Spatial unevenness has been a consistent feature of capitalist
development since its original rise to prominence in early modern
Britain. This is not to say that uneven development is an exclusively
capitalist phenomenon (nor, for that matter, that .it is a
necessary feature of capitalism - a question that will be discussed
in the conclusion to this paper). Clearly, differences in levels of
technology and geographical variation in natural resource endowments
can give rise to variable levels of development, regardless
of economic system - although geographers, and other social
scientists, may have been inclined to ·overstress these factors,
thereby providing an ideological smoi<escreen for more fundamental
processes of uneven development under capitalism
(Smith, 1984: 100). Certainly, nowadays, the distribution of
natural resources has, at best, only a minor influence on the
overall geography of capitalist investment and employment
creation
