Re: What really is Andre Gunder Frank's position on worlds?

Yes, this is what I've also argued elsewhere.  However (and I seem to agree 
with Boris' piece in Review on Frank and Wallerstein on the matter), that there 
has been a shift in his position to an emphasis on geoculture ala legitimacy 
and structures of knowledge, as "underside, the part that is more hidden from 
view and therefore more difficult to assess, but the part without which the 
rest would not be nourished" (Wallerstein 1991a, 11), and that indeed without 
which the system falls apart since a system is an "integrated network of 
economic, political and cultural processes the sum of which hold the system 
together" (Wallerstein 1991b, 230).

Elson

Elson E. Boles
Assistant Professor
Sociology
Saginaw Valley State University


>>> <Threehegemons@aol.com> 08/13/03 01:44PM >>>
In a message dated 8/13/2003 1:10:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, boles@svsu.edu 
writes:

> > And, incidentally, I guess that "approach" is really no different that 
>Wallerstein's, since you both essentially use divisions of labor as criteria, 
>or whatever empirical evidence is available to suggest systemacity.  The 
>theory and outcome or interpretation of the data is different, not the 
>approach (or is the same until Wallerstein began his shift to focus on meaning 
>systems as the underlying binding glue of systems 
> in the 1990s or so).

I'm pretty sure Wallerstein continues to argue that what defines his unit of 
analysis is the containment of the division of labor.  These days, he usually 
says(as he always has) the modern world system dates back to 1500 but that it's 
elite did not possess a unified culture until circa 1800.

Steven Sherman