ABSTRACT
The abandonat's origins can be traced back to their social and economic reality. The semiperipheral middle classes face a much less stable situation in their countries than the situation faced by the middle classes in the core, even if it can be argued that the latter is changing for the worse. Lacking the economic power derived from vast wealth and political connections when compared to the local elites, always threatened to fall down back into the suffering lower classes, one of their main psychological and social defense mechanisms is to be strongly committed to what is often described by their members as being the superior values of the core. This chapter explores the concept of geoculture, stressing its psychological elements. In "the abandonat" it describes the main characteristics and dynamics of the abandonat and its current nature as a true "desesperat", an expression of a deep crisis in the current arrangement of the Capitalist World-System (CWS).
