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rbert Spencer's Evolutionary
Sociology Immanuel Wallerstein | |
Wallerstein’s World-Systems
Theory
By Frank W. Elwell
Marx’s legacy in social theory does not lie in his predictions of future
utopias but rather in his analyses of the workings and contradictions of
capitalism. Within contemporary sociology this tradition is very much
alive in world-systems analysis, a perspective developed by Immanuel
Wallerstein in the 1970s. According to Wallerstein, the modern nation
state exists within a broad economic, political, and legal framework
which he calls a “world-system.” Just as individual behavior cannot be
understood without reference the sociocultural system in which they are
members, individual societies or nation states cannot be understood
without reference to the world-system in which they are embedded.
Modern nation states are all part of the world-system of capitalism, and
it is this world-system that Wallerstein seeks to understand.
Wallerstein believes that there are only three basic types of social
systems.
The first he terms as “mini-systems,” these are the small, homogenous
societies studied by anthropologists. Hunting and gathering, pastoral,
and simple horticultural societies are relatively self-contained
economic units, producing all goods and services within the
sociocultural system itself. The second type of social system
is a “world-empire.” This system has an economy that is based on
the extraction of surplus goods and services from outlying districts.
Much of this tribute goes to pay for the administrators who extract it
and for the military to ensure continued domination, the rest
goes to the political rulers at the head of the empire. The third type
of social system, according to Wallerstein, is the world-economies.
Unlike world-empires, the world-economies have no unified political
system; nor is its dominance based on military power alone. However,
like a world-empire, a world-economy is based on the extraction of
surplus from outlying districts to those who rule at the center.
From the start, Wallerstein argues, capitalism has had a division of
labor that encompassed several nation states. The capitalist
world-system began in Europe in about 1500 and under the spur of the
accumulation of capital, expanded over the next few centuries to cover
the entire globe. In the process of this expansion the capitalist world
system has absorbed small mini-systems, world-empires, as well as
competing world-economies. The capitalist world-economy was created by
establishing long-distance trade in goods and linking production
processes worldwide, all of which allowed the significant accumulation
of capital in Europe. But these economic relationships were not created
in a vacuum. The modern nation state was created in Europe along with
capitalism to serve and to protect the interests of the capitalists.
What was in the interest of early European capitalists was the
establishment of a world-economy based on an extremely unequal division
of labor between European states and the rest of the system. Also in the
interest of early European capitalists was the establishment of strong
European states that had the political and military power to enforce
this inequality.
For Wallerstein, the capitalist world-economy is a mechanism of surplus
appropriation that is both subtle and efficient. It relies upon the
creation of surplus through constantly expanding productivity.
It extracts this surplus for the benefit of the elite through the
creation of profit. The capitalist world-system is based on a two-fold
division of labor in which different classes and status groups are given
differential access to resources within nation states; and the different
nation states are given differential access to goods and services on the
world market. Both types of markets, those within and those between
nation states, are very much distorted by power. Wallerstein divides the capitalist world-economy into three areas:
The peripheral areas are the least developed; they are exploited by the
core for their cheap labor, raw materials, and agricultural production.
The semi-peripheral areas are somewhat intermediate, being both
exploited by the core and take some role in the exploitation of the
peripheral areas. In the recent past they have been expanding their
manufacturing activities particularly in products that core nations no
longer find very profitable. The core states are in geographically
advantaged areas of the world—Europe and North America.
These core states promote capital accumulation internally through tax
policy, government purchasing, sponsorship of research and development,
financing infrastructural development (such as sewers, roads,
airports—all privately constructed but publically financed), and
maintaining social order to minimize class struggle. Core states also
promote capital accumulation in the world-economy itself. These states
have the political, economic, and military power to enforce unequal
rates of exchange between the core and the periphery. It is this power
that allows core states to dump unsafe goods in peripheral nations, pay
lower prices for raw materials than would be possible in a free market,
exploit the periphery for cheap labor, dump in their environment, abuse
their consumers and workforce, erect trade barriers and quotas, and
establish and enforce patents. It is the economic, political, and
military power of the core that allows significant capital to be
accumulated into the hands of the few, the capitalist world-system that
produces and maintains the gross economic and political inequalities
within and between nations.
As with capitalism within nation states, this unequal power between
nation states is not uncontested. It is the subject of struggle. There
are internal contradictions that with the passage of time cause
political and economic instability and social unrest. Eventually,
according to Wallerstein, a world-wide economic crisis will be reached
and the capitalist world-system will collapse, opening the way for
revolutionary change. The coming crisis of capitalism, as predicted by
Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, will be the topic of the next
short-paper. For a more extensive discussion of Wallerstein's theories refer to Macro Social Theory by Frank W. Elwell. Also see Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and Change to learn how his insights contribute to a more complete understanding of modern societies.
References:
Elwell, F. W. 2006. Macrosociology: Four Modern Theorists.
Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
Elwell, F. W. 2009. Macrosociology: The Study of Sociocultural
Systems. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press.
Elwell, F. W. 2013. Sociocultural Systems: Principles of Structure and
Change. Alberta: Athabasca University Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The
Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the
European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic
Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1980. The
Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the
European World-Economy, 1600-1750. New York: Academic Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1989. The
Modern World-System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the
Capitalist World-Economy, 1730-1840. New York: Academic Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1998.
Utopistics: Or, Historical
Choices of the Twenty-first Century. New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1999. The
End of the World as We Know It. Minnesota: The University of
Minnesota Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2000. The
Essential Wallerstein. New York: The New Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2003. The
Decline of American Power. New York: The New Press.
To reference Wallerstein's World-Systems Theory you should use the
following format:
Elwell, Frank W. 2013.
"Wallerstein's World-Systems Theory,"
Retrieved August 31, 2013 [use actual date]
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Essays/Wallerstein1.htm
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