>
> Given CC-Ds observations on GA's LONG 20th C.(L20C), which I take as a
> kick-off of WSN's planned discussion of the book, I would like to raise two
> questions - one, old and one new.
>
> Old question - Is L20C world-system? Why - or more generally, what does it
> mean to adopt a "w-s" perspectives.
What an excellent question! Does ws==IW? I have seen many critiques
that say something like "according to the world system perspective the
semiperiphery is necessary to the system because the core needs a
buffer. I wish to challenge ws on this point." In other words, WS is so
closely associated with IW that virtually every idea the guy has ever
tossed out is regarded as dogma of 'world system theory.' As I
understand Arrighi's perspective, you learn something by looking at the
whole world that you miss if you look only at the traditional units of
nation states. I believe he regards this as 'world systems' perspective
(but not a theory). It also seems to me that their has always been an
ambiguity in the way the phrase world system is used. In the 16th
century the capitalist world system did not cover the globe. An
autonomous system existed in East Asia. The Ottoman Empire was also
autonomous, as was the Indian Ocean economy. Since then, the capitalist
world system at least appears to have expanded to fill the entire global
space (Whether it does so by killing off these other systems or simply
temporarily submerging them is another question). In any case, It seems
world systems should involve the study of economic/cultural systems
larger than individual political units. I think this is what Arrighi is
doing. I don't see why one has to endorse Kondratieff waves,
core-periphery approaches, or any other elements specific to particular
theorists ways of approaching these systems.
>
>
> CC-D writes:
>
> This is a new world-systemic version of the "stages
> >of capitalism" literature, but in my opinion Arrighi gets
> >it right whereas earlier efforts have missed much that is
> >important in characterizing the evolution of capitalism.
>
> I have my reservations about the terms "stages" and "evolution" - I would
> prefer to see these as "incarnations" instead of "stages" and I am curious
> to what CC-D means by "evolution". I have always read IW as maintaining
> that the system does not "evolve" - it expands and deepens but the basic
> structures function in the same manner. Ergo( for example), there was no
> industrial revolution.
What's wrong with evolution? Aren't all the different life forms studied
by Darwinian evolutionists simply 'incarnations' of the earths biomatter?
>
> >>
> I do have some concerns about the "elegance" of the model. It is
> wonderfully elegant but maybe `too' elegant - too neat, too clean, too
> authoritative, too encompassing - contingency (which is the essential to the
> historical process) `vanishes.' I am not saying that contingency (and
> anomaly) are replaced by determinism but they are (somehow)
> displaced/subsumed to some higher order logic. In a sense, (and I am not
> quite sure how) GA's own observations about "displacing anomalies from the
> field of analysis" in the Introduction to the GEOMETRY OF IMPERIALISM may be
> relevant here.
>
>
The model anticipates financial expansion, material expansion,
competition..But that the Venetians, Geneose, Dutch, English and
Americans were the major players seems to be where historical contingency
comes in..Especially the contingency of being in the right place in the
right time.
Steven Sherman
Binghamton University Sociology
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Carl H.A. Dassbach E-mail: DASSBACH@MTU.EDU
> Dept. of Social Sciences Phone: (906)487-2115
> Michigan Technological University Fax: (906)487-2468
> Houghton, MI 49931 USA
>
>