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World System Theory D ChirotHall 1982 WST
World System Theory D ChirotHall 1982 WST
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Ann. Rev. Sociol. 1982. 8:81-106
Copyright 1982 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved
WORLD-SYSTEM THEORY
Daniel Chirot
School of International Studies, University of Washington,Seattle,
Washington 98195
Thomas D. Hall
Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
73019
WORLD-SYSTEM
THEORY
From Modernization
Theory
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I
II
III
IV
V
Times
1
Traditional
Traditional
Traditional
Traditional
Traditional
A2
B3
A3
C4
B4
A4
Ds
C~
B~
A5
E6
D6
C6
B6
A6
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WORLD-SYSTEM
THEORY 83
on the psychological make-upof its members.Despite their attempts to link
these theories with Weber(1958) and Schumpeter(1934), however, socialpsychologicalworkfailed to incorporate the importantstructural variables that
determine the direction in whichachievement-orientedindividuals are forced
by their surroundings(Portes 1976). Individual motivation can hardly explain
whyreal estate speculation is moreprofitable in one country, while in another
investmentin electronics factories attracts morecapital.
A more reasonable, but not much more satisfying version of socialpsychological modernization theory saw "modem"men being produced by
contact with modeminstitutions (Lemer 1958, Inkeles &Smith 1974). But
this hypothesis begs the question of whythere are more "modem"
institutions
in, say, Japan than in Java.
All versions of modernizationtheory were meliorative, admitting the possibility of accelerated changethrough such devices as foreign aid (to provide
capital and modemknow-how),psychological manipulation to better motivate
individuals, refonaa of legal and economicnorms, or a combinationof these.
But modernizationtheory tended to refuse the idea that deep structural factors
might prevent economicprogress, and more important, that the very international context of modernizationmight itself be an obstacle.
That recognition camefrom world-system theory, which claims that the
uniform states of developmentposited by Rostow,Almond,and the others are
nonsensical. The existence of strong manufacturingpowerswith the ability to
extend their marketsand their political strength throughoutthe worldredirects
the evolution of feebler societies. Englandmayhave gone through stages A2,
A3, and so on, but Poland, for example, went through entirely different,
though no less "modem"
stages once it becamea grain exporting periphery of
the northwestern Europeanmarket. Instead of going through stages A, B, and
C, it turned into something England had never been--a dependencyof the
capitalist world-system.All the more was this the case with Latin America,
most of Asia, and later, Africa. Noneof these societies remainedtraditional,
but all were forced into different paths of developmentby Westernpowers.
Nor did Englandgo alone through the stages of developmentthat led to its
industrialization: It proceededonly with the aid of the surplus it extorted from
the societies it exploited. Whatis today called thc Third Worldreached its
present state by being systematically underdeveloped;it did not remain stuck
in a stage similar to the Wests feudal period, or somehow
remain even more
primitive during the centuries in whichit was exposedto, and colonized by,
Western Europe.
The economistA. G. Frank, one of the most polemical and simplistic of the
world-systemtheorists, but one of the most intellectually influential, summarizedthis point of viewmostforcefully (1969). Traditional society, he said,
was a myth. "The folk characteristics whichwere studied by Robert Redfield,
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CHIROT
& HALL
and which Hoselitz seems to associate with the pattern variables of underdeveloped society, do not characterize any whole society existing today."
According to Frank, McClellandcontributed no more than a suggestion that
people in poor countries be given a series of courses on how to improve
themselves. Rostowstypology neglected the benefits of the Wests colonies
to its development,and the destructive effects of that colonization on the
colonies themselves. Therelbre, his stages were nothing more than selfserving mythology,like the rest of modernizationtheory.
It was not Frank, however, but ImmanuelWallerstein whobrought worldsystemtheory (including the nameitself) into the sociological limelight in the
1970s (Wallerstein 1974, 1979, 1980).
Wallerstein
s Macrosociological
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WORLD-SYSTEM
THEORY 85
but nonetheless its operation) creates incentives to increased productivity and
all the consequent accompanimentof moderneconomicdevelopment"(1974).
The reasons for capitalisms success whenother world-economies
failed are
complex,but two stand out. Newtransportation technology allowed far-flung
markets to be maintained, and Westernmilitary technology insured the power
to enforce favorable terms of trade (Cipolla 1965). Unburdened
from the costs
of maintainingunified empires within their economiczones, capitalists could
wax strong. The English and Dutch capitalists were able to beat back the
Hapsburg-Catholicattempt to tum the emergingworld-economyinto a worldempire, and after that capitalism proceeded to spread throughout the globe
(Wallerstein 1974).
This world-economy developed a core with well-developed towns,
flourishing manufacturing, technologically progressive agriculture, skilled
and relatively well-paid labor, and high investment. But the core needed
peripheries from whichto extract the surplus that fueled expansion. Peripheries producedcertain key primary goods while their towns withered, labor
becamecoerced in order to keep downthe costs of production, technology
stagnated, labor remainedunskilled or even becameless skilled, and capital,
rather than accumulating,was withdrawntowardthe core. At first the differences betweenthe core and the periphery were small, but by exploiting these
differences and buying cheap primary products in return for dear manufacturing goods, northwestern Europe expanded the gap. Uneven development,then, is not a recent developmentor a mereartifact of the capitalist
world-economy;it is one of capitalisms basic components(1974).
Wallerstein stresses the importanceof a third category, the semiperiphery.
Societies in this group stand between the core and periphery in terms of
economicpower. Somemayeventually fall into the periphery, as did Spain
in the 17th and 18th centuries, and others mayeventually rise into the core,
as has modernJapan. Semiperipheries deflect the anger and revolutionary
activity of peripheries, and they serve as goodplaces for capitalist investment
whenwell-organized labor forces in core economiescause wagesto rise too
fast. As Spain controlled Latin Americafor the core in the 16th to early 19th
centuries, so did Sweden,and later Prussia, control Polandin the 17th and
18th (1980). Brazil plays a similar role in contemporary Latin America
(1979), and presumablyIran was slated for this role in the MiddleEast of the
1980s. Wallersteinbelieves that without semiperipheries,the capitalist worldsystem cannot function.
Finally, Wallersteinturns the Marxistnotion of class conflict into a question
of international conflict. It is not so muchthat the countries of the core are a
kind of upperclass, the periphery an exploited workingclass, and the semiperiphery a middle class (though someof Wallersteins work suggests precisely
that). Rather, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are world-wideclasses that
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WORLD-SYSTEM
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political conflict than in the UnitedStates, whereit is only knownby a small
groupof professional intellectuals.
THE INTELLECTUAL
THEORY
List
ROOTS
OF WORLD-SYSTEM
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Lenin,
CHIROT
& HALL
Luxemburg, Trotsky,
and Bukharin
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THEORY
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the twentieth century, this takes the form of bringing socialist parties to
power"(1979). In the 1930s, however,it took the form of bringing fascist and
quasi-fascist parties to powerin a string of semiperipheral countries caught
betweenthe truly backwardareas of the world and what Mussolini called the
"bourgeois" or "plutocratic" nations above them (Chirot 1978). Experiments
in applying right-wing solutions ran from Brazil and Argentina to Portugal,
Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania,Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and all the way
to Japan.
Alongwith a material world-system there is an ideological one. It seems
subject to rapid shifts in fashion, but often the terminologyis all that changes.
Theunderlyingdissatisfaction of intellectuals and leaders in the semiperiphery
and advancedperiphery is neither newnor radically different from that of a
half century ago.
