From TBOS@social-sci.ss.emory.edu Sat Mar 1 00:44:52 1997 From: "Terry Boswell" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 02:42:31 EST5EDT Subject: historical evidence Gunder accuses me of taking his name in vain. I plead guilty. It should be obvious to most that reconsiling our views over the existence of capitalism is in vain. I think the transformation of the loose world system into an integrated capitalist world-system in the long 16th century to be the most important process in human history since horticulture. As I understand him (which is rare), Gunder now holds that no such transformation took place. Despite our fundamental disagreement, what might not be obvious is that we are good friends and that I truly respect his endeavor to expand the horizons of world system theory. In that spirit I feel downright obligated to offer a gentle retort to claims that appear from my perspective to be a bit extreme, including his following claim: "NONE of that qualifies for or justifies the Eurocentric terminology "European EXPANSION", better translated into Eurocentric bullshit. Respectfully submitted - to the historical evidence! gunder frank" In regard to 'historical evidence' of expansion, three types come to mind - geographic, trade and economic. In geographic terms, between 1450 and 1650 the W.European states managed to reverse the tide of Arab/Turkish expansion and go on to conquer the Americas, large portions of costal Africa, most of Indonesia, and critical trading posts throughout Afroasia. In terms of trade, the evidence points to a concurrent massive expansion, as indicated by the Baltic trade increasing perhaps 10 fold, the EuroAsian sea trade increasing at least 8 fold, and the Euroamerican sugar trade rising perhaps 3 fold (see Boswell and Misra, forthcoming _Acta Politica_ for data). Increases in economic product are harder to measure for this period. In some ways the trade data reflect an increase in production, most obvioulsy in the case of sugar production and Baltic trade. But, it is quite possible for trade to increase faster than production due to an increased division of labor. This was surely the case, although productive expansion is also widely reported. Scattered data on textiles indicate a clear production increae in Britain and the Netherlands, for instance. This expansion, regardless of what changed in Asia, is not just bull. Rather, it was of such magnitude that the quantitative change became a qualitative one. cheers, TBos Terry Boswell Department of Sociology Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Sat Mar 1 13:05:10 1997 Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 15:05:03 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: on Whiteneck and Boswell 1. Wherever does Whiteneck get such ideas about the force or even role of ideas? 2. Where does Whiteneck get the idea that nobody else had such ideas? 3. How about "subjecting" some of these/his ideas to a bit of a reality check? 4. It would be nice if Misra would also speak/write here for Boswell & Misra or at least for Misra, from whom I get the impresssion [my idea?] that she does not altogether share Boswell's ideas about world reality 5. The Baltic is one thing, Eaurasia a rather bigger different thing. To expand 3 plus times from virtually nothing is not much, and lests look at how this "expansion" was achieved = with American money. 6. For this European "expansion" to spell EXPANSION, Boswell would have to A. Compare it with the "expansion" opf others, eg of India, China, etc. etc., but of course since TB does not LOOK at those, he can't compare anything, and B. Look/see also how much the European "expansion" was as a share of the rest of the world's "expansion" and/or how big a share Europe got thanks to its "expansion". Since TB does not look elsewehere, of course he cant see that, nor realize how little it was. 7. To say that Europe "exapanded" to take up a big position in Southeast Asia, not to mention in East/South/or even West - and Central - Asia, is .... ok, lets call it balderdash instead of BS! 8. It is not that Terry and I "dont agree" - except perhaps about terminology ... and i just [con]ceeded on that! - its that Terry refuses to look at the facts. As I said, he insists again and again to use his magnifying glass to look under the European streetlight, and he refuses to look anywhere else in the real WORLD SYSTEM. Fortunately, this non-"disgreement" does not affect our friendship, and Terry's research helps enlighten us about what can be seen under the European streetlight, but alas it can NOT enlighten us much about what went on in the world as a whole, and it distorts even what we can see in Europe & the Baltic & Atlantic; because it does not take account of the whole nor of how that whole shaped the [marginal] European part. But there is little point in repeating this same litany over and over again, or even of demonstrating it empirically, and if T erry would not use my name "in vain" I would not respond either. love and xxxs gunder From rene.barendse@tip.nl Sat Mar 1 13:48:56 1997 (Smail3.1.29.1 #16) id m0w0vhW-000DliC; Sat, 1 Mar 97 21:48 MET id <01BC2687.27E21660@amsterdam11.pop.tip.nl>; Sat, 1 Mar 1997 21:25:59 +-100 From: barendse To: "'wsn@csf.colorado.edu'" Subject: Further historic evidence Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 21:16:57 +-100 -To quote Terry Bosdwell : I feel downright obligated to offer a gentle retort to claims that = appear=20 from my perspective to be a bit extreme, :=20 Respectfully submitted - to the historical evidence!, four matters: A.) In geographic terms, between 1450 and 1650 the W.European states managed to reverse the tide of Arab/Turkish expansion and go on to conquer the Americas, large portions of costal Africa, most of Indonesia, and critical trading posts throughout Afrasia.=20 America certainly, although the extent of Spanish control beyond the = cities and mining -centers should not be exagerated: more than 3/4 of = South Americas were still not under anybody's control. As to North = America.... well, you Americans should know. I take strong exception to the claim, however, that most of `Indonesia' = was controled by the Dutch let alone the Portuguese . That the = Dutch ever controled or wanyted to control Indonesia in the = seventeenth century is a myth dating from the nineteenth century. = Actually, the Dutch East Insdia Company only controled the tiny island = of Amboina a and Ternate (only a few hunderd kilometers) and a small = coastal strip (the Ommelanden) a few dozen kilometers around = Batavia//Jacarta . In 1650 the empire of Mataram still controled the = hinterland of Java and the Dutch were still u there on the sufferance of = the sultan of Mataram. That's it: perhaps less than 1/1000 th of the = surface of Indonesia (which of course did not exist in the seventeenth = century) anyhow) Same thing for Africa: the European strongholds in West Africa only = ciontroled a few miles around the settlement, and Europeans were not = even permitted to go beyond these few miles. On the entire eastern = coaast of Africa the Portuguese had only control of one minute island, = Fort Jesu, Mombassa. The Dutch settlement on the Cape of Good Hope did = not yet exist and throughout the rest of the seventeenth century = consisted of but a few square miles of territory. The exceptions to the = rule are Mozambique wghere the Portuguese really only controled the = fortresses of Sofala and Mozambique but where they were permitted to = trade in the deep interior ( but they were thrown out in 1695) and, = finally, Angola where the Portuguese only controled the town of Luanda = which had trade-links with the interior. A few `Portuguese' = merchant/warriors conducted some trade with occasional use of force from = there along the basin of the Congo. =20 Once again, the territory uwhich was really under European control -as = opposed to armed trade in collaboration with African rulers or = chieftains amounted to less than 1/10000 of Africa. In the rest of Asia the only territory under European control was Goa = in India- now look at thishis small speck on the map of India and = remember that most territory of Goa was only added in 1754 and you will = have some idea how significant the European territory in Asia is wwas = in territorial terms. B.)In terms of trade, the evidence points to a concurrent massive = expansion, as indicated by the Baltic trade increasing perhaps 10 fold, the EuroAsian sea trade increasing at least 8 fold, and the Euroamerican sugar trade rising perhaps 3 fold=20 There is no denying the prodigious growth of trade in Europe after 1500; = that Euro-Asian maritime trade increased is obvious (it finally emerged = from nothing ....) and, to be sure, it did partly -and after 1620 = largely replaced trade along the caravan-routes I do have a problem = with a tenfold increase in Baltic trade though - increases like that = are rare in the pre-industrial period and, anyhow, the standard-account = of P.. Jeannin (Les comtes du Sond comme source pour la conjuncture = Europeene) only comes to. -- if I remember rightly t - to a 200% = increase and is to be used with caution. I once collaborated in a = project to computerize the volume of the Sond trade and we got only 150 = ic% =20 increase and even these figures are problematic. It has much to do = with what was declared and what was not. The basic structure of = Baltic trade was already firmly in place by 1400 -b which is not to deny = that 150% increase is still dramatic. Same problem with Europe-American = trade - recentnt research has raised great doubts aboutt Chaunu's = figures which basically derive volumes and values of trade from the = size of ships. The figure for the sugar trade seems realistic enough. = While I will not enter the problem of price-inflation and its = relationship with American silver here, note that there is a school of = historians, which is arguing that the i European inflation predated = the introduction of American silver in the 1540's and that Bohemian = silver production was already increasingg after 1 1460 to cater for the demand for silver. American trade and American = silver was not the cause fo but rather an effect of the restructuring = of European trade and production in the sixteenth century.ry according = to those historians.=20 C.)There are many production figures for the sixteenth century - this is = particulary true for Spain and Italy and, as is well known the = production of textiles, in Gerona for example, began to decrease -partly = due to foreign competition- already by 1530, the same for parts of = Italy. Thus, the increase of textile production in Honschooten (I guess = that's what Terry Boswell is referring to) is not an indicator fg of a general European increase. The textile-production at Leiden is a = unique case and should not be used as an indication for European textile = production.. What the production figures are pointing at i is not = primarily growth but restructuring of textile-production, away form the = medieval urban centrers and into the countryside and towards low-wage = regions.=20 Which brings me to:=20 D.)This expansion, regardless of what changed in Asia, is not just bull. = Rather, it was of such magnitude that the quantitative change became=20 a qualitative one. =20 Maybe, the trouble, though, is that quantitative changes were also = occuring in Asia; thus, for example,=20 skipping the obvious case of the expansion of Inbdian textile = From rene.barendse@tip.nl Sat Mar 1 15:09:12 1997 (Smail3.1.29.1 #16) id m0w0wzb-000DmZC; Sat, 1 Mar 97 23:10 MET id <01BC2692.A5B34040@amsterdam71.pop.tip.nl>; Sat, 1 Mar 1997 22:48:14 +-100 From: barendse To: "'wsn@csf.colorado.edu'" Subject: AW: Further historic evidence, 2 Date: Sat, 1 Mar 1997 22:48:05 +-100 Posting got truncated : sorry that I have to mail point D again. It's a = a long way to Tipperary but it's a longer way from Amsterdam to=20 to Colorado=20 D.)This expansion, regardless of what changed in Asia, is not just bull. = Rather, it was of such magnitude that the quantitative change became=20 a qualitative one. =20 Maybe, the trouble, though, is that quantitative changes were also = occuring in Asia; thus, for example,=20 skipping the obvious case of the expansion of Inbdian textile = production, the production of pepper i in Sumatra and Java appears to have tripled in the sixteenth century = with production moving from India to Indonesia, basically because land = was cheaper there. This was one qualitative change concurent with = qualitative change but it also appears as if in the course of the late = sixteenth century, cultivation i Jn Java became increasingly oriented = towards producing cash crops with the peasant increasingly succumbing to = debt-servitude; moreover we also can discern a rise of rural = enterpreneurs selling cash-crops to Chinese merchants, later the Dutch = East India Company, who accumulate money to invest in soldiers, = ceremonies and commerce. This is one example of the rise of commercial = agriculture in the sixteenth century in Asia -and there are many others- = in the same period as `capitalist agriculture' arose in Europe, = according to Wallerstein, sure, I do not want enter the debate on = `capitalism' but one may suppose that qualitative changes were occuring = in Asia and in Europe.=20 Hope this historic evidence is useful, regardles of the conclusions one = may draw from it it cheers, Dr. R.J. Barendse Leiden University Netherlands Rene.barendse@tip.nl Terry Boswell Department of Sociology Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 From sbabones@jhu.edu Sat Mar 1 16:51:23 1997 01 Mar 1997 18:51:05 -0500 (EST) 01 Mar 1997 18:51:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 18:50:49 -0500 From: Salvatore Babones Subject: Frank and Barendse vs. Boswell In-reply-to: <01BC2692.A5B34040@amsterdam71.pop.tip.nl> To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: Salvatore Babones Please excuse me for interrupting the flow of the debate, but I've lost the point of it. If one of the protagonists would be willing to make a restatement of the theory to be confirmed or rejected by the evidence of commparative 16th century growth rates, I would appreciate it. Thanks. Salvatore From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Sun Mar 2 12:03:59 1997 Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 14:03:57 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: Salvatore Babones Subject: Re: Frank and Barendse vs. Boswell In-Reply-To: You ASKED for it: 1. Terry observes SOME growth in Europe and equates that with EUROPEAN EXPANSION and is now thankfuly more reluctant to use the "C" =apitalism word, as he graciuously put it. 2. Terry observes MORE growth in and of Europe than there was [eg Barensde and Frank independetly of each other both rebut his totally unwarranted claims about Indonesia and Africa], and 3. Terry does not observe anything in Asia because he refuses to look, so Barendse and Frank supply a couple of items about that. 4. They show that European "expansion" is neither here nor there, Terry does well to excercise care in the use of the "C'word - Frank would abandon it altogether and apparently Barendse is also so inclined on the basis of the EVIDENCE, so that therefore 5. The argument is about the entire body of historiography and social theory from Marx Weber to Wallerstein - including what the "world system" and the "theory" about it is and is NOT. 6. Al Bergesen made this = what this argument is about - abundantly clear on this net some weeks ago. Maybe Salvatore was out to lunch. Bon Aptetit Gunder Frank On Sat, 1 Mar 1997, Salvatore Babones wrote: > Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 18:50:49 -0500 > From: Salvatore Babones > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Frank and Barendse vs. Boswell > > > Please excuse me for interrupting the flow of the debate, but I've lost > the point of it. If one of the protagonists would be willing to make a > restatement of the theory to be confirmed or rejected by the evidence of > commparative 16th century growth rates, I would appreciate it. > > Thanks. > > Salvatore > > From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Sun Mar 2 15:17:00 1997 3 Mar 1997 09:15:51 +1100 Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 09:15:50 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Eureopean Expansion In-reply-to: To: "A. Gunder Frank" Peninsular West Asian expansion into America from the 1500's on is unquestionable.[1] What other expansion was going on elsewhere at the same time, and when did the PWA expansion pass the others -- I would presume, first as a proportional increase in the area under PWA control, and later as a share of the total expansion taking place by distinct areas in the Afrasian axial system? Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au [1] That is, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, Scandinavian Peninsula, etc. in the portion of West Asia roughly due north of Africa. From albert@U.Arizona.EDU Mon Mar 3 12:03:15 1997 Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 12:00:08 -0700 (MST) From: Albert J Bergesen To: Terry Boswell Subject: Re: historical evidence In-Reply-To: <2D6C6F4F88@ss.emory.edu> WSNers: Part of this debate is dealt with by data: comparisons of production, trade, finance, etc. statistics between East and West for the years in question. I would like to see some. In that spirit, Paul Bairoch's "International INdustrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980", JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN ECONOMIC HISTORY 11(1982): 269-334, provides a table on shares of world manufacturing output, 1750-1980, that sheds some light on this question. in 1750, by his calculations, the West accounts for only 18.2% of world manufacturing output while the East (China, Japan, India/Pakistan) accounts for 61.1%; as late as 1830 the West's share is 31.1% to 50.2% for the East. By 1860 the rise of the west has, in fact, taken place, as the West now accounts for 53.5% vs. 30.9% for the East. First, this is the foundation for the claim that the rise of the west does not occur in the 16th century, but only later, mid-19th century. Second, the West peaks at 84.2% of world manufacturing output in 1928 and drops down to 57.8% in 1980, a figure similar to the West's share of 53.7% in 1860. This is the foundation for the claim of the relatively short lived Euro/American zonal hegemony in world manufacturing, from, generally, 1850 to 2050. This is also the basis for the notion that Asia isn't rising for the first time, but ressuming a position of leadership/domination in world manufacturing held prior to the Euro/American ascendence. Third, is the question of what does "world manufacturing output". This brings us to theory, and the now raised possibility of a Marian/Weberian mis-read of the Euro/American ascendence as a new turn in world history. For Terry B. it is still a new turn in world history. But, if we can take some stock in the Bairoch figures then the new turn is but a statistical blip of a few hundred years, and probably not a world historic turn at all, unless one wants to mean a temporary zonal hegemony a world historic turn. That for me raises the eurocentric issue again. Without indulging in Western self hatred, it seems reasonable that when the theoretical output of an area that has just attained temporary global hegemony (post-1850 Europe) makes universalist claims that this area is totally diffferent in viritually all ways from the rest of the world, and that difference accounts for this rise, and that this rise, is a turn in world history,and not, as it turns out, a blip, that this theory seems legitimately called zonal centrtic, and when the zone is Europe, then Eurocentric. This seems like a straight call. Now, it is argued that the Bairock statistics for China/India/Pakistan/etc. are not of "capitalist" manufacturing but of "traditional manufacturing" and as such shouldn't count as the world is moving toward "capitalism" as th dominant mode of production. China was just bigger, and arguments like that. This assumes what is now increasingly being challenged by the globo-centric theoretical perspective, that Europe was different. This is the basis for the claim that there was no "capitalism", where capitalism means doing anything different from what others in the world had been doing. There is temporal difference--new things emerge all the time--at that is no doubt associated with a temporary advantage the region gains, but that is not a change in the larger system, here the East/West world economy. Or, if "capitalism" is to mean the Euro/American ascendance, then, since that is passing, isn't capitalism passing passing too, and won't the Asian ascendence gain another name associated with its production technique? But this is short sighted. If we make each zonal hegemony a different system we are blind to the framing system that makes the very zonal transititions we observe possible. That, I will guess, will be the greatest draw back of the "capitalism" idea--it universalized a temporary zonal advantage, and took a blip and make it seem like a world historic shift. Now, I don't doubt that there are world historic shifts, but note that what was supposedly the European originated one is turning out to be a blip, much like socialism turned out to be a 1917-1989 blip. This, it seems to me, leaves us with two options: (i) we can continue to see the medium short run as universal--capitalism, socialism, feudalism, etc. and say these are the great world systemic breaks, or (ii) we can try and identify the structure and soico/economic logic of the East/West world economy, within which, capitalism, socialism, feudalism has been produced, and temporarily risen and fallen. These are the consequendes of the real economic system of the real world system of real world history. We have mistakenly seen outcomes as origins and as primal causes. Here, at the end of the 20th century, it has taken the decline of the West and the rise of Asian economies to make us finally question our theoretical framework in any sort of deep way. The received past of theory--particulary the Marxian heritage since it served in its time as the embodiment of left progressivity--is particulary difficult to overcome and dislodge from ways of thinking. Hopefully, the data provided by Bairoch will start the dislodging process. al b. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 email: albert@u.arizona.edu From SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Mon Mar 3 12:40:33 1997 03 Mar 1997 14:40:30 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 14:40:30 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Concerning the Boswell/Gunder/et al. debate: Part of Gunder's argument is that the same basic institutions -- dare I say CAPITALIST institutions? -- prevailed in Asia and Europe during early modern times. I would then raise the following question: Was there anything in Asia even remotely resembling the Amsterdam stock exchange of the seventeenth century? I don't think so. If not, surely this implies a big difference between Asia and Europe. Steve Sanderson From wally@cats.ucsc.edu Mon Mar 3 12:50:24 1997 From: wally@cats.ucsc.edu id LAA02964 for ; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 11:50:25 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 11:50:19 -0800 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: more globaloney i for one do not see how bairoch's data as reported in bergesen's post have much bearing on the question of whether an epochal transformation of the ("european") world-economy and subsequently/consequentially the (east/west or global) world economy occurred in the so-called modern period, and, if it occurred, when its institutionalization should be dated. for a long time asians made more stuff than europeans and probably will do so again if they don't already. relative quantities of stuff produced may hold some interest for the east/west or global world system camp, but i don't think the hyphenators among us will find it terribly useful. hyphenators are more interested in what kinds of stuff, produced through what kinds of commodity chains with what production regimes and and profitabilities at the various nodes, and with what political and cultural consequences. then all the flesh is as the grass, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we are all blips flashing across the cosmic screen, byting the dust (as it were) hey, and while i'm at it, here's the provisional program for PEWS XXI at santa cruz next month; non-program participants are very much welcome, so let me know if you need directions of any kind (eg, san jose is the nearest airport but okaland and san francisco are not much further): PEWS XXI: THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT & THE WORLD-SYSTEM UC Santa Cruz, April 3-5, 1997 (contact: Wally Goldfrank: wally@cats.ucsc.edu) Provisional schedule for PEWS XXI Thursday, April 3rd 7:15pm: Keynote lecture, "Ecology and Capitalist Costs of Production: No Exit." Immanuel Wallerstein, Binghamton U Kresge Town Hall 9:00pm: Reception Howling Cow Cafe Friday, April 4th Stevenson Fireside Lounge 9:30am-12:00 Session I: HISTORICAL STUDIES "Economic Ascent and the Global Environment: World Systems Theory and the New Historical Materialism," Stephen G. Bunker, U. of Wisconsin, Madison and Paul S. Ciccantell, Kansas State U "Ecological Relations in the Rise and Decline of Kingdoms and Civilizations, 2500BC to 500BC," Sing C. Chew, Humboldt State U "Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization: Rethinking the Expansion of the Early Modern World-economy," Jason W. Moore, UC Santa Cruz Environmental Factors in the Decline of the Pre-Columbian Caribbean Societies and its Consequences for the Emerging World-system," Hakiem Nankoe and Margo Nankoe. Johns Hopkins U 12:00-1:00, Lunch 1:00-3:00 Session II: INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE 20TH CENTURY "Politics of Space and the Political Economy of Toxic Waste," Robert Futrell, U of Kansas "World Systems Environmental Effects of the Gulf War," Claire W. Gilbert, Blazing Tattles "Hungary and the Discourse of Waste," Zsuzsa Gille, UC Santa Cruz 3:00-3:30 Coffee Break 3:30-5:30 Session III: AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE 20TH CENTURY "Environmental and Political Development in the Circumpolar North after Europeanization," Ilmo Massa, U of Helsinki "Food, Water, Power, People: Dams and Affluence in Late 20th Century East and Southeast Asia." Gavan McCormack, Ritsumeikan U (Kyoto) & Australian National U "The Role of New Arid-adapted Crops in Breaking the Cycle of Grazing Land Degredation in Patagonia." Jorge A. Zavala, U of Buenos Aires 7:00pm, Dinner for participants Saturday, April 5th Stevenson Fireside Lounge 10:00am-12:00 Session IV: GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSES "How Toxic is the World-System?" Albert Bergesen and Laura Parisi, U of Arizona "World-Systems Theory and the Global Environment: an Exploration" Peter E. Grimes, Johns Hopkins U, and J. Timmons Roberts, Tulane U Capitalism and Biospheric Collapse, Peter E. Grimes, Johns Hopkins U 12:00-1:00 Lunch 1:00-4:00 Session V: ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS "Global Green Praxis: A Typology of Environmental Movements," Richard Hutchinson, U of Arizona "Success and Impasse: Environmental Theory and Movement Practice in the United States and Around the World," Robert Schaeffer, San Jose State U "The Emergence of South Korean Environmental Movements: A Response (and Challenge?) to Semiperipheral Industrialization," Su- Hoon Lee, Kyungnam U (Seoul), and David A. Smith, UC Irvine "Impacts of the Global System on Environmental Regulations and Social Movements in the New South Africa." Christine Root and David Wiley, Michigan State U From rene.barendse@tip.nl Mon Mar 3 14:16:34 1997 (Smail3.1.29.1 #16) id m0w1f7j-000DomC; Mon, 3 Mar 97 22:18 MET id <01BC281D.7C8FE920@amsterdam38.pop.tip.nl>; Mon, 3 Mar 1997 21:54:36 +-100 From: barendse To: "'wsn@csf.colorado.edu'" Subject: AW: Stephan Sanderson's query Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 21:52:24 +-100 A remark on S.Sanderson's query of 3 march: =20 Part of Gunder's argument is that the same basic institutions -- dare I = say CAPITALIST institutions? -- prevailed in Asia and Europe during early = modern times. I would then raise the following question: Was there anything = in Asia even remotely resembling the Amsterdam stock exchange of the seventeenth century?=20 Yes and No No - was there anything in Europe resembling the large-scale manufactur = of porcelain in China ? But that's really a stupid answer, As with technology dare I say), the organization of Asian capitalism or = rather commercial capital was not so much backward as different from the = European organization (and European solutions would not have fitted the = circumstances in India or China or Iran anyway)..=20 Thus in the two Asian stapple-towns which I know best, New Julfa near = Isfahan and Surat, there was no stock-exchange but what did exist was an = intricate interlocking system of assemblies of bankers and merchants = which served most of the functions of the Amsterdam stock exchange, = thus, e.g. for gathering information, trading goods in bulk, for = handling insurance of goods and ships and, indeed, for allotting credit = to Mughal nobles but not to the Mughal state. Something like a = consolidated state-debt did not exist in Islamic empires, largely I = think, because of Islamic prohibitions on interest. This would also have = forestalled the rise of joint-stock companies on the European pattern. However, what did exist were temples and islamic shrines which disposed = of almost inexhaustable amounts of funds -anybody who has visited the = awesome temple complex at Mount Abu for example can testify to this- = now it appears that -and I'm here on somewhat shacky ground- that the = funds of the temples were endowed by bankers partly to serve as a = reserve-fund for their operations. While in Europe th merchants would invest part of their funds safely in joint-stock = companies in India (and the same in Iran) temples and shrines fulfilled = something like the same function. Those temples, however, did not invest = their money only in buildings and brahmnins they also invested in land; = most of the land being granted -or bought- in main morte property; thus, = a pursuit which might be called typically feudal wwas dovetailing with = the pursuit of commercial gain (and it seems from what we know of = their accounts that the temples were also collecting land- revenues to = make profit.). So - in some ways- Yes, in India they had temples. =20 Dr. R.J. Barendse Leiden University rene.barendse@tip.nl Finally: I hope I won't be blamed for one self-indulgent rambling: = since I have to undergo a major operation on wednesday, I won't be in = contact for a while: I have always enjoyed reading the often fascinating = discussions on this list and it has been a big relief during the very = severe pains I've been going through the last months. Cheers and best to you all. From CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Mon Mar 3 14:17:22 1997 Date: Mon, 03 Mar 97 15:03:38 EST From: CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Subject: misra responds To: W-S Network Dave Smith just called my attention to this debate (guiltily, I admit to have not been following WSN these last few weeks). Gunder remarked: >4. It would be nice if Misra would also speak/write here for Boswell & >Misra or at least for Misra, from whom I get the impresssion [my idea?] that >she does not altogether share Boswell's ideas about world reality Well, here I am. Most likely, I won't please either Terry or Gunder with my remarks. But I am Misra speaking for Misra, and not Misra for Boswell & Misra. The way I read this debate is that Terry is arguing that European expansion (geographically, in terms of trade, and in terms of production) during the long 16th century provides the evidence we need to show that capitalism emerged in Europe during this period. Perhaps that's simplifying too much, but I don't have anything in front of my except Terry's Saturday email to the list. Gunder suggests that this read privileges Europe's position in the world- system in ways that are not productive for world-system theory. He disputes this notion, with the following remarks, which I'll attempt to address: >5. The Baltic is one thing, Eaurasia a rather bigger different thing. >To expand 3 plus times from virtually nothing is not much, and lests look >at how this "expansion" was achieved = with American money. Although European-Asian trade expanded during this period, it still was *very very very* small compared to intra-European trade or intra-Asian trade. And, American silver is what gave the Dutch the chance to trade in Asia (Asian traders had enough partners, thanks very much, and silver gave Europe an "in"). 6. For this European "expansion" to spell EXPANSION, Boswell would have to A. Compare it with the "expansion" opf others, eg of India, China, etc. etc., but of course since TB does not LOOK at those, he can't compare anything, and B. Look/see also how much the European "expansion" was as a share of the rest of the world's "expansion" and/or how big a share Europe got thanks to its "expansion". Since TB does not look elsewehere, of course he cant see that, nor realize how little it was. I believe this is a fair critique of our work. The way I see it, Terry and I are most interested in making sense of how the Dutch became so powerful within Europe, in comparison to the other European powers, and what this tells us about the workings of the European world-system. We don't look at Europe as belonging to a larger world system, or put together trade figures for regions outside of northern Europe. While we can discuss the internal processes of the European world-system (a project I continue to think is important and can contribute to world- system theory), it would be useful to add the context Gunder pushes for (how the European world-system was impacted by processes in the larger world system, how other regions of the world system similarly or dissimilarly "developed") in order to develop a better understanding of the workings of the world system. Comparative-historical scholars (of all stripes) should and generally do recognize the validity of this point -- we must continue to look at our cases (even the case of the world-system) using comparative frameworks in order to develop the most sophisticated and sensible understanding of what's occurred/occuring. Although I can't promise that my research will follow up on this need for contextualization and comparison, I hope that it will. I think that this is the way that we build good theories. 