Just a short note:
points 1. & 2., concerning "exploitation". It seems to me that this term,
along with its variant forms, is used as if it were an absolute, whereas it
is a culturally, and morally, relative term, as Andrey alludes to:
>Take for example the Roman world-empire of the 2nd cent. CE. The Roman
>center apparently exploited the provinces through taxes. But did the
>provinces get anything in return for their taxes. Yes they did. E.g. the
>level of safety and stability incomparable with any pre-imperial situation,
>incredibly improved communication infrastructure &c &c. Did all this cost
>the taxes? Maybe, yes. Maybe, not. Up to my knowledge nobody has >ever
shown how the value of the taxes and the value of the "state >services"
could be really rigourously compared.
An example of just such an analysis, considering the Athenian Thalassocracy,
is presented by John Adams ("The Institutional Theory of Trade and the
Organization of Intersocial Commerce in Ancient Athens", ch. 4 in From
Political Economy to Anthropology, Colin M. Duncan and David W. Tandy
(eds.), Black Rose Books, 1994, Montreal).
Possibly, a better term/concept to use, rather than exploitation, would be
the greek term "imperium". While the term has come to connotean "empire" in
English, this is actually a somewhat misleading meaning. "Sphere of
influence" would be a better translation, and would certainly seem to have a
better fit with WS theory on the whole. "Exploitation", on the other hand,
would require the development of a theory of moral action that was
defensible and consistent across human cultures. And, while it is certainly
possible to construct such a theory, I fully suspect that it would be
emotionally repulsive to many people.
>3. [snip]... if there was any exploitation in the South
>Arabian - Mediterranean relations, it was the exploitation of the
>Mediterranean core by the South Arabian periphery, but not the other
>way round. However, one should not exclude the "non-exploitative"
>interpretation here either.
Good point, and both would "fit". It seems to me that core-periphery =
exploiter-exploited equation is only one of a number of possible symbiotic
relationships. There is also the interesting pattern of peripheral cultures
using core states as a source of income/population reduction. Examples of
this type of interaction would include the use of German tribesmen as
legionaires in the Roman Empire, the Varangian Guards of Byzantium, and the
French "Scottish" Regiments.
>4. The "capital-accumulation" assumption of the WST looks for me as a
>much more sound, much less shaky one. However, one doubts why the
>capital accumulation should nessesarily imply exploitation. If we
>use with Ekholm&Friedman "the word 'capital' to refer to the form of
>absract wealth represented in the concrete form of metal or even
>money that can be accumilated in itself and converted into other
>forms of wealth" (1993 /1982/: 68), why capital accumilation could
>not be conducted through the systematic equal exchange of "other forms >of
wealth" and services in return for the "abstract wealth"?
A good point, and one noted by Sahlins (Stone Age Economics) in regard to
reciprocity systems. I suspect that at the root of this problem is a
reification of the concept of "capital". If capital is "abstract wealth"
then their is no necessity that it have a material form. Indeed, if by
"wealth" we include in the meaning a sense of "power to shape the
perceptible world", then the status accumulated in reciprocity exchanges
such as the Kula Ring and the Potlatch are forms of capital accumulation.
If we assume that capital is a scarce commodity, then the "exploitative"
position is the only logical ("rational") interpretation. If, however, we
assume that capital may also be a non-scarce commodity, then "exploitation",
as a strategy for capital accumulation, is non-sensical. In effect, the
first position assumes the position that the world operates in an economy of
scarcity, while the second assumes that some parts of the world operate in
an economy of abundance - a position that appears to apply much more to both
reciprocity systems of exchange and the development of the knowledge economy.
>5. Incidentally, I have just received
>(from Marc W.D. Tyrrell [mwtyrrel@ccs.carleton.ca])
> a rather interesting suggestion on the possible ways of the WST
>reconstruction which I cannot avoid quoting:
Thanks <grin>.
Marc
Marc W.D. Tyrrell
Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
7th Floor, Loeb Building,
Carleton University, Vox: (613) 236-4349
1125 Colonel By Drive, Fax: (613) 520-4062
Ottawa, Ontario email: mwtyrrel@ccs.carleton.ca
Canada K1S 5B6
Centre for Online Studies International
http://www.carleton.ca/~hbromber/cosi.html