Dependency Theory
Fromthis intellectual and political climate of dissatisfaction in the more
advanced countries of Latin America dependency theory was born. Because
world-system theory is in most ways merely a North Americanadaptation of
dependencytheory, there is little to distinguish them from each other as
theoretical constructs. To understand dependencytheory, and to knowits
literature, is to hold a firm grasp of its latter-day little Yankeebrother. Of
course, cultural imperialismbeing what it is, the world-systemtheorists from
the North are nowbeing used by Southern dependencytheorists to legitimize
their ideas. Nomoreironic illustration could exist of core dominationand use
of peripheral resources. The periphery can nowreimport the product it originally exported, and leave behind a surplus of cultural prestige and strength in
the core.
The father of dependency theory is Ra~l Prebisch, an Argentinian who
headed the United Nations EconomicCommissionfor Latin America (ECLA,
or CEPAL
in Spanish) in the late 1940sand early 1950s. Wallerstein ascribes
the terminology of core and periphery to ECLA(Kaplan 1978), though
course the concepts are older (and in fact WeruerSombartused almost the
samewordsin the samecontext). Prebischs ideas originated with his experiences as a technical advisor to Argentine governmentsin the 1930s while the
country was turning from a proof of the benefits of the Ricardo-Marshall
theory of free trade into a demonstrationof the vulnerability of primaryexport
economiesin times of international economiccrisis. In 1949 Prebisch published an ECLA
report (Relative Prices of Exports and Imports of UnderDeveloped Countries: A Study of Postwar Terms of Trade between UnderDevelopedand Industrialized Nations) showingthat the terms of trade had run
against agricultural exportingcountries fromthe late 19th centuryuntil the late
1930s. "Onthe average," said the report, "a given quantity of primaryexports
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WORLD-SYSTEM
THEORY 91
wouldpay, at the end of this period, for only 60 per cent of the quantity of
goods which it could buy at the beginning of the period" (Love 1980). This
wasbecauseof the morerapid increase in productivity of industrial producers.
Comparativeadvantage, therefore, did not operate in favor of the primary
producers.
Prebisch denies having been directly influenced by Manoilescu; but as
Joseph Love has written, "Manoilescus ideas--in Latin Americancircles
where they were known--probably helped pave the way for acceptance of
ECLA
doctrines whenthey appeared in 1949" (Love 1980). In any case, the
Romanianstheories were being published in Argentine economicjoumals in
the late 1930s.
ECLAstheories have since become"dependencytheory." But the elaboration of the theory has gone further than economics;it has created an entire
sociology and political theory of dependentdevelopment(Cardoso &Faletto
1969;Jaguaribe et al 1968; dos Santos 1972). It is importantto emphasize,as
does Portes (1976), that dependencytheory is morethan a simple analysis
a "quasi-colonial situation of economicstagnation and foreign control of
export enclaves. Onthe contrary, contemporarydependencystudies address
a situation in whichdomestic industrialization has occurred along with increasing economicdenationalization; in which sustained economicgrowth has
been accompaniedby rising social inequalities; and in which rapid urbanization and the spread of literacy have convergedwith the even moreevident
marginalization of the masses."
Pablo Gonzalez Casanovas recent article on Mexico(1980) is a good
exampleof this. Far from being backwardand dominated by a small rural
oligarchy, Mexicois urbanized, industrial, and by Third World standards,
rich. But the gap betweenrich and poor is increasing, the growingpopulation
cannot be absorbed into the labor force, and the substantial middle class
demandsmoreconsumption.Foreign capital, allied to a domestic elite, prevents the redistribution of wealth that wouldextend to the poor the benefits of
modemization.Nor is the govemment,
tied as it is to the international fiscal
system, able to direct new investmentand spendingwhereit wishes. Instead,
it inflates the currency. Mexicoshuge newpetroleumwealth alleviates these
problemsfor the time being, but it cannot provide a long-termsolution. To do
that, deep structural reforms are necessary. Thusforeign influence (primarily
North American)is morenoxious as a barrier to structural change than as
directly exploitive colonizer. The MexicanRevolution and the subsequent
policies of nationalizations in the 1930sdid not go far enough.
The problem of inflation induced by the helplessness of Latin American
governmentsto control their ownfinances is a key part of dependencystudies
(Sunkel et al 1973). The Intemational MonetaryFundis viewedas particularly
villainous because its remediesto inflation stifle growthand promoterepres-
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sive regimes. Not only Latin Americanshave discovered this, but also North
Americanresearchers. John Sheehan, for example, found a high correlation
betweenrepression and the application of capitalist efficiency criteria in Latin
America. This makes"bureaucratic-authoritarian" regimes the favorites of
international finance (ODonnell & Frankel 1978; Sheehan1980).
Dependencytheorists agree that USmultinational subsidiaries hurt the
long-term prospects for developmentin Latin Americaby investing less than
they withdraw. The debt service of Latin Americaneconomies(acquired to
buy the machinery with which to manufacture their ownsubstitutes for imports) takes too high a share of earnings. The only solution is greater unity in
the face of the giant of the North, and better, integration of Latin American
economieswith each other (Furtado 1970; Evans 1981).
Anequally important and related problemis the availability of technology.
Celso Furtado, a former director of ECLA,has written (1980) that "the control
of technologynowconstitutes the foundation of the structure of international
power...the struggle against dependenceis becomingan effort to eliminate
the effects of the monopolyof this resource by the countries of the core." But
this has not yet happened.
In other words, industrialization based on import substitution in the most
advanced Latin American countries has merely created new forms of dependenceand new sociopolitical imbalances. These are not the sameones that
characterized the early, semi-colonial economies,but they are just as serious
(Jaguaribe et al 1970).
Dependencytheory has also flourished outside Latin America. While we
cannot begin to list all of its important contributors in Africa and Asia, one
whohas caught the attention of North Americanworld-system theorists deserves special mention: Samir Amin.Moreexplicitly radical than most of the
Latin Americans, Aminsempirical experience has been with the far poorer
countries of Africa (1973). Thoughhis analysis of imperialismis similar, his
demandfor socialist revolution is moreinsistent. Capitalism is "debased"and
"sick." Under socialism, not only will exploitation vanish, but menwill
becomemore complete, and (how utopian) even social science, like government, will disappear because it will no longer be necessary. The Cambodian
experimentof Pol Pots KhmerRougeis cited as a correct lesson for emulation
by Africans (1977). This kind of global eschatological revolutionary vision
(Amin1980), closer to Andre GunderFrank and to Wallersteins political
essays (Wallerstein 1979) than to the more cautious likes of Prebisch and
Furtado, stirs the blood of North Americanand Western EuropeanMarxists.
There is little point in arguing whetherdependencytheorists are "right or
wrong." The prevailing view amongWestern development economists is that
their conclusions are "overdrawn...and can be questioned on both theoretical
and empirical grounds" (Meier 1976). Evidenceshowsthat the terms of trade
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THEORY
AND CONTEMPORARY
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Wallersteins
Followers
Manyof the first books that followed Wallersteins theories and style were
producedby his ColumbiaUniversity students. Hechter (1975) showedthat
core-peripheryrelation could be used to explain persisting ethnic tensions in
core societies. The exploited Celtic fringe of the United Kingdomhad been
turned into Englandsperiphery. Rather than diminishingCeltic particularism,
this fringes integration into the United Kingdomhad perpetuated and
strengthened it. By analogy, the same model might be applied to Canada,
Spain, the United States, and perhaps even France. Industrialization had not,
as previously predicted, endedregionalism, local ethnic nationalism, or other
"status" distinctions in favor of pure class divisions. Chirot (1976) analyzed
a typically peripheral society, Romania,claiming that after a long exposureto
capitalist market forces, it had found itself hopelessly poor and backward.
