Human geography without hierarchy

Responding to neoliberal decentralization, Marxists pair centralization with capitalism’s abrogation. Such a view considers hierarchy to be necessary and horizontal organization as propitious to neoliberalism. Anarchism’s coupling of decentralization with anti-capitalism is dismissed because Marxism...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Progress in human geography 2014-06, Vol.38 (3), p.402-419
Main Author: Springer, Simon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anarchism
Authoritarianism
Bgi / Prodig
Capitalism
Centralization
Decentralization
Geodemographics
Geography
Hierarchy
Human geography
Marxism
Marxists
Neoliberalism
Ontology
Politics
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Summary:Responding to neoliberal decentralization, Marxists pair centralization with capitalism’s abrogation. Such a view considers hierarchy to be necessary and horizontal organization as propitious to neoliberalism. Anarchism’s coupling of decentralization with anti-capitalism is dismissed because Marxism cannot accommodate prefigurative politics, treating horizontality as a future objective. This temporality ignores the insurrectionary possibilities of the present and implies a politics of waiting. In terms of spatiality, Marxian centralized hierarchy deems horizontality inappropriate when ‘jumping scales’. Yet by rejecting this vertical ontology we may immediately disengage capitalism through a rhizomic politics. Consequently, human geography without hierarchy gains traction when we embrace an anarchist flat ontology.
ISSN:0309-1325
1477-0288
DOI:10.1177/0309132513508208