Place, Space, and Theories of Economic Value: Contextualism and Essentialism in Economic Geography

This paper argues that the recent discussions in economic geography over the importance of including the particularities of place can be conceived within a broader philosophical debate between essentialist and contextualist forms of explanation. It is further argued that essentialist, unlike contextualist explanations are unable to deal with the diversity of place and space because such diversity is reduced to whatever single essence is selected as the bedrock of explanation. The details of this argument are fleshed out by examining the use of theories of economic value within economic geography. Specifically, it is suggested that those economic geographers employing either neoclassical utility theory or the Marxian labour theory of value are implicitly committing themselves to an essentialist form of explanation. As a result, place and space in their accounts are emaciated, reduced respectively to the ebb and flow of the non-geographical variables utility or labour values. In contrast, it is argued that a contextual value theory proposed by the Italian economist Piero Sraffa is able to deal with geographical diversity and particularity. This is shown using the work of Allen Scott who explicitly incorporates Sraffa's value theory into his own geographical work.