Moulder(1977) explained Japans rapid developmentby its ability to shield
itself from economiccolonialism. Qing China, on the other hand, had supposedly been penetrated by western capitalism in the 19th century, and had
been peripheralized so that its development was blocked. Block (1977)
explained the modemcapitalist banking and financial system in worldsystemic terms.
This kind of work has continued and spread (see Kaplan 1978; Goldfrank
1979; Hopkins & Wallerstein 1980; Rubinson 1981). Billingss 1979).
first-rate study of post-Civil WarNorth Carolinas industrialization demonstrates the utility of world-system theory in explaining domestic American
social history. Peter Evanss book on Brazil (1979) combinesa sophisticated
use of Latin American dependency theory and Wallersteinian concepts to
examine the role of the world economy and multinational firms in that
countrys spectacular but unevenindustrialization in the 1960sand 70s. The
political scientist Bruce Cumings,while not directly a "world-system theorist," has used someof the theory to propose a major new interpretation of
the origins of the KoreanWar(1981). Manyrecent and forthcoming books
a variety of countries and historical situations incorporate some of
Wallersteins ideas.
Quantitative
WorM-System Theory
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Chase-Dunnhave becomethe best knownof their students. Thoughthey do
not limit themselvesto quantitative cross-national data analysis, that is where
they have made their reputations (Rubinson 1976; Chase-Dunn1975; ChaseDunn&Rubinson1977). Bergesen has edited a useful book extending traditional hypothesis-testing techniquesto historical materials (1980).
Such work has gained quick popularity. It combinesthe ideological and
political punch of Marxismwith the safe and marketable technology taught to
modem
sociology graduate students. Becauseit is so easy to find someUnited
Nations data, run it through a machine, and tack on a little world-system
verbiage, it is a style that has been abused. But it has produceda few interesting ideas and tests of Wallersteins theories and those of his followers.
Ragin, occasionally working with Delacroix (also from the Stanford group)
has published major articles in this genre (Ragin 1977; Delacroix &Ragin
1978). He has discussed both the pattern of world economicdevelopmentand
ethnic survival and reaction in developed countries to show some of the
important limitations of world-system formulations. Snyder &Kick (1979)
have devised a wayto use block modelling in world-systemic studies.
Cultural
Anthropology
Oneof the most fruitful areas for the developmentof world-systemtheory has
been cultural anthropology.There, these ideas have helped liberate fieldwork
from overly narrow description by suggesting ways in which major international currents have affected seeminglyisolated and primitive cultures (Danielle 1981). Schneider &Schneiders book about the peripheralization of
Sicily (1976) is a goodexampleof this, as are manyof the articles in Carol
Smiths edited volumes(1976). Verdery is presently completing a book
Transylvanianhistory that combinesthe systematic study of a village with a
larger historical study of the Austro-HungarianEmpire and its role in the
spread of capitalism to c~entral and eastern Europe(forthcoming). John Cole
(1977) has argued that the recent reexamination of European peasants
anthropologists has been influenced by a world-systemic perspective.
Writers on subjects as different as the Peruvian wooltrade (Orlove 1977),
the British Royal Botanical Gardens(Brockway1979), and pre-contact Mesoamerican trade patterns (Pailes &Whitecotton 1979) have used Wallerstein.
Thoughthis literature is not by sociologists, it exemplifies the artificiality
of the boundarybetweenvarious disciplines that study theoretically related
topics.
The Fernand Braudel
Center
After his great success, Wallerstein movedto the State University of New
York at Binghamtonto head the new FernandBraudel Center. There, assisted
by TerenceHopkins,he has established himself at the heart of an international
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enterprise to develop and spread his theories. The Center publishes its own
journal, Review, in whichthe latest related findings and debates can be found.
Wallerstein also edits a series in conjunction with the French Maisondes
Sciences de lHornmefor CambridgeUniversity Press. It has published books
ranging from Romanian
rural history (Stahl 1980), through the history of early
colonial Mexico (Frank 1979), to studies of Algerias economyand ethnographyduring its colonial period (Bourdieu 1979).
