ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the circulation of labour value during the process of commodity production and exchange. The chapter explores the unequal exchange for both a two-region economy and a multi-regional economy, and provides a critical re-examination of empirical studies of unequal exchange. The chapter investigates how labour values are determined in a fully competitive space economy. It shows that, even when the rate of profit is equalized everywhere, the fact that production occurs in space leads to unequal exploitation rates in the Marxian sense in different regions. It explores the implications of the finding for the relative importance of class versus regional political alliances. The geographical variations in labour values and exploitation rates were related to accessibility within the inter-regional economy. It shows how such variations in labour values may be determined from knowledge of the patterns of inter-regional commodity trade.
