Conclusion

The conclusion argues that, although Barrancabermeja is an extreme example of the violent making and unmaking of class, the experiences of urban residents exemplify a broader pattern of dispossession, displacement, and disorganization that have unraveled centers of working-class strength around the world. Barrancabermeja illustrates how the upward redistribution of global wealth emerges from a wellspring of imposed disorder and how the spatial coordinates of class power in Colombia have recohered around regional development poles based in extractive industries. These nodes of capitalist power represent the demise of a vision of citizenship and social security in which the nation-state was responsible for social well-being. They enable an unrestrained form of capital accumulation tied to government policies and social struggles unfolding in different spatial fields, from the defeat of working people in Barrancabermeja and the rise of narco-paramilitarism to U.S. security doctrine and the advent of neoliberalism.