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Since mid last century, the innovation of cargo containers has mobilised mass production. In effect, factories no longer are fixed in industrial centres; they have become ever restless, migrating to wherever there is cheaper labour or more profitable conditions. Boxing in any trace of the production process, these anonymous containers have transformed the scene of the seaport into an obscure visage, making the global industrial flow more remote from the metropolitan conscious. The ship that once sparked romantic notions of seclusion and revolt has lost its charm. It is now more often to be a unit of a functional ensemble, (encompassing the crane, ports, railways… etc.) than a floating autonomous machine. The industrial landscape of maritime space tests the information specialist's vision of a gate-less city. While trans-national institutions clear the way for capital to move freely across the globe, restrictions on the movement of people are unprecedented tightened. The enforcement on these immigration restrictions is a key tool used by the capital to control labour, creating the present political economy, one that divides economic classes geographically and locates the proletarians to the third world. It follows, the developing countries are not "developing" as such; they are systematically kept poor to stay in the service of the financial elite. |