On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Christian Harlow wrote:
> To those i ask a simple question: Why is it
> that the logic of accumulation is said to have been the dominant dynamic
> of the system since the Neolithic revolution?
>
There are those of us, notably Chris Chase-Dunn and myself who argue, and
we also claim the weight of evidence is on our side that the logic of
accumulation has changed significantly at least twice since the
neolithic. While Polanyi's initial argument that there are no markets
until the "modern" capitalist age is clearly wrong, we maintain that
since the rise of states some 5000 years ago tributary mode of
accumulation dominated until late 17th early 18th century in the Low
Countries when the first states became dominated by a form of capitalist
accumulation [note tributary accumulation, accumulates capital, it does
according to a tributary logic].
Within this there have been cycles of movement from multiple to single
centers. So the answer to uni- vx. poly-centrism is both, depends on
when, where.
Detailed explications of the above are available in _Rise & Demise_ and a
several of our papers [which can be grabbed via my or Chris's home pages].
While we disagree with Gunder both about keeping the hyphen in
world-system, and that there has NOT been one world-system, but many
since 12000 years ago, and even since 5000 years ago. We continue to
have considerable respect for his arguments.
While I am still formulating my own assessment of _Re-Orient_ [in part
because I have read too many drafts, but not yet the final one], I think
it is an important contribution to our debates, and is full of useful
insights. It should be widely read and widely debated. Gunder deserves
kudos for pulling off an almost one-writer paradigm shift in how we think
about these issues.
Thomas D. [tom] Hall
thall@depauw.edu
Department of Sociology
DePauw University
100 Center Street
Greencastle, IN 46135
765-658-4519
HOME PAGE:
http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm