Interstate Systems, World-Empires and the Capitalist World-Economy: A Response to Thompson

Abstract

This is a response to William R. Thompson's valuable discussion of the dynamics of the modern interstate system. We address some of the issues his critique raises and consider problems suggested by a matter on which his analysis is conspicuously silent. Specifically, Thompson's discussion fails to address the argument that the reproduction of the interstate system is due to the operation of specific institutions characteristic of a capitalist mode of production. His emphasis on generally 'political', as opposed to 'economic', variables leads him to refer to rather vague notions of 'uneven development' and 'economic growth'. We are interested in discovering the importance of historically specific economic institutions such as commodity production, wage labor, and commodified wealth (capital) for the dynamics of the modern world-system. So in addition to responding to Thompsons's critique, we shall advance a comparison of capitalist world-economy to pre-capitalist world empires and world-economies' in order to demonstrate the importance of capitalist institutions for the reproduction of the interstate system.