Immanuel Wallerstein. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. Durham
and London: Duke University Press, 2004. xii + 109 pp. Notes, glossary,
bibliography, index. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8223-3431-3; $16.95 (paper),
ISBN 0-8223-3442-9.
Reviewed by: Brian J. McVeigh, Department of East Asian Studies,
University of Arizona.
Published by: H-US-Japan (February, 2005)
World-Systems Theory: Sizing Up the Units of Spatial-Temporal Analysis
Deeply influenced by Karl Marx, Karl Polanyi, and Fernand Braudel,
Wallerstein is one of the best known practitioners of a subdiscipline
that combines sociology with history: world-systems analysis (indeed,
some credit him with forging this disciplinary marriage). Best known for
his three-volume The Modern World-System,[1] Wallerstein was originally
an Africanist who has argued that our current global circumstances must
be analyzed within the context of centuries-long politico-economic
processes that have their origins in the sixteenth century. In the book
under review, Wallerstein summarizes his main contentions.
This book was written for three audiences: the general reader (such as
an undergraduate or a member of the general public); the graduate
student with an interest in the historical social sciences; and the
"experienced practitioner" in the academic world. This book, Wallerstein
makes clear, is an introduction to his thinking, not a summa of his
previous research. The judicious scholar will want to read Wallerstein's
formidable corpus of works in order to appreciate a level of detail and
sophistication that is understandably absent from a highly abbreviated
introductory text, that given its contents, is actually a work about
methodology. A helpful nine-page glossary and an annotated bibliography
append the book (comprised of four sections: Wallerstein's own writings,
"Writings by World-Systems Analysts," "Critiques of World-Systems
Analysis," and "Relevant Works: Forerunners of Influential Writings").
In a prefatory section called "To Start: Understanding the World in
Which We Live," Wallerstein writes that, if we consider what is new and
what is not new from an informed historical perspective, the broad
outlines of the post-September 11 world were predictable (though the
historical details were not). Three key turning points led to this
current global situation. The first is the sixteenth century during
which the capitalist world-economy emerged. The second is the French
Revolution out of which developed two radical ideas: that political
change is normal, even desirable, since it evidences the march of
"progress," and that sovereignty resides with "the people" (basically a
politico-economic idea about inclusion/exclusion) rather than with a
monarchy or some type of legislative institution. The third turning
point is the "world revolution of 1968," which saw an undermining of the
centrist liberal world-view and Old Left movements that had
characterized, for the most part, political economic arrangements since
the nineteenth century.
Wallerstein's view of the significance of the sixteenth century is
certainly debatable but not indefensible. Likewise for his
interpretation of the French Revolution. It is his understanding of the
events of 1968 that is the least convincing and he seems to romanticize
their significance. He returns to the "world revolution of 1968" in the
last chapter, but to this reader he fails to marshal enough evidence to
illustrate why the events of 1968 are as momentous as the first two
turning points.
Interested readers will benefit from familiarizing themselves with a
list of terms associated with world-systems analysis (though not all of
these terms were coined by Wallerstein). The most fundamental
intellectual implement in Wallerstein's conceptual toolbox is
"historical system," a term meant to stress how all social systems are
at once systemic (they have continuing traits that can be described) and
historical (they are always evolving and are never the same from one
moment to the next). There are three types of historical systems:
mini-systems, world-economies, and world-empires (the latter two are
collectively known as world-systems). As Wallerstein indicates,
mini-systems, world-economies, and world-empires reflect Karl Polanyi's
distinction between reciprocal, redistributive, and market economies.
Mini-systems (simple agricultural and hunting and gathering societies)
are for the most part now extinct, so our attention should be directed
toward world-systems, which are "not about systems, economies, empires
of the world, but about systems, economies, empires that are a world"
(emphasis in original, p. 17). A world-system encompasses a
spatial-temporal zone that cuts across different political and cultural
units, and here the influence of the Annales group (led by Lucien Febvre
and Marc Bloch), who argued that centuries-long generalizations were
possible, becomes evident. After 1945, Fernand Braudel continued the
Annales tradition, criticizing "event-dominated" or episodic history
that prevented researchers from seeing underlying long-term processes at
work in history. Wallerstein, along with others, has applied Braudel's
longue duree, an approach that recognizes that certain problems in
history and the social sciences must be addressed by employing a
long-term perspective.
A world-economy has multiple political centers and cultures, and is
characterized by an "axial division of labor," i.e. an axis binding
together "core" and "peripheral" productive processes (the
core-peripheral notion was originally developed by Raul Prebisch, though
Wallerstein introduced an intermediate concept, "semi-periphery"). A
world-empire (e.g. Roman Empire, Han China) is "a structure in which
there is a single political authority for the whole world-system" (p.
