This is in response to Carl Dassbach's objection to Chris Chase-Dunn's use of
the term "evolution" to characterize Arrighi's new work, or wst in general.
The notion that evolutionary theories are inherently teleological apparently
dies very hard. Five years ago I wrote a book -- SOCIAL EVOLUTIONISM: A
CRITICAL HISTORY, published by Blackwell -- in which I argued that there is no
intrinsic connection between evolutionary and telelogical thinking. It is
quite true that many evolutionary theories have been teleological in nature,
and indeed in my book I discuss and criticize those theories that are. But
some evolutionary theories are explicitly not teleological. For example, in
sociology Parsons's version of evolutionism is highly teleological, but Marvin
Harris's anthropological version of evolutionism is quite definitely not. I
agree with Dassbach that teleological thinking is wrongheaded thinking, but,
again, that is no reason to condemn all versions of evolutionism.
I just had published a new book, SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS: A GENERAL THEORY OF
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT, also by Blackwell, that formulates a comprehensive
theory of social evolution that is explicitly nonteleological and
antiprogressivist. If you want to see in some detail what a nonteleological
evolutionary theory looks like, this is one place to look. I spend a long
chapter in this book discussing the evolution of the modern world-system, and
for me wst fits quite nicely into a broader evolutionary perspective, including
one that emphasizes qualitative change. In my earlier book I claimed that
Wallerstein was an evolutionist, it is just that it is the world-system as a
whole rather than individual societies that do the evolving. I am pretty sure
that IW sees himself the same way. He blurbed my TRANSFORMATIONS book by
saying that I made a good case for evolutionary transformation in world
history, and he had to be including modern world history. Surely he can't say
such things while being an antievolutionist.
Like Chris CD, I think Arrighi's book is a formidable contribution, and that it
is also a contribution to an understanding of the EVOLUTION of the modern
world.
Stephen Sanderson