Residential Capitalism in Italy and the Netherlands

Abstract

In the 1990s it became fashionable to argue that economic globalization in combination with deregulation would lead to a deterritorialization of economic activities and the prevalence of the global scale over the local, regional, and national scales (e.g. Levine, 1997; Ohmae, 1990; Wachtel, 1986). Some authors even proclaimed The End of Geography (O’Brien, 1992). This position remains dominant in mainstream, neoclassical, and orthodox economics, but has been challenged by many others, most notably by international political economists and human geographers, who claim that deterritorialization and convergence claims are not only theoretically simplistic, but also empirically inaccurate (e.g. Corbridge et al., 1994; Cox, 1997; Hirst and Thompson, 1996; Hollingsworth and Boyer, 1997; Porter, 1990; Scott, 1998; Storper, 1997; Whitley, 1998). Against mainstream economic theory, political economists and geographers have argued that globalization does not diminish the significance of economic organization. The increasing internationalization of economic activities has not replaced existing forms of capitalism and nationally constructed business systems; globalization processes are path dependent and reflect (national) historical legacies (Whitley, 1998; see also Hudson, 2003).