Marxist geography is
radical in nature and its primary criticism of the positivist
spatial science centered on the latter's methodologies, which failed to consider the characteristics of
capitalism and abuse that underlie socio-spatial arrangements. As such, early Marxist geographers were explicitly political in advocating for social change and activism; they sought, through application of geographical analysis of social problems, to alleviate
poverty and exploitation in capitalist societies. Marxist geography makes exegetical claims regarding how the deep-seated structures of capitalism act as a determinant and a constraint to human agency. Most of these ideas were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s out of dissatisfaction with the
quantitative revolution in geography and spurred on by the founding of the journal Antipode. In some cases, these movements were led by former "space cadets" such as
David Harvey and
Bill Bunge, who were at the forefront of the quantitative revolution. To accomplish such philosophical aims, these geographers rely heavily upon Marxist social and economic theory, drawing on
Marxian economics and the methods of
historical materialism to tease out how the
means of production control human spatial distribution in capitalist structures.
Marx is also invoked to examine how spatial relationships are affected by
class. The emphasis is on structure and structural mechanisms. == See also ==