Re: Which Marxism?

> it is neo-smithian, if implicitly, not explicitly, because it emphasizes
> "trade" ,not necessarily "class" , as a dynamic force in the expansion
> and consolidation of the capitalist world economy. note that Wallerstein
> puts the emphasis on capitaism as a "world economy" not  necessarily a
> "mode of production". although they go hand in hand, it is a question if
> they occured simultaneoulsy.

People need to read IW carefully before criticizing it (or citing others who
mistakenly critcize it).  Class, states, relations of production, are all
there in IW!
And the emphasis is not on economy!  From the very first pages of WS 1,
there
is a strong emphasis on the states, and the forms of production that make up
and explain the world division of labor.  If you take states as units of
analysis (which
is incorrect from a WS perspective), then you need to justify it in terms of
the economy and polity (historical casality of social change).

There are criticisms to be made of IW's theory (which must be distinguished
from the ws perspective), but these aren't the convincing ones.

> on the other hand,wallerstein suggests that  capitalism would be
> impossible in a closed economy. it needed commercial relations among
> states in order to survive. according to his argument, the capitalist
> world economy came into being in the 17th century, in a fully developed
> form, when the United Provinces emerged as a first hegemonic capitalist
> state in pursuit of expansion and colonial domination.

IW argues that capitalism as a social system emerged 1450-1550, and the
short article "The three paths..." explain the division of labor in which
the
class relations of the second serfdom in Poland were created as part of the
systems division of labor.  Given the fact of the division of labor, this is
much
more convincing than focusing only on conditions in Poland -- indeed, how
did
a "Poland" as a nation-state come into being except as part of the
world-system?

> arrighi even goes much further in his book _The Long 20th century_ ,
> tracing the origns of capitalism to italian city states (genoa and venice
> merchant classes) in the 13th century.

> my problem with the above narratives is that (except Kula), they take
> _countries_ as units of analysis, despite their claims to the contrary. it
> does not tell us anything about how capitalism _came into being_ as a
> historically unique mode of production. there is too much stress on
> external dynamics of capitalism(trade) but very little emphasis on
> internal dynamics such as urban-rural relations, local class structures,
> peasent economy,etc.. i still buy the classical marxist argument defended,
> actually, by Marx himself.

The above terminology is confused: for IW and others, states are not the
units of
analysis (though they are often units of observation).  The unit of analysis
is the society
-- the world-system.  Capitalism is the entire system, not simply the
wage-labor
form of production (which was first predominant in the system in agriculture
in
western Europe, England above all).

Second, there is a long debate about "external" vs "internal" known as the
Dobb-Sweezy
debate.   IW and others superceded it by showing that (AGAIN) a DIVISION
OF LABOR, hence the boundaries of states, are not the boundaries of the
system.  Indeed,
the states are a product of the system.   One can't presume states were
there all along, as natural phenomenon.

Third, as for Marx, it is true that WS is different, but read IW's peice,
"Marx and
Underdevelopment" and note how Marx explained, for example, that without
slavery,
there would be no factories in England.  Marx was focused on factory
wage-labor
because he thought the revolutionary class would emerge from it.  But he
never
completed his analysis, which developed in the direction from abstaction to
historical concreteness, from England to the entire system, from the 1850s
to
1450s.