"World system or world-system?" was the original title of my previous
post. A mishap in our misbegotten computer system was responsible
for the mistake of changing it to "delivery failure." At least
Gunder enjoyed the computer's editing.
I thought some definitional clarity might resolve some of our
differences, and despite claims to the contrary, there were several
significant points of agreement in the rejoinders. Gunder agreed
that the pre-1500 Afroeurasian system was a world system (without
hyphen, i.e., a set actors with meaningful interactions) and not a
world-system (with hyphen, i.e., a densely interacting set of
actors with a division of labor that encompases the basic
neccessities of life of the majority of the population). I do not
know when (or even if) he thinks it became an integrated world-
system (1650?, 1820?, 1989?). More important, however, is agreeing
on the concepts, as resolution now depends on empirical evidence on
the degree of integration and division of labor in the system to say
if and how it changed from one type to the other (or at least
moreso, if we do not get lost in the politics of "centrisms").
If one agrees that the loose Afroeurasian world system became an
integrated world-system, then one needs a theory of transformation
(what I call of the rise of capitalism and no better name has been
suggested). The transformation thus cannot simply be a cycle or
shift in the old A system, as Al seems to claim. In fact, the
empircal story being told by all concerned is of a BREAK in the A
system caused by the Arab intervention in the silk routes and an
EXOGENOUS introduction of the Americas into the equation. Marx, by
the way, was not entirely endogenous as his 'primitive accumulation'
starts with the exogenous introduction of the Americas. But, I agree
with Al about Weber.
If one denies that there was a transformation, then one is left
with the more difficult empircal position of saying that the degree
of integration, division of labor, and penetration into daily lives
of the system is not really different in kind now than it was 500 or
1000 or 5000 years ago. To claim as such, would in effect deny the
difference in the two meanings of the term "system." Once the
difference in the terms is recognised, then it becomes increasingly
difficult to deny the transformation.
As I have said before, knowing more about the long life of the "A"
world system and of the role of China in it, makes the
capitalist transformation all that more remarkable and important.
However much I disagree on other matters, for me, the work of Frank
and others is a tremendous contribution on that score and to
demonstrating the expanded utility of world(-)system theory. So much
so, that Al's long sought for paradigmic shift may have already
ocurred. That is a topic I would like to shift to and hear from
others about.
And if so, what is the source
and development of the modern world-system out of the ancient world
system?
the degree of integration and extent of a division of
labor
He
has also agreed that pre-1500 Europe was not capitalist. He may
think that there is no such thing as capitalism, but that is at least
more easily r
Date sent: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 16:47:39 -0500 (EST)
Send reply to: agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca
From: "A. Gunder Frank" <agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: eurocentrism
Originally to: Albert J Bergesen <albert@U.Arizona.EDU>
THAT = what Bergensen says = is what I have been trying to say,
first in my 1991 critique of Wallerstein [reprinted in Frank & Gills 1993]
then in my 1994/95 critique of Braudel and Wallerstein [eg. in Sanderson
ed. 1995] and now at much greater length and not limited to the CRITIQUE
of received theory from Marx Weber to Wallerstein [and Frank!], bur
extending to offering an ALTERNATIVE, which is also not limited to showing
that Asia did OK [as Bergesen correctly attributes to me] -- indeed did
MORE and BETTER until 1800 - but offering a WORLD economic analyis of
why the East "declined" and the West "rose" [cyclically=temporarily!]
and HOW they did so IN RELATION to each other, both as part and parcel of
a truly WORLD SYSTEM [NO hypen!] structure and dynamic, which far exceeds
in time and space the Wallersteinian "capitalist" "modern world-system"
[with a hyphen]. Only Bergesen and his literally literary skills say it
much better and much shorter! [When my son Paulo was 15 years old, he said
in one sentence what it took me several books to TRY to say: "If Latin
America was colonial, it could NOT have been feudal." In "our"
terminology, it could not have been feudal if it was part and parcel of
the "world-system." We [ I dunno if at the age of 33 Paulo now
wants to or not, but apparently Bergesen and I are doing so] might
extend the same idea/wording to read "IF EUROPE WAS PART OF THE WORLD
SYSTEM, IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN "capitalist." Much less could Europe have
been the locus/inventor of "capitalism"!
Happy Pearl Harbor Day!! - reflect on that!!!
Gunder Frank
n Sat, 7 Dec 1996,
Albert J Bergesen wrote:
> Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 12:34:51 -0700 (MST)
> From: Albert J Bergesen <albert@U.Arizona.EDU>
> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: Re: eurocentrism
>
> 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
>
Terry Boswell
Department of Sociology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322