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WALLERSTEIN, CHINA AND HEGEMONIC STRUGGLE

The capitalist world-economy was the only world-system that organized and
consolidated itself. It became so big since its foundation 16 th century that after four centuries
it became the only dominant world system. The capitalist world-system is solely based on
ceaseless accumulation of capital. The extensive commodity chains are the backbones of this
economy. The monopolisation in one chain is the greatest profit. Wallerstein calls profitable
nodes in the limited geography as the core zone and the less profitable ones are the peripheral
zone. He underlines the difference between core and peripheral zones lay in the relation
between stronger capitalists and weaker capitalists. He emphasizes also the location is
irrelevant. Core zone and peripheral zone can be in the same region. For the capitalists, the
important thing is monopolization probabilities of these economical activities. Capitalists do
not care about the location, product, or economic activity as long as its business model is
successful. Therefore, Wallerstein argues that market can never be fully free but partially free.
Because otherwise capitalists would not accumulate wealth. Also, political systems helped a
lot to capitalism. The modern state system and capitalist world economy is the two sides of
same coin. The one important aspect of world capitalism is the availability, relocatability and
cost of world labour. The labour is in direct conflict with the capitalists on these subjects.
However, capitalists have the governments on their back therefore, government officials use
sticks to coerce labourers. In peripheral zone, state intervention to the labour organizations is
the norm. To reduce the backlash from the workers, capitalist system created income-pooling
household unit. There are five way to pool income to household. These are wage income,
petty market income, self-produced income, rents, and transfer payments. The employers
want to hire the semi-proletarians due to their less wages. This situation enables the capitalists
to maximize their profits in the face of fierce competition. Semi peripheral states are a
mixture of core and peripheral economic activities. Proletarian households earn more than
semi-proletarian households due to limitation the surplus. These points Wallerstein talked
about the early features of the world-system. The system lacked a catalyser which the French
Revolution would provide.

The concepts of normality of change and sovereignty of people gained much more
recognition after the French Revolution. People wanted more change in every way. The
absolute monarchy was sovereign in the French Revolution, and it was a struggle to change
the sovereign. The concepts we have mentioned offered a new threat to capitalist world
economy: the danger of democratization. This danger had consolidated wit the invention of
ideologies, the triumph of science and soften the anti-systemic movements. The ideologies
started to develop in this period in a pace. The first ideology was conservatism. Conservatists
were hardliners that traditional institutions like monarchy, church and family were too
important for them. But with the rise of populist waves, they started to adhere minimal
changes to prevent society to collapse. After conservatism, liberalism came to the stage.
Liberals became pro-rational change. Individual liberty and technology were playing an
important role to lead society into the Enlightenment age. The concern of liberals was
uneducated people were going to have voting rights. This would be a problem for rational
thinking. Democrats rose to the ranks of political stage and became third mainstream
ideology. They wanted political change and popular sovereignty real fast. The years of
political struggle 1848-1852 taught these ideologies a handful lessons. Conservatism had
learned two lessons. One they have to bury their satisfaction for revival old regimes. The
other one was leaving the two other ideologies in the political stage. They should not let them
come closer in the political matters. Democrats learned that political explosiveness was not a
viable option and alliance with liberals were no gain for them. They understood that they
needed to organize their own movements and rallies. Liberals understood that to become
successful they had to bring both democrats and conservatives to the middle. Consensus
politics became the first pillar of the geoculture of the world-system. The second pillar was
the reconstruction of the knowledge system. They understood the importance of natural
sciences due to its contributions to production system. Also, the humanities could play an
important role to educate voting-masses. The third pillar was taming the antisystemic
movements. There were two kinds of movements: socialist movements and nationalist
movements. Their ideological common point was overthrowing oppressive governments with
a popular revolution. Liberals tried to unite these movements with the political system by
creating the suffrage, the welfare state and citizen patriotism. By with these three pillars,
liberalism became trend setting in the world economy system. Universalism and fascism
became on the rise. However, triumph of universalism made system unwanted for the
capitalists. Because in a fully democratic and fully market free society capitalist could not
secure the ceaseless accumulation of capital. Also, this situation would create hierarchy
problem. The only way to maintain hierarchy without inciting universalism was using racism
and sexism. They were important components of geo-culture. They both praised the semi-
proletarianism and therefore tried to reduce the wages.
 Inter-state structures are the cycles of hegemonic searching. Having a hegemony in the
word is the optimal situation for capitalists. Because hegemon state can set the rules for the
game and then oversee if every other state follows the rules. For becoming hegemon, one
would not need a firm army. Actually, the past hegemons, US, UK and the United Provinces
were not military powers when they become hegemon in the world. The key for hegemony is
productive efficiency within the world economy. This enabled them to convert their
productivity into financial efficiencies. However, every final phase for hegemony came with
conflicts. Wallerstein calls these wars as thirty years’ war. The original Thirty Years' War,
1618-48; the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 1792-1815; the First/Second World Wars,
1914-45 were all actually battle for transitioning of the hegemony. After every war, new
hegemon created a new world order that they secured their economic advantage. Hegemons
uses coerce or constraints to use its own advantage on other states economically. At this point,
without military might, all the threats are in the vain. The threat must be credible, and it must
have deterrence effect. However, using force and threats have a price for the hegemon. Every
time, it uses force, it delegitimizes its hegemony in the eyes of the world population. At some
point, the decline of hegemon is inevitable. Every other state understand that hegemon is in
decline and start to fight over hegemony or get many political capitals as possible. However,
hegemon is the still strongest military in the stage therefore, its demise would be sluggish.
Without repeated rise and falls of hegemons, capitalism could not be sustainable. Every
hegemony creates its own rich.

