Carolyn,
Typical Proyect vulgarity. What Wallerstein argues is that, although there
may be proto-capitalist practices and ideas that correspond to those
practices in all (or most) civilizations, other political-economic-
cultural practices and ideas keep the tendency towards capitalistic
relations in check or defeat them. What allowed capitalism to take hold in
the European context, then, was a historical-conjunctural relative absence
of other political-economic-cultural practices to keep capitalist
tendencies at bay. The logic of this argument is identical to the logic of
control theory, where we don't necessarily explain why crime happened in
context A, but more why crime *didn't* happen in context B, C, D, E, etc..
But I admit I don't have Wallerstein's piece in front of me, and that is
just what I gleaned from the passages quoted. Although it seems rather
obvious the form of logic here (and it is problematic).
Despite whatever we think of the logic of this argument, Proyect's problem
with Wallerstein's discussion to "ethos," "values," and "practices," is
misplaced. The capitalist ethos is part of the overall structure of
capitalism. One would expect the ethos to be widespread if the system it
emerges from is also widespread. At worst, Wallerstein's argument is
tautological. But it does not suffer from the supposed deficit Proyect
says it does in the context of "base-superstructure," a model Proyect has
never really understood (and therefore cannot help but vulgarize). One
must also contextualize Proyect's aversion to any explanations that
permits culture and ideology to play a role to recent argument he has made
on other subjects (e.g., the Holocaust).
Andy