EPILOGUE


  Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas D. Hall



This is our opportunity to review the main
issues which have emerged from this collection
and to have the last word. There are a number
of major controversies, but one conclusion is
obvious: the world-systems perspective stimu-
lates new and fruitful approaches to pre-
modern socio-economic systems.     Some of the
controversies are reflections of old debates
within the social sciences: 

1. To what extent should we emphasize systemic
and evolutionary models  versus historical
conjunctures?

2. What are the important similarities between
modern and premodern     socio-economic sys-
tems and what are the qualitative differences?

3. Have there been major sea changes in the
logics of systems (transform  ations) or have
there been only different mixes of logics (or
random    changes)? How can we measure the
extent to which one logic is  predominant over
another?

4. If there have been major transformations of
system logics, how can we     theoretically
define and empirically measure these logics
and how can we      explain the transforma-
tions?

   A second set of issues are more particular
to our project as it is constituted in this volume:
1. How to define and bound world-systems?

2. How to define and measure core/periphery
hierarchies?

3. Does it make sense to compare stateless
intergroup systems with larger     state-based
systems?

4. Is the comparison of a large number of
world-systems theoretically   desirable? Is it
feasible?

5. Is the study of single world-systems over
very long periods of time a   more fruitful
strategy?

6. Can the scientific study of the transforma-
tion of deep structural logics in  world-
systems provide important clues about how the
modern global  political economy might become
transformed?

