After looking at the program from the latest PEWS meeting, it appears to
me that there has been a gradual but substantial change in the direction of
world-system studies.
Initially (or at least as I see it), critique was central to the W-S
perspective. It was critical in a two fold sense. Critical, on the other
hand, of mainstream explanations of `development,' etc., and, on the
other, of the persistence of global inequality. Today, it seems that
critique and emancipatory interests are no longer central to the W-S
perspective (at least as it is practiced). Instead, it has become another
`science' (in the worst sense of the term) - objective, disinterested, and
concerned only with the 'facts' - dare I say, a structural-functionalism
of past, present and future world economy(ies).
If we accept that this change has occurred, the next question is why? Is
it a reflection of the conservative ZEITGEIST of the 1990s (just as the
critical edge was reflective of the ZEITGEIST of the late 60s and 70s?
Or, does it result from what Schumpeter would call "the rise to
leadership of new men" (which does not bode well for the future) or
Pareto's "circulation of elites" (which is more promising because it
suggests a return to the earlier orientation).
Carl Dassbach