Dear World System Net Discussants,
There has been an exchange of views between Gunder, Terry
Boswell, Al and others on central issues of definition in world
system theory, versus world-system theory. Terry has called for
definitional clarity, agreement on concepts, and an empirical
resolution to certain questions. The difference a hyphen makes is
quite significant and was precisely intended by us to do so when we
dropped the hyphen back in 1990. We have been working in the World
Historical Systems Group of ISA since 1989 to promote dialogue and
joint research among those scholars interested in understanding
processes of long term large scale social change. We did not set out
to achieve a unity of theoretical perspective amongst the membership
nor did we achieve any such unity. When we attempted to seriously
address the question of definitions and concepts among ourselves at
the conference in Lund, Sweden, we decided that consensus on
definitions and concepts was not possible. What we opted for was a
set of processes in world history that we could all subscribe to and
which could form the basis of a common research interest, if not a
programme.
This being the case, I do not think it is appropriate or useful
to try to do what Terry is suggesting in the way that he is
suggesting it. That is, I do not accept the proposal to judge the
world system theory (without a hyphen) of Frank and Gills by the
standards and criteria of the world-system theory (with a hyphen)
of Immanuel Wallerstein (with all respect). The upshot of Terry's
comments is that our world system theory becomes a special theory for
pre-1500 world history, and that thereafter we should accept that
the world system was transformed into a world-system, based on the
criteria for integration in 'necessities' as established in
Wallerstein's framework. One of our fundamental points of difference
with Wallerstein from the beginning ('The Cumulation of Accumulation'
Dialectical Anthropology 1990) was that we rejected both his
criterion of trade in 'daily necessities' (as some others had
already done before us) and instead created a formulation based on
the regular and significant exchange of surplus between areas or
zones of production, which involved their producing classes and their
elites in a mutual social relation. This was also different from
David Wilkinson's criteria that systemic conflict interaction was
necessary. We posited an 'economy/polity contradiction' instead,
whereby the real economic system of a political jurisdiction (such as
a state or even an 'empire') normally exceeds the area of the
polity or state proper, and Wilkinson refined this by adding that the
'economy leads the flag' in the historic process. We also rejected
Wallerstein's criteria of integration, as I said above, since we had
a very different way of defining the systemic in the first place. In
my view, this is inded an interesting empirical question, but not in
the strict temporal dichotomisation that Terry suggests- ie the
conventional world-system view that world economic history is defined
fundamentally by the rupture between the pre-1500 system
and a post 1500 'capitalist' one. I think there is quite good reason
to investigate the degree to which so-called 'daily necessities' were
in fact widely traded even in the ancient world economy. This also
turns on how one defines such commodities. Certainly metals, pottery,
vegetable oil, grain, slaves, were traded widely in the ancient world
economy, though one needs to clarify the logistical limits of such
trade circuits obviously, and compare them to longer distance
circuits of trade in very high value goods, such as jems ans spices.
Chase-Dunn and Hall have done excellent work on trying to model the
overlap of different kinds of exchange networks, but in an
overarching framework of the world economy which certainly doies not
revert to the world-system method of chopping up each civilisational
region of the world into separate world-economies. Gunder and I
debated head on with Wallerstein and Palat on this issue in Review
(special isue) in 1992 in the '1700 BC 1700 AD paper on world system
cycles and hegemonic shifts. Gunder has further extended this
argument, following a joint paper we did while he was visiting
professor here at Newcastle in 1994 on "Asian hegemony", where we
argued that contra Wallerstein and Palat's insistence that the Indian
Ocean, and China both constituted separate world economies in the
16th century, that they were both already long integrated into the
world system, and moreover, ASIA was hegemonic in that system from
1450-1750,, and NOT Europe. It was my task to formulate a model of a
'multi-core' world system, in which there are usually several
contending core areas, ratyher than the 'uni-core' world-system
model. Thus, Frank and Gills talk about 'hegemony-rivalry' rather
differently from Wallerstein, and we defined hegemony quite
differently. We had a discussion of this 'hegemony' issue at ISA a
few years ago, which was partly published in the Mershon Review. We
could reach no consensus on the definition of the concept, and indeed
some of us ( David Wilkinson, George Modelski) were quite adamant
about the limitations of that concept full stop. The rest of us,
including Arrighi and Robert Cox, seemed to concede that 'hegemony'
was an exception rather than a rule if by hegemony one meant a moment
or even an era where only a single core-state truly dominated the
world economically and politically.
As to the question of capitalism, I think Gunder said it well
when he argued that this concept is more ideological than
social-scientific, which also goes for fuedalism and for socialism
as well. I resisted this argument at first, but eventually came to
agree with it on the whole. However, I have said before that the
issue rests on the lack of proper distinction between 'capital' (as
Ekholm and Friedman define it in their seminal Review article
reproduced in The World System (Frank and Gills 1993) ie
abstract wealth, with command over labour power, and the much more
totalising concept (and prone to reification) of 'capitalism, which I
belive we owe to Werner Sombart and not to Marx in any event. I have
argied consistently that 'capital' has existed and been central to
world system economic development since the beginning, and it was
precisely this argument that was the crux of the first jont article
I penned with Gunder "The Cumulation of Accumulation'. If you now
try to say we can 'reconcile' the difference between Frank and Gills
world system theory in which capital and capital accumulation are
central from the beginning circa 2500 BCE (or earlier) and
Wallerstein wherein capital accumulation doesn't figure significantly
until the 16th century I am bounfd to say you are barking up the
wrong tree Terry! I do think AL formulated it well in one of his
recent comments on Eurocentrism, ie Europe was already a part of the
world system before 1500 (but in a fairly 'peripheral' position.
There was already thriving capital accumulation in that system- as
Abu-Lughod has so brilliantly demonstrated. The debate over the
'merchant capital' class in my view is imprisoned inan outmoded
frmaeowrk of analysis derived from Marxism. If one reads Before
European Hegemony more carefully, one may note that fundamental
aspects of later Wert European capitalist institutions and practices,
both in finance and in business contract, where innovated in the
ancient and early medieval world , probably in what we now call the
Middle East, and certainly Arab commercial practices were quite a
direct model for 'Italian' capitalist practices. So where and when
did 'capitalism' arise?? Braudel suspects the 13th century or
earlier, Abu-Lughod implies an Islamic capitalist commerical core
of early medieval vintage, etc. Trying to say that the world system
becomes the world-system because it becomes for the first time truly
'capitalism' once Europe is hegemonic is perhaps no more nor less
than another way of trying to salvage something of the grand
narrative of the rise of Europe that I thought most of us were ready
to reject. There is another way of doing it.
With respect.
Barry K. Gills
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
England