   Most of these problems are at least implic-
itly raised in each of the chapters in this
collection.  We will discuss Chapters 2
through 8 to present our most recent reflec-
tions on these matters.
   Chapter 2, Jane Schneider's path-breaking
discussion, raises many of the issues about
the nature and boundaries of world-systems. 
Schneider argues that prestige goods exchanges
are important in reproducing and changing
power structures and thus they cannot be
considered epiphenomenal.  The editors and all
of the authors in this volume agree with her. 
Nevertheless the editors think that Immanuel
Wallerstein's emphasis on a division of labor
of bulk goods production and exchange should
not be abandoned because this is also impor-
tant to structural reproduction and change. 
Thus we include both prestige goods networks
and bulk goods networks in our definition of
world-systems.  This creates a boundary prob-
lem because the boundaries of these two types
of networks are rarely similar.  We are most
likely to have at least two levels of integra-
tion: a number of regional bulk goods networks
linked together by a prestige goods network. 
To complicate things further we also agree
with Wilkinson (Chapter 4) that regular polit-
ical/military competition and cooperation
should be used to bound world-systems.  This
adds an additional degree of fuzziness to the
boundaries of world-systems because the net-
works of political/military interaction do not
usually correspond with the networks of pres-
tige goods exchange.  This is discussed fur-
ther below. 
   The other problem which we need to mention
again is the use of modes of production to
bound world-systems.  Wallerstein uses both
modes of production and bulk goods networks,
though he sometimes emphasizes one and some-
times the other.  As stated in Chapter 1, he
argues that the European world-economy and the
Ottoman world-empire were separate systems,
but he does not argue that they engaged in no
trade of bulk goods. Rather he contends that
they were different systems because capitalism
was dominant in Europe but not in the Ottoman
Empire.  We have claimed that the use of mode
of production criteria to spatially bound
world-systems is a theoretical mistake, but
this does not leave us in the same camp with
Gills and Frank, who argue that there are no
transitions between modes of production (accu-
mulation). 
   We think that capitalism (however defined)
did become predominant for the first time in
Europe, but that Europe was a subsystem of a
larger Afro-eurasian super-system.  Europe had
not been a separate bulk goods network from
the rest of the Mediterranean littoral since
at least Roman times and the politi-
cal/military interactions and prestige goods
interactions between Europe and the other
areas of the Afro-eurasian super-system have
been important at least since the Greeks and
Phoenicians moved toward the west.  Explana-
tion of the emergent predominance of capital-
ism in the European subsystem by focussing
exclusively on the uniqueness of European
feudalism or religion is a myopic exercise
which recent work by Abu-Lughod (1989) and
others has begun to correct. 
   Capitalist institutions were neither absent
from premodern and non-European systems, nor
were they randomly distributed among them. 
The commodification of land, goods, wealth and
labor had been increasing, albeit unevenly, in
the Afro-eurasian super-system for thousands
of years.  The empires of Central Civilization
were becoming increasingly commercialized. The
Roman and Chinese Empires were perhaps the
most capitalist of these, but within them the
tributary mode of accumulation remained pre-
dominant. Semiperipheral autonomous capitalist
city states were important agents of commodi-
fication that linked empires to one another
and to peripheral regions by marketized trade
(Chase-Dunn, 1991).  The emphasis on continui-
ties stressed by Gills and Frank is an impor-
tant antidote to the quaint notion that Europe
was unique, but a more valuable approach would
study the ways in which commodification
emerged and spread within Central Civilization
and the other tributary world-systems.  Only
this kind of approach can sensibly separate
the conjunctural aspects of the "rise of the
West" from its more evolutionary aspects. 
   Chapter 3 by Gills and Frank is an out-
standing contribution which focusses our
attention on the continuities which can be
found in the world-system.  By claiming there
has only been one world-system for the last
5000 years they create many difficulties,
however.  Their own definition belies this.
They argue that two regions are in the same
system if they importantly affect one anoth-
er.  What about the pre-Columbian systems
described by Feinman and Nicholas and by
Peregrine? These were certainly not part of
the world-system.  Wilkinson's approach is
superior.  He is much more specific about how
he bounds his civilizations/world-systems and
he documents the expansion of the world-system
(his Central Civilization) without denying the
existence of others. 
   Gills and Frank also raise the issue of the
mode of production, which they call "accumula-
tion."  Like Ekholm and Friedman (1982), they
deny that there is anything unique at the
level of the logic of accumulation about the
Europe-centered system which distinguishes it
from the earlier Eurasian system.  As stated
above, we do argue that the Europe-centered
system was unique in the degree to which
capitalist accumulation became predominant. It
is possible to acknowledge many of the conti-
nuities which Gills and Frank describe while
still maintaining that the modern system is
qualitatively distinct in fundamental re-
spects.
   One major difference between the modern
interstate system and the earlier systems of
political-military interaction is in the
nature of the cycle of political centraliza-
tion/decentralization. What are the similari-
ties and differences between the rise and fall
of empires and the rise and fall of hegemonic
core states in the modern world-system? An
important specification of the alternation
between empires and interstate systems is
presented by Wilkinson (see Figure 2 in Chap-
ter 4).  The significant difference is that
the most successful states in the modern
world-system (the hegemons) do not try to
create universal empires, but rather act to
sustain the multicentric interstate system. 
In premodern systems the most successful
