Re: "rise of china" and wst

On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Boris Stremlin wrote:

> The bigger issue, however, is (as always) the (mis)conceptualization of
> WST as a positivist theory.  Of course, the Owl of Minerva business
> applies to it as much as to any other theoretical framework.  In this
> case, however, we have Wallerstein's explicit statement that we are in a
> period of systemic transition, when traditional rules no longer apply, and
> free choice dominates over established structures (he makes this point
> repeatedly, e.g. in  _Utopistics_).  This means that past precedents of
> hegemonic transitions may be largely useless in elucidating (much less
> predicting) the outcome of the current transition (though Wallerstein
> himself sometimes forgets this in practice).


Personally I find the recent work of Chase-Dunn and his various
collaborators much more useful than Wallerstein's epistemological retreat
(ie, "rethinking everything" and in the meantime not knowing anything,
turning to Prigogene's "dissipative structures," etc).

Of course it goes without saying that we should be pursuing an
understanding of reality, not just dogmatically following the thinking of
any particular individual.

And, relevant to Warren's comments as well, if theories don't help us
understand likely future trajectories, but are only good for post hoc
explanations (interpretations?), then I'm not interested in them.

RH