Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Postmodern time-space
compression
As numerous observers have pointed out, global capitalism in the late twen-
tieth century underwent yet another sea-change with widespread economic,
political, and cultural repercussions for the structure of space and time. In the
words of Harvey (1989a:293), “We have, in short, witnessed another
erce
round in that process of annihilation of space through time that has always
lain at the center of capitalism's dynamic.” The profound global crisis in
Fordism that ended the post-war boom in the 1970s was accompanied by
numerous birth pangs of the new order, including: the petroshocks that wit-
nessed a hefty rise in the price of oil; pronounced and prolonged deindustri-
alization in the West manifested in worldwide recessions; the rise of the
Newly Industrializing Countries, particularly in East Asia; the end of the
Bretton-Woods era in 1973 and subsequent shift to
fi
floating exchange rates;
the explosive growth of Third World debt, largely driven by recycled petro-
dollars; the emergence of “
fl
“flexible” specialization, the microelectronics revo-
lution, and computerized production technologies; the rapid, sustained
growth of
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financial and producer services (Co
ff
ey and Bailly 1991; Peck and
Tickell 1994). Simultaneously, international
finance and producer services
grew rapidly (Dicken 2007). By the 1990s, these changes included the collapse
of the Soviet Union and the cessation of the cold war. This round of
restructuring, therefore, was not simply economic or technological in origin:
Agnew (2001) is certainly correct in arguing that contemporary globalization
has geopolitical roots re
fi
ecting the strenuous assertion of American liberal-
ism (and neoliberalism) worldwide. In Smith's (2003:22) words, globalization
“after 1989 can be seen as a contemporary remapping strategy and as a
fervent attempt to redress the geographical divisions established after 1945.”
The end of Fordism, therefore, entailed a new geopolitical order, including
the global wave of neoliberal deregulation, privatization, and the lifting of
state controls in many industries; new trade regimes such as NAFTA, the
European Union, and the World Trade Organization, which freed capital to
move across national boundaries with ever greater ease; and the integration
of world
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financial markets through telecommunications systems (Thrift 1986;
Lash and Urry 1987). Concomitantly, globalization has steadily eroded the
sovereignty of states in some matters through supranational organizations
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