states pursued a strategy of empire-formation
by conquest.  Our explanation for this differ-
ence is the predominance in the modern world-
system of an alternative to the tributary
strategy of accumulation -- the accumulation
of wealth through the production of commodi-
ties.  Capitalist accumulation thrives on a
politically multicentric system, and thus the
most successful states, which are now capital-
ist states, act to sustain the interstate
system, not to conquer it.   
   Wilkinson's larger theoretical apparatus
and his detailed specification in Chapter 4
are magnificent contributions.  They are
conceptually explicit and clear.  The fund of
empirical knowledge which Wilkinson shares
with the other civilizationists is detailed
and extensive.  We have only a few demurs. 
   Wilkinson is a political scientist of the
international relations persuasion and the
histories upon which the civilizationists draw
are predominantly narratives about the wars of
the great men.  When Wilkinson says that
"diamonds may be forever, but clubs are always
trumps" he is both making a witticism and
cleaving to a perspective which sees states as
the main actors in history.  Wilkinson, like
Gills and Frank, does not believe in a major
sea-change which transformed the logic of the
game with the rise of the West.  But the game
he thinks has continued to be played is dif-
ferent from the one hypothesized by Gills and
Frank.  They emphasize the interaction between
economic exploitation and political domina-
tion, while Wilkinson sees political domina-
tion as the predominant logic of Central
Civilization in all ages.
   This state-centric approach is reflected in
Wilkinson's use of political/ military inter-
action as the empirical means to spatially
bound world-systems. We agree that conflictual
interaction is important, but we expect that
the centrality of military conflict varies
across different kinds of systems, and we
argue that prestige and bulk goods networks
are also important forms of interaction.  The
addition of these other criteria would compli-
cate Wilkinson's spatio-temporal schema. 
Prestige goods networks are generally larger
than regularized political/military interac-
tion nets.  China and Rome were linked by
prestige goods trade, but not by direct polit-
ical/military engagement.  The mapping of
these three network criteria would usually
produce regional subsystems of bulk goods
exchange within larger systems of politi-
cal/military interaction within even larger
systems of prestige goods exchange. 
   We propose that: bulk goods networks be
called "regional subsystems," politi-
cal/military interaction networks be labeled
"world-systems," and prestige goods networks
be termed "supersystems."   This sorts out
the issues rather clearly, we think, though
empirical work will undoubtedly raise many
more. 
   Wilkinson's definition of civili-
zations/world-systems raises another issue. He
uses both  "level" and "interconnectedness"
criteria.  We have already discussed the
interconnectedness aspect above in our consid-
eration of definitions and spatial boundaries
of world-systems.  The "level" criterion is
similar to that used by other civilizationists
to differentiate between civilizations and
precivilizations.  Wilkinson requires his
systems to have cities, record-keeping, eco-
nomic surplus and non-producing classes. 
Gills and Frank also exclude intersocietal
systems which existed before the emergence of
urbanization and states in Mesopotamia 5000
years ago so they must also believe that some
such set of features is essential to a world-
system. 
   Our strategy is quite different.  Instead
of emphasizing similarities we are searching
for differences.  In variation we hope to find
explanations for the structural characteris-
tics of different kinds of world-systems. 
Thus we extend the use of the term to class-
less, stateless systems.  This raises many new
problems, but we believe that the effort to
include these very different kinds of systems
will be well worth the trouble.  Our distinc-
tion at the conceptual level between world-
systems and core/periphery hierarchies is
helped immensely.  Not only do different kinds
of world-systems have different kinds of
core/periphery hierarchies, but some world-
systems do not have them at all.
   In terms of the "river system" analogy
employed by Gills and Frank to describe how
many smaller tributaries joined together to
form the world-system, we want to study creeks
and small streams.  We believe that they will
be found to have some dynamics which are
generally similar to larger systems and yet
they differ in important ways.  For example,
much recent research suggests that there is a
process of the rise and fall of chiefdoms
which is analytically similar to the cycles of
political centralization/decentralization
exhibited in the rise and fall of states,
empires and hegemonic core powers. We are not
claiming that this process is the "same" but
rather that the general similarities and the
important differences are worthy of investiga-
tion. 
   Does this mean that we are claiming that
every kind of human interaction system is a
world-system? If everything is inside a cate-
gory, the category is not useful.  We are not
claiming a priori that all human groups live
in intergroup systems which importantly deter-
mine the conditions of social reproduction and
change.  Rather we are arguing that whether or
not this is true should be examined.  We do
exclude human interaction spheres in which all
the groups are extensively nomadic because we
believe that territoriality of some kind is
fundamentally important to the notion of a
world-system.
   Another reason to include stateless, class-
less world-systems in our comparative study is
that this allows us to examine what everyone
would agree is a fundamental watershed in
system logic -- the transformation from the
kin-based modes to the state-based modes of
production (accumulation).  We want to build
on the important work of Friedman and Rowlands
(1977) and Gailey (1987) to understand the
interplay between class formation, gender
hierarchy and pristine state formation in the
context of these tiny world-systems.  For the
purposes of the long term goal of building a
theory of transformations this provides an
additional class of cases to serve as the
empirical foundation. 
   Wilkinson is also pleasantly explicit about
his usage of the terms core, periphery and