Twoof the Braudel Centers most interesting projects are the study of long
cycles in the capitalist world-economy
and the examinationof the history of
Ottomanperipheralization.
The capitalist economyhas always been subject to waves or cycles of
expansion and contraction, and the reasons for these are imperfectly understood. There is little question, for example,that after the boomof the 1950s
and 1960s, most capitalist economiesentered a period of relative stagnation
in the 1970s. This slowdownthreatens to becomea major world economic
crisis in the 1980s. It has affected someof the peripheral and semiperipheral
economieseven more strongly than the core, though a weakcore economylike
Britains has been badly hurt. Nor have communisteconomies, which reentered the capitalist trading networkin the 1960s, been spared. High international debt, falling agricultural production, and inflation have increased
social tensions in such different countries as Poland, Romania,Nigeria, Tanzania, and Peru.
Kondratieffs 1926 study of long (47-60 years) cycles in the capitalist
word-economy
found three periods of rise and fall from the 1780s until the
start of the post-WorldWarI slump (Kondratieff 1979). His predictions have
been surprisingly accurate. The downturnthat beganin the 1920s lasted until
the late 1930s, and completedthe cycle that had begunwith the rising prosperity of the 1890s. The post-WordWarII boomran from the late 1940s until
about 1970, equalling the average 25 year period of previous up cycles. Could
it be that the present downpart of the cycle will last into the 1990s?
The Braudel Centers research on this question (see Review, II, 4, 1979)
begins with Kondratieff, and has tried to extend his wavesfurther into the past
as well as to project theminto the future. So far, convincingexplanations for
the cycles have not fully materialized. Conventional theories have concentrated on the discovery of new techniques for exploiting previously unused
resources. This causes a rapid rise in profits for those whocontrol the new
technologies. There follows a period of falling returns as the new resource
becomesrelatively less abundant and dearer to exploit. In these terms (of
course we are simplifying) the cycle after 1945 might be viewedas a wave
dominated by petroleum, which has gone from being an abundant, cheap
energy source, to being an expensiveone in the 1970s. The great merit of the
BraudelCenters approachis to tie economiccycles to cycles of political and
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economichegemonyby particular core powers, and to the creation and exploitation of newperipheries in each cycle. The latest cycle has been characterized by Americandominanceand now decline in the world-economy.
Whether or not a good explanation will be found for this phenomenon
remainsan openquestion. It is not evencertain that we are in a lasting 20 or
30 year decline. But it is at this level that world-systemtheory offers the
greatest promise for the discovery of new ideas, and where a genuinely
world-wide perspective enriches the narrower view of conventional economists and students of social change.
TheOttomanproject (see Review,II, 3) is morehistorically specific, but it
promisesto give us a greater understandingof howperipheralization occurs.
World-systemtheory has been rather weakin distinguishing betweendifferent
types of pre-industrial agrarian empires (see below). If the study of Ottoman
decline and the absorption of its territories into the capitalist world-economy
from the 17th to the 19th century comesto fruition, this weaknesswill be
partially remedied. Again, this is an area muchstudied by historians, but
world-systemtheory can offer newideas and integrate regional history with
larger trends.
Despite this activity and someunquestionable successes, serious questions
have arisen about the adequacyof world-systemtheory, and about major gaps
it has left unexplored in the history of social change and economicdevelopment.
SOME CRITICISMS
OF THE THEORY
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and he greatly admires countries such as North Korea that have tried to
approach autarky. Other world-system and dependency theorists, such as
Samir Amin,have retained their faith in autarky despite the obvious limitations of that policy whereit has been tried.)
