Anybody here ever read Immanuel Wallerstein

[el_gato]

World Systems Analysis

One of my main goals is to understand root causes, specifically with answering questions such as: How did we get here? Why is the world the way it is today?

Wallerstein's World Systems Analysis does a good job of covering some of the basics of the evolution of society from about 1600 on and he outlines what he thinks is the nature of the current crisis.
It's a quick read and comes in at only 70 pages or so. It is written
as kind of an intro into world systems theory.

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Links? References?

It sounds like an interesting work, though.

--p!

[el_gato]

2. Here's some

http://www.frontlist.com/detail/0822334429

"At a time when globalization is at the center of international debate from Davos to Porto Alegre, an introduction to 'world-systems analysis,' an original approach to world development since the sixteenth century, is timely and relevant. This is a lucidly written and comprehensive treatment of its origins, controversies, and development by Immanuel Wallerstein, its undoubted pioneer and most eminent practitioner."--Eric Hobsbawm

"Immanuel Wallerstein's mind can reach as far and encompass as much as anyone's in our time. The world, to him, is a vast, integrated system, and he makes the case for that vision with an elegant and almost relentless logic. But he also knows that to see as he does requires looking through a very different epistemological lens than the one most of us are in the habit of using. So his gift to us is not just a new understanding of how the world works but a new way of apprehending it. A brilliant work on both scores."--Kai Erikson, Yale University



Summary of Wallerstein on World System Theory
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/wallerstein.html
THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WORLD ECONOMIC SYSTEM

A Summary of Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic Press, 1974)

In his book, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century, Immanual Wallerstein develops a theoretical framework to understand the historical changes involved in the rise of the modern world. The modern world system, essentially capitalist in nature, followed the crisis of the feudal system and helps explain the rise of Western Europe to world supremacy between 1450 and 1670. According to Wallerstein, his theory makes possible a comprehensive understanding of the external and internal manifestations of the modernization process during this period and makes possible analytically sound comparisons between different parts of the world.

MEDIEVAL PRELUDE

Before the sixteenth century, when Western Europe embarked on a path of capitalist development, "feudalism" dominated West European society. Between 1150-1300, both population as well as commerce expanded within the confines of the feudal system. However, from 1300-1450, this expansion ceased, creating a severe economic crisis. According to Wallerstein, the feudal crisis was probably precipitated by the interaction of the following factors:

1. Agricultural production fell or remained stagnant. This meant that the burden of peasant producers increased as the ruling class expanded.
2. The economic cycle of the feudal economy had reached its optimum level; afterwards the economy began to shrink.
3. A shift of climatological conditions decreased agricultural productivity and contributed to an increase in epidemics within the population.

THE NEW EUROPEAN DIVISION OF LABOR

Wallerstein argues that Europe moved towards the establishment of a capitalist world economy in order to ensure continued economic growth. However, this entailed the expansion of the geographical size of the world in question, the development of different modes of labor control and the creation of relatively strong state machineries in the states of Western Europe. In response to the feudal crisis, by the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the world economic system emerged. This was the first time that an economic system encompassed much of the world with links that superseded national or other political boundaries. The new world economy differed from earlier empire systems because it was not a single political unit. Empires depended upon a system of government which, through commercial monopolies combined with the use of force, directed the flow of economic goods from the periphery to the center. Empires maintained specific political boundaries, within which they maintained control through an extensive bureaucracy and a standing army. Only the techniques of modern capitalism enabled the modern world economy, unlike earlier attempts, to extend beyond the political boundaries of any one empire.

[el_gato]

3. here's a key snip from above

"commercial monopolies combined with the use of force, directed the flow of economic goods from the periphery to the center"

Think East India Trading Company, etc.

This book along with James Blaut's The Colonizers View of the World
really add alot to the basic understanding of the reason for the early European domination of the planet. So many historians have tried to claim the existence of some inherent trait of europeans for this rise but as Blaut shows, and Wallerstein seems to acknowledges, this rise was due more the exploitation of the new world more than anything else.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Excellent link -- thanks!

--p!

