The Capitalist World-Economy

by Immanuel Wallerstein

In The Capitalist World-Economy Immanuel Wallerstein focuses on the two central conflicts of capitalism, bourgeois versus proletarian and core versus periphery, in an attempt to describe both the cyclical rhythms and the secular transformations of capitalism, conceived as a singular world-system. The essays include discussions of the relationship of class and ethnonational consciousness, clarification of the meaning of transition from feudalism to capitalism, the utility of the concept of the semi peripheral state, and the relationship of socialist states to the capitalist world-economy. This book is the first in a three volume collection of Wallerstein's essays. The Politics of World-Economy (1984) elaborates on the role of states, the antisystemic movements and the civilizational project. Geopolitics and Geoculture (1991) analyses both the events leading up to the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and the subsequent process of perestroika in the light of Wallerstein's own interpretations, and the ways in which the renewed concern with culture is a product of the changing world-system.

Genres: History, Economics, Sociology, Nonfiction, International Relations, Academic

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein was a scholar of politics, sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst. His bimonthly commentaries on world affairs were syndicated.

Reviews

[Cengiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wallerstein takes up the emergence of capitalism, how it evolved and turned out to be a historical system. For him there are stages and positions in the development of capitalism; core, periphery and semi-periphery. The core country takes the lead, establishes its hegemony over the rest and exploites them by expansion as an explotative and manufacturer power. For him capitalism is a world-economy whose basic character is commercialized land and proletarianization, accumulation of capital-surplus value- and explotation of workers' labour. In the first chaters he analyses economic development of capitalism. In the next chapters he takes up -even though it has a universal character- different politics and cultures which grows out of this mode of production. What makes distinct capitalism from the former modes of production is to produce for for the sake profit. There is no a limit in maximation of capital and expansion. It took a few centuries the spread of capitalism across the world. In the world-economy, according to the stage of their development, a country might be in the core or periphery or semi-periphery. To be in the periphery stage doesnt mean that the country in question has a different mode of production.
Besides structures of knowledge each mode of production creates its own geoculture and politics as what Marx called "superstructure". French revolution as the symbol of bourgeise triumph over Feudal society emerged as a nation state whose micro unit was citizen. Therefore, since then most of the modern states became faithful followers of the French Revolution. While territory was identified with ethnicity state was identified with nation.
Wallerstein analyses the economic development of capitalism as a historical system which differs from the former mode of production which were recipocal or tributary. Secondly, the epistemology of the modernity which is compatitable with the structures of knowledge which paved the way for the rise of liberal vision that legitimized the victory of the burgeoisie in the British and French Revolutions. And thirdly, as a political outcome of capitalist mode of production in different parts of the world different geo-cultures and politics.

[Bernard English · Rating 4 out of 5]

As Wallerstein often reminds the reader, see his Modern World System for the details. In fact, without some concrete examples Wallerstein would sound too much like a conspiracy theorists. There is an eclectic mix of essays here but I guess two themes that runs through most of the essays is his concept of core, semiperipheral, and peripheral zones and that once one takes the unit of analysis to be a world-system, things look very different than when one thinks in terms of individual countries. I find it to be a fascinating model of the interplay of politics and economics though I don't actually recall any other writers pick up on his analysis even if Wallerstein's works are often cited.

[Leonardo]

“El capitalismo ha sido desde su inicio un asunto de economía-mundial...Sólo es una mala lectura de la situación sostener que recién en el siglo veinte el capitalismo se ha vuelto „mundializado‟.” (Pág.19)

Imperio Pág.13


Para una crítica muy incisiva de los argumentos de los estadios de desarrollo, ver Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist World-Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 3-5.

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