Re: Structuralism - ECLA-style and Levi-Strauss/Saussure style

AGF QUICK RESPONSE INTERSPRESED IN CAPS
On Sun, 20 Jul 2003, Carl Nordlund
wrote:

> Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 03:28:42 +0200
> From: Carl Nordlund <carl.nordlund@humecol.lu.se>
> To: 'Andre Gunder Frank' <franka@fiu.edu>
> Cc: wsn@csf.colorado.edu, 'Jeffrey Sommers' <JSommers@ngcsu.edu>
> Subject: SV: Structuralism - ECLA-style and Levi-Strauss/Saussure style
> 
> Frank,
> 
> Thank you for your reply.
> 
> >more correct would be doctrine that structure shapes, generates,
> defines, determines function.
> 
> I agree partly. (If structure generates function, i.e function doesn't
> affect structure, there is no dynamics in the system, thus making it
> "all", i.e positional movements between core, semi-periphery and
> periphery, just a deterministic unfolding of inherent structures,
> something which isn't supported by the last 5000 years of history, I
> think.)
I SEE IT EXACTLY THE OTHER WAY AROUND. NOBODY SAYS THAT DUCTION DOES NOT
AFFECT STRUCTURE, ONLY THAT STRUCURE IS MORE IMPORTANT. BUT IT IS
FUNCTION THAT MAKES STRUCTRURE CHANGE AND TRANSFORM, OR THERE WOULD BE NO 
MOVEMENT
> 
> >I would say that THAT is where the use came from in re ECLA/CEPAL - an
> answer to the 
> >micro-econ analysis and policy recommendations that says structure
> matters.
> 
> Ok! For me, at this point, the code-word is "micro-econ" here - thanks!
> 
> >That is, the exact opposite of the Friedman Chicaho-school! - where3
> have you been?
> >Ilearnee economic theory in Friedman's class, and it said nothing like
> structuralism
> >ecla or otherwise.
> 
> Of course it is the exact opposite - where did I say it wasn't?! But as
> I didn't attend the Friedman lectures in the Chicago school (the "where
> have [I] been?" should rather be "when have [I] been?"), I haven't got a
> clue whether the term 'structural' could be backtracked to the modernist
> thoughts of that time, perhaps in any way explicitly attached to ECLA:s
> (and Keynes, for that matter) reaction to the strict neo-classicism of
> the Chicago school of 1920-1950.

I THOUGHT YOU WROTE MONETARIST - HENCE FRIEDMAN.
WELL YES OF COURSE,  ISI IN 3RD WORLD, BUT ALSO IN 2ND, IS KEYNESIANISM
WITH ANOTHER NAME 

