The Capitalist Enterprise as Territory and the Workers' Power: A Marxist Perspective

Abstract How do workers and unions control and contest space within the labour process? In what sense is the workplace a territory for capital and labour? By proposing a Marxist political–economic geography perspective, this paper argues that the capitalist firm constitutes the territory of the contradictory capital–labour relationship, shaped by private property, labour control and an internal political regime against organised workers and unions, reaching its peak autonomy under neoliberalism. To analyse this, a comparative case study of workers in Chile–a paradigmatic case of neoliberal capitalism–is explored through interviews with unions and secondary data in the mining and supermarket sectors (divergent sociospatial organisations). The findings evidence that unionisation, collective bargaining and strikes are systematically pushed out of the territory of private property. In response, workers engage in territorial union actions both inside and outside the workplace, with similar strategies but different challenges–more significant to the service sector.