Whateverconfirmation of world-systemtheory exists in short-term statistical analysis of Third-Worldeconomiesperpetuates Wallersteins reversal of
causality. Noone denies that patterns of dependencyexist, or that there is a
great transnational capitalist market. But whetherdependencyis a cause or an
effect of backwardnessmakesall the difference in which remedies are suggested. (For discussion of moreinstances of this error in world-systemtheory,
see Chirot 1981.)
A Comprehensive
Theory?
Despite the claims of its supporters, world-systemtheory is far from comprehensive. The treatmentof pre-capitalist societies is skimpy[despite the interesting review article by Moseley& Wallerstein (1978)]. No one can fault
Wallersteinfor not knowingall history, but his insistence on the failure of the
classical empiresto industrialize because their political and economicsystems
happenedto coincide leads to another error symptomaticof a more general
explanatory gap.
Certain long-lasting "world-economies"
failed to producea capitalist worldeconomy. The Persian Gulf, the Iranian Plateau, "and the eastern Mediterranean formedsuch a "system" for two thousand years. So did India from
the time of the Mauryato the British conquest, another two millenia. The
Islamic Near East and North Africa from the collapse of centralized Abbasid
role to the Ottomanconquest were a veritable "world-economy"for five
centuries. Why,then, was Europeso special in the 15th century?
Subsumingall world-empires under one, inherently stagnant rubric is
grossly misleading. China from the time of the Han to the Mingwent through
periods of rapid technological and economicgrowth (Elvin 1973). To compare
this case with that of Egypt, whichwas moreor less stagnant betweenthe time
of the Pyramidsand the Macedonianconquest 2300 years later, is to believe
mistakenly that there existed a single "Asiatic modeof production."
Byturning all pre-capitalist states into a uniform"traditional" type, worldsystemtheory finds it difficult to explain whythe reaction to capitalist penetration was so different fromplace to place and continues to vary in important
waystoday. The general tendencyto lumpall precapitalist societies into two
simple types (and "minisystems" are an even more simplistic type than
"world-empires")is perilously close to the ahistorical eurocentrismthat characterized modernizationtheory. It leads to the sameinability to discriminate
betweendifferent societies without resorting to irrelevant and artificial constructs.
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Socialism?
Mostprominentworld-systemtheorists share an enthusiastic faith in socialism
as a solution to problemscausedby capitalist exploitation. This faith affects
their analysis of the world. It mustbe questionedbecauseit leads to moreblind
spots.
Wallerstein (1979) excuses manyof the faults of communistcountries
showingthat they are obliged to operate in a capitalist world-system. They
cannot, therefore, moveto their ideal state until world capitalism is overthrown. But is this a useful way to understand what goes on in communist
countries? It is surely no coincidence that world-systempractitioners have
never produced a serious book about communistsocieties, even though they
have written dozensof interesting ones about the effects of peripherality and
semiperipherality in the rest of the world.
Wallersteins own nomenclature should have suggested a better way of
analyzing the Soviet Unionthan those used so far by world-systemtheorists.
Far from being a core or semiperipheral society, the Soviet Union is an
old-fashioned world-empire,perhaps the last of its kind. It does not exploit
eastern Europeand Cuba,it subsidizes themin return for military and strategic
advantages. Like Rome,at least from the early 2nd century, it is run by and
for a military-bureaucratic ruling class. Its only dynamicimpulse comesfrom
heavy industry used for armaments. Otherwise, like the late RomanEmpire,
it is beset by inherent problemsof stagnation and the discontent of subject
peoples in its administrative periphery.
The emphasis in Wallerstein on future world-socialist revolution entirely
avoids the issue of class dynamicsundersocialism, and it fails to ask the basic
question: Howis long-run increasing labor productivity possible outside capitalism? Among
theoretical issues few could be moreimportant or further from
being solved than this one. [For a first-rate study of these problems, see
Hirszowicz (1980).]
