Re: the Frank challenge

The major reason why this issue intrigues me is because I want to postulate
that there is something like a "green mode of production" (green =
ecologically sustainable). This is a concept which you don't find in
capitalist or socialist historiography. In order to make the point that
there is something like a "green mode of production" (which, at this time in
history, is more a figment of the imagination than anything else), I need
the additional assumption that a mode of production is a "conceptual model"
("ideal type" in old-fashioned Weberian terminology), rather than intrinsic
in (part of the essence of) history. This, in turn, leads me to seeing a lot
of potential in Professor Frank's thesis. I would not be hung up on the
words "ideological" (I believe that ideology can play a positive role in
social affairs), neither hung up on pro or con "historical materialism". If
there is something like a "green mode of production", it would be distinct
from a capitalist mode of production and a socialist mode of production, but
could overlap with either -- in the sense of, green-socialist and
green-capitalist. However, this way of thinking implies somehow that "modes
of production" (traditionally, capitalist and socialist) are "conceptual
models" which serve a useful purpose for diagnosis and praxis, but
conceptual models, nevertheless (or, as Frank says, "ideological
constructs").

Gert Kohler


-----Original Message-----
From: Boris Stremlin <bc70219@binghamton.edu>
To: g kohler <gkohler@accglobal.net>
Cc: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Date: January 30, 2000 1:48 AM
Subject: Re: the Frank challenge


>An interesting dilemma:
>
>Either Frank is right and "capitalism" is an ideological construct, or
>else he is wrong, capitalism exists, and it is "historical materialism"
>which turns out to be an ideological approach to writing world history.
>Either way, the notion that one can characterize distinct world-systems on
>the basis production, exchange or even accumulation appears to be trapped
>between Scylla and Charybdis.
>
>On Sat, 29 Jan 2000, g kohler wrote:
>
>> with reference to the posting of 25 Jan 2000 by Professor Frank, entitled
>> "Gunder Frank's Response to Gang of 3 Reviews of ReOrient"
>>
>> the last paragraph, entitled "The Bottom Line" contains the statement:
"None
>> of the three is willing to contemplate or even examine the evidence that
the
>> theoretical concept -- indeed terminology -- of "capitalism" may be an
>> ideological construct that is out of synch with world historical
reality."
>>
>> This kind of iconoclasm appeals to my taste buds and I have two questions
>> arising:
>> (1) does this mean that the category of "capitalism" has the
epistemological
>> status of an "ideal type" a la Weber?
>> (2) if the category of "capitalism" is out of synch with reality, as
Frank
>> says, how can the left define (positively) what it is for and
(negatively)
>> what it is against? If Frank is right, then it would seem that "the left"
>> would have a major task at its hands with respect to redefining itself --
>> not only "reorient" the world-system, but also "reorient" itself (the
left),
>> given the fact that "capitalism" is traditionally a major component of
the
>> self-definition of the left (in an antithetical way).
>>
>> Gert Kohler
>> Oakville, Canada
>>
>>
>
>--
>Boris Stremlin
>bc70219@binghamton.edu
>
>