Re: the Frank challenge

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000, g kohler wrote:

> 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).
> 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'm not sure I follow.  Because Frank rules modes of production out of
court as intrinsic parts of history, this makes MoPs valid as conceptual
models for fundamental sociopolitical change?  In that case, socialist and
capitalist modes are just as valid as the "green" one, since their
proponents can also argue that these ideologies can play a positive role
in social affairs.  Frank argues that the former two are Eurocentric
ideologies, but if they are not an intrinsic part of history, they have
just as much (or as little) reason to be conclusively linked with the rise
of Europe as the green MoP would serve as an ideology for a new center of
accumulation.

Furthermore, I agree with the suggestions that the Frankian ws can serve
as a sort of intermediate level of historical analysis.  But since Frank 
argues that capitalism is merely
> >> ideological construct that is out of synch with world historical
> reality."
I contend that the construction of such a multilevel approach to world
history is antithetical to the model he constructs.  This was the essence
of Amin and Wallerstein's critique of _ReOrient_ which Frank was in turn
critiquing on the list.  While I concur with him that there was nothing
new in their pieces, I would have liked to see his response to the
fundamental theoretical question they posed.

Finally, in reference to the issue whether "capitalism" and "historical
materialism" create a dilemma in Marx/ism: I am not interested in the
question, mostly because as far as I know, Marx himself does not use
either term (at the risk of starting yet another marxological debate, I
will say "correct me if I'm wrong...")  I am interested in the dilemma
this poses within world-systems theories, especially given that Frank
_does_ use both terms.

-- 
Boris Stremlin
bc70219@binghamton.edu