semiperiphery.  His definitions differ from
ours.  We distinguish between core/periphery
differentiation and core/periphery domination-
exploitation.  Our concern is to create con-
cepts which do not carry more baggage from the
modern world-system than is desirable, and to
allow comparative research to fill in the
contents. 
   Wilkinson's usage more directly focusses on
political control or its absence.  The semi-
periphery, in his usage, is a less developed
area which is under core control, while the
periphery is in trade or political contact
with the core, but not under control.  We have
already endorsed the notion of the contact
periphery, but our periphery also includes
areas which are controlled and dominated by
the core.  We also imagine that an area can be
economically exploited without being politi-
cally dominated (e.g., neo-colonialism in the
modern world-system).  Our definitions would
produce different zonal boundaries -- most
evident in Wilkinson's maps in Figures 10 and
11.  
   Wilkinson's definition is not incompatible
with ours, but it does reflect differences in
what he calls "theoretical ancestors" as well
as differences in empirical scope.  Because we
come from a neo-Marxian background we are more
likely to stress the importance of economic
exploitation.  And because we want to examine
stateless systems we need to define
core/periphery relations broadly enough to be
able to capture very different kinds of inter-
societal inequalities.   
   We have already commented on the thoughtful
nature of Chapter 5 by Stephen Sanderson.  We
agree that the world-systems perspective can
be thought of as evolutionary once the many
pitfalls of prior evolutionism have been
exorcised.  We do not agree that "internal"
factors are generally more important than
world-system level factors in premodern sys-
tems, but that is a matter for research to
determine when hypotheses about the causality
of particular outcomes have been specified and
operationalized.  For now we think that the
strong world-system position should be pushed
as far as it will go.  
   Sanderson follows Perry Anderson's claim
that European and Japanese feudalism were
institutionally unique compared to all the
other decentralized tributary systems on
Earth, and that this uniqueness accounts for
the strong development of European and Japa-
nese capitalism. It is our position that many
other regions had experienced the "parcelliza-
tion of sovereignty," but not in the context
of a larger system in which capitalist insti-
tutions were so fully developed.  This, and
the decline of the East described by Abu-
Lughod, created an opportunity for semi-
peripheral Europe to form a new core region in
which capitalist-controlled cities were dense
and capitalist states became core states for
the first time.  Earlier states controlled by
capitalists -- city states -- had been located
in the semiperipheral interstices between
empires. It was the formation of a regional
subsystem in which an interstate system was
dominated by states largely controlled by
capitalists which led to the eventual hegemony
of the West over a single global system. 
Europe was simply in the right place at the
right time.
   Peter Peregrine's study of Cahokia (Chapter
6) is an important contribution because it
shows how a complex chiefdom (or pristine
state) system can be analyzed as a world-
system.  The description of this system as
based wholly on the monopolization of prestige
goods raises questions about the relationship
between this sort of control and other forms
of power.  Friedman and Rowlands (1977) argue
that such systems are inherently unstable
because those who are dominated by symbolic
means can redefine the symbols or change their
beliefs.  Thus such symbolic power needs to be
backed up by military power or by control over
less substitutable goods. In support of this,
the Cahokia-centered system was unstable.  It
collapsed almost completely, and perhaps this
was due to over-reliance on the monopoly of
prestige goods.  Even so, the rather hierar-
chical nature of the system makes us guess
that military and bulk goods aspects should be
given somewhat more attention than they re-
ceive from Peregrine.
   Hall's discussion of nomads (Chapter 7)
raises many new questions without answering
them, but a few conclusions seem relatively
solid. First, failure to study the complex
roles of nomads in core/periphery hierarchies
will distort our understanding of the evolu-
tion and transformations of world-systems. 
Second, the roles of nomads in core/periphery
hierarchies are complex, and are, at least in
part, understood only in the context of the
larger system in which they are embedded.  Put
another way, frontiers are integral parts of
world-systems, even though they are -- by
definition -- on the fringe.  Third, and more
tentatively, the technology of land transpor-
tation and communication in combination with
changing geopolitical structures accounts for
relative changes in the power of nomads within
various contexts.  Once nomads are contained
within a bounded territory, and technology
exists to efficiently patrol that territory,
nomads cease to play a major role in
core/periphery hierarchy processes.
   Both Central Asia and Northwest New Spain
appear to be unusual in the length of time
during which nomads played significant roles
in at least regional processes.  We say "ap-
pear" because nomads have been so seldom
studied in this context that we cannot yet
realistically assess how unusual these cases
are.  Regardless, these cases suggest openness
and sensitivity to other, more ephemeral yet
similar processes, in other locations and
other times.  In particular, we should examine
the roles of nomads -- and others -- as inter-
mediaries between the various levels proposed
above: regional subsystems, world-systems, and
supersystems.  Further empirical examination
of these will help refine or concepts and our
understanding of general processes.
   The contribution by Gary Feinman and Linda
Nicholas (Chapter 8) reveals how archaeologi-
cal data can be used to examine the nature of
a regional division of labor.  Their interest-
ing finding is that dependency emerges in this
region originally not on the basis of food
production but on the basis of craft produc-
tion, probably of prestige goods.  This sug-
gests a sequence of core/periphery formation
which may also have occured in other early
world-systems.

