A cynic might interpret Al Bergesen's comments as saying that
capitalism is an ideological hoax perpetuated on all of us by
Karl Marx.
Good thing I am not a cynic, because my own understanding of Frank,
Gills, Abu-Lughod, Chase-Dunn, Hall, Modelski, Thompson and others is
that they have made a tremendous contribution to world-system theory
by demonstrating the utility of its concepts for understanding pre-
1500 world history. This is exactly the type of contribution that
demonstrates a vibrant perspective that is exanding its focus. Any
such expansion is going to generate debates over concepts and
evidence, or else it is not really saying anything new. I was going
to outline my own interpretation, but I found that I agreed with most
all of what Tom Hall had to say in an earlier post. While I would
quibble here and there, he did a better job of explaining what I
believe than I could.
Instead, I want here to challenge Gunder, Al, and others from within
their own perspective. That is, let us assume that an Afroeurasian
("A") system existed 2-5000 years prior to 1500, and that it is a
system in the full sense of the term. That is the A system has a
division of labor and a set of trends and cycles that have strong
effects on its constitutient parts. Does if follow from
these assumptions that the A system CAUSED the rise of Europe to
world dominance, as opposed to the rise being caused by factors
within the European subsystem? Further, does it follow that the
changes wrought by the rise of Europe were unexceptional, such that
we should not consider the 1500-1650 changes a transformation of the
system?
While I have read much of Gills and Frank, and others, I have not yet
read Frank's unpublished book. So in answering both questions I can
only offer my own understanding of how world-systemic cycles work
(drawing heavily on Modelski and Thompson's, _Leading Sectors and
World Powers_ and my own work). The claim is that the rise of Europe
is just one more unexceptional rise in a 2-5000 year economic cycle
of rising and falling areas. In short, areas rise because states and
firms develop innovations to get them out of a long economic
stagnation. The innovations produce a leading economic sector of
high value and capital accumulation. Areas fall because others copy
them and because they become entrenched in their own innovations,
giving an advatage of "backwardness" for the next innovation.
In 1450+, the A system was in a long stagnation, especially the
peripheral penninsula known as Europe. The "backward" Europeans had
an advantage in that they were less entrenched in the much more
developed Asian core of the system. They developed a series of
innovations that produced a huge boom in the system around 1500-1650,
and eventually lead to European dominace after 1800+. The innovations
included maritime trades to replace the 5000 year old silk routes,
slow cheap ships protected in convoys by state sponsered pirates,
racist slave systems, corporate risk sharing, venture banking, and
profit maximising firms (even the damn pirates started seeking
investors by posting profit margins from their raids). Let's call
this set of innovations "C."
All of this fits the logic of an A system theory and none of it is
eurocentric as it recognizes that Europe had long been a "periphery"
to an Asian core. What it does not do, and cannot do, is say that the
A system caused the "C" innovations in Europe. No theory of long
economic cycles makes such a claim. There is no causal mechanism in
the cycle itself. On the contrary, while cyclic dynamics dictate
that development is uneven, they cannot dictate what the next set of
innovations will be. Some areas are more or less advantaged, but
sometimes leading sectors are even located in the same place as the
last set, which is what drives the cycle of world leadership and
hegemony. What cannot happen is for an area to rise if the leading
economic sectors are concentrated outside that same area. It just
cannot work. As such, the "C" innovations had to be developed within
Europe if they were part of a long cycle in the A system.
The 16th century Europeans were not alone in developing many of the
innovations, some were Roman laws reused, others were reproduced in
Japan and elsewhere. Nor does innovation imply superiority. Some of
the innovations were accidents (i.e., Columbus). But that simply
does not matter. What does matter is that in this area at this time,
Europe in 1500-1650, states and firms put together the "C" set of
innovations that allowed them to rise to world dominance.
Turnign to the second question, did "C" result in a transformation
of the system in 1500- 1650? As Thompson pointed out, the answer
depends in part on one's threshold of how much change constituties a
transformation. In some ways, every cycle of innovations must be
fundamental enough to cause a long expansion, shift the location of
leading economic sectors, pay for major wars, enable a state to
become a world leader and hegemon, and so on. Economic cycles that
are entailed with hegemonic cycles have bigger effects, and thus get
names like the "industrial revolution" or the current "information
revolution." To argue that we should use a different name for the
whole system after some point, like say 1650, means that the change
wrought at that time affected the logic of how the system operates
and has lasted ever since.
In some ways, assuming a pre-existing A system, makes the importance
and extent of change in 1500-1650 all the more stunning.
Afroeurasion tade, especially the silk routes, were the main link
between Europe and Asia for 1000s of years, and the dynamics of that
trade network is the heart of the argument that Europe and Asia were
part of a single A system. Therefore, by the logic of an A system
theory, it should follow that a fundamental change in the
Afroeuroasian trade consitutes a fundamental change in the A system.
I think, that the replacement of a 5000 year old silk road trading
network, controled by a series of intermediary states, with a
maritime network 10 times the size, controled by capitalist
merchants and now including the Americas, is a fundamental change
in the system. Moreover, and most importantly, the way those
capitalist merchants organized their business in 1500-1650 becomes the
basic structure of how most all business is organized ever since. If
that is not considered a transformation of the system, then it seem to
me that A system theorists are incapable of recognizing any
transformation.
I think we must conclude that even if one accepts that there was a
2- 5000 year old A system prior to 1500 in which Europe was a minor
actor, the origins of capitalism in Europe and the importance of
capitalism for world history are unaffected. If anything, the change
is even more phenomenal if a prior system had lasted 5000 years.
Perhaps Frank or Bergesen have a new theory of economic cycles that
does not rely on innovations and leading sectors. And perhaps, they
can explain how the change of most all economic activity to a
capitalist form is unexceptional. But demonstrating that there was a
prior A system alone will not do the trick.
Thanks for reading this far,
TB
and that this rise
Terry Boswell
Department of Sociology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322