1 THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX: ALTERNATIVE POLITICAL ECONOMIES IN TOURISM Jan Mosedale A draft chapter for J.T. Mosedale (Ed) The Political Economy of Tourism: A Critical Perspective. London and New York: Routledge. Individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are personifications of economic categories, the bearers of particular class-relations and interests (Marx, 1972: 92). Today’s capitalist economic order is a monstrous cosmos, into which the individual is born and which in practice is for him, at least as an individual, simply a given, an immutable shell, in which he is obliged to live (Weber, 2002: 13). As the first quote by Marx demonstrates (although arguably handpicked to fit the purpose of this chapter and not necessarily indicative of Marx’s wider writing), structure takes centre stage in historical materialism and individuals are often reduced to being influenced by social structures such as class. Similarly, Weber