ReOrienting the World System

Robert A Denemark,Barry K Gills

doi:10.5195/jwsr.2015.532

Abstract

We can begin by accepting Bergesen’s call for a new model that better represents the “distinctly ‘political’ economy” of the actual world and the prominent role of the “political/military component” in its overall structure. This is very much in the spirit of Frank’s work in Reorienting the 19 th Century. We also share much agreement with Bergesen’s critique of Wallersteinian or “Standard World-System Analysis” (hereafter SW-SA), including several points of criticism Frank and others have made in the past, when developing an alternative world system (without a hyphen) history (Abu-Lughod 1989; Frank and Gills 1993; Denemark et al. 2000). It is unfortunate that Bergesen does not reference this previous research examining centuries and even millennia of what Bergesen calls “historically conserved trade structures” in world system history. Bergesen also makes a further call, for “a new understanding of the role of intercontinental trade as the essential relation of the world economy.” We would amend this by saying that although “trade” on an inter-continental scale is a constant, and in fact, a constituent feature of world system structure (for five millennia), and it is true that trade may be the essential mechanism of the world system, it is misleading to call trade the essential relation. The essential relation is rather that of “accumulation” of wealth, capital, and power within the world system. The pursuit of this accumulation affects the overall pattern of trade (as a cause to an effect) while also shaping “systemic relations between societies” as Bergesen puts it. In regard to Bergesen’s critique of the role of the “capitalist mode of production” in SWSA, we would agree that the capitalist mode of production in itself does not adequately account for the origins of the modern world system. We also agree that “capital” pre-dates the modern economy. However, in today’s world, the form “capital” and social relations based on the capitalist mode of production have extended and deepened to an historically unprecedented degree.

Highlights

Bergesen makes a further call, for “a new understanding of the role of intercontinental trade as the essential relation of the world economy.”. We would amend this by saying that “trade” on an inter-continental scale is a constant, and a constituent feature of world system structure, and it is true that trade may be the essential mechanism of the world system, it is misleading to call trade the essential relation
In regard to Bergesen’s critique of the role of the “capitalist mode of production” in SWSA, we would agree that the capitalist mode of production in itself does not adequately account for the origins of the modern world system
World System history has from its earliest formulations (e.g. Gills and Frank 1990) indicated that a structure of inter-class relations exists in a world system, based on the “inter-penetrating accumulation” between different zones of the world system

Summary

Core-Periphery Hierarchy and Emphasis

To point out that the core oppressed the periphery, to suggest that this (more than anything else) defines the hierarchy so emblematic of the modern world-economy, and to trace the mechanisms of that oppression via the logic of capitalism was enlightening and path-breaking 40 years ago. The specific roles “assigned” to subordinated areas during the 19th century, in the international division of labour, the specific composition of commodity production, historically conditioned levels of state capacity, and particular class and socio-political characteristics, vary considerably across countries and regions None of these elements necessarily permanently precludes the possibility of conducting counter-strategies for self-strengthening or industrialization—i.e. strategies to attempt to change position in the world system and “ascend” within its hierarchical structure.

On Bringing the State Back In

Environment and Entropy