On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Richard K. Moore wrote:
> The first program in this array was the division of the world into three
> distinct partitions: the socialist (demarcated by the "Iron Curtain"), the
> core (Western Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan [?]) and
> the periphery (ie, the Third World). [wsn readers: exactly how should I
> attribute the core-periphery terminology? And need I apologize for my
> usage/ interpretation?]
The core-periphery thing probably stems from Immanuel Wallerstein, though
don't quote me on this -- he may have borrowed it from someone else. I'm
not sure, however, that the typology quite holds up for the case of East
Asia and Central Europe; these zones of the world economy were 10-20% as
wealthy per capita as America in 1950, and were a motley collection of
burnt-out war-ravaged economies. I think Wallerstein talks somewhere about
the "semi-periphery", which can either rise a la Japan and South Korea in
the global food chain, or deteriorate a la Britain and Argentina. You
could also argue that whereas multinational corporations and global
financial markets are clearly the hegemonic social forces in the
Anglo-Saxon countries, things are trickier in the EU and East Asia, where
global integration seems to be taking a far more nuanced, complicated
path. Why have an EU at all if corporations already rule the world? Well,
the answer is, the EU isn't just about corporate power, it's also about
extending democracy and the reach of the welfare state onto a dangerously
(from capital's point of view) or emancipatory (if you're a Leftie)
transnational level.
My own suspicion is that, barring major political changes, the US may well
lose its "core" status in the medium-term future, due to the rise of the
euro, more efficient East Asian coordination, and the generalized
neoliberal decadence of what used to be the American Empire, and become
a very large but declining semi-periphery. But maybe that's too
pessimistic; maybe Microsoft and Silicon Valley will somehow pay for our
trade deficits and invest in our schools after all. Ya gotta dream!
-- Dennis