Free Will (or Free Willy)

I get the impression from some of these exchanges that IW has been
misunderstood with regard to the periods of chaos that arise between social
systems, or, as Arrighi argues, which arise between hegemonies (if to a
lesser degree).  Or perhaps not, since it is such a basic argument of his:
in periods of transition / systemic demise, the inexorable laws and
structures of the collapsing system begin to fail, and in so far as this is
the case, systemic restrictions on agency are lessened, as are the patterns
that previously made systemic prediction possible.

I don't necessarily agree with this formulation myself.  For one, it
explains social change and agency at a level of generality that is only as
accurate as it is general.  And it is very general.  Of course, the grand
systemic level of generality of world-systems analysis, especially in the
hands of its more sophisticated and original thinkers, has been extremely
fruitful, especially with regard to the issue of inequality as a
world-systemic process.  But there are significant limitations to a global
perspective that generalizes at the level global process, as opposed to
pursuing multiple levels of abstraction.  It is at the more "concrete"
levels of analysis that we gain a more accurate understanding of agencies
and the choices that they make within the constraints of world-systemic
structures.

It is in this sense that, in my view, world-systemic analysis could benefit
by more frequently blending social-historical/anthropological analysis of
social conditions and change to show, as Tomich argues, the local face of
global processes, and conversely, the world-historical dimensions of local
events and developments.

Elson E. Boles
Assistant Professor, Historical Sociology