> >I think the ECLAS did not regard ''interna'' strucrure as sepoarate
> from >''external"strucrue.
> 
> Ok. I got the feeling that they somehow did, based on the facts that
> they thought that the peripheral position could be changed by
> national/internal action (ISI, industrial programming and fostering,
> inviting foreign capital etc), that the peripheral position was just the
> egg from the faulty chicken (flawed internal production structures), and
> that the view on external historical structures as "the chicken" came
> first with your 1967/1969 writing.
 I DONT UNDERSTAND YOU. IF THEY THOUGHT THAT PERIPHERAL POSITION
=STRUCTRURE COULD BE CHANGED BY INTERNAL ACTION = FUNCTION TO USE YOUR
TERMNOLOGY, THEN OF COURSE THEY ARE SAYING THAT THEY ARE CONNECTED.
MY WRITINGS WERE IN 1962,63,64 - IT TOOK THAT LONG TO GET THEM PUBLISHED 
BECAUSE THEY WERE SO OUTLANDISH, EVEN THOUGH '' STRUCTRURALLY'' THEY WERE
ABOUT THE SAME AS ECLA.
> >I think yo are terribly wrong about WS when you say
> >> focus on the structure of social systems instead of the internal
> >> attributes of the elements constituing such systems
> >thats utter non-sense.  first of all the main thesis oif WS  both
> Wallewrsteins and mine >has been that there is ONE SINGLE WORLD SYStEM
> 
> Yes, I am familiar with the singularity view taken by you, Wallerstein
> among others. Personally, I am more a proponent of using it in with
> hyphen and in the pluralis (inspired by Chase-Dunn/Hall's "Rise and
> demise") and with a more 'perceptional' definition of "world" here, as
> this whole systemic approach is indeed very usable on non-global
> geographical and conceptual scales as well.
> 
NONSENSE. ITS NOT A QUSTION OF VIEWS, BUT OF YOUR MIS-ATTRIBUTION TO/OF
WHAT Ws WITH OR WITHOUT HYPNEN SAYS. IT SAYS WHAT IT SAYS, WHICH IS THE
OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU SAY. YOU ARE ENTITLED TO YOUR OPINION, BUT NOT TO SAY
IT IS OURS. THE LAST SENTENCE IS OF COURE TRUE IF STRUCRUREE MEANS/DOES
ANYTHING, WHICH IS WHERE WE DO AGREE. BUT THAT IN NO WISE PRECLUDES USING
IT ALSO ON A GLOBAL SCALE, WHCUH INCIDENTALLY iw DID/DOES NOT SINCE 8/10TH
OF HUMANITY WAS OUTSIDE HIS SYTEM TILL AFTER 1750. BUT THE REAL POINT IS
ANOTHER: IS STRUCTURE JUST A FIGMENT OF OUR IMAGINATION, SOIMETHING THAT
WE MENTALLY IMPOSE ON REALITY, OR IS REALITY ITSELF STRUCURED. MY ANSWER
IS OF COURSE THE SECOND. BUT THAT APPLIES TO THE GLOBAL SYSTEM AS WELL.
WHETHER I CALL OR APPORACH IT THAT WAY OR YOUR WAY OR ANY WAY, IT IS STILL
A GLOBAL STRUCRUREAL REALITY.  iF NOBODY WAS THERE TO SEE THE TREE FALL
AND THEN SAY SO, DID IT, THE PHILOSOPHER ASKED? THE ANSWER IS OF CLOURSE
YES IF IT did FALL.

> >the strucfure and the ' elements'are not separate/able entitites. thee
> is no abstract
> >structure in/ of a void. the point is their RELATION. and how  the
> structure of the
> >whole system shapes the attrributes of the elements - i dunno what the
> difference is
> >between the elements and their attributes, strim,es me as more utter
> non-sense.
> 
> I don't get this, I must admit! If we choose to define the parts
> (actors/elements) of the world system (or hyphenated depending on
> conceptual taste) as national-state economies, each with their specific
> (internal) 'attributes' (such as gdp, unemployment rates, institutional
> arrangements, production structures etc etc etc), then we also have a
> set of relations between these 'elements' which, you and I believe ("the
> structure of the whole system shapes the attrributes of the elements"),
> affect the 'attributes' of each respective elements. But these
> attributes (such as gdp, gini-coeffs etc) are surely quite different to
> the elements - the elements are national states! (We might have a
> difference in terminology here - I am influenced by social network
> analysis and Bertalanffy system theory here. For me, I see the structure
> of a system and the relations between actors in a system as the same
> thing).

NONSENSE OR AT LEAST IRRELEVANT. HOW3EVER WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT THE
ATRRIBUTES OF fRANCE, WHAREVER THAT IS, THEY ARE STILL SHAPED BY FRANC ES 
PARTICIPATION IN THE WS. LAST SENTENCE IS OK. 

