Industrial location in capitalist societies: the tobacco industry in Greece, 1880-1980

Abstract

This study is concerned with the location of industrial plants withinspecific capitalist social formations and more particularly where the subordinatemode of production is simple commodity production. Through acritical analysis of the hitherto, existing approaches to industrial location,namely classical, behavioural and more recently Marxist it identifies theinadequacies and hidden 'rational kernel' of this theoretical development and inturn puts forward an alternative. Though critical of the existing Marxist schoolit can nonetheless be seen as an analytical developent within this tradition.This critical theoretical analysis is then followed up and expanded within thecontext of the particular case study of the spatial distribution of the tobaccoindustry in Greece between 1880-1980 which highlights .many of theseinadequacies.Hitherto existing industrial location theory is seen as falling prey to theanalytical falsities of apotheosis, reductionism, one-sidedness, and abstracttheoreticism. Although the structure of capitalist social formations forcescertain particular constraints upon firms and individuals as a component ofcapitalist social relations, the range of possible responses, as the particular caseof the Greek tobacco industry illustrates cannot be understood a priori from aset of abstract theoretical 'laws' or simply from the dynamics of one particularsphere of human material reality (e.g. economics or the labour process) howeverimportant. It is argued that likely patterns of locational behaviour may bepredicted on the basis of theoretically informed historical research of theparticular object and social formation involved. The alternative approachdeveloped in this study argues for a more comprehensive analysis of theindustrial location process based on historical research with- a holistic anddialectical conceptualization of society. It is only with such an analysis thatthe basic mechanisms behind the processes and phenomena of industrial locationcan more adequately be understood.