Back to the Future

   The comparative study of world-systems
poses potentially severe theoretical problems
for classical explanations of social change.
Most troublesome for Marxists is the possible
demotion of class from its central role as the
engine of social change.  While it is certain-
ly premature to claim this to have been demon-
strated, it should be left open as a possibil-
ity that Marx was wrong to generalize the
centrality of class struggle in early capital-
ist Europe into the distant past. Class strug-
gle cannot have been the motor of change in
classless systems. 
   On the other hand, the more general Marxist
presuppositions employed by several anthropol-
ogists (e.g., Wolf, 1982) --  a focus on the
way in which social labor is mobilized in
connection with the production and reproduc-
tion of material life and the institutions
which regulate interaction -- may be the most
useful theoretical apparatus to employ for
developing a new general explanation of his-
torical development which focusses on world-
systems and core/periphery hierarchies. The
study of production, distribution and accumu-
lation ought to analyze the interaction be-
tween intrasocietal class relations and inter-
societal core/periphery hierarchies. And, as
with the modern system, we should examine the
transsocietal aspects of class relations.    
The conceptual reformulations of world-systems
and core/periphery hierarchies presented in
this book knock all the endogenist versus
exogenist debates into a cocked hat.  The
issue of the primacy of "internal" versus
"external" factors is transformed. We now need
to explicitly consider the multilevel nature
of all world-systems and to study the interac-
tions between levels. 
   The sorting out of what is external or
internal to which context is, of course,
complicated by the fuzziness of system bound-
aries.  The designation of bulk goods regional
subsystem, political/military world-systems,
and prestige goods supersystems (or some other
set of terms) clarifies this problem somewhat,
but not completely.  It is probably more
profitable to think in terms of degrees of
hierarchy, degrees of interconnectedness,
degrees of "systemness,"  and to study these
variables empirically.  Stinchcombe's (1985)
comment that the early modern world-system was
a "ramshackle affair" remains cogent as does
John Hall's (1984) dissection of modern world-
-system holism.
   Attention to context within larger networks
should also be paid in the comparative study
of the processes by which less hierarchical
systems become incorporated into more hierar-
chical ones. Small societies are transformed
into ethnic groups in the processes of incor-
poration, but the nature of these transforma-
tions may vary with the type of core/periphery
context.
   The historical development from small
world-systems to the global one has been a
process of the emergence of larger and larger
levels of organization and the incorporation
of less hierarchical systems into more hierar-
chical ones. The transitions involved in
chiefdom formation, state formation, empire
formation, the rise and fall of hegemonic core
powers (and the possible future emergence of a
global state)  may be seen as iterations of a
general process. It is the shared features in
the sequences of political centraliza-
tion/decentralization, the emergence of larger
levels of organization, and the general impor-
tance of core/periphery relations in these
processes, which are emphasized by Gills and
Frank, and Ekholm and Friedman. 
   But a closer study of these historical
patterns will reveal that there have been
important systematic differences across the
iterations.  The clarification of these is
just beginning. The trick now is to employ a
comparative framework which can walk the
narrow trail between overly abstract general
model-building and overly specific emphasis on
uniquenesses and conjunctural circumstances.  
   Finally, we would like to extend our plura-
listic approach to the comparative study of
world-systems to include research strategies. 
Synchronic, diachronic, comparative, and case
study strategies are all potentially useful. 
Synchronic studies need to take into account
that contemporaneous world-systems may repre-
sent very different types of systems. The
degree of independence of cases becomes an
increasingly thorny problem through time.
Diachronic studies face the same problem in
spades.  Even in a diachronic case study the
context is changing, but if the object of
study is a whole world-system this problem
should be reduced.
   There are at least three broad strategies
for dealing with these problems comparatively.
The first is to examine a small number of
cases synchronically. This is certainly the
most feasible approach, and can be most help-
ful for addressing conceptual issues and for
making very general distinctions. It also
allows for another important product of case
studies -- the consideration of uniquenesses.
A second strategy is to make comparisons of
trajectories of change, that is to compare
long-term case studies -- Chapter 7 uses this
strategy. This approach can also be important
for formulating concepts and hypotheses about
processes of change.  The third approach is to
make formal comparisons which examine varia-
tion across many different world-systems. This
approach can only be undertaken after concep-
tual work has been done and hypotheses about
comparative processes have been formulated and
operationalized. Though the problems of such
formal cross-world-system research are great,
it is the only design which can provide strong
evidence for or against hypotheses which are
derived from contending general theories of
historical development. Our effort in Chapter
1 to develop a typology of world-systems is
intended to facilitate such comparisons. 
Hence, not taxonomic completeness, but a
preliminary and heuristically useful guide for
comparative studies is the goal of our set of
types.
   Since we began this project we have found
many other social scientists who have been
working along similar lines and we have man-
aged to convince many others to join the
effort. We fancy that this might be the begin-
ning of the shift of social science from
multiparadigm childhood to grown-up normal
science, but if it is just one more turn in
the great sky-wheel which oscillates between
historical particularism and evolutionary
generalism, so be it. We are not convinced by
the current post-modern proclamation that
political and scientific progress is always an
illusion, though we certainly acknowledge that
the ideology of progress has been used as a
tool of oppression on many occasions. While we
think that the study of less hierarchical
societies may be able suggest ways for own
very hierarchical world-system to become more
humane in the future, we do not follow those
who romanticize the "primitive" because they
dislike the present. The contemporary involve-
ment of our own global political economy in
what almost everyone sees as important re-
structuring is a further source of inspiration
for a new study of the past.  A "back to the
future" approach to the transformation of the
global world-system may turn out to be both
politically and scientifically progressive.  



                    NOTES