> > Of course there is no structure in a
void. But analytically, there is
> indeed a point in separating structure from elements - I do believe we
> can draw more conclusions if we focus on the relations/structures, as
> you say, instead of focusing on internal aspects, i.e looking more for
> exogenous than endogenous causes for underdevelopment.
> 
> >apologies for the uncalled for personalism
> 
> No offense taken.
> 
> Yours,
> Carl

EQUALLY SO, GUNDER
> -----
> Carl Nordlund, BA, PhD student
> carl.nordlund(at)humecol.lu.se
> Human Ecology Division, Lund university
> www.humecol.lu.se
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
> Från: Andre Gunder Frank [mailto:franka@fiu.edu] 
> Skickat: den 19 juli 2003 22:43
> Till: Carl Nordlund
> Kopia: wsn@csf.colorado.edu; franka@fiu.edu; Jeffrey Sommers
> Ämne: Re: Structuralism - ECLA-style and Levi-Strauss/Saussure style
> 
> 
> gunder frank replies in rush.
> I just lookd in my CONCISE OXFORD DICTORNAY P 1143, 1976 ED. If i were
> to look in the real one, or if you were to look on the web, we would
> find countless other uses of the word structure/al/ism. the COE already
> gives too many to name here from conSTRUCTion, concstruc, iin
> engeneerin, lingustics, psychology, ordinary language, formula. for
> structutalism t says doctrine that structure rather than function is
> important -I actually i think that is a MISunderstanding, more correct
> would be doctrine that structure shapes, generates, defines, determines
> function.
> 
> I would say that THAT is where the use came from in re ECLA/CEPAL - an
> answer to the micro-econ analysis and policy recommendations that says
> structure matters. That is, the exact opposite of the Friedman
> Chicaho-school! - where3 have you been? Ilearnee economic theory in
> Friedman's class, and it said nothing like structuralism ecla or
> otherwise. All structure. the preface to one of my bokks says that sid
> Mintz and I have a 50 year argumetn, he says culture matters, i say
> structure matters. I think the ECLAS did not regard ''interna''
> strucrure as sepoarate from ''external"strucrue. and of course they are
> related. it raises the question whuich is the chcken and whcihn the egg.
> 
> ECLA s first answer was it seems that  external > internal.they had
> internal policies of ISI industrialization etc. - which had been done de
> facto during the depression and war, and i will send you something about
> an excellent book that deals with that in the  blakans in the 1930s
> doing the same. but they of course shied away from class 'structure"-
> which is  where dependence and WS come in as related or derived.
> 
> I think yo are terribly wrong about WS when you say
> 
>  focus on the structure of social systems instead of the internal
> > attributes of the elements constituing such systems
> 
> thats utter non-sense.  first of all the main thesis oif WS  both
> Wallewrsteins and mine has been that there is ONE SINGLE WORLD SYStEM
> secondly the strucfure and the ' elements'are not separate/able
> entitites. thee is no abstract structure in/ of a void. the point is
> their RELATION. and how  the structure of the whole system shapes the
> attrributes of the elements - i dunno what the difference is between the
> elements and their attributes, strim,es me as more utter non-sense.
> 
> Levy-Strauss. yes and maybe you have a point in that all''strucure'' has
> a common strucrural compeonet or form of organization.
> 
> You dont mention Radcliffe-Brown and the other Brit [all from the
> colonies!] structural  anthropologists whose 'structure' made
> imperialism and colonialism disappear out of sight, not to mention all
> history whjich 
> R-B explicitly dondemmned to the dust-bin of history as of no
> explanatory 
> importance. Levy-Strauss implication was rather the oppsite, no? . I
> confess however that THAT [R-B et  cco] is where i learned my
> structuralism, and when i sat in Redfield's class i only critiqued him
> for his lack of attentio  to structure, and we had a privte seminar
> outside of the formal one where i preac hed strucrure to my class mates
> - in anthro, i was escaping the friedmanites.
> 
> apologies for the uncalled for personalism
> 
> gunder frank.
> 
> On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, Carl Nordlund wrote:
> 
> > Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 18:02:40 +0200
> > From: Carl Nordlund <carl.nordlund@humecol.lu.se>
> > To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> > Subject: Structuralism - ECLA-style and Levi-Strauss/Saussure style
