The industrial corporation and capitalism's time-space fix

In this chapter I review economic geography's study of the modern corporation. There are two parts. In the first part I revisit the influence of analysis from political economy and the pioneering work of David Harvey and his exposition of capitalism's geography. I then use Harvey's work to track research into the changing nature of the organizational and investment behaviors of corporations. Here we encounter four themes: the post-war development of monopolies, the processes of industrial restructuring, the impacts of financialization processes, and the pursuit of globalization. In the second part, I present a case study of BHP Billiton, the world's largest minerals company, and relive its development as a powerful capitalist entity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of what an economic geography of the corporation might look like in the years ahead.