectively. This results in a total of 36 pages of maps and 52 tables. When one begins to delve into the book in more detail various questions are raised. The first concerns the essentially superficial nature of the discussion on changing trends and patterns of land use. Few real insights into the processes affecting Irish agriculture are given and, although only an outline was Intended by the authors, rather more could have been made of the data and such trends as increasing farm size and fragmentation, specialisation of production, marketing, the increasing dependence on inputs from outside agriculture, and the role of government policies and intervention. For example, with regards to the last factor, the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Community has aided Irish agriculture yet was only mentioned once, in relation to the decline in sheep farming. The effects of other EC schemes, such as guaranteed prices and the Less Favoured Areas Directive, were ignored even though a major growth in cereals and especially barley occurred during the 1970s. Therefore, it is unlikely that the atlas promotes ‘greater understanding’, as suggested; rather it helps to highlight spatial differences. The second point relates to the units used for spatial analysis. Whilst the 189 rural districts may be ‘especially useful’, they vary in size from 8000 to 140,000 hectares. As with the administrative parish, this creates numerous problems relating to accuracy, generalisation and comparability. Although a solution to these problems is not readily available, the reader should at least be made aware of such limitations. Another problem is apparent when the scale of analysis is increased and six regions are used. These are clearly shown on the very first map and used throughout the tables. However, in the discussion of patterns and trends the authors often refer to parts of Munster, Leinster, Connaught and Ulster. Whilst the counties in each of these administrative ‘regions’ are listed, the divisions themselves are not mapped and do not coincide with the six regions used. Thus, it would have been more consistent to have kept to the straightforward division of Ireland into south-west, south-east, west. north-west. etc. A third point one is inclined to make relates back to the superficial nature of the text. As one of the stated objectives of this series of different atlases is to look at the
79
main regional characteristics of the economy. it is surprising that the authors do not attempt to provide greater integration between the chapters by producing an overall regionalisation or ‘type-of-farming’ classification of Irish agriculture, which links together the pastoral and arable Failing that. the increased spatial farming activities. concentration or dispersion of declining and/or expanding land-uses could have been quickly measured by simple statistical techniquqs. The final point is on a more practical note and concerns the difficulty of gauging the market for a specialised monography of this nature. However, unlike the major publishers, it is possible that the Geography Department of the University College of Dublin does not have volume of sales as a top priority. This is a comforting thought as the atlas is well produced and the use of different colour schemes for the 1980 pattern and the 1970-80 change is a good idea. The format is quite pleasing in parts, although I am not quite sure whether a collection of maps at the end of the book is better than integrating them in with the text and tables.
Coventry
BRIAN ILBERY Polytechnic, U.K.
Capital and Labour in the Urbanised World, J. Walton (ed.), Sage Studies in International Sociology 31, 1985, 237 pp., Sage, Beverly Hills, f21.95
The current phase of the internationalisation of capital has provided considerable problems for those working in the tradition of political economy and, in particular, the problem of how to relate broad-based international economic trends to particular localities has proved particularly difficult to come to terms with. Such is the complexity of this problem that, as Walton quite correctly points out in his editorial introduction to this collection of papers, ‘if the shared perspective on political economy is a potent means of framing . . . questions, it also highlights the fragmentary state of our present knowledge - that large category of things dubbed “local variation”. Humbling, to be sure, that fact also suggests some theoretical sophistication. We are beginning to know what we do not know’ (p. 8). Still, this is not to say that the problem is so complex that we should all pack up and go home. As the papers in this volume show, progress is being made. The book starts with a set of three mainly theoretical papers. Singer gives a clear exposition of the contours of the internationalisation of capital, concentrating upon the ‘contradiction’ between the international activities of multinational corporations and the system of nation states. (I am less sure than Singer that there is a contradiction here. True, Marx’s view of the internationalisation of capital is predicted upon the eventual genesis of a world state within which capital could flow freely but an alternative argument could be made: namely. that the existence of a system of nation states is an Important determinant of internationalisation.) Llpple’s paper has a most interesting critique and development of Massey’s work but then tails off into a rather conventional account of the new international division of labour. Slater’s paper is a translation of Massey’s classic, ‘In what sense a regional problem?’ article to the circumstances of Latin America. It is an outstanding piece of work. The
Book Reviews theoretical papers are followed by two more focussed but still quite general papers. Portes considers migration in Latin America. Abu-Lughod’s paper is a straightforward account of urbanisation in the Arab states. Finally, a series of four papers are accounts of particular places as they are affected by the internationalisation process. Arias and Roberts consider work and household strategies in Guadalajara. Mexico. I found this a particularly valuable piece of work. Jaramillo and Schteingart review forms of housing provision in Colombia and IMexico. Rakowski looks at the workforce of Guyana, Venezuela. Finally, in an unusual and engaging paper Lomnitz and Perez-Lizuar tell the history of one family of Mexican entrepreneurs from 1850 to the present. Unlike most books made up of papers that originate from conference sessions this book holds together fairly well. It would, perhaps, have been better to excise Abu-Lughod’s paper to keep the Latin American theme unadulterated but this is a carping criticism of a useful set of papers. What is the relevance of an avowedly ‘urban’ book like this one to rural studies? First of all. the political economy approach is vital to any serious account of regions and localities, whether they are urban or rural. Second, the internationalisation of capital is the most important
economic process happening in the world today and its effects are as great on rural as on urban areas. Finally. the redefinition of state policy (at national. regional and local scales) as a response to increasing inability to control pressures from the international economy has important economic and political consequences for rural areas. Thus rural areas are captive to the condition of the world economy in just the same way as urban areas. Take just three examples: floating exchange rates have brought the strong U.S. dollar which makes it difficult for U.S. farmers to export grain which has contributed to the crisis of the rural mid west; the world sugar industry is in spasm because nation states have tried to cartelise world sugar production - growers in Australia, Brazil and Fiji are going out of business; productive decentralisation of manufacturing industry in response to the need to bring down labour costs as a result of international competitive processes has meant an increase in manufacturing employment in many rural areas. The list of examples is just about endless. The point is that a book which is ‘urban’ in orientation may, with other such volumes now appearing, be pivotal to the understanding of rural areas in the 1980s. NIGEL THRIFT Snint Dmd’s
University College Lampeter, I/. K.
Book Reviewers If you would like your name to be added to the book review roster for Journal providing your address and resume of fields of
Studies please
to the