> > 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I am currently drafting on a conference paper and although not central
> 
> > to the content of the paper, some thoughts have arised which perhaps 
> > someone has any reflections on!
> > 
> > In the history of world system thinking, I find Raul Prebisch and the 
> > ECLA group as a natural starting point, folks often referred to as the
> 
> > Latin American structuralists. This made me wonder why they are called
> 
> > structuralism - for me (after reading some development thinking 
> > history books), it seems like they got this label because they looked 
> > at internal production structures in a handful of national economies 
> > in Latin America. Correct? Or is it because they were the first to 
> > address the existance of a global core-periphery structure? Or are 
> > they referred to structuralists for some other reasons (based on their
> 
> > origin from the Chicago school of economics or similar)?
> > 
> > Being a former computer engineer student with zilch formal 
> > anthropology in my CV, I haven't read any Levi-Strauss at all. But as 
> > I understand it, he transformed the thoughts from Saussure's 
> > structural linquistics into an ethnographic/anthropological 
> > methodology which, in practice, meant a greater emphasis on relational
> 
> > structures than properties of individual elements (which in the 
> > linguistic tradition had been historical lingustics). But hey, if I'm 
> > somewhat correct so far, this does indeed draw a clear parallell 
> > between ECLA/Prebischian structuralism and Levi-Strauss/Saussure 
> > structuralism: focusing on the relations between actors/elements in a 
> > social system instead of just focusing on internal attributes of 
> > actors (the latter what the modernist ECLA-counterparts did - Rostow, 
> > Hirschmann, Lewis et al - as well as the historical linguistics which 
> > Saussure's structuralist viewpoint counter-revolutionized)! But I 
> > haven't seen anyone state any parallells or analogies between 
> > ECLA-style vs Levi-Strauss-style 'structuralism' - am I missing 
> > something completely here?
> > 
> > Thirdly - as Levi-Strauss is quite heavy on semotics and symbolic 
> > mathematics, is he generally considered a formalist among 
> > anthropologists? Has there been any (attempts at) counter-revolution 
> > against anthropological/ethnographic structuralism? If so, have these 
> > counter-trends implied contra-structuralistic thoughts, i.e with a 
> > grander focus on elements per se instead of relations between 
> > elements?
> > 
> > Lastly: in light of other strands of (economic) development thinking, 
> > I find the defining feature of world-system analysis to be the 
> > explicit focus on the structure of social systems instead of the 
> > internal attributes of the elements constituing such systems, while 
> > the latter, but not the former, I argue, being characteristic of 
> > modernist, new trade school thinking and similar mainstream 
> > neo-classial development thoughts (so-called orthodox development 
> > thinking). Is this rough outline of the main issue in (economic) 
> > world-system thinking appropriate?
> > 
> > Yours,
> > Carl
> > -----
> > Carl Nordlund, BA, PhD student
> > carl.nordlund(at)humecol.lu.se
> > Human Ecology Division, Lund university
> > www.humecol.lu.se
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
>                ANDRE    GUNDER      FRANK
> 
> Senior Fellow                                      Residence
> World History Center                    One Longfellow Place
> Northeastern University                            Apt. 3411
> 270 Holmes Hall                         Boston, MA 02114 USA
> Boston, MA 02115 USA                    Tel:    617-948 2315
> Tel: 617 - 373 4060                     Fax:    617-948 2316
> Web-page:csf.colorado.edu/agfrank/     e-mail:franka@fiu.edu
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> 
> 
> 




    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               ANDRE    GUNDER      FRANK

Senior Fellow                                      Residence
World History Center                    One Longfellow Place
Northeastern University                            Apt. 3411
270 Holmes Hall                         Boston, MA 02114 USA
Boston, MA 02115 USA                    Tel:    617-948 2315
Tel: 617 - 373 4060                     Fax:    617-948 2316
Web-page:csf.colorado.edu/agfrank/     e-mail:franka@fiu.edu

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~