ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the extent within a Marxist framework of analysis to which regional uneven industrial development can be accounted for in terms of regional variations in the rate of profit profitability being the central driving motor of capitalist production. It establishes empirically for the Portuguese case the extent to which the existence of differential rates of profit is due to different processes of the valorization of capital in the competitive and monopolistic phases of the capitalist mode of production. The distrito main towns constitute important regional markets, and even present favourable conditions for location of industries having national or international markets (such as the final stages of broader circuits of production, like Renault in Guarda or Siemens in Evora). They often have favourable conditions for capitalist production, related to break-down of pre-capitalist modes of production and consequent freeing of labour, advantages of agglomeration, greater accessibility, etc.
