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generalised and abstract set of mechanical laws. A radical approach asks how
and why asymmetries of power emerge between antagonistic social class
interests and the different geographical regions brought together through
interlocking networks of exchange through tourism. In particular, it is con-
cerned with the manner in which market relations between different groups
of actors in the tourist system conceal the uneven bargaining powers and
underlying material interests of different classes. Before considering existing
models of political economy in tourism, it is important to dwell briefly upon
the principal theoretical assumptions which inform the two main paradigms
in political economy.
Defi ning political economy
In its broadest sense, the essential distinction between the neoclassical
and Marxist traditions in political economy lies in the respective emphasis
given to the centrality of cooperative and competitive instincts in the formation
of human societies (Barratt Brown, 1995: xiii). In turn, this has been mirrored
by the normative disputes surrounding the appropriate balance between
equity and efficiency in the economy (see Levine, 1988: 107-125). The ori-
gins of the latter derive from the liberal tradition of economic and political
thought in the 18th and 19th centuries, which has consistently emphasised
the maximisation of individual liberty (to acquire/dispose of labour and
property) as the basis upon which to secure the welfare of society as a whole,
in contrast to the former, which is associated with the Marxist tradition, in
which it is argued that the formal equality between citizens enshrined
within liberal polities conceals deeper underlying antagonisms brought about
by the workings of the market (see Walker, 1989: 22-41). Marxist political
economy thus places the emphasis firmly upon the power relations which
are constituted by the capitalist mode of production , 1 which in turn give rise to
the increasingly antagonistic relations between capital and labour. In con-
trast, scholars in the neoclassical tradition, such as Alfred Marshall, who
followed on from the earlier work of Smith and Ricardo (see Larrain, 1989:
7-9), tended to reduce political economy to the free play of 'rational' indi-
vidual economic behaviour in the market.
While the more deterministic aspects of Marxist political economy have
been both greatly exaggerated and, where appropriate, extensively criticised
from both left and right (see Kiely, 1995; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985; Popper,
1990), the legacy of his work remains central to a radical political economy
analysis of the forces of social change and mechanisms of appropriation
which condition and structure contemporary patterns of development in the
international political economy. Indeed, a number of critical scholars, includ-
ing Cox (1981, 1987, 2002), Rupert and Smith (2002) Sherman (1987) and
Strange (1994a, 1994b) have demonstrated a more open theoretical approach
to political economy while retaining the central normative preoccupation of
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