[Laughing Mirror]

5. Every two weeks, like clockwork, I click on his website

To read his latest essay or reread past ones that are archived. For example, his latest contribution, “Elections, Elections, Elections,” from December 1, is here:

http://fbc.binghamton.edu/150en.htm

I would highly recommend any of his recent books. Having absorbed a lifetime of study and scholarship, this wise and brilliant man always explains (to me, the lay reader) in a very objective and engaging manner what is going on in the world today and what has happened to lead up to the current situation. This and this and this will happen because of this, he tells you, so you need to do such and such if you want to push things in the right direction. At times you get the impression he is foretelling the future, but all he really does is analyze the social and economic forces controlling and fighting for power, and upon the actions and interactions of these forces he bases his very compelling predictions.

Early in 2002, I remember seeing him on C-Span insisting, putting his life's work and reputation on the line, convinced that the US would invade Iraq indeed, that it was inevitable, that there was no getting around it. He was, of course, not endorsing the war, simply saying what was going to happen. Most of the callers thought he was absurd, insane, because very few people thought that at the time. He chuckled and said he was used to be called that and worse, but that was still not enough to rule out the fact the US was going to war in Iraq.

One thing noteworthy about Wallerstein is that he writes about what concerned thinking people can do to push the future of society in a progressive, positive direction.

If you ever get the chance to catch him speak, jump at it. He's quite entertaining, witty in a Groucho Marx sort of way.

[el_gato]

6. cool thanks

I've only recently discovered his writings.

[Laughing Mirror]

7. You will not go wrong with Immanuel Wallerstein

It's surprising to me he's not more well known, but then sometimes the best remain plugging away in their field somewhat under the radar.

[bobbieinok]

8. religious right and W adm.......at this site

Commentary No. 149, Nov, 15, 2004

"The 2004 Elections in the United States"




George W. Bush has been reelected President of the United States, and he has increased his margin of support in both houses of the Congress. What happens now - in the United States, in the world? We have to start any analysis with an appraisal of Bush. Bush is by far the most right-wing president the U.S. has had since the Great Depression. And he is the most aggressively reactionary president in the history of the United States. I am using the term "reactionary" in the classic political meaning of the term - someone who wishes to turn the clock back politically.

Bush has already demonstrated in his first term in office that he doesn't intend to be a compromiser or a moderate in the pursuit of his program. Rather, he seeks to use a bulldozer to attain his objectives, riding over opposition forces and even weak members of his own camp. He has already said of his reelection that he has earned political capital and that he intends to spend it.

....
The Christian right is basically concerned about issues internal to the U.S. They have concentrated their fire on two current questions: gay marriage and abortion. What they want is to render impossible gay marriage. To do this definitively, they need a constitutional amendment. And they wish to outlaw abortion, which requires that the Supreme Court undo the decision called Roe v. Wade. To do this definitively requires new appointments to the Supreme Court such that there can be a 5-4 vote for such a reversal. At the moment, three justices are ready to vote that way, but one of them is about to retire. Bush therefore needs to appoint three justices committed to overturning Roe v. Wade.

But this is only the beginning of the Christian right agenda. They wish to undo the entire liberalization of mores that has been one of the marks of the twentieth century, not only in the U.S. but also in Europe and much of the rest of the world. In the United States, were they to get their way on gay marriage and abortion, they would next work on banning contraception, making homosexual sex illegal, limiting or even ending divorce, and for some of them forcing women out of the work force and maybe even the vote. Another part of their agenda is pushing the clock back on racism, and reestablishing the United States as a country socially and politically dominated by White Protestants. They would begin by ending all forms of affirmative action and proceed from there to immigration issues and then perhaps to voting rights. This would undo the entire social evolution of the United States since the beginning of the twentieth century.

This of course expresses the intentions of the most extreme group. But it should be noted that, for the moment, this extreme group controls most of the political structures of the Christian right, and plays a very large role in the Republican party. Their political strategy is to get courts that will allow legislatures to do these things, appointing persons young enough to guarantee an institutionalization of these decisions, and then to elect such legislatures.

more....

[el_gato]

10. his last sentence in that essay sums it up nicely

"The United States is the big loser of the 2004 elections; the world may actually be a gainer."

[Journeyman]

9. Thanks for the reminder. . .

I read a few of Wallerstein's works in the early '80s but hadn't kept up with him since. I look forward to catching up.

[malaise]

11. Wallerstein

He's very well known in developing countries.
Thanks for the link to his articles.