Khay Jin and WSNers: What intrigues me at least with the idea of
something of system, or
society, or trade web, or world economy that is broader than east or west,
that includes both, is the impication that has for classic social theory,
and particularly Marx and Weber. The interest, then, is about the
possibilities of a larger and longer web of east west ties than previously
built into theories of capitalist development, the rise of the west,
modernization, etc. There is a lot more to Marx/Weber than their
separation of things western (capitalist relations of production, or
protestat ethic rationalism) from things eastern (asiatic mode of
production, traditionalism) but it has become a central taken for granted
assumption, or received knowledge, about the world. I guess the
appearance of economic dynamics in east asia today along with the years
that have passed since the initial formulation by Marx and Weber have led
to a growing questioning of some of their basic paradigmatic assumptions.
>From this point of view I am the one doing the rarified analysizing,
pulling out only certain parts of a rich body of thought to make only
certain points. And from the ponit of view of your research in the
village all this does seem pretty thin. I won't disagree.
But a simplification is, I think, somewhat necessary to get the the heart
of things, or of paradigms, and maybe it is an oversimplification or even
a distortion that is necessary for one to leave one paradigm and propose
another. I think of Marx's Robinsoe Caruso story to make fun of classical
economic models. It was say overdrawn. Martin Luther's writings are often
like a crazy mad man making all sorts of wild charges about the Pope and
the church. Here, I think, at the end of the 20th century, haveing been
saddled with the assumptions of Marx and Weber and all their descendants
who have really only modifed and not replaced their basic outlooks, we, of
thoretical bent in professional social science, are looking for a new
framework, a new way of seeing things. What Gunder contributes is, among
many things, is to present before us just a slice of the facts and
realities of Chinese/Indian/Arabic economic activity, institutions, etc.
that operated just fine and were not sloth-like, traditional, steeped in
tradion, lacking innovation, and all the other things that are part of
most all macro level social science thinking from Marx/Weber to Polanyi
throughWittfogel to even Wallerstein (where it is in Europe, and from European
crisises, that the world system emerges to spread elsewhere and
incorporate others into this world economic system). Europe was already
part of a world system--it did not create one.
And the issue really becomes paradigmatic. You know, one can see the
ancient near east, the early modern west, or 1500-1800 China/Asia as
separate systems, or as hegemonic centers of one humanocentric system.
The center could have been in the ancient hear east, then China/India,
then Europe/North America and now back to China/Japan/East Asia. That is
a different perspective than seeing these as separate systems which rise
and fall because of their own internal dynamics. And that is the key
theoretical point being implicitly raised: the rise of the west is the
rise of capitalism is the rise of the capitalist mode of production from
the feudal mode of production is the story Marx tells. Everything is
endogenous to the West. For Weber the reply or counter is still
intra-west: it is that the rise of the west is the rise of rationalism is
the rise of protestantism is a change in western religious systems is,
therefore, endogenous to the west. So, from a global point of view Marx
and Weber are the same--endogenists. Wallerstein was supposedly a world
system, but where did it come from: again endogenistic origin--the crisis
of feudalism in the west led it to reach out to the rest of the world.
So, from Marx to Weber to Wallerstein they differ, of course, but they are
also the same in that they all believe in the endogenous nature of
fundamental change in the west that led to its altered state in the world.
Standing against this position is the new paradigm that has the west
already in an alrready existing world system--the afroeurasian long term
world economy. So, from this assumption (i) Europle/the west could not be
the origin of the world-system, for it already existed; (ii) change in the
west did occur, yes, but since it was part of a larger system that must be
factored in to understand the change that took place, and (iii) that
change may actually be a consequence, not a cause, of changes in the
largher encompassing afroeurasian world economy. Therefore (iv) the
distinctiveness or exceptionalism of the west AS THE ORIGIN OF ITS RISE is
probably not so, for those differences (if they do exist and there is a
debate here) are probably the CONSEQUENCE of changes within the
afroeurasian system as a whole. Global systemic change led to the shift
in centers, or the few hundred year ascendence of the west, and global
system ic changes are leading to the return of centerness to Asia.
This is not to say that during those years there wasn't colonialism, or
pain, conquest, control exerted by Europe over the rest of the
world--thats a fact. But surges of peoples, conquests, terror has gone
bacvk and forth across parts of the world, and it may very well be that
with technological development the European expansion was more severe than
others prior--although arguments about the Huns and Mongols could be made.
But looking to the future, and lets assume an Asian dominated 21st century
who is to say that the use of weapons there, or holocausts there, will not
lead to things being done that were not done before, and for the 21st
century to be considered the most brutal yet. Is that Asians? Was 19th
century colonialism, 20th century nuclear war and holocaust European?
Yes. But it is also the world historical system with power centere in
different parts and being exercised by those parts. I don't want to
dismiss responsibioity for what was done, but the world continues to
unfold and what will be done will have to wait and be seen.
So, that is some of the reasoning behind this disquiet with
Marx/Weber/Wallerstein. It is some of the reasoning behind this search
for a broader view and for some social science paradigm that closes the
east west divide. Not to eliminate the differencesw that are there, but
to better understand the interconnectedness that has been there and to try
and grasp the effects it may have had upon the way to have lived.
Theorizing capitalism by Marx and Weber was such an effort at what they
thought was the collective totality in their time. But their totality
only went as far as the west--the east was different in essential belief
and mode of production. The more we know about eastern economies, the
more we know about the actual connections between east and west, about how
the silver from Peru ends up in China, the more we now question the
reality of that divide between the so called capitalist, modernist, west
and the tranditionalist, backwardnest, rest.
Albert Bergesen
Department of Sociology
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721
Phone: 520-621-3303
Fax: 520-621-9875
email: albert@u.arizona.edu