Revisiting La production de l’espace

While the relationship between Marx and Lefebvre is generally recognised, it has not been sufficiently researched hitherto. His Lefebvre's engagement with Marx's Critique of Political Economy (CPE), with a few exceptions, has received little attention within academia. Yet a wide range of supposed aspects of Lefebvre’s Marxism have been broadly highlighted; Rob Shields identified him as close to the “Latin American Left,” Andy Merrifield as “bond[ing] with [Rosa] Luxembourg” in contrast with Lenin, while others have focussed upon his “anarchistic qualities.” The lack of focus on his relationship with the CPE is especially striking given that Lefebvre developed his theory about space amid fierce debates around the intellectual development of Marx in France – primarily initiated by Althusser’s Pour Marx –, as well as Frankfurt School-influenced perspectives on the CPE inspired by the second German edition and translation into several languages of the Grundrisse in the 1950s.