Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society Advance Access originally published online on August 6, 2008
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2008 1(3):389-410; doi:10.1093/cjres/rsn017
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This article appears in the following Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society issue: The World is not Flat; Putting Globalisation in its Place [View the issue table of contents]
Globalization, uneven development and capital: reflections on reading Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat
Department of Geography, Ohio State University, 1106 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. cox.13{at}osu.edu
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In his book The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman postulates notions of flatness that combine to suggest, on the one hand, tendencies towards an equalization of chances of economic development; and on the other, a displacement of vertical forms of organization by more horizontal ones, notably of states by markets. Drawing on historical geographical materialism, it is shown that geographically uneven development is a necessary outcome of the accumulation process; and equally, states are inevitably implicated in this outcome.
Keywords: geographically uneven development, accumulation, the state, capitalism, historical geographical materialism
Received on October 8, 2007. Accepted on June 10, 2008.
JEL Classifications:: O18, O19, P10, P26