The impulse of expansion in any or all of these modes can be interpreted in Hegelian
terms as each being a specific manifestation of a general relation between an “inner dialectic”
of crisis formation manifest as overaccumulation within a space (most virulently as
surpluses of capital and labor side by side) and an “outer dialectic” of geographical
(spatial) release of these surpluses. This was roughly how Hegel envisioned it in The
Philosophy of Right. The effect is to allow capital accumulation on a world scale to continue its problematic temporal trajectory through continuous and sometimes disruptive
geographical adjustments and reconfigurations. But the effect is also to project and
replicate the contradictions of capital onto an ever-broadening geographical terrain. Closer
analysis also show how a whole series of contradictions arise within the production of
space. These need to be unravelled. Not only are the contradictions of capitalism worked
through and embedded in the production of the geographical landscape, but these
contradictions can and manifestly have at certain historical points been the locus of
political-economic earthquakes that have shaken the prospects for further capital
accumulation to their very core. We now turn to consider how this typically happens