> Dear Colleagues: if there have indeed been too many personal attacks
> recently, and not enough discussion of real WSN issues, then I hope the
> following short text will provoke some response, either to me or to the
> network.
I am completely with Pearson, I do agree there have indeed been too
many personal attacks (and newspaper talk)
recently, and not enough discussion of real WSN issues. I think
Pearson has completely succeded in drawing our attention precisely
to real WSN issues raising most pressing question of reconstructing
the traditional world system approach which looks now more and
more defective, especially clearly with the treatment of the pre-Modern
intersocietal communiction networks (and of course [though it appears
a bit less self-evident] with respect to the Modern one). Pearson
paper calls again for the substitution of the primitive and simplistic
core - s/periphery-periphery scheme with more sophisticated and
appropriate categories, or at least for a radical reconstruction of
these categories.
To what have been said by Pearson I could add another example -
South Arabia as a part of the world system of the end of the 1st
mil.BC - the beginning of the 1st mil.CE. No doubt it was an integral
part of the system (just remember the Hadramis introducing in the
far-away Dhofar the second
frankinsence harvest in order to raise its yields to be sold at the
Mediterranean markets). It of course could not
be considered as the system core (it seems evident, but if anyone
wants I could present my arguments). But it rather exploited the core
rather than was exploited, incedentally, using any of the criteria
mentioned by Craig Harris:
1) "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 . . . "
But as is evidenced by Strabo and Pliny the Elder, the
"Mediterraneans" were just sure that they paid for the South Arabian
spices much more than their real cost. And what is more, I belive
they were not completely wrong, as they dealt with real monopoly
prices (and I could present evidence for that too).
2) "If a consequence of the activities of the world system was the
> degradation of some local system, then that local system was a part
(I assume a periphery part? - A.K.)
> of the world system."
It seems possible to argue that the inclusion of South Arabian into
the world system (apparently at the end of the 2nd mil.BC - for
detail see e.g.my "Ancient Yemen". Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1995) did not lead to any degradation however you would define it.
Actually it led to the emergence of the South Arabian civilization
and rapid development in all possible areas (fed to a considerable
extent by the "exploitation" of the "core").
To summarize my brief argument (or rather introduction to real
argument) I just find the traditional world
system categories and approaches completely inapproprite to deal
with the material I
work with and completely support the call (inherent in Perason's
paper) for the radical reconstruction of the WS theory. Hence,
instead of discussing secondary parapolitical points basing ourselves
on the assumption that the WS theory is something finally proved and
established and it could be considered a firm ground to discuss
anything it seems more appropriate to think if this ground is really
firm, if it is safe to discuss anything on it. May be it is more
reasonable to create such a ground first?
P.S. I would not like anyone to think that what was said could be
only relevant for exotic old times - take e.g. the modern Arabian oil
exporting countries exploiting the "core" ones.
Andrey Korotayev, Senior Research Fellow
Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
12 Rozhdestvenka, Moscow 103753, Russia
ANDREI@RSUH.RU