Wallerstein argues that there are seven major secular trends that makes this cycle is
obsolete. The first one is the polarization of capitalist development. The gap between poor
and rich, the West and the East, South and North became visible to the naked eyes. The
second one is deprivation of workforce. Labour force became highly deruralized due to the
unemployment. There is no reserve workforce. The third one is liberalism has waned out. The
gains of some era cannot ensure that the hegemon state would still develop. The fourth one is
the collapse of liberal developmentalism. With the demise of radical movements, liberalism
lost the wind for change. The fifth one is liberalism brought welfare to every state with
democracy. Even economic crises and natural crises could not stop the wealth accumulation
of states. With states getting wealthier, the hegemon state is facing stiff challenges to control
those states. The sixth one is the ecological problems. Extensive production lines and along
with the wasted products are becoming an enormous problem for every state. The seventh one
is the lost faith in the science.
 In the 21st century, there are many different dynamics than before. In this part of the
essay, I will try to compare the USA and China for their struggles to become hegemony in the
covid times. The coronavirus hit hard the international system, shaking the foundations of
international liberal order, nevertheless, it will not cause the fall of USA hegemony in the
world. It is true that international community could not adopt an immersive approach against
the virus. China had its golden moment with authoritarian policies and restrained the virus.
However, China model of politics and economy is not suitable with every country. In USA,
yet Biden will sit in the Oval Office next year, but he shows greater concern to virus rather
than his predecessor Trump. Therefore, in this essay I will try to summarize the effects of
corona virus on international system and defend why China model cannot be an alternative for
Western countries and rest of the world.

The China model is unique to China. According to Daniel Bell, China model is based
on free-market capitalism under the wings of autocratic rule.1 This approach of politics and
economics would cause problems for Western political life. Revolutions and reforms were
made by Europeans aim to undermine the powers of institutions like church and monarchy
which inherently these institutions had autocratic nature and male-dominated hierarchy. In
COVID-19 times, an important portion of populations around the Western world considers
states trying to restrain citizens extremely. Therefore, it is very hard to say that China model
is a solution for the world. It is a fact that China constrained and eliminated the virus in its
mainland, however, by using harsh measurements. Autocratic nature of Chinese political
system enabled these measures. Of course, China used its success as propaganda and tried to
sway countries’ perceptions of China’s stance on coronavirus issue. It sent medical equipment
to Europe and the other countries in need. Nevertheless, countries’ memory was still fresh
about how virus outbroke and incapability of China to inform WHO due to possible bad PR.
Moreover, most of the medical stuff that sent from China was not beneficial against virus. In
addition to these, China’s “wolf warrior diplomacy” is another concern and regarded as threat
by others. Therefore, China model should not be on the agendas of the world leaders.

The situation in USA also was not the best until the presidential elections. Trump
administration failed big time to stop virus from spreading. Hundreds of thousands American
citizens suffered from the virus and thousands of them died. This pacificism of Trump
administration also left the world in hanging. Especially, Trump’s decision on withdrawal

1
Bell, D. A. (2015). Concluding Thoughts: Realizing the China Model. D. A. Bell içinde, The China Model:
Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (s. 179). Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
from WHO and his insistence in G-7 meeting on calling coronavirus as ‘Wuhan Virus’
isolated USA in the world. Power vacuum has been tried to be filled by China, however their
efforts’ outcomes were minimal. This means that USA still can lead. President-elect Biden is
known by the whole world and regarded as the person who can stop this unravelling. He was
the vice-president in the Obama administration which they made Iran Nuclear Deal and Paris
Climate Agreement together. He knows how to lead and rule. In his presidential election
campaign, Biden underlined the importance of globally coordinated response to the
pandemic.2 His reassuring approach and charismatic stance gives hope to Americans and
American allies. USA’s lagging behind actions is created by both pandemic and Trump.
These hardships can be overcome by new administration. The strong democratic values,
resilient economy and enormous military activities are the backbones of US hegemony in the
world. These premium qualities attract many countries to USA rather than China. With the
help of EU, Biden administration can turn the ship around and sail it to the safety.

Overall, Wallerstein argues that there is core, peripheral and semi-peripheral states.
The core states are the main centre of the production chains. The peripheral states are
providers of the workforce. Semi-peripheral states are the transition states. The capitalist
world-economy, according to Wallerstein, is in struggle. However, it is not the case for the
USA. China is not becoming hegemony because its reach is overthinned in the past decades.
China can be a part of the ‘wealthy’ core states however, this does not enable it to sit on the
gendarmerie of the world chair.

Başvurular
Wallerstein, I. (1996). The inter-state structure of the modern world-system. In S. Smith, K.
Booth, & M. Zalewski (Eds.), International Theory: Positivism and Beyond (pp. 87-107).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2
Gordon, M. R. (2020, 11 9). Biden’s First Foreign Policy Task Is a Global Covid-19 Response. 29 04, 2021
tarihinde The Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-first-foreign-policy-task-is-a-global-
covid-19-response-11604938968 adresinden alındı