i want to accept michael pearson's invitation to a discussion on the
delineation of world economies before capitalism . . .i agree that east africa
provides a fruitful venue for the examination of the question . . . my concern
is not with the details of the exchange (e.g., ivory, textiles); that is very
well covered by pearson and others . . . instead my concern is with the
analytical use of exploitation . . . on the one hand pearson's point is well
taken: even if in every other social context x is worth ten times as much as
y, if people in context a think x is worth less than y, then it can be argued
that one has not exploited the people in context a if one has traded their x
for others y . . . this is the starting point of classical economics and
arbitrage systems . . . but my purpose is to raise what i see as an underlying
question: does the fact that the people of a are happy with the exchange mean
that no exploitation has taken place . . . i would argue that the answer is no
for at least two possible reasons . . . one reason can be seen in the ivory .
.. . even if the east africans placed little value on the ivory and viewed the
elephants as a nuisance, harvesting elephants and ivory beyond some level of
sustainable yield would be exploiting the ecological system, because
harvesting above sustainable yield would be gradually eliminating the
elephants from the system and thus (presumably) diminishing the
complexity/stability of the ecological system . . . a second reason is
outlined by pearson for cloth . . . even if the east africans placed little
value on their own cloth, trading other goods for imported cloth would be
exploiting the social system, because it would be gradually eliminating the
industrial productive capacity from the system . . . it seems to me that a
broader view of what constitutes exploitation is needed . . . what these two
examples seem to me to point to is the notion that extracting value from a
system in way that does not permit the reproduction or regeneration of that
system, needs to be encompassed in a view of exploitation . . . given this
view, i would suggest that wherever in east or central africa one might have
been located, if a consequence of the activities of the world system was the
degradation of some local system, then that local system was a part of the
world system
cheers,
craig harris
craig k harris
dept of sociology michigan state university east lansing michigan
48824-1111
tel: 517-355-5048 fax: 517-432-2856