Value theory in the country and the city

This special issue on ‘Value Theory in the Country and the City’ sets out to further a conversation about value and to do so by accepting the view that there are multiple ‘lives’ of value, which include Marx’s theory of capital as well as extending beyond it. Pragmatically, this issue is timely. Discussion of value in relation to the centrality of ground rent to uneven development, agrarian reform of the rural and resource extraction has become more important in recent times. Equally, debates on value in relation to the city – be it housing values, property values, land values, environmental values or value capture – are burgeoning across academic and public debate throughout the world. Our focus on value theory in the country and the city is attuned to this diversity and the multiple meanings of value, in contrast to more monochrome views that seek to impose a singular and closed Marxism. Bubbling away, then, in current debates on value theory in the country and the city across political economy, development and geographical studies is a rejuvenation of understandings of value, as well as a focus on the politics of competing value claims. This special issue poses anew, in a form of co-questioning, such debates on value theory that can then be picked up and contemplated in future dialogue.