57). Throughout history, states have attempted to turn a world-economy
into a world-empire. However, none have succeeded because a world-empire
would stifle capitalism, i.e., a centralized political structure would
be able to override the priority of the endless accumulation of capital.
Nevertheless, some states have had their day in the sun as hegemonic
powers.
Another term that deserves consideration is "unidisciplinarity," which
speaks to Wallerstein's ambitious attempts to reorder the academic
landscape. Unidisciplinarity is intended to demonstrate "a lack of
deference to the traditional boundaries of the social sciences" (p. 19).
Terms such as "trans-disciplinary," "multi-disciplinary," and
"inter-disciplinary," while seemingly Catholic in spirit, imply a social
reality that is ontologically fragmented into history, political
science, sociology, anthropology, etc. Such scholarly balkanization
hinders fruitful analyses and the very administrative organization of
the university becomes a hindrance to insightful research. To understand
how we have reached this state of partition requires an acknowledgment
that the boundaries of the traditional fields are artificial, arbitrary,
and historically contingent. This problem of disciplinarity is treated
in the first chapter ("Historical Origins of World-Systems Analysis:
>From Social Science Disciplines to Historical Social Sciences"), in
which Wallerstein examines the birth of the social sciences within the
context of the politico-economic upheavals of late-eighteenth-century
France. A crucial and innovative element of revolutionary political
thought was "the people," who, of course, became "society" or an object
of scientific investigation. Such investigations aimed at accelerating
the "progress" of the people and the nation.
In the late-eighteenth century, philosophy split into the sciences and
the humanities. Traditionally, the humanities had been a unitary
endeavor, thought to be in search of the true, good, and beautiful.
Emerging forms of knowledge seriously challenged this view and raised
the question of where the new object of study, society/"the people,"
should be positioned: in fields that used empirical and experimental
methods, or in fields that relied on empathetic and hermeneutic
approaches (e.g. history)? Social science would come to situate itself
uncomfortably between the humanities and the natural sciences, or
between idiographic disciplines predicated on the uniqueness of social
phenomena and the nomothetic disciplines in search of universal,
scientific laws.
By the late-nineteenth century, other intellectual shifts had transpired
that separated social reality into three major spheres: the market,
civil society, and the state. These were studied respectively by
economists, sociologists, and political scientists. Eventually it became
evident that another field--anthropology--was needed to study parts of
the world dominated by European colonization and lacking a recognizable
modernity. As Eric Wolf famously put it, these parts of the globe had
peoples "without history."[2] But still another field, Orientalism, was
necessary to explore the "high civilizations" of China, India, Persia,
and the Arab world. Such societies, since they were perceived to be
frozen in time, were also not modern. However, they were sophisticated
enough that they did not fall under the purview of anthropology, which
originally was premised on the search for the "primitive."
After the Second World War, intellectual configurations that had been
forming for the past 150 years produced "area studies" and notions of
"development" for those places "left behind" on the march to modernity.
And the question still remains: where is social reality? In any case,
the "two cultures" of C. P. Snow still shape debates about how society
should be understood and, although history, anthropology, and
Orientalist studies are for the most part regarded as humanistic,
idiographic disciplines, this is not true in certain varieties of the
social sciences.
In chapter 2 ("The Modern World-System as a Capitalist World-Economy:
Production, Surplus-Value, and Polarization"), Wallerstein proffers his
understanding of capitalism: it cannot be reduced to wage labor or
profit seeking, since these have always existed in some form and to some
degree. A truly capitalist world-system "gives priority to the endless
accumulation of capital" (p. 24) and requires a multiplicity of states
(capitalism relies on the patronage of states which help maintain
"quasi-monopolies"). In addition to states, firms, and classes, a
capitalist world-economy possesses "households" (not necessarily
kin-based groups) and exhibits a proliferation of status-groups (or to
be more up-to-date, "identities"). These also function as income-pooling
units. Moreover, capitalism is characterized by Kondratieff cycles.
Chapter 3, "The Rise of the State-Systems: Sovereign Nation-States,
Colonies, and the Interstate System," provides some historical
perspective about how the Westphalian order emerged. The legitimacy of
state sovereignty came to rest upon "reciprocal recognition" among
states (the least costly strategy followed within the international
arena). Sovereignty also operates internally, since central authorities
and local powers mutually recognize each other. Such legitimacy is
crucial to the workings of the capitalist order because states establish
rules about work regulations, corporate governance, property rights,
taxation, and the flow of commodities, labor, and capital. It is through
these regulatory regimes that the state is intimately involved in the
endless accumulation of capital.
