Changing scale as changing class relations: variety and contradiction in the politics of scale

Abstract

This paper argues that changes of scale in political-economic processes are often associated with changes in class relations, articulated by particular class projects, and developed through class struggle. Such ‘jumping of scale’ may be not only an expression of class power but a constitutive element of it. But there is no simple one-to-one relation between scale change and class relations: a particular change in scale at a particular time may have multiple potential class implications. This argument is developed by considering two ‘stylised histories’ within Western Europe during the present long wave of stagnation: shifts of economic governance from the national to the local level, and shifts from the national to the EU level. I argue that in both cases changes in the scale of regulation have been associated with shifts in class relations. But both upward and downward rescaling have been associated with (at least) two class projects, the neoliberal and the social-democratic. Thus not only have the scale changes been contested but the lines of conflict have been complex. The two histories are used to reflect at a more abstract level on the interconnections of scale, class relations and contradictions in accumulation. Developing an argument of Neil Smith, I argue that shifts in scale have been underpinned by a number of fundamental contradictions of capitalist reproduction and the state which open up diverse political possibilities. Class agents intervened into these contradictions, with varied political projects, partly through shifting their scales.