The Production of Bergen

Abstract

The production of space contains an antagonism between a use-value relation and an exchange-value relation. In this paper these categories are used to analyse two empirical cases from Bergen, Norway. The first case concerns a public debate in 2005, about whether Clear Channel should be allowed to install advertising boards in the city. The second case concerns a debate in 2007, about whether Bergen should establish retail chain-free zones in the city centre. This paper argues for the importance of understanding the preconditions for these processes and debates.

It took both time and experience before the workpeople learnt to distinguish between machinery and its employment by capital, and to direct their attacks, not against the material instruments of production, but against the mode in which they are used.

Karl Marx (Capital)

Notes

For the sake of the argument, we will in this paper understand ‘unproductive’ as the use of the city which do not contribute to capital accumulation.

Available at http://www.visitbergen.com/default.asp?sp=NO&p=324&layout=13&intro=1548_1 (accessed 11 December 2007).

For a look at their ‘global map’, see http://www.clearchanneloutdoor.com/assets/downloads/pdf_products/2007-cco-globalmap-productsbymkt.pdf (accessed 11 December 2007).

http://www.clearchannel.no/content.aspx?ID=4&ParentID=0&MicrositeID=5&Page=1 (accessed 11 December 2007).

See the poster at http://www.talsmann.no/img/b_busskur.pdf (accessed 11 December 2007).

http://kunstkritikk.no/article/7264 (accessed 11 December 2007).

Available at http://www.clearchanneloutdoor.com/ (accessed 11 December 2007).

The ‘bible’ was then removed from Clear Channel Sweden's web-page, but can still be read (in Swedish) at http://web.archive.org/web/20040610171514/www.clearchannel.se/templates/Page.aspx?id=2260 (accessed 6 December 2007).

We will not go into the question concerning the politicians' role in this and their relation to the city. But a few words must be said: The Norwegian municipalities and their politicians' must operate according to several given capitalist preconditions. This role is, however, complex, because they must by every election attract the interest of the common people's use-relation to the city.

Available at http://www.bergensopplevelser.no/na24/article403457.ece. The authors' translation (accessed 2 December 2007).

Knut Even Lindsjørn, quoted at www.bt.no. Published 13 August 2007. The authors' translation.

The answer to this question is regrettably ‘yes’, if one, like Lindsjørn in the quotation above, reduces socialism to state regulation.

For the sake of clarity, we are only talking about planned and state-regulated chain-free zones.