7. To say that Europe "exapanded" to take up a big position in Southeast Asia, not to mention in East/South/or even West - and Central - Asia, is .... ok, lets call it balderdash instead of BS! I don't have the past emails, so I'm not sure who said exactly what, but this does seem quite clearly off-the-mark. Europe was unable to expand enough to take up a "big position" in Southeast Asia. The Dutch made up a very tiny portion of the trade in Asia, and only controlled a very limited territory. Professor Barense has made this point already. Every source on European-Asian trade I'm aware of agrees with this point, and I have no evidence to the contrary. >Fortunately, this non-"disgreement" does not affect our friendship, and >Terry's research helps enlighten us about what can be seen under the >European streetlight, but alas it can NOT enlighten us much about what >went on in the world as a whole, and it distorts even what we can see in >Europe & the Baltic & Atlantic; because it does not take account of the >whole nor of how that whole shaped the [marginal] European part. Well. :) I take Gunder's remarks as a charge to keep pushing beyond the limits of our previous research, in hope of developing a better understanding. Yet, on the continued debate about whether there was a *qualitative* shift in Europe during this period which signals the emergence of capitalism, I quite honestly feel that I need to examine more evidence and make sure that what we all mean when we say "capitalism" is crystal clear. *Something* happened in Europe. As Professor Sanderson suggests, perhaps the financial innovations played a role (I am fascinated by the work that points out the innovation of "long-term credit" to the state and its effects). But personally, I can't convince myself that I know enough about regions outside of Europe and what we all mean when we use the word "capitalism" to come down on either side of this debate. I am grateful to Terry, Gunder and everyone else for keeping me interested though... Joya Misra CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU *********************************************************************** Assistant Professor Department of Sociology University of Georgia Baldwin Hall Athens, Georgia 30602 (706)542-3190 From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Mon Mar 3 15:33:21 1997 4 Mar 1997 09:32:48 +1100 Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 09:32:47 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: historical evidence In-reply-to: To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Albert J Bergesen wrote: > That for me raises the eurocentric issue again. Without indulging in > Western self hatred, it seems reasonable that when the theoretical output > of an area that has just attained temporary global hegemony (post-1850 > Europe) makes universalist claims that this area is totally diffferent in > viritually all ways from the rest of the world, and that difference > accounts for this rise, and that this rise, is a turn in world history,and > not, as it turns out, a blip, that this theory seems legitimately called > zonal centrtic, and when the zone is Europe, then Eurocentric. This seems > like a straight call. Having read part of one of Sanderson's books, I would point out there is a rough fit here with the broad outlines of his argument: - A persistent increase in 'commercialisation' from the rise of states onward (pretty much Gunder Frank's '5,000 years') - A diversity of particular political systems, one of which is feudalism, as found in Europe and Japan, specifically including personal vasselage (among the elites) and other features (that is, historical feudalism) - Feudalism having a differential propensity to shift into a system in which capitalist relations are a predominant institution for the organisation of production (here I lapse into an institutionalist rather than Marxist understanding of capitalism -- but then, variety is the spice of life, eh?) - This is simply a differential propensity, not an absolute requirement for the emergence of capitalism, so that if, counter-factually, there had been no feudal systems, the 'central' (I guess what has sometimes been called the 'axial' system) system would have had states making the transition to a dominance of capitalist rules of authority within producing organisations in any event. That really does fit with the account from which the above was quoted. Because of their non-central status, most of the 'rise' was consumed in catching up, and once they had caught up and started to move ahead, the propensity of other states (empires, whatever) to shift to dominance of capitalist institutions increased. In other words, when the fundamental advantage is an early start, there is no reason to expect the advantage to persist indefinitely. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Mon Mar 3 16:31:23 1997 Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 18:30:59 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: All of the above Thanks Joya. Yours DOES satisfy me, though to "comparions" i would urge adding "connection" and both as part of the "whole". Dear Terry can best express his dis?/satisfaction himself Thanks also to Al, for still more useful info and its contextualization. Thanks to Waly for the PWES program, and even for responding to our "debatge" - but not for the content of what he said, which strikes me as totally beside the point And thanks to ALL for bearing with us on what may seem quite beside their/your point/s. gunder frank From wthompso@indiana.edu Mon Mar 3 17:50:30 1997 Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 19:50:27 -0500 (EST) From: "william r. thompson" To: "A. Gunder Frank" Subject: Re: All of the above In-Reply-To: Here is a challenge to Gunder Frank, Al Bergesen, Joyra Misra, and Terry Boswell, as well as anybody else who wants to join in. I suspect we could argue until the cows come home about the relative centrality of eastern vs. western eurasia in the world economy/system. But what empirical evidence might we look for (other than Bairoch's data) that could resolve this question? What I am hinting at is that I'm not sure that everybody in this game is using the same criteria - therefore, it might be helpful if people spelled out what criteria they had in mind for establishing centrality/exceptionalism/breakthroughs to capitalism, or whatever. For instance, if I wanted to establish centrality according to the sheer volume of transactions, there would be no doubt where the center was in say the 17th or 18th century ala Bairoch. Yet we also know the Chinese economy has remained quite large in GNP terms despite low scores in development and per capita wealth. Therefore, I do not find Bairoch's data all that useful for establishing where I think the action is in the world economy. I think the most interesting action is where the innovation is concentrated (if, it is indeed concentrated) and I don't see a whole lot of it going on in eastern Eurasia after the Mongol phenomena. But, as well as my foggy mind can recall, I am introducing a different criteria for focus than the earlier exchanges discussed. So, maybe that is unfair ( and surely balderdash or worse according to Gunder) but at least I can produce some evidence for innovation in the world economy over the last millennia. To convince me that I'm out to lunch or looking under the wrong streetlight, one would either have to demonstrate that I have overlooked substantial evidence for economic innovation or that innovation is simply the wrong focus. According to the serial data I have in mind, the innovation center shifted away from eastern Eurasia as early as the end of the Sung period, and toward western Eurasia or, at least, very limited portions (Genoa, Venice initially) thereof. Bill Thompson From sbabones@jhu.edu Mon Mar 3 17:53:11 1997 03 Mar 1997 19:51:59 -0500 (EST) 03 Mar 1997 19:48:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 19:41:53 -0500 From: Salvatore Babones Subject: The beginning of it all . . . In-reply-to: <970303.161600.EST.CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU> To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: Salvatore Babones WNSers, I have looked up Prof. Bergesen's seminal posting on capitalism, and, begging Prof. Bergesen's pardon, I am going to reproduce it below. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ WSNers and others: This began as a reply to Joya Misra who asked about the role/importance of "capitalism" in the operation of the world system. The more I wrote the more I expanded and the more I thought it would make a good post and hopefully start some discussion. There are alot of things going on at the same time and they are all true. States have more or less different structures. And, at some level, things change too, so the world economy has to be somewhat different now than then. Agreed. The question is of all this change, difference, etc. which parts to we pick out to hinge our causal logic on: what becomes the independent and what the dependent variable. The sociological impulse has always been to look for systemasticity the collective the corporate totality of parts, the house rather than the bricks, the forests rather than the trees. Further, we have always believed that the blueprint of the house dictated the shape, location, and function of the rooms; understand the collective blueprint and you understood a good part of the structural relationship of rooms to rooms, windows to rooms, doors to rooms, connecting hallways, and so forth. National societies were the first blueprint--that gave us sociology as we professionally know it. Classes, groups, statuses, organizations, communities, families, etc. were the rooms in the house of society. The most powerful blueprint was Marx and variations thereof, about classes, stratification, economic condition, how ideas and politics followed these class struggles, etc. Then dependency and then IW's world system theory pushed the house up a notch--at the time we thought it was the final home, but it turned out it wasn't, but we have only now begun to understand this. IW made two fundamental errors: (i) he stretched the logic of the societal blueprint to fit his now widened European based/originated world system, calling it, appropriately, the capitalist world system. The blueprint for a single house was now, in effect, thought to explain a whole city block of houses, and while the match wasn't exactly perfect (the core doesn't hire the periphery for a wage to extract surplus value) it served as a sort of moral indictment of the world system (the core exploits the periphery, like the capitalists in society exploit the workers), and the extraction mechanism was fiddled with to create the absolutely incomprehensible notion of the theory of unequal exchange and the transfer of surplus value through such trade. It is often repeated yet no one has to date been able to clearly explicate exactly what all that means or how it actually works, let alone gather any evidence as to its operation. Social science is a world of rather loose fitting models, so the idea of a capitalist world economy was conceptually satisfactory. (ii) The other problem was origins of the new larger house--the world system. IW made the error of having it arise from activities of what turned out to be a sub-part of a larger world system, the now oft mentioned Afroeurasian world system of many centuries existence. IW, in a still sociological mode of thinking, had class relations change in a lone peninsula of a huge land mass (the crisis of Fedualism) that in turn led to the expansion of that peninsula to form a European based international economy that then grew/expanded in concentric circles "incorporating" ever new areas into its sphere of influence and subjecting them to its operational logic--the now stretched idea of capitalism. At the time no one thought of this as Eurocentric, or racist. It all seemed so natural. Even its opposition in European thought, Max Weber, did not challenge the "peninsular thesis", he just emphasized a different aspect of peninsular life--religion. It was, he said, the Protestant Ethic that made the difference and gave birth to something endogenously exceptional from the rest of the world, which became the code word for peninsular exceptionalism--"Capitalism". The peninsula had it and no one else did. Of almost mythical proportions it was both good and bad; good, said Marx, because it swept away earlier formations and was so powerful that it would be the battering ram to knock down the walls of fedualism, tradition, and the general sluggishness of others off the peninsula, captured in the word the "Asiatic mode of production" It was bad because it was the highest form of inequality and had to be over come. But what the pensinula had wrought was unique inthe world; for Weber no one else in the world had the mental set, culture, habits of mind--well, rationality, to conduct business except the peninsula people; for Marx no one else in the world had the forms of sociial organization of production, from factory to manager/boss, called "capitalist", to class relations, and even political forms, the "bourgeoise state". Everyting on the peninsual was different from the rest of the world. If someone was a psychiatrist they might describe such patterns of thought as delusional, thinking they were apart from a larger world with which they clearly interacted, had trade relations, and wanted to be a part of. For how many centuries did the peninsula people try and make contact with the larger world of Asia and the East. From Marco Polo to Christopher Columbus they tried and tried to make contact and to get what they had. Finally, the logic of the larger world--or better just the world--of which they had always been a part (marginal but a part) shifted. The Afroeurasian blueprint shifted and the center declined and the peninsula people had an advantage, which they took. Labor saving devices were the economic thing to develop (where Asia had enough labor that saving labor was not the economical thing to do) and so they did. But the peninsula people saw this as their own doing, their own inventions (the Industrial Revolution), their own culture (Weber) their own struggles and class relationships (Marx), and they gave it their own designation "capitalism" which they had and no one else in the world did. They were the self made people, a sort of collective rational choice theory; the peninsula willed itself up, they called it the "Rise of the West" and began to generalize about it, and that became contemporary social science. First it started with them--belief changes (Weber) or social relation changes (Marx) or political changes (the Political/Democratic Revolution of the 18th century). Second, it was so unique, so infectous, so powerful, that it was unstoppable. It would--they all predicted--travel around the world, knocking down the walls of other arrangements and modes of thinking. As time went on it got even more like theology and was generalized even more, now called "modernity" and what they devised, created, invented, came upon, all by themselves, was the "modern world", "modern man", economic rationality and rationality in their culture and only they wanted to, or were forced to, accumulate capital. It all continues into the 20th century. Walt W. Rostow speaks of their "take off" to sustained growth, North and Thomas go on again about the "rise of the west" (North even wins a Nobel prize) It was a tremendous vanity: I mean think about it: here is a whole world economy, existing for eons, with a center and a lot of edges, and one of the edges, an outpost peninsula, comes to the conclusion that only they "want money for the sake of money". All others, they tell you in their social science theories, do business for other non-economic reasons. Somehow we have come to believe that only peninsula people calculate, save, rationalize, and want money for the sake of money, and exploit their workers through the difference between what they pay them and what they get for the products. From this point of view, why did the Chinese make all that porceilin and ceramics and silk? Why did the people of India make all those textiles, calicoes, cloth? Just for themselves? Just for their "use value" because they were "traditional" because they couldn't "accumulate" capital, because they they were embedded in these religion dominated sluggish family and traditional dominated "asiatic modes of production"? Most of this stuff they produced, better, manufactured, they sold, for a profit, they produced, for a profit, they got rich from, for a profit, they calculated--rationally, economically--for a profit. But to the peninsula people, when their time came to ascend in this Afroeruasian system, to be a temporary center--1750 to 2050--they wrote it up as something they did on their own, by themselves, independent of the larger world system--their protestant ethic, their relations of production (which they coined the term "capitalism"--as if only they were interested in accumulating capital), their capitalist state, their modern outlook, their individualism, their initiative, while the rest, they were "traditional" (Daniel Lerner), they had "huadralic/bureaucratic modes of production" (Wittfogel), they did business by "redistributing" (Polanyi) not trading/exchanging, they had "no rationality" (Weber), they had the sluggish, resistant to innovation, resistant to change, the same for centuries, totally controlling, stifflying, "Asiatic Mode of Production" (Marx), and then, most recently, from Braudel and Wallerstein comes the notion that the very Afroeurasian world economy of which they had been the center was itself a by-product, a consequence, an outcome of, changes in the social organization of an outer peninsula. Instead of seeing it correctly that the cyclic dynamics of the Afroeurasian world economy led to the rise of the European "world-system", they reversed it, and had one room of the larger Afroeurasian house, the European "world-system" give rise to the larger world-economy. Thats nerve. Well, we believed it. Its sociology, its Marxism, its development studies, its PEWS, its IW's world-system, its about everything. But its wrong. The peninsula is a consequence of the larger system; it is not its cause. The peninsula's theories of itself from Marx to Weber to Wallerstein mistakenly place the peninsula's changes as the cause of the larger system, when it is just the opposite. It is then no accident that at the window of faltering in Asia that allowed the Peninsula's rise (the rise of the west) was also a window in which the "theory of the peninsula's rise was written" and it constitutes the classics of social theory. >From Marx to Weber to things about Modernity it is one story of exceptionalism, and makes the error of taking a shift of centers and relative advantage and transforming it into a theory of origins. Europe is the dependent, not the independent variable. And so to with the European world system of IW, and so too with the mythical "capitalism" of Marx, and its mythical "spirit of capitalism with Weber, and so too with the mythical "modern world". Why do we realize this now? Good question. I don't fully know, to tell you the truth. I suspect that much of this has to do with the return to Asian presence in the world economy going into the 21st century. Most still see this as the "rise of asia" when in fact it is the end of the EuroAmerican interlude (1750-2050) and the return to where the center of world economic activity had been for eons. What this means in terms of social theory is that the theoretical edifices that arose during the EuroAmerican Interlude, are, in retrospect, wrong. And a deep wrongness at that. The issue no longer is Marx vs. Weber, for both were peninsular exceptionalists, such that, from a truely world point of view, both are the same, just touching on different parts of peninsular experience and claiming priority for the part they touched. The underlying assumption of such exceptionalism, though, is their common fatal flaw, making their differences in empahsis pale in comparison. What the sequal to the theory of EuroAmerican Exceptionalism will look like is at this point open. But what is clear is that to continue with the categorical ediface of the 1750-2050 Interlude is now a fetter to further theory and progressive thought in general. One place to start is to read A.G. Frank's manuscript "The Silver Age: World Development 1400-1800" that is under consideration at a number of presses, or the various article versions that work at this thesis. It is the best their is at moving us forward and an absolute must for anyone concerned with understanding our world, where it has been, and where it is going. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Mon Mar 3 18:20:28 1997 Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 20:20:19 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK wthompso@indiana.edu Subject: challenge accepted, but... Bill you want DATA and CRITERIA. A while ago you asked me to send you my entiure Mauscript, and I did. Its 150,000 words long in about 600 double space pages long.-not counting the "theoretical" introduction and conclusion, which discuss what the "point" is that Salvatore asked for - some 400 pp supply tons of data, which are selected according to criteria also spelled out therin PLUS the practical criterion of availability. It would not be practical for me to reproduce thejm all here, nor would it be practical for anyone to try to so assimilate any such. What maybe IS practical is for you to look in the table of contents and to select data among those it refers to according to YOUR own criteria, and then to look those up in the Ms and/or to ask me for them, and if it is practical for me to do so, I will e-mail those or some of them to you. In case someone else is on the same empirical bent as Bill - and few of us are likely ever to be as empirically proficient as he - i suppose the practical procedure wqould be to ask me for the table of contents, for me to e-mail that to her/him/them, and then to proceed as above [except that i cant send the whole Ms to everybody! Now in re innovation, particularly in technology,my chapter 4 has a long section on Eurasian technology comparisons and relations that disputes the alleged European advantage and advance [and on two other nets i have been disputing back and forth about the alleged role of the 17th century scientific revolution in Europe: summary - its existence itself is doubtful and even insofar as there was any, it had NO impact whatesoever on technolgy before 1870 -- and i could forward parts of this discussion to those who so request to me -- and my chapter 5 has an explicit critique of Modelski & Thompson's - as i argue quite unfounded and even by them contradicted - claim that the locus of tech innovation moved from China to South Europe soon after 1250. But Bill at least has heard that from me before. In sum: Balderdash, as Bill would say that gunder might say. what else? gunder From sbabones@jhu.edu Mon Mar 3 19:53:53 1997 03 Mar 1997 21:52:40 -0500 (EST) 03 Mar 1997 21:52:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 21:45:32 -0500 From: Salvatore Babones Subject: Well, if that's all that you wanted to know . . . In-reply-to: To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: Salvatore Babones *****This is a long post. You may prefer to view it via World-Wide Web *****at the WSN mail archives: http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/wsn/ *****It's easier to print from there for most users. --SJB Esteemed Colleagues, I've just re-read Prof. Bergesen's posting from last October, which apparently was the inspiration for the current debate on capitalism, and I'd like to throw a few cents into the debate. First, Prof. Boswell is certainly correct as to the enormous magnitude of 16th-17th century European growth. What we don't know very well is how this growth measures up to other periods of growth. Decennial growth rates in Renaissance Florence must have been pretty impressive. And the little city-state called Rome conquered virtually the entire Mediterranean in a few centuries. (Given the transportation capabilities of the 3rd century BCE, that's not too shabby - and the Romans didn't have much in the way of technological advantage, either.) And I'll leave "mainland Asia" for those better informed to discuss. Second, output, living standards, technology, and the like may have been high in western Europe in 1700, but they weren't off the scale. British Romans lived pretty well, and they were out colonial nobodys. 15th century Venice must have been a pretty impressive port. Ancient Piraeus and Syracuse ditto. Third, there have been rises and falls throughout history. It would not have been very surprising if over the centuries a wave of economic growth had swept over Europe, with the Mediterranean rising first, then mellowing into a golden sunset while the Netherlands rose, then the Dutch getting fat on prosperity while the British stole their markets, Britain having a run of things for a while until over time the whole area atrophied and slowly faded into mediocrity. Read Phonecia -> Ionia -> Athens -> Greek Italy -> Carthage -> Rome -> the western provinces. Please, Profs. Frank and Barendse, fill in the story for Asia. Now, Prof. Thompson's call for determining the relative magnitudes of different episodes of economic growth emprically is well taken, but I would argue that this is not necessary for understanding the issue at hand, which I take to be "was Europe different?". There is nothing such as "a quantitative change so large as to be qualitative." There may be a quantitative change so large as to imply that a qualitative change has taken place to cause it, or a quantitative change so large as to be sure to cause qualitative changes, but if what we are interested in is the qualitative change itself, then we always retain the option of analyzing it directly. This I propose to do. ++++++++++ Before considering capitalism, let's consider ARBITRAGE. Arbitrage is buying low to sell high. There are two basic kinds of arbitrage: arbitrage over distance and arbitrage over time. Let's consider the first. In ARBITRAGE OVER DISTANCE, a trader buys in one place in order to sell in another. By doing so, the trader fosters economic efficiency: if grain is cheap around the Black Sea and expensive in Athens, while pottery is cheap in Athens and expensive around the Black Sea, the enterprising Athenian charters a ship, makes a round trip, and goes home quite a bit richer for taking the trouble. The Athenian has produced nothing, but has made a profit. Now, I leave it to the moralist among you to determine whether that profit was surplus value or entrepreneurial return. In either case, Ricardo's principle holds that both Athens and the Pontus are richer as a result - even if the resulting riches may or may not be fairly distributed. That wealth-creating trip would never have been made, however, if some political organization hadn't suppressed piracy in the Aegean, improved harbors, enforced contracts for ship charters, etc. I'll give North et al their due (and I don't think that North said anything fundamentally new, but that's another issue). Fine. So arbitrage over distance requires some political input, but can have some really big economic payoffs. Let's look at the other kind of arbitrage, ARBITRAGE OVER TIME. The simplest example is buying low to sell high: Herodotus tells the story of how Solon cornered the market on olive oil by buying options on all the presses since he could see that it would be a big crop that year. Buying and selling the same product over time CAN produce a net social good: if someone buys up grain in glut years and sells it in famine years, people may not like the prices charged when the famine comes, but better expensive grain than no grain. But it gets better. You can buy some flax, rent some spinners and weavers (when you rent people you pay them wages, another point that I'll get back to somewhere else), and six months later - presto! - you have linen. You sell the linen and get back what you started with plus some. Again, the usual disclaimer about surplus value. Social wealth is created. It may go to the wrong people, but arbitrage over time also created social wealth. Now, just like arbitrage over distance is regulated by government inputs, arbitrage over time also has a regulator. It is the interest rate. The lower the interest rate, the more arbitrage over time; the higher the interest rate, the less. This is easy to see: say that there existed some investment opportunity that would pay a 6% profit in one year's time. If the interest rate were 5%, you could borrow money, make the investment, take your profit, and pay off your loan. If the interest rate were 7%, the investment opportunity would go untaken.The lower the interest rate, the more social gain from arbitrage over time. There has always been some arbitrage over time, and a stable political environment certainly was good for interest rates and long-term investment. But both forms of arbitrage - ARBITRAGE OVER DISTANCE and ARBITRAGE OVER TIME - reach a natural maximum for any given level of technology and societal propensity to save. Once a government has swept pirates from the seas, put in a pro-trade tax structure, enforced contracts, etc., you've done all you can do. The economy chugs at full steam . . . and grows maybe 1% per year. That's still doubling every 40 years or so (does someone out there have a compound interest table?); not shabby, but nothing unprecedented. We've seen a lot of that kind of thing in history - east, west, and very west. There's room for more, though. A breakthrough in transportation can cause massive growth for a while - until all the newly-reachable arbitrage opportunities are taken up. Witness the periodic outbreaks of canal building in western history. Or a society can go way off the scale in saving for the future, institutionalizing a high level of arbitrage over time, leading to more and more new production, and new technologies as well, due to cross fertilization (cheap iron -> railroads -> cheaper iron -> more railroads, etc.). ++++++++++ If you believe in the protestant ethic, you could argue that the northern Europeans saved and saved, lowering interest rates, which led to more arbitrage over time. I say bunk. The Dutch burghers dressed somberly, true, but richly nonetheless. And they commissioned portraits to prove it. Amsterdam wasn't exactly shack city, from what I hear (would Prof. Barense or Prof. Frank care to enlighten?). My own pet theory (which I will be testing in the course of preparing my doctoral dissertation) is that the rise of fractional reserve banking in Britain, and later in the U.S. and on the "peninsula," revolutionized the practice of arbitrage over time. Fractional reserve banking essentially means that when you deposit $100 (excuse the U.S.-centrism: I don't have a yen sign on my keyboard!) in the bank, the bank puts aside about $7 in reserve and lends back out the other $93. Prior to about 1970, they didn't just lend it out to anyone, but primarily to capitalists (see, I didn't forget about capitalism!). Let's say that the entire economy contained only $1000. Without fractional reserve banking, my $100 represented 10% of the total credit available in the economy. But if everyone deposits their money in a bank, the total credit available will be $1930, with a total of $70m sitting unused as reserves. There's no magic here. If I want to build a factory, I can use either my $100, or I can borrow money from the bank - as long as everyone doesn't want their money at the same time, this works. Note that only the money has increased, not the goods. Goods become accordingly more expensive. The trick is this: the new money is only made available for arbitrage over time, not for consumption. The pool of money available to finance consumption remains the same, $1000, but as a share of society's credit resources, it has dropped from 100% to just over 50%. Accordingly, interest rates in the market for arbitrage fall dramatically, while interest rates for consumers rise. This QUALITATIVE TRANSFORMATION in society's trade-off of present for future goods could lead to a massive QUANTITATIVE growth in society's gross output. I submit, in accordance with Profs. Bergesen, Frank, and Barendse, that the rise of capitalism in the west was qualitatively similar to periods of economic vitality in the western past, the east, and perhaps the far west (measuring from Greenwich - oops! - sorry! :) ). I further submit that the transformation of capitalism through the operation of fractional reserve banking, first in Britain and later in the U.S. and western Europe, was a qualitative transformation, not because of its raw quantitative scale, but because it was founded on a new and unprecedented basis. It brought about new forms of accumulation and new forms of impoverishment. I submit, contra Profs. Bergesen, Frank, and Barendse, that what we are witnessing today is not the decline of the west, but the delayed rise of the east, based on principles similar in operation, but different in specifics, to those that brought about the rise of the west. The west is not declining - by long-term historical standards, Europe and the U.S. are still growing at stupendous rates. Rome fell. The west is still rising, only less quickly than before. THAT is unprecedented, and part of the qualitative change that I have suggested above. Thank you for your attention, Salvatore Salvatore J. Babones Doctoral Candidate Department of Sociology Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. expected May, 1998 PS - Chris Chase-Dunn is not to be held responsible for the views of his advisees, not for their cheekiness. :) S. From CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Mon Mar 3 20:58:06 1997 Date: Mon, 03 Mar 97 22:33:54 EST From: CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Subject: amendation To: W-S Network Honored Readers, I respectfully amend the following response: AGF: >7. To say that Europe "exapanded" to take up a big position in Southeast >Asia, not to mention in East/South/or even West - and Central - Asia, is >... ok, lets call it balderdash instead of BS! JM - Take Two: In Terry's and my forthcoming piece in _Acta Politica_, we make clear that we know that Europe didn't take a large role in Asia during this period. This (balderdash) is not the issue that's important to the debate, since we all agree (at least on one thing :) ). I also said: >Yet, on the continued debate about whether there was a *qualitative* >shift in Europe during this period which signals the emergence of >capitalism, I quite honestly feel that I need to examine more evidence >and make sure that what we all mean when we say "capitalism" is >crystal clear. I did not mean to say here that capitalism doesn't exist. I simply wanted to specify what we mean when we say that capitalism "broke through" (where and when we do). Professor Thompson actually made this point more clearly when he said: >What I am hinting at is that I'm not sure >that everybody in this game is using the same criteria - therefore, it >might be helpful if people spelled out what criteria they had in mind for >establishing centrality/exceptionalism/breakthroughs to capitalism, or >whatever. I keep having the sneaking suspicion that semantic differences may be at the root of at least some of these disagreements. But then again, maybe I'm wrong. Cheers, Joya Misra From eeb@hknet.com Mon Mar 3 22:48:52 1997 From: eeb@hknet.com Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 13:48:43 +0800 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Bergesen and basic differences Re: Bergesen's: >The peninsula's theories of itself from Marx to Weber to >Wallerstein mistakenly place the peninsula's changes as the cause of the larger system, when it is just the opposite. It is then no >accident that at the window of faltering in Asia that allowed the >Peninsula's rise (the rise of the west) was also a window in which >the "theory