Dear WSNetters,
Since I got Giovanni Arrighi's book quite recently and there have
been all kinds of traditional Midsummer festivities "out here" (in Finland),
I haven't been able to participate in the book debate so far. In any
case, I hope the debate will still go on, because the book certainly is
impressive.
At this point, I would like to pay attention to one possible difference
between traditional (Wallersteinian) w-s analysis and
Arrighi's interpretation. As far as I've understood it, the one
economy/many polities dichotomy has been one of the main characteristics of
the Wallersteinian view on the modern world-system. This dichotomy
constitutes the basic difference between a world-economy and a
world-empire, and the modern world-system has been characterized as a
world-economy.
Arrighi, however, says (p. 58) that "the capitalist world-economy as
reconstituted under British hegemony in the nineteenth century was as
much a 'world empire' as it was a 'world-economy'...". The famous hyphen
has been left out of the former term, so it is hard to tell to what
extent Arrighi wants to challenge the Wallersteinian categorical view on
the modern world-system not being a world-empire. In any case, it is a
theoretically relevant provocation on which I would like to hear comments.
More generally, I think there could be more discussion on the usage of
terms "economy" and "polity" within the w-s tradition. On the one hand,
we are probably all familiar with Wallerstein's invitation to "unthink"
the division to economic/political/socio-cultural categories in social
analysis. On the other hand, the many political units/ one economic unit
dichotomy has, as far as I have noticed, not been really challenged. Not
even by Wallerstein, perhaps because the challenge would imply an
"unthinking" of some of the basic premises of the traditional w-s analysis.
Any commets?
Virtually Yours,
Teivo Teivainen
Iberoamerican Research Center
PO Box 4, 00014 University of Helsinki
fax: 358-0-1917940
e-mail: teivo.teivainen@helsinki.fi
phone: 358-0-7734254