Chapter 4, "The Creation of a Geoculture: Ideologies, Social Movements,
Social Science," is a history, or one is tempted to say, a grand
narrative, of the social sciences and their political implications.
Wallerstein argues that debates about "the people," i.e., the excluded
and the included, such as workers, women, and ethnic groups, occurred in
three arenas: the social sciences (comprised of "specialists"),
ideologies, and, antisystemic movements (national or social movements
that resist historical systems). Consider the first two arenas. Within
the arena of social scientific investigation, three types of cleavages
developed: between the Western "civilized" world and the "non-modern
world," between the past and present in the Western world, and between
the state, civil society, and the market within the Western world. The
second arena is closely associated with the French Revolution, a period
when ideologies became necessary in order to advance a group's stance
toward the speed of politico-economic change. By the early nineteenth
century, three major ideologies had emerged: conservatism (wary of rapid
change and reform; the "Party of Order"), liberalism (accepted change
and reform; the "Party of Movement"), and radicalism (demanded
accelerated change and was associated with antisystemic movements).
Eventually, a consensus was forged between conservatism and liberalism,
producing a centrist liberalism that came to dominate the workings of
the major capitalist powers.
The last chapter, "The Modern World-System in Crisis: Bifurcation,
Chaos, and Choices," concludes with some general observations about the
current state of the world. According to Wallerstein, the "world
revolution of 1968" marked the end of a long period of centrist liberal
supremacy. The structures of the global capitalist order have become
considerably unsettled. The three costs of production (remuneration,
inputs, and taxation) for the producers have been steadily rising, so a
coalition of centrist and rightist forces have attempted to keep these
costs down (expressed most clearly in neoliberalism). We can expect to
see the more extreme ideologies on the left and right come to the fore.
There are as many critics of world-systems theory as there are
advocates, and Wallerstein addresses some of the charges leveled against
his work (see the section called "Critiques of World-Systems Analysis"
in the bibliography). Wallerstein categorizes his critics as nomothetic
positivists, orthodox Marxists, state autonomists, and cultural
particularists. The most common criticisms claim that world-systems
theorizing is tautological, too vague, overly selective in the
historical examples it employs, and excessively capitalist-centric.[3]
Consider the last charge: according to Wallerstein, the "imperative of
the endless accumulation of capital had generated a need for constant
technological change, a constant expansion of frontiers--geographical,
psychological, intellectual, scientific" (p. 2). The prime mover here
seems to be "the endless accumulation of capital," but this
capital-oriented perspective, inspired by Marxist abstractions and
generalizations, sounds economically reductionistic. Surely there is
more to the story than accumulating capital for capital's sake. Despite
Wallerstein's arguments based on judicious research, some of his
conclusions do appear too sweeping. An example of over-generalization is
Wallerstein's concept of "antisystemic," e.g. nationalism. However, an
ideology such as nationalism has simultaneously legitimated and
destabilized the international order.
Moreover, the human subject seems swallowed up by grand generalities.
For instance, Wallerstein points out that many scholars have relied on
the "industrial proletariat," the "rational individual," "political man"
[sic], or a "discourse specific to a particular culture" to play the
role of the main actors on the stage of global history. However, he
writes that for world-systems analysis, these are products, rather than
"primordial atomic elements" (p. 21). Of course, in a certain sense they
are products, but they also most definitely involve human agency and
subjectivity, which deserve a more robust recognition.
Despite these issues, Wallerstein challenges our conventional units of
analysis (such as the national state) and the temporalities that we
habitually rely on to frame our understandings of the world. His work
may be read as a much-appreciated corrective to trendy postmodernist
assaults on comparative research, temporal trajectories, and research
strategies in search of patterns. One does not have to believe in
metaphysical essences to see the need for accepting some commonalities
across the globe. There are, after all, grand patterns to history, that,
if carefully assessed, may reveal crucial aspects of the human condition
and how it relates to social change, property relations, and
technological innovation. Certain types of questions can only be
addressed using the longue duree. This book affords a convenient
introduction to such research agendas that are in need of long-term
analysis.
Notes
[1]. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System. 3 volumes (New York:
Academic Press, 1974, 1980, 1988).
[2]. Eric Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1982).
[3]. See the review by Arthur L. Stinchcombe, "Review Essay: The Growth
of the World System," American Journal of Sociology 87, no. 6 (1982):
pp. 1389-1395.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Please Note:
Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to
or from College employees regarding College business are public records,
available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail
communication may be subject to public disclosure.