of the peninsula's rise was written" and it constitutes >the classics of social theory. > >Most still see this as the "rise of asia" when in fact it is the end >of >the EuroAmerican interlude (1750-2050) and the return to >where >the center of world economic activity had been for eons. Certainly, the existence of capitalist forms in other world-systems has not been denied by the hyphenators. The argument, in my reading, is that in the modern world-system, the capitalist logic has throughly dominated and taken specific systemic-structural form. (Those among the hyphenators, including Sanderson, who argue that "capitalism" emerged here and there, including Japan prior to incorporation, overlook the systemic-structural form of capitalism in this respect.) The question is, who went out and conquered the globe and who is still the core? To take note of the historical fact of EuroUS dominance through colonialism and the geographic expansion of the modern w-s, is no more EuroUScentric than in arguing that capitalists exploiting workers is "classist." I think Arrighi's use of McNeill, Lane, etc., in The Long 20th Century explains much on the rise to global dominance of the modern w-s (and why, as a consequence of its development under US hegemony, the peculiar European commercialization of warfare and warfarization of commerce is apparently no longer key to shifts in the commercial center of the core, which is in turn key to the new rise of Asia as part of the modern w-s). This is partly the old question of units of analysis. It seems, still, that a coherent division of labor (the interdependence of livelihoods), or the dominance of states through tribute collection, as the basis for measuring the spatial boundaries and exploring the systemic logics of social systems, is so far more productive and convincing in finding historical systemic causalities, processes, and structures than taking long distance trade as constitutive of a "world system" and trying to do the same thing. It may be added that the 5000 years of world system view, even more than IW, violently reduces the historically specific forms of systemic relations to the common denominator of being part of long distance trade networks. This view borrows the category of "core" from the hyphenators, but cannot convincingly explain the governing systemic development or logic behind this development because that so-called whole, from the view of the hyphenators, is not a social system. It is rather, so many world-systems and mini-systems with their own developmental logics, but which are affected by inter-system trade, migration, etc. elson From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Mar 4 08:04:02 1997 Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:03:59 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: more on BoswelI & Co. INSTITUTIONS with apologies In responding to Bill Thompson on innovations/technology, I neglected Terry Boswell's challenge on INSTITITUTIONAL innnovation, if only beause Rene Barendse already took up that gauntlet and answered that India also had institutions that managed finances. But now I will add my own 2 cents worth on PRINCIPLE: "organizational change responds to fundamental economic change" [127]. "institutional arrangements, which merely respeonded to facilitate and rationalize what amounted to a fundamental economic change in modern society" Graeme Snooks THE DYNAMIC SOCIETY Routledge 1993. Alas, Terry gets it wrong again because he is asking the wrong question again [this time about the Amst stock exchange as an "institutional innovation of C..." Alas, he is in good= bad company from Weber to all sociologists who "think" that institutions are fundametally determinant instead of rea;lizing that they are mereley derivative/responsive/facilitating as Snooks rightly says. PRACTICE: I neglected to mention in my response to Bill that my chapter 4, also has a long section on INSTITUTIONAL comparisons AND RELATIONS, which argues not only that Asians had all sorts of instituions that worked [for which there is a prima facie case already in the obsaervation that their economies worked - and more / better than the European ones! - so their "institutions' must also have "worked" to facilitate that. However, that chapter also brings multiple illustrations of HOW they worked AND INNOVATED - ie institutional innovation too, Bill! - AND how all this innovation around the world was RELATED "in institutional arrangments, which merlely responded ... to [common!] fundamental economic change" - as Snooks points out. BOTTOM LINE [how's THAT for a "Criterion" Bill?]: Rates of interest for rasing credit money were comparable in Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia [see my chapter 3 money and 4 on institutions] AND Europeans borrowed on Asian financial markets and raised credit there for their own operations all the time - so the Italian and Dutch "innovations" that Arrighi touts so much could not hav been sooo "innovative" after all! virtually/ respectfully/comeradly/friendly/cheerfully submitted! [to your consideration?] gunder frank From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Mar 4 08:38:50 1997 Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 10:38:46 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: apologies on "basic questions" 1. When i wrote my "response" of march 4, i had notyet read all new ones of march 3. 2. unlike so manby hyphenators, I dunno how to pick stuff out of their msgs here and there and send it back with "comments" so i have to do it all serially, sorry. 3. on Elson's "basic questions of units of analysis...division of labor...interdependence of livelihoods" a simple quotation from the Portuguese Tome Pires about 1615 [?] - and note that the Portuguese also used Genoan capital and both were in competition with the Venitians! "Whoever controls Malacca has his hands on the throat [not to mention the LIVELIHOOD!] of Venice" The Portuguese TRIED to control Malacca and through it South East Asia, but as Barendse et al have pointed out, they never succedded in "controling" anything, and certainly not the DIVISION OF LABOR in Southeast Asia, much less between it and China, NOT TO MENTION in the WORLD economy So yes indeed it IS the old question of THE UNIT OF ANALYSIS. And THAT is what the hyphenetors got and still get WRONG - and so still does Arrighi in the Lond 20th century, who was cited in their support by Elsen and i read only after i disputed Arrighi's "innovations". THAT is the point - and PROVES the point - Salvatore is asking about. so there! gunder From wally@cats.ucsc.edu Tue Mar 4 09:02:43 1997 From: wally@cats.ucsc.edu Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 08:02:38 -0800 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: PEWS XXI For those who didn't notice it buried in the East-West controversy, here is the provisional schedule for the upcoming PEWS conference. Suggestions for lodging and other arrangements for non-presenters--who are very much welcome to attend and participate--can be obtained at this email address. PEWS XXI: THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT & THE WORLD-SYSTEM UC Santa Cruz, April 3-5, 1997 (contact: Wally Goldfrank: wally@cats.ucsc.edu) Provisional schedule for PEWS XXI Thursday, April 3rd 7:15pm: Keynote lecture, "Ecology and Capitalist Costs of Production: No Exit." Immanuel Wallerstein, Binghamton U Kresge Town Hall 9:00pm: Reception Howling Cow Cafe Friday, April 4th Stevenson Fireside Lounge 9:30am-12:00 Session I: HISTORICAL STUDIES "Economic Ascent and the Global Environment: World Systems Theory and the New Historical Materialism," Stephen G. Bunker, U. of Wisconsin, Madison and Paul S. Ciccantell, Kansas State U "Ecological Relations in the Rise and Decline of Kingdoms and Civilizations, 2500BC to 500BC," Sing C. Chew, Humboldt State U "Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization: Rethinking the Expansion of the Early Modern World-economy," Jason W. Moore, UC Santa Cruz Environmental Factors in the Decline of the Pre-Columbian Caribbean Societies and its Consequences for the Emerging World-system," Hakiem Nankoe and Margo Nankoe. Johns Hopkins U 12:00-1:00, Lunch 1:00-3:00 Session II: INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE 20TH CENTURY "Politics of Space and the Political Economy of Toxic Waste," Robert Futrell, U of Kansas "World Systems Environmental Effects of the Gulf War," Claire W. Gilbert, Blazing Tattles "Hungary and the Discourse of Waste," Zsuzsa Gille, UC Santa Cruz 3:00-3:30 Coffee Break 3:30-5:30 Session III: AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE 20TH CENTURY "Environmental and Political Development in the Circumpolar North after Europeanization," Ilmo Massa, U of Helsinki "Food, Water, Power, People: Dams and Affluence in Late 20th Century East and Southeast Asia." Gavan McCormack, Ritsumeikan U (Kyoto) & Australian National U "The Role of New Arid-adapted Crops in Breaking the Cycle of Grazing Land Degredation in Patagonia." Jorge A. Zavala, U of Buenos Aires 7:00pm, Dinner for participants Saturday, April 5th Stevenson Fireside Lounge 10:00am-12:00 Session IV: GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSES "How Toxic is the World-System?" Albert Bergesen and Laura Parisi, U of Arizona "World-Systems Theory and the Global Environment: an Exploration" Peter E. Grimes, Johns Hopkins U, and J. Timmons Roberts, Tulane U Capitalism and Biospheric Collapse, Peter E. Grimes, Johns Hopkins U 12:00-1:00 Lunch 1:00-4:00 Session V: ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENTS "Global Green Praxis: A Typology of Environmental Movements," Richard Hutchinson, U of Arizona "Success and Impasse: Environmental Theory and Movement Practice in the United States and Around the World," Robert Schaeffer, San Jose State U "The Emergence of South Korean Environmental Movements: A Response (and Challenge?) to Semiperipheral Industrialization," Su- Hoon Lee, Kyungnam U (Seoul), and David A. Smith, UC Irvine "Impacts of the Global System on Environmental Regulations and Social Movements in the New South Africa." Christine Root and David Wiley, Michigan State U From mwtyrrel@ccs.carleton.ca Tue Mar 4 10:44:54 1997 From: "Marc W.D. Tyrrell" To: "A. Gunder Frank" , agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 12:50:09 +0000 Subject: Re: challenge accepted, but... > In case someone else is on the same empirical bent as Bill - and few of us > are likely ever to be as empirically proficient as he - i suppose the > practical procedure wqould be to ask me for the table of contents, for me > to e-mail that to her/him/them, and then to proceed as above [except that > i cant send the whole Ms to everybody! Actually, I would like to get a copy of your TOC. It would certainly help to put all of the messages in a context, as well as scratch that "empiricist" bent. Thanks, Marc Marc W.D. Tyrrell PhD. Candidate Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University From modelski@u.washington.edu Tue Mar 4 17:20:41 1997 Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 16:20:37 -0800 (PST) From: George Modelski To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Modelski's comments In-Reply-To: <970228003715_70671.2032_EHM69-1@CompuServe.COM> Replying to James M. Blaut, with some more general comments: It's good we can agree on one half of the problem. But we cannot settle merely by an appeal to authority the other half, about the evolutionary potential, if any, of Asian alternatives. If evolutionary potential is not just potential for growth, or productive capacity, but potential for world system upgrade (or restructuring) (that in our context means a change from the antique and narrow-gauged Silk Roads system to a broader, oceanic one) then such potential consists of responsiveness by innovation to global problems (as shown i.a. by active epistemic communities), alliance-capability (among equals), navies capable of global reach (for security), and autonomous traders, producers, and markets open to risk. Not any one of these necessary conditions, but a combined set of them all, at the right place and at the right time. More technically we might describe tat set as consisting of conditions that favor the evolutionary mechanisms of variation, cooperation, selection and amplification. Where e, in Asia, might world system evolutionary potential be found ca. 1200-1450? Not, I think you would agree, in the Mongol world empire that ca. 1300 dominated Eurasia. It rose swiftly, by conquest and terror, and collapsed just as quickly, into war, famine, and pestilence. Nor in the more short-lived but, if that is possible, in the even more devastating empire of Timur ca. 1400. But what about China? Not, of course, Mongol China but Ming China that ca. 1400-1450 was still recovering from the devastations wrought by the Mongols, its population having dropped some 40 per cent between 1200 and 1400. Despite naval potential, it soon settled into an authoritarian and isolationist mood of Neo-Confucianism; the set of necessary conditions just was not there. That leaves what I call the Venice-Egypt-Gujerat-Calicut-Malacca consortium that controlled the Spice Route and peaked about 1450, one that Janet Abu-Lughod makes so much of. This was basically an Arab cartel (with Venetian participation at the western end) that became a major source of revenues for Egypt. True, its trading practices were well advanced, and the cooperation practiced over long distances was noteworthy. But it had one fundamental flaw: it had a vested interest in the status quo and had no incentive to innovate. When the test of selection arrived, ca. 1510, it broke down under the attack from a new strategic design, naval organization, and alliances of Portugal on Calicut, Gujerat and Malacca, of its partners on Venice, and of the Ottomans on Egypt. But this was not a victory of Europe over Asia, but rather of Atlantic Europe over Mediterranean Europe, and the Arab cartel, as interpreted in evolutionary perspective. This bring me to the wider question raised by Al Bergeson in his call for new theory. His critiques are well taken, but where is the new theory. Is its main proposition to be that Asia is more important than Europe? Or that changes in manufacturing capacity are the chief indicators of world system transitions (how about shares of science output, such as journal articles?). Those much impressed by recent Asian economic growth might do well to follow the debate started by Krugman's article "The myth of the Asian economic miracle" (In Foreign Affairs). In my view, and to this day, the evolutionary potential of China, or Japan, remains weaker than might be indicated by manufacturing capacity or GNP. As for theory, it must be evolutionary. Only an evolutionary theory can frame these questions in a consistent fashion. GM On 27 Feb 1997, James M. Blaut wrote: > Dear George Modelski: > > Everything you say about Europe's "evolutiionary potential" in 1250-1450 is > correct, but you are, in my opinion, wrong in saying that various other regions, > including India and China, did *not* have that potential. See Janet Abu-Lughod's > very definitive argument. I talk about these things in my book, also. > > Jim Blaut > > From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Tue Mar 4 20:05:24 1997 04 Mar 1997 22:05:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 22:05:20 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: comments on Blaut, Frank, Sanderson et al To: Network World-Systems TO: WSNers, with or without the hyphen, with or without the plural. RE: Blaut-Sanderson discussion & Gunder vs everyone on Asia [tongue in cheek] Chris has been frantically finishing our ISA paper, I've been buried with getting the Pews Roundtables together, although Patricio has done the lion's share of the work there, and buried with developing a home page in a lull in the onslaught of papers and tests that come with my position at Depauw. So finally, I'll toss my 2 cents in the fray, Chris, may add 2 more later. Though my sympathies are with the Blaut & Gunder sides of these discussions, I think, as they have been flying through WSN, they are a bit overstated. Joya and others are right, much of the discussion hinges around different usages of terms, and different measures of changes, and whether various changes are quantitative or qualitative (e.g.,Central Asian merchant systems vs Dutch stock market). Chris and I argue in Rise & Demise [now out, separate posting on that coming], that peninsular west Eurasia, or Afroeurasia as we call it, was part of a large world-system for at least 2000 years, possibly more. For most of this time it was a peripheral backwater. What was new there typically came in from elsewhere [this latter is true back to the Bronze Age, as Sherratt argues]. But in the long-twelfth century (a la Abu-Lughod) things began to change. Trade and commercialization as Sanderson, Frank, Blaut, and others agree had been increasing, and all over the Afroeurasian world-system capitalist-like features were developing. Yet, contra, Gunder, the overall system was largerly tributary in its overall logic. In the 13th c the Mongol conquest disturbed this mightly, connecting the ends of Eurasia as they had never been connected, and opening East Asia to trade in ways that had heretofore not occurred, or a minimum not occurred with such intensity. The tributary form is, in our view, highly variable, and prone to cycles. At one extreme are highly centralized states, at the other are highly fragmented states, European feudalism a la Marc Bloch, and the feudalism of Japan. Part of, but only part, of what keeps both in the more decentralized mode is the extreme positions on the ends of trade networks. This is what we add to Sanderson's discussion of this issue. In the long sixteenth century the far western end of Eurasia began to catch up a little bit with other parts of the system due to a combination of internal and external factors and processes. Highly fragmented terrain helped keep political organization fragmented; spread of a west Asian world religion (christianity) facilitated communication and trade across contested regions [frontiers or borders], spread of new technology, especially the moldboard plow, helped make areas that could formerly at best support horticultural adaptations capable of supporting more surplus producing agrarian adaptations. Inventions of seafaring capabilities along the Atlantic, once perfected gave these peninsular dwellers a modicum of advantage, primarily over those sailing the Mediterranean lake. They pursued, not in concert to be sure, a "cut out the middleman" trade strategy, taking an end run around Africa, and what they thought was the backdoor to Asia, bumping into a 'new world' where old diseases did most of the dirty work of displacing natives and opening the door to new wealth in silver and gold. Meantime, Chinese sailors had been forced home, both to keep coastal areas from gaining too much power (wealth & population) over the center, and a fear of Mongol resurgence. [What early historians missed for a long time was that this fear was reasonable, afterall look what Chinggis and his sons & grandsons had done!]. Thus, these semi-barbarians from at best a semiperipheral region sailed into a lucrative trade system which had been vastly disrupted in the overland circuits, and which had minimal competition on the oceanic routes [note minimal, not no none]. Accustomed as they were to fighting their way into anything, including each other, they entered these trading circuits with a fierceness and zeal that had long since been absent [because heretofore not necessary for centuries] on the oceanic routes, and where ferocity would not gain entry, silver and gold pilfered from the Americas would. They were able to capitalize on their advantages to gain the upper hand and dominate the system. In the process, the wealth passing through traders, first in 18th century Dutch Republics, and later England, allowed capitalists to seize state power and build the first capitalist system in the world. The story from there on for a few centuries is the one Wallerstein & Arrighi have been telling us. What is new here? Not the pieces, they've been around for quite a while. It is the overall assembly and contextualizing these events and processes with a Afroeurasian wide world-system. The west europeans followed what we have called a typical marcher state strategy: sitting on the edge, so they did not face competitors on all sides, sufficiently in the system to acquire its gains in technology and to some extent organizational innovations, but sufficiently disarticulated from the system to not be fully engulfed in its cycles--that is they were semiperipheral. So, where does this put us on these debates. Clearly, reading out from the European experience, and looking only within Europe leads to distorted theorizing. Eurocentrism is not bad because it is bad form, but because it is bad theory--it misses the entire point why the sometimes touted advantages of Europe 'worked' was precisely because it was part of, in a loose way, a much larger system. That is close to the Frank-Blaut position. But with some exceptions: 1) contra Gunder, there was a shift in mode of accumulation, and something new came out of western, peninsular Afroeurasia. In short, there was not one 5,000 year old world systems, but many world-systems, which eventually became Eurasia about 2000 years ago [or possibly a few centuries earlier.] 2) East Asia was surpassed for several centuries 3) Many parts of subsaharan Africa may have been on a par with west Eurasia as late as the 12 or 13th century, but then they got left behind. This is where we disagree with Blaut. [Here I not sure if this is a major disagreement, or quibbling around the edges of dates]. Again, system processes are key. Trade with west Africa, across the Sahara and along the west coast go back at least to the 9th century, but the trade is limited; ditto for trade down the east coast. Once the slave trade picks up, all of Africa is disturbed, disrupted, distorted, and disjointed. It suffers backwash, or underdevelopmental effects. 4) If the pattern, not universal, but quite common, of semipheral marcher succession continues, East Asia will not regain dominance because of some return of the center of gravity of the political- economy to its old home, but because some new form of organization arises that can outcompete what is now conventional multinational capitalism. Whether Deng's bastard hybrid of socialism and capitalism is that new form remains to be seen. Some caveats: 1) this is 2 page summary of about a two hundred page argument-- I've left out a lot of details; 2) the 'waffle words' [e.g. at least as far back as] reflect BOTH: a) lack of good data [which unfortnately may never be remedied], and b) that transitional periods, and inchoate forms are, of necessity, fuzzy [precise terms applied to a fuzzy situation are a distortion]; 3) we reserve the right to change our minds and our arguments on the basis of new evidence; 4) there is a great deal of unearthed evidence that may cause all of us to change our arguemts. Some of the lack of evidence stems from the Eurocentrism that Blaut and Frank have been pointing out. There are other street lamps who regions of luminosity have been only slightly explored. To use a positivist metaphor, I think it would be useful to look at the so-called European miracle as a 'dependent variable' built by a large system, rather than the 'independent variable' which rebuilt the world. tom hall more on R&D soon, or check out Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 UNDER CONSTRUCTON: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Tue Mar 4 20:07:23 1997 04 Mar 1997 22:07:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 22:07:19 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Rise & Demise is now published! To: Network World-Systems Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas D. Hall Boulder, CO: Westview Press. NOTE: Pricing is still being worked out... see Tom Hall's Home Page for updates at end. [the ! above is my shock that it's finally done :-)] Abstract Spanning ten thousand years of social change, this book examines the ways in which world-systems evolve. A comparative study of stateless societies, state-based regional empires, and the modern global capitalist political economy, it reveals the underlying processes at work in the reproduction and transformation of social, economic, and political structures. Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas Hall show that stateless societies developed in the context of regional intersocietal networks that differed significantly from larger and more hierarchical world-systems. The processes by which chiefdoms rose and fell are similar to the ways in which states, empires, and modern hegemonic core states have experienced uneven development. Most world-systems exhibit a pattern of political centralization and decentralization, but the mechanisms and processes of change can vary greatly. Looking at the systematic similarities and differences among small scale, middle-sized, and global world-systems, the authors address such questions as: Do all world-systems have core/periphery hierarchies in which the development of one area necessitates the underdevelopment of another? How were kin-based logics of social integration transformed into state-based tributary logics, and how did capitalism emerge within the interstices of tributary states and empires to eventually become the predominant logic of accumulation? How did the rise of commodity production and the eventual dominance of capitalist accumulation modify the processes by which political centers rise and fall? Rise and Demise offers far-reaching explanations of social change, showing how the comparative study of world-systems increases our understanding of early history, the contemporary global system, and future possibilities for world society. Table of Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 Part I: Concepts & Definitions 1 A Hundred Flowers Bloom: Approaches to World-Systems 11 2 Defining World-Systems 27 3 Two, Three, Many World-Systems 41 Part II: Explaining World-System Evolution 4: New Territories: The Problem of Incorporation 59 5: The Semiperiphery: Seedbed of Change 78 6: Iterations and Transformations: A Theory of World-Systems Evolution 99 Part III: Investigations: Cases and Comparisons 7: A Very Small World-System 121 8: The Unification of Afroeurasia: Circa 500 B.C.E. - 1400 C.E. 149 9: The Europe-Centered System 187 10: Cross-System Comparisons: Similarities and Differences 200 PART IV: Conclusions 11: The Transformation of World-Systems 233 12: Conclusions, Questions, Speculations 247 Notes 255 Glossary 271 References 276 Index 309 Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 UNDER CONSTRUCTON: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From ms44@cornell.edu Wed Mar 5 07:08:39 1997 Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 08:46:15 -0600 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: mark selden Subject: Asia/World Recent compelling research (much of it still forthcoming) on Asian political economy by T. Hamashita, R. Marks, B. Wong, K. Pomeranz, R. Barendse and others, now synthesized, theorized and extended globally by G. Frank requires a paradigm shift whose most important dimensions seem to me the following: 1. Asia, with China at its core (but also with a significant South Asian presence) from at least the fourteenth until well into the eighteenth century retained predominance in world trade, finance,technology (including shipping), agriculture, and manufacture. The European challenge, when it came, rested predominantly on military predominance subsequently translated into economic and political primacy. 2. It is necessary to rethink "incorporation" of Asia as a result of earlier centuries of Asian predominance in a global economy whose salient features include the trade of high value porcelain and silk and Asian absorption of the vast silver flows from the new world. It is also essential to recognize the importance, first, of an Asian regional system (a la Hamashita) AND the extension to an Asia-Africa-European-Americas world economy that is NOT Euro-hegemonic from early on. 3. Without minimizing the devastating (but also energizing) impact of the colonial experience in Asia, it is important to recognize that it was relatively brief and, by comparison with Africa and Latin America, in some ways superficial: for example, in large areas of Asia owner cultivator agriculture and not European plantations remained predominant; not only in Japan, but also in China, from early on locally managed enterprise in key industries was competitive attempts at colonization failed. By 1905 (and by certain measures1895 or even 1868) we see clear signs of the shift of the pendulum with Japan's defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War followed by Japan's rise as the dominant Asian power at the expense of Western powers, paving the way for anti-colonial movements and the resurgence of Asian economies in an era of independent states. Perhaps the third point is my own. In the event, the old verities will no longer suffice. That includes rethinking the c question. mark selden From sbabones@jhu.edu Wed Mar 5 08:57:48 1997 05 Mar 1997 10:41:44 -0500 (EST) 05 Mar 1997 10:25:45 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 10:25:34 -0500 From: Salvatore Babones Subject: Re: Tom's comments on Blaut, Frank, Sanderson et al To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Tom and the WSN: In Tom Hall's posting, he claims that " . . . the wealth passing through traders, first in 18th century Dutch Republics, and later England, allowed capitalists to seize state power and build the first capitalist system in the world." Now, over the past several months we've heard a lot from the discussants on this list about the existence of capitalist behavior in other times in other parts of the world. Tom is making the point that Europe-centered system was the first capitalist WORLD-SYSTEM, the first world-system in which the relations between the constituent elements of the system were capitalist. I agree with him. But I ask: Why did non-latter-day-European capitalists never foster the development of a capitalist world-system in the world-systems in which they lived? What make these latter-day-European capitalists so much leaner and meaner, such that they were able to take over their own governments and eventually the world? For MY answer to this question, I ask that you read my (admittedly long) posting of a few days ago. Yours, Salvatore Salvatore Babones Doctoral Candidate Department of Sociology Johns Hopkins University Ph.D. expected May, 1998 From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Wed Mar 5 09:24:13 1997 05 Mar 1997 11:22:59 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 11:22:59 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Addendum to Mark Selden's post To: Network World-Systems Mark et al are usefully pointing to a number of things that need to be rethought. At the risk of being too self-promoting, in Rise & Demise, Chap 4 on incorporation, we do discuss precisely this type of problem as the MERGER of formerly separate world-systems. While a type of incorporation, it is substantially different from garden variety incorporation as discussed in conventional WST, and very different from incorporation of non-state peoples as I have discussed it (mostly in _Social Change in the Southwest_). But I think we have barely scratched the surface of the problem. It may well be the case that the incorporation/merger of Asia with Western Eurasia will force to rethink the entire process, or to recognize this as a very different type of process than more conventional incorporation/colonization. tom Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From ftrom@aurora.alaska.edu Wed Mar 5 10:19:53 1997 Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 08:19:14 -0900 (AKST) From: MILLS ROBIN O To: mark selden Subject: Re: Asia/World In-Reply-To: I have been following this thread with piqued curiosity; my amateur understanding of the "global world economy" and its development was that it was Euro-driven and Euro-centered. I am a historical archaeologist working on finishing my dissertation on the expansion of an extractive mining economy into Alaska in the latter 19th century, and have been using, "peripherally" (pun intended), ideas and models from world systems theory. I would be interested in references to the ideas being discussed in the thread below, so that I might look into the readings myself. Thank you, Robin Mills University of Alaska Fairbanks Anthropology Dept. e-mail: FTROM@AURORA.ALASKA.EDU On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, mark selden wrote: > Recent compelling research (much of it still forthcoming) on Asian > political economy by T. Hamashita, R. Marks, B. Wong, K. Pomeranz, R. > Barendse and others, now synthesized, theorized and extended globally by G. > Frank requires a paradigm shift whose most important dimensions seem to me > the following: > > 1. Asia, with China at its core (but also with a significant South > Asian presence) from at least the fourteenth until well into the eighteenth > century retained predominance in world trade, finance,technology (including > shipping), agriculture, and manufacture. The European challenge, when it > came, rested predominantly on military predominance subsequently translated > into economic and political primacy. > > 2. It is necessary to rethink "incorporation" of Asia as a result > of earlier centuries of Asian predominance in a global economy whose > salient features include the trade of high value porcelain and silk and > Asian absorption of the vast silver flows from the new world. It is also > essential to recognize the importance, first, of an Asian regional system > (a la Hamashita) AND the extension to an Asia-Africa-European-Americas > world economy that is NOT Euro-hegemonic from early on. > From wthompso@indiana.edu Wed Mar 5 10:49:34 1997 Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:49:28 -0500 (EST) From: "william r. thompson" To: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Re: Addendum to Mark Selden's post Perhaps raising the question of "incorporation" suggests that we are evading a prior question: how or to what extent eastern and western eurasian political economies were linked immediately prior and during this roughly 14th-18th century period about which we are debating. The Modelski-Thompson position, for instance, argues against "incorporation" or "merger" conceptualization because they were already part of the same larger Afroeurasian system. Around 1500 some Europeans hijacked a respectable proportion of the ancient maritime version of the silk roads. I think we would agree with the "Asia first" group(s) that this did not immediately change the way in which the eastern end of Eurasian political economy functioned but it did alter the nature of transcontinental transactions which has always been our focus. Other posters seem more interested in intra-regional transformations and preponderances - on both the western and eastern regional ends. Moreover, how one sees what happened around 1500 on (vis-a-vis incorporation, merger, more of the same, or selective rechanneling of major trade routes) will also influence how one views the paradigmatic significance of the era. Bill Thompson On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU wrote: > Mark et al are usefully pointing to a number of things that need to be > rethought. At the risk of being too self-promoting, in Rise & Demise, > Chap 4 on incorporation, we do discuss precisely this type of problem as > the MERGER of formerly separate world-systems. While a type of > incorporation, it is substantially different from garden variety > incorporation as discussed in conventional WST, and very different from > incorporation of non-state peoples as I have discussed it (mostly in > _Social Change in the Southwest_). But I think we have barely scratched > the surface of the problem. It may well be the case that the > incorporation/merger of Asia with Western Eurasia will force to rethink > the entire process, or to recognize this as a very different type of > process than more conventional incorporation/colonization. > tom > > Thomas D. [tom] Hall > thall@depauw.edu > Department of Sociology > DePauw University > Greencastle, IN 46135 > ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE > 765-658-4519 > http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm > > From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Wed Mar 5 13:36:09 1997 Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 15:36:06 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: "william r. thompson" Subject: Re: Addendum to Mark Selden's post In-Reply-To: The EVIDENCE speaks against Bill: 1. after 1500, maritime trade did NOT replace overland trade. overland caravan tradee continued [greater than maritime] and the two were more complementary than competitive 2. the Europeans did not "hijack a respectable portion" of maritime trade: they did not get more than a miniscule portion of it. Even Sir Josea Child, Director of the British East India Co. observed in 1688 that just from ONE important European used port in India, the Asians had TEN times more shipping than ALL the Europeans combined. 3. put on another set of glasses! gunder On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, william r. thompson wrote: > Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:49:28 -0500 (EST) > From: "william r. thompson" > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: Addendum to Mark Selden's post > > Perhaps raising the question of "incorporation" suggests that we are > evading a prior question: how or to what extent eastern and western > eurasian political economies were linked immediately prior and during > this roughly 14th-18th century period about which we are debating. The > Modelski-Thompson position, for instance, argues against "incorporation" > or "merger" conceptualization because they were already part of the same > larger Afroeurasian system. Around 1500 some Europeans hijacked a > respectable proportion of the ancient maritime version of the silk > roads. I think we would agree with the "Asia first" group(s) that this > did not immediately change the way in which the eastern end of Eurasian > political economy functioned but it did alter the nature of > transcontinental transactions which has always been our focus. Other > posters seem more interested in intra-regional transformations and > preponderances - on both the western and eastern regional ends. > Moreover, how one sees what happened around 1500 on (vis-a-vis > incorporation, merger, more of the same, or selective rechanneling of > major trade routes) will also influence how one views the paradigmatic > significance of the era. Bill Thompson > > On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU wrote: > > > Mark et al are usefully pointing to a number of things that need to be > > rethought. At the risk of being too self-promoting, in Rise & Demise, > > Chap 4 on incorporation, we do discuss precisely this type of problem as > > the MERGER of formerly separate world-systems. While a type of > > incorporation, it is substantially different from garden variety > > incorporation as discussed in conventional WST, and very different from > > incorporation of non-state peoples as I have discussed it (mostly in > > _Social Change in the Southwest_). But I think we have barely scratched > > the surface of the problem. It may well be the case that the > > incorporation/merger of Asia with Western Eurasia will force to rethink > > the entire process, or to recognize this as a very different type of > > process than more conventional incorporation/colonization. > > tom > > > > Thomas D. [tom] Hall > > thall@depauw.edu > > Department of Sociology > > DePauw University > > Greencastle, IN 46135 > > ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE > > 765-658-4519 > > http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm > > > > > From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Wed Mar 5 15:02:19 1997 Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 17:02:15 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: 3 times W-S, WS, Global mad[ness] In re Tom Hall and Mark Selden on Boswell, Blaut, Frank and Co.: Just to get EVERYBODY mad, if only by pigeon - holing them, or even worse by omitting them [either out of respect, or uncertainty, or forgetfulness], I will make a modest proposal to attempt / or modest attempt to propose / squeezing people into Al Bergesen's procurstean beds [so you can get mad at him too - and/or defelct some madness from me- , and if you come to ISA and to the party at my house on March 22, you can hit us both right here] You may recall that in Steve Sanderson's [Ed.book] CIVLIZATIONS AND WORLD SYSTEMS, Al Bergesen wrote chapter 7 "Lets Be Frank About World History" HIS title, not mine/AGF!! [his title in the festschrift for me was MY title not his!!] In his Chapter 7, section 2 on "Challenging Today's Social Science Models" Al offers 3 "options" [madnesses?] 1.denial ws = deniers stick/stuck in the mud. The procusatean bed is quite comfortable,"I'm alright Jack" Al has only one star witness. Bob Brenner in representation of traditional marxists, modernizationists. society-levelists. 2. stretching = stretchers try to stretch the evidence to fit it into the W-S procurstean paradigm bed or to stretch the procusteanan bed to make it wider so more evidence can fit on it more [un?] comfortably = I'm a bit uncomfortable here, so I'm gonna wiggle a little - John [not Jack?] and/or I'll just hyphenate myself into 2...n parts. Al "incorporates" : "Wallerstein, Amin,Chase-Dunn and Hall, have all stretched" 3. Letting go = letgoers of old hyphenated paradigm models altogether = we better get another bed/bedroom/house/neighborhood/ whole "world system" = NO hypen! Inhabitants according to Al!: Frank & Gills [not to mention Al himself!?] Well - can/should we use Al's 3 procustean madnesses to pigeon-hole fit the debaters here into his 3 procusteaan beds? Or Should we let each Goldilock try and chose his/her own bed, "make it" and sleep in it? Or should I risk the madness of getting eaten alive by helping some of you out there into your respective beds? A fortiori risk in giving some co-authors a = my[?] "choice" of beds: Some stay comfortably in the same bed with each other, and others would prefer to "chose" different beds! -- if given the choice!! [What does that do to the partnership? God forbid that I be an accomplice in breaking up beautiful co-marriages]!!!] We have to stretch Al's bedroom a bit, to accomodate the IW W-S [with hyphen!] from the word GO! [that leaves Bob Brenner and Co" out in the "traditional" Eurocentric graveyard, where Jim Blaut already put them in his THE COLONIZERS MODEL OF THE WORLD and more recently in his "8 Eurocentric Historians"] Then , the 1,2,3 categories become sleeping places for [among respondents/participants/fellow travellers so far]: 1. Denialists [principals only, there may be soooooo many out there]: Wallerstein ["Hold the Tiller Firm" - Chapt 9 in Sanderson book], Boswell, Goldfrank Barbones Whiteneck Elson Rozov [And on 1500 break C word] Sanderson Blaut 2. Stretchers [of the formerly comfy ol' paradigm] Blaut - a bit, no more! Sanderson -pre 1500 WS and post 1500 Japan Hall - and Chase Dunn not heard from yet Arrighi - not yet hear from but name taken in vain Modelsky Thompson Misra [co-author not in same bed with Boswell!] Gills? - not again heard from, but taking a couple steps back when last seen to become co-author not in bed with Frank? 3. Let goers [of the UNcomfy ol' paradigm] = Let'S go'ers? - to construct a NEW and better paradigm [thank you, Mark Selden!] Frank Bergesen Barendse: welcome to a hands on man from another world! Selden: special welcome aboard to an ol'china hand who has never felt comfy in W-S land! and especially welcome as co-author of, but not in bed with Arrighi, who whiggles in W-S land and now rejects Kondratieffs altogether [personal note from AGF: It was GA who put ME onto the present 1967 onwards one in 1970/71!, credit where credit is due!! GA might now say "discredit"? Denemark - not heard from yet here, but yes elsewhere Pomeranz - inhabitant of two other cyber-nets only Wong - ditto? Gills - are you still with us? Concluding synopsis /Synoptic Conclusion for PRACTICAL PURPOSES: ALL of the above [and others] are already invited on Saturday March 20 to MY house at 96 Asquith Avenue Toronto Telef 416-972 0616, fax 972 0071 [map to be supplied at formal WHS sessions/s &/or IPE business meeting] 1. at 2 PM to working meeting of the WSH sub-section of the IPE section of ISA [agenda prepared by Denemark & Chase-Dunn, and/but the above mad discourse/ 3 [dis] course madness could be added to the menu implicitly, or explicitly, or none of the above, or all of the above 2. At 6-ish pm, dinner either here or at [excellent] Chinese restaurant nearby. Do you want tables labled D=enialists, S=tretchers, L=etgoers? 3. At/from 8-ish pm PARTY at my house to kingdom come: [Do you want drinks labled D-eetotalers:stay where you are? S-lush enough to let you stretch & wiggle, just a little L-iquor hard enough to let you go to another [paradigm] world]? But in that case what do i offer ordinary mortals also already invited and some accepted to come to the party, inclusing some publishers editors? CHEERS! gunder From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Wed Mar 5 15:09:36 1997 6 Mar 1997 09:09:22 +1100 Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 09:09:22 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Tom's comments on Blaut, Frank, Sanderson et al In-reply-to: To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Salvatore Babones wrote: > But I ask: Why did non-latter-day-European capitalists never foster the > development of a capitalist world-system in the world-systems in which > they lived? What make these latter-day-European capitalists so much > leaner and meaner, such that they were able to take over their own > governments and eventually the world? Cities and market towns. Confer _Cities in Late Imperial China_ (sic?) for the way that expansion of the Chinese state led to an expansion of the average area under administration of Chinese administrative centers. An advantage of this answer, as opposed to a Eurocentric answer, is that the Tokugawa system of restricting vassals to towns, and requiring high level vassals to spend every other year in the imperial center, was a tremendous boost to market town development in Japan. So the parallel development of Capitalism in Japan falls under the same explanation. Something that Sanderson's treatment, as an example, ignores is the impact of a high density of market towns on agrarian development, and the necessity of an 'agrarian revolution' if there is going to be a major expansion in urban-based activities. Focusing on the largest of urban centers misses this dimension entirely: this impact is focused in the area that is in reasonable transportation distance for a rural resident, so a larger number of market towns spread across the coutnryside is more important for this than a smaller number of large urban centers. Of course, this is a biased answer, but then I'm a development economist, and them's my biases. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Wed Mar 5 15:15:47 1997 6 Mar 1997 09:15:06 +1100 Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 09:15:05 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Addendum to Mark Selden's post In-reply-to: To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Oh yeah. It also should be kept in mind that none of the evidence of peninsular West Asian trade as a share of trans-Asian trade in a particular period is in opposition to the 'Expansion of Europe from 1500 on' line; starting from such a small base, an expansion would have to be going for quite a while (that is, centuries) before a dominant position could be reached. What it changes is the interpretation of the *significance* of the expansion of peninsular West Asian trade. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From wthompso@indiana.edu Wed Mar 5 18:43:42 1997 Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 20:43:08 -0500 (EST) From: "william r. thompson" To: "A. Gunder Frank" Subject: Re: Addendum to Mark Selden's post In-Reply-To: Gunder: I think I would rather hoist another set of glasses than put them on. I did not say that maritime trade replaced overland trade. Nor am I overly impressed with an anecdote from a British perspective in 1688 India that anteceded the later rise to prominence of the British in India in the following century. That is the trouble with anecdotal evidence. I also have no quarrel with the view that Europeans had to play the Asian trade game largely by Asian rules and that it was larger than the east-west flow. But the hijack of the western end of the east-west flow (which is how I might better have expressed it), and again the initial Portuguese effort was only temporarily successful, demarcated an initial watershed in the gradual ascendancy of the Europeans. Moreover, I do not contend that the Europeans or any Europeans became "preponderant" over the world economy in 1500. We continue to disagree but I'm not sure that we are disagreeing about the same things. Bill On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, A. Gunder Frank wrote: > The EVIDENCE speaks against Bill: > 1. after 1500, maritime trade did NOT replace overland trade. > overland caravan tradee continued [greater than maritime] and the two were > more complementary than competitive > 2. the Europeans did not "hijack a respectable portion" of maritime > trade: they did not get more than a miniscule portion of it. Even Sir > Josea Child, Director of the British East India Co. observed in 1688 > that just from ONE important European used port in India, the Asians > had TEN times more shipping than ALL the Europeans combined. > 3. put on another set of glasses! > gunder > On Wed, 5 Mar > 1997, william r. thompson wrote: > > > Date: Wed, 5 Mar 1997 12:49:28 -0500 (EST) > > From: "william r. thompson" > > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > > Subject: Re: Addendum to Mark Selden's post > > > > Perhaps raising the question of "incorporation" suggests that we are > > evading a prior question: how or to what extent eastern and western > > eurasian political economies were linked immediately prior and during > > this roughly 14th-18th century period about which we are debating. The > > Modelski-Thompson position, for instance, argues against "incorporation" > > or "merger" conceptualization because they were already part of the same > > larger Afroeurasian system. Around 1500 some Europeans hijacked a > > respectable proportion of the ancient maritime version of the silk > > roads. I think we would agree with the "Asia first" group(s) that this > > did not immediately change the way in which the eastern end of Eurasian > > political economy functioned but it did alter the nature of > > transcontinental transactions which has always been our focus. Other > > posters seem more interested in intra-regional transformations and > > preponderances - on both the western and eastern regional ends. > > Moreover, how one sees what happened around 1500 on (vis-a-vis > > incorporation, merger, more of the same, or selective rechanneling of > > major trade routes) will also influence how one views the paradigmatic > > significance of the era. Bill Thompson > > > > On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU wrote: > > > > > Mark et al are usefully pointing to a number of things that need to be > > > rethought. At the risk of being too self-promoting, in Rise & Demise, > > > Chap 4 on incorporation, we do discuss precisely this type of problem as > > > the MERGER of formerly separate world-systems. While a type of > > > incorporation, it is substantially different from garden variety > > > incorporation as discussed in conventional WST, and very different from > > > incorporation of non-state peoples as I have discussed it (mostly in > > > _Social Change in the Southwest_). But I think we have barely scratched > > > the surface of the problem. It may well be the case that the > > > incorporation/merger of Asia with Western Eurasia will force to rethink > > > the entire process, or to recognize this as a very different type of > > > process than more conventional incorporation/colonization. > > > tom > > > > > > Thomas D. [tom] Hall > > > thall@depauw.edu > > > Department of Sociology > > > DePauw University > > > Greencastle, IN 46135 > > > ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE > > > 765-658-4519 > > > http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm > > > > > > > > > > From eeb@hknet.com Wed Mar 5 21:34:37 1997 From: eeb@hknet.com Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 12:34:18 +0800 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: systemic connections? The "world system" view is getting more interesting and persuasive, and Frank makes it fun. We've heard and read lots on how East-West areas/regions of the "world system"are CONNECTED by trade, and have an empirical relation in this respect and apparently a weak (?) division of labor. No denial of this. Some areas are compared and said more advance than others, and hence are "core." But what are the systemic interrelations (as opposed to ideographic description of differences) that explains the differences of the areas? Frank and others contend that the trade ties make the areas parts of a single whole, a coherent, interrelated system. But it still sounds more like an outer-shell luxury trade networks spanning different systems (i.e. world-economies). Is it really a coherent SYSTEMIC world-economy in which the interdependence of livelihoods exists and thus becomes the foundation for explaining SOCIAL change in the parts? Or is the idea of a systemic unit of analysis being conflated with a global arena of observation? The test, it seems to me, rests on whether one can spell out the general social developments of the distinct areas/regions of the so-called "world system," (e.g. East and West); and then explain how these social developments (not merely economic networks) are systemically, reciprocally, related. I should be more clear. That is, the parts must be shown to be systemically related in the sense that the SOCIAL (e.g. class relations) developments of these parts (e.g. the China-center "part") are explained in relation to the development of the whole, in the same way, for example, that old w-s'rs explain developments of the mw-s, such as the second serfdom in LA and Eastern Europe, as a consequence of a global downturn (of presupposing their participation in a division of labor and not luxury trade). Even if one rejects details of that particular account, the point is that social change within areas are explained as a result of their being part of a single, dense, division of labor. On this basis, or via state-tribute, can one argue that areas change interrelatedly, systemically, as formative of a single coherent SOCIAL system. The same thing applies to the argument that the China-Afroeursian systems merged prior to ca 1850. Otherwise, it still seems that we are talking about long distance trade ties that affect the development of w-systems, but which do not constitute a single coherent SOCIAL system. (The emergence of peculiar domain or state-mercantilist forms of capital on the Japanese archipelago during the Tokugawa era, for example, were not a consequence of being part of a larger Asian system but were constitutive of a system that spanned the archipelago itself. The Edo-system "delinked" from Hamashita's Sino-Centric tribute system, which and was necessary for Tokugawa hegemony to be built. The system dissolved/incorporated (a two-way process) into the mw-s only after 1860. The feudal forms of capital became reconstituted, as exemplified, for example, with the outbreak in 1885-6 of the first known modern factory strikes, among women silk reelers, and just months after the very last millenarian peasant uprising among petty sericulturists occurred in late 1884.) Elson Boles From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Thu Mar 6 09:05:21 1997 6 Mar 97 22:04:54 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" , wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 22:04:43 -0600 (NSK) Subject: 'European miracle' as variable dear Tom, i am really impressed by your sketch of w-history, only two points seem to me doubtful. First, there were many 'edges' and semiperipheral parts of the 'World Island' (a classic geopolitical term for AfroEurasia). In any case we need for real explanation of 'Europ'miracle' to take into account some interior specifics of Europe (f.e.installation of various factors, that i listed some weeks ago here in wsn), from this point your systemic factors have role of encompassing options for realizing by Europeans all possibilities opened by this installation of factors (in any version). Second, you write: > From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" > To use a positivist metaphor, I > think it would be useful to look at the so-called European > miracle as a 'dependent variable' built by a large system, rather > than the 'independent variable' which rebuilt the world. but why not both? maybe everything really new in world history (cities, state, script, armies, civilization, money, etc, etc, up to NATO, UN, computer and Internet) first had genesis as a 'dependant variable' but then sooner or later began to play a formidable role in rebuilding the world, already as 'independant variable' best, your Nikolai *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From sbabones@jhu.edu Thu Mar 6 09:14:57 1997 06 Mar 1997 11:13:40 -0500 (EST) 06 Mar 1997 11:13:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 11:13:03 -0500 From: Salvatore Babones Subject: Re: 3 times W-S, WS, Global mad[ness] In-reply-to: To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Reply-to: Salvatore Babones I DENY my denialist classification! But I am happy of the company. Terry, who'd have thought you and I would end up in the same camp? Salvatore >1. Denialists [principals only, there may be soooooo many out there]: > >Wallerstein ["Hold the Tiller Firm" - Chapt 9 in Sanderson book], >Boswell, >Goldfrank >Babones >Whiteneck >Elson >Rozov >[And on 1500 break C word] >Sanderson >Blaut From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Thu Mar 6 09:23:40 1997 Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 11:23:34 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Re: 'European miracle' as variable In-reply-to: To: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Nikolai, replies below; On Thu, 6 Mar 1997, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > dear Tom, > i am really impressed by your sketch of w-history, only two points seem to > me doubtful. Thanks for the bouquet! > > First, there were many 'edges' and semiperipheral parts of the > 'World Island' (a classic geopolitical term for AfroEurasia). In any case we > need for real explanation of 'Europ'miracle' to take into account some > interior specifics of Europe (f.e.installation of various factors, that i > listed some weeks ago here in wsn), from this point your systemic factors > have role of encompassing options for realizing by Europeans all > possibilities opened by this installation of factors (in any version). > Absolutely, there were many edges, and we need to study all of them more to sort out why and how they articulated and the interplay of their local characteristics with those of the system, and how each shaped the other. Indeed, if we had good knowlege of these interactions for all the 'edges' we would all be better placed to address which of the ways in which W Eurasia was different shaped its rise to dominance. > > Second, you write: > > > From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" > > To use a positivist metaphor, I > > think it would be useful to look at the so-called European > > miracle as a 'dependent variable' built by a large system, rather > > than the 'independent variable' which rebuilt the world. > > but why not both? maybe everything really new in world history (cities, state, > script, armies, civilization, money, etc, etc, up to NATO, UN, computer and > Internet) first had genesis as a 'dependant variable' but then sooner or > later began to play a formidable role in rebuilding the world, already as > 'independant variable' Of course both! But in line with Jim's (Blaut) and Gunder's (Frank) critiques too much of social science has been derived from the European looking outward vantage. So reversing field is useful both for building good theory, and correcting past imbalances in vantages or points of perception. To refer to a cliched metaphor, we need to look at the elephant from many perspectives. So my suggestion is tactical, not a universal proscription. tom Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From TBOS@social-sci.ss.emory.edu Thu Mar 6 13:27:37 1997 From: "Terry Boswell" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 15:25:12 EST5EDT Subject: Unions unite (fwd) Some good news about international labor organizing follows (thanks to Joya Misra for forwarding this; sorry if it duplicates for some). ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >Sender: Forum on Labor in the Global Economy >From: D Shniad >Subject: Unions unite >Comments: To: Progressive Economists' Network > >To: LABOR-L@YORKU.CA > >The Daily Telegraph Tuesday 4 March 1997 > >BRITISH AND GERMAN UNIONS LINK > > By Jon Hibbs, Political Correspondent > >The first step towards the creation of a European super-union was taken >yesterday when one of Britain's biggest trade unions signed a joint membership >agreement with its German counterpart. > >The unprecedented deal between the GMB general union and IG Chemie >means that more than 1.8 million workers in the two countries will be entitled >to mutual membership when working abroad. About 120,000 people working >either in Britain or Germany are expected to benefit from the link, which was >hailed by both sides as a model for co-operation between unions in different >European Union member-states. However, the development is likely to be >viewed with alarm by Tory MPs as an example of the European social model >which ministers claim would shackle competitiveness and restrict the freedom >of business under a Labour government. > >The union movement in Britain has taken an increasingly pro-European stance >over a decade and believes that it can match the growth of multi-national >companies in the single European market only by developing closer continental >ties. > >The GMB was the first British union to open an office in Brussels, and >pioneered European-style works councils which cover 46 firms with plants in >both Britain and other EU member-states. For several years it has been co- >operating informally with IG Chemie, which covers workers in the chemical, >ceramics and paper industries, and is talking to other unions about further >agreements elsewhere. > >John Edmonds, the GMB general secretary, said: "It is important for workers to >have quality representation wherever they work." Hubertus Schmoldt, the >president of IG Chemie, said from his union's Hanover headquarters: "Our goal >will be the creation of a joint membership at European level to be able to >achieve minimum standards on bargaining agreements for all workers." > >The deal means that any GMB member working in Germany will have have the >right to IG Chemie membership, and vice-versa in Britain. However these >rights vary, as the unions offer different services to members. British >workers >in Germany will be eligible for legal advice, support from >representatives, and >training facilities. German workers in Britain get legal advice, health >and safety >information, and financial benefits. > -- Michael Lichter UCLA Department of Sociology / Center for the Study of Urban Poverty Terry Boswell Department of Sociology Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 From mreview@igc.apc.org Fri Mar 7 11:10:49 1997 From: mreview@igc.apc.org for ; Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:09:14 -0800 (PST) for ; Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:07:31 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 10:07:31 -0800 (PST) To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu Subject: SSC'97 MONTHLY REVIEW PANELS Sender: mreview@igc.org THE 1997 SOCIALIST SCHOLARS CONFERENCE FRIDAY-SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 29, 30 Borough of Manhattan Community College 199 Chambers Street, New York City MONTHLY REVIEW Panels for SSC'97 SCIENCE AND THE FLIGHT FROM REASON STEPHEN JAY GOULD (Harvard University) MEERA NANDA (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) ALAN SOKAL (New York University) RICHARD LEWONTIN (unconfirmed, New York Times) UNIVERSALISM AND DIFFERENCE AIJAZ AHMAD (Nehru Museum and Library, New Delhi) DAVID HARVEY (Johns Hopkins University) ELLEN MEIKSINS WOOD (Monthly Review) HARRY MAGDOFF: chair (Monthly Review) POSTMODERNISM: RADICAL OR REACTIONARY BARBARA EPSTEIN (UC, Santa Cruz) DAVID McNALLY (York University, Toronto) ELLEN WILLIS (New York University) JOHN FOSTER: chair (University of Oregon) GLOBALIZATION OR IMPERIALISM? JOHN FOSTER (University of Oregon) HARRY MAGDOFF (Monthly Review) ISTVAN MESZAROS (author of Beyond Capital) BILL TABB (Queens College) Ellen Meiksins Wood: chair BRINGING MARX BACK DOUG HENWOOD (Left Business Observer) ISTVAN MESZAROS (author of Beyond Capital) DANIEL SINGER (The Nation) ELLEN MEIKSINS WOOD (Monthly Review) PAUL SWEEZY: chair (Monthly Review) * * * * * Conference Registration: $45.00 $30.00 (Low income) $ 8.00 (Undergrad/HS) $15.00 one-day Please make check payable to: SOCIALIST SCHOLARS CONFERENCE c/o Dept. of Sociology CUNY Graduate Ctr. 33 West 42nd St. New York, NY 10036 Information: DSA CUNY Office T: (212) 642-2826 F: 642-2420 e-mail: risserle@email.gc.cuny.edu From wwagar@binghamton.edu Fri Mar 7 14:34:14 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:35:11 -0500 (EST) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Notes from a Minor Denialist Dear All, A few observations on the current debate from one who does not appear on Gunder Frank's roster of major "denialists" but who is a minor "denialist" nevertheless. I should add that these remarks issue from my perspective as a late modern intellectual historian and futurist. I claim no expertise in the enumeration of bales of silk, sacks of peppercorns, or casks of amontillado, and I don't even harbor an obsessive interest in the 16th century. 1. The modern world-system delineated by Wallerstein ORIGINATED about 500 years ago in Atlantic Europe. It did not bestride the world 500 years ago, any more than a child graduating from kindergarten is in line for a Nobel Prize in physics. All the same, child prodigies come along from time to time, and Atlantic Europe was something of a prodigy. From hindsight we know that it had a most enterprising future in store for itself. 2. As I read world history, this modern world-system matured in the 19th century. To pursue the analogy, it graduated with a Ph.D. and immediately began to publish and attract tempting offers from Ivy League/Oxbridge schools. 3. For a relatively brief time, say, 1870-1945, our young rocket did bestride the world. Like most previous hegemons in world history, it was arrogant, exploitative, and intermittently genocidal. Like most previous hegemons, it tried to tear itself apart in ruinous intrasystemic wars. After a promising start, in short, it was denied tenure at Princeton and had to settle for a modest post in the boondocks. 4. During its ascent, however, it had created a global economy more densely interwoven than any before in the human experience, a multinational megacorporate economy that engulfed the planet. Just as importantly, it had also spawned (with assistance from non-Western precursors and rivals) a global technoculture (grounded in empiricist natural science and high tech) and a global political culture rooted in the Left and Right Enlightenments (e.g., Rousseauian democracy, Smithian and Millian liberalism, Marxian socialism). Although denied tenure at Princeton, it continued to wield a formidable influence on thought and behavior worldwide. 5. By the beginning of the 21st century, the core of the world- system born in the westernmost end of the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia was no longer confined to that peninsula. But its universally pervasive economic system and aesthetico-politico-technoculture--its stock markets, megacorporate structures, nation-state models, socialist and liberal ideologies, legal systems, languages, educational apparatuses, musics, architectures, Olympic Games, and much more bestrode the world, for better or for worse. Local resistance to this ubiquitous culture was fierce in many corners of the globe, but was soon destined to crumble, for better or for worse. Every progressive soul (and especially progressive souls in the West) fervently abjured the eighth deadly sin (= "Eurocentrism"), but in the end these souls were figuratively drowned when a tsunami of common sense washed their beach huts into the sea. Was all this for the better? Or was it all for the worse? Who knows? Perhaps both. Throughout history, people do what they can. I am not here to defend Joseph Stalin against Genghis Khan or Napoleon Bonaparte against Chandragupta Maurya. I will save the moralizing for another post. Regards, W. Warren Wagar Department of History Binghamton University, SUNY From SKSANDER@grove.iup.edu Fri Mar 7 15:17:57 1997 07 Mar 1997 17:17:53 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 07 Mar 1997 17:17:53 -0500 (EST) From: s_sanderson Subject: gunder and the three bears To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu This is Stephen (Goldilocks) Sanderson here, a little tired and sleepy from reading all these posts and wanting to go to bed. But whoa! There's someone sleeping in my bed. In fact, a lot of somethings in there. I understand why most of them are there, but why is Jim Blaut there? Considering his recent posts, I'm not sure he thinks we are supposed to be sleeping in the same bed. And if I'm there because I still use the C word and see a big break in 1500, then Tom and Chris should be in there too. They do the same, though not quite in the same way. But wait! There's another bed made up for me, with a lot of familiar faces there too. And Jim is there too? I thought he would be sleeping in the third bed, but maybe I'm overlooking something. And that third bed