Cyrus Bina is correct when he notes that the radical left suffers from the dualism of capital and territory, taking them as separate logics. This dualistic framework vacates “the ground from beneath the theory of value as both a theory of class polarization and a theory of commodity valorization. Such dualism in the face of valorization of (raw) geography under capital – and unity of the two as a social relation – turned Marx on his head. Parallel with the analogy of “spacetime” in modern astrophysics, it would be methodologically incorrect to separate the valorization of land (and sub-surface) from the valorizing capital. The fabric of valorization does not allow for fencing off the land and capital. The theory of value is analogous to the fabric of spacetime where neither the time (social relations) nor the space (land, sub-surface, geography or territory) has independent existence. Theory of value is simply a universal measure for all measures, so to speak.” (Oil: A Time Machine, 2011)
If we look at radicalism as prevailing in the socalled Global South, and take it at its face value, we will find people are judged radicals by assessing how deep they are entrenched in this dualism. Anyway, the analogy of spacetime is crucial as it gives us a hint to treat territory or specificities as located in the spatiotemporal matrix of capital as social relations. Didn’t Marx himself hinted at it time and again when he stressed and showed that socio-historical phenomena or events, howsoever “remote from the class struggle [their] objects might appear,” were embedded in the dynamics of capital relations?
Beyond Capital 