Work, Locality and the Rhythms of Capital

This theoretical and empirical study examines the relationship between the organisation of work, industrial relations, production spaces and the dynamics of capitalist investment. Jamie Gough explores the connections between labour process change, products, local economy and society, spaces and forms of competition, and firm's locational strategies. In a path-breaking analysis he shows that these are closely bound up with the business cycle and other rhythms of investment. Differences within the labour process are central to the argument. Gough explores the divisions between workers arising from these differences and from spatial flows of capital, and suggests strategies through which these divisions might be overcome.

Jamie Gough has worked in academic and policy research and is currently Senior Lecturer in Economic Geography at Northumbria University. He has published extensively in international journals on industry and industrial relations, local economies and societies, and their governance, and on the theory of spatial political economy. In the 1980s he worked at the Greater London Council under the Livingstone administration on policy for manufacturing industry, and has a continuing research interest in London.