Foundations Of Capitalism
What is the basic goal of capitalism?
To generate profit through private ownership and accumulation.
According to Gilmore, what organizes space and opportunity?
Race and capital.
Name Bourdieu’s three main forms of capital.
Economic, cultural, and social capital.
What institutions does Gilmore identify as central to racial capitalism?
Prisons and policing.
What does “abolition geography” imagine?
Life-affirming spaces beyond systems of oppression.
What replaced feudal economies in the rise of capitalism?
Market economies and wage labor.
What does Gilmore mean by “abolition geography”?
Rethinking geography to build spaces of freedom, not punishment.
What is cultural capital in the “embodied state”?
Knowledge, manners, or skills developed over time.
How does capitalism shape labor opportunities by race?
People of color are often forced into the hardest, lowest-paid work.
What kind of “freedom” does Gilmore call for?
Collective, material freedom rooted in real communities.
What concept describes how capitalism depends on inequality to function?
Exploitation.
What does racial capitalism reveal about economic systems?
That capitalism relies on racial inequality to sustain itself.
What does social capital refer to?
Resources gained through networks and relationships.
What is the relationship between land use and capitalism?
Control of land determines who benefits economically.
How can education serve as resistance in Bourdieu’s theory?
By redistributing cultural capital and challenging class reproduction.
What does Marx call the group that owns the means of production?
The bourgeoisie.
How do prisons illustrate racial capitalism?
They control and contain marginalized groups to sustain economic systems.
What does Bourdieu mean by “conversion” of capital?
Transforming one form of capital (like education) into another (like income).
How does Gilmore connect geography and injustice?
She shows how inequality is mapped into space itself.
What connects Gilmore’s and Bourdieu’s ideas?
Both show how power is distributed unequally through social structures.
How does Bourdieu’s view of capital expand traditional economic definitions?
He argues capital includes cultural and social forms, not just money.
What does Gilmore mean by “freedom is a place”?
Liberation must be built into the physical and social spaces we inhabit.
What is symbolic capital?
Prestige or recognition that gives power in society.
What does she mean when she says “abolition is about presence, not absence”?
Ending prisons means creating systems that support life, not just removing punishment.
What might a post-capitalist geography look like?
One organized by equality, cooperation, and sustainability instead of profit.