Local Power and the Technical and Productive Restructuring of Capital

Abstract

More than a decade of experiences of Workers’ Party governance at the municipal levelhas yielded a set of ideas that constitute a new regionalism. These ideas presupposethe submission of capital to politics and the construction of networks of partnerships inproduction chains, with less emphasis on competition. Urban productivity allows thecirculation-less circulation of goods, which is the major goal of capital in an era of highlabor productivity. Comparisons with centers of capital that have also carried outrestructuring in labor processes have shaped the ideas discussed here.