World-systemtheorys transposition of Marxto an international plane has
been accompaniedby an assertion that, on the whole, economically peripheralized people are being continuously immiserized. That is whythere will
eventually be a world revolution against the "bourgeois" core. Wallerstein
(1979) believes that capitalist economicgrowth is a zero-sumgame.Countries
that develop do so only at the expenseof others that lose. Since only a few
grow, most decline. The widening gap in per capita GNPbetween rich and
poorcountries, then, is not an anomalybut a natural result of capitalist growth.
Onlysocialism can change this.
But is capitalist economicdevelopment a zero-sum game?Kuznets (1971)
and Bairoch (1977) have shownthat it is not, and that in the post-Second
WorldWarperiod the growthrate of poorer countries has been higher than the
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historic growth rate of the old core. Morerecent data (NewYork Times 1979)
confirmthis. Thehigher per capita growthrate of richer countries is entirely
a function of the rapid populationgrowthin the poorer parts of the world; and
no matter what one thinks about population problems, this growth is itself
proof of the increasing availability of material goodsand services that insure
higher survival rates. As Morris (1979) has shown,almost the whole world has
experiencedgreat improvement
in the measurable"quality of life" in the last
several decades.
Capitalism may,indeed, fail to stimulate production sufficiently to meet
future population growth, and we mayone day be faced with a desperate
Malthusiancrisis. But this is by no stretch of the imaginationthe result of a
constant trend towardabsolute immiserization,nor is it evena certain future.
Blamingcapitalism and hoping for a socialist revolution to rescue the world
once again obviates study of what is going on within countries. Whyhave
somelimited their population growth while others have not?
Economic
historians are no longer sure that capitalist colonialism itself was
harmful to economicgrowth in the periphery. The outcomedepended on the
colony, the colonizers, and the period of colonization. For example, the
effects of plantation slavery in the Caribbeanmayhave been negative (Mintz
1977)for the reasonsasserted by world-systemtheory, but British rule in India
maynot have retarded industrialization at all (Morris et al 1969).
The Issue of Culture
For world-systemtheorists as for most other Marxistsideas are merelyepiphenomenal.But even if cultures are ultimately produced by material conjunctions, once they are in place they take on a life of their own.World-system
theorys refusal to study such matters reduces its grasp of social changeand
economicprogress.
That the triumphof a specific type of capitalist rationality in westernEurope
in the 16th and 17th centuries resulted from the success of the bourgeois
classes in asserting their independencefrom church and king, and that it had
further consequencesin the flowering of modemscience, is part of Webers
central theory of capitalist development (Weber1968). Merton (1970)
others have shownthat the historical connectionbetweenincreasing religious
rationality and the growthof science was tight.
The capitalist cores ability to exploit weakperipheries was neither a new
nor an unusual phenomenon,and it maynot have been decisive in sustaining
economicgrowth.But toleration and eventually support of free thinking intellectuals for so long and on such a large scale was unique. It remainsan unusual
phenomenon
outside the capitalist core to this day.
Capitalisms toleration goes beyondsupport of intellectuals. It has been
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CONCLUSION
World-systemtheory and its close ally dependencytheory have manyflaws.
Their economichistory sometimeshas been wrong. The naked political bias
and revolutionary polemicevident in someof their writings showhoweasy it
is to fall into blind dogmatism.The attack against capitalism has not been
accompaniedby a convincing explanation of what might replace it. There are
major empirical and theoretical gaps. But this cannot deprive them of their
importanceand real virtues.
Studyingindividual societies in isolation fromeach other is both misleading
and dangerous. It hides the powerful transnational forces that have been a
major part of all social and economictransformations since the 15th century.
It yields incomplete, and often wrongconclusions about the nature of social
problems. Sociologyhas tended to fall into this kind of a trap. World-system
theory can thus be seen as a necessary remedy.Whetheror not one agrees with
all of its conclusions, it is abundantlyclear that a world-wideperspective has
becomea minimal requirement for the intelligent study of social change.
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