A theoretical approach to analysing the capitalist space economy is presented and is applied to the analysis of local economies. Capitalist society itself creates a distinction between ‘structures’, embodying necessary social relations and processes, and ‘systems’, which articulate contingent, external relations, in particular market relations. The development of structures from abstract to concrete forms incorporates space as spatial differentiation and as spatial logic. A specifically Marxist conception of competition in space is developed. On this basis, there is a discussion of the different meanings of ‘local’, the competition and coherence of local economies, and types of contradiction of different spatiality experienced by local economies.
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