RE: Free Will (or Free Willy)

My message did not distinguish IW and GA positions in detail.  But, with all
due respect, I think Goldfrank's characterization of Giovanni isn't quite
accurate.

As a former grad student of Arrighi, I can say with some confidence that he
is fairly clear that the rise of EA is not another hegemonic transition.  It
is more likely a period of systemic chaos.  In fact, this current shift in
the center of the w-e is likely to spell the end of capitalism and may usher
in a world empire (1995:354, 1999: 288-89).  (I happen to find this
particular argument quite convincing, and I presented a paper last August at
the ASA, on a panel with Chase-Dunn, elaborating on this possibility and
suggesting that it is a logic of the modern world-system as manifest in the
attempts by past second-rank contenders for hegemony to create empires --
e.g. Spain, France, Germany).

Further, Giovanni often characterizes the systemic chaos of hegemonic
decline (except Holland of course which was not preceded by a hegemon), as
the "re-making" of capitalism, that is, as a systemic breakdown.  However,
as noted, the present structural conditions/anomalies of capitalism in the
era of US hegemonic demise prevent the rise of a new hegemon that could
guide the remaking capitalism in ways analogous to past hegemons.  The
center is shifting, but hegemons of old are not being recreated and so a
fundamental structural pattern of capitalism has ended.

Elson E. Boles
Historical Sociology

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wally@cats.UCSC.EDU [mailto:wally@cats.UCSC.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 6:03 PM
> To: facbolese@usao.edu; wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> Subject: Re: Free Will (or Free Willy)
>
>
> let's not confuse hegemonic transitions within the
> temporality of the capitalist world-economy with
> hypothesized transition from that system to some
> different future one.  arrighi talks primarily about
> the chaos accompanying the first kind, while wallerastein
> talks (lately, at least) primarily about the second,
> which he claims is the kind that multiplies the
> arena for consequential choice & agency.
>
> both transitioins may be occurring innthe present,
> the former presumably of shorter duration than the
> latter, butalso affected by the latter in ways that
> prior within-system hegemonic transitions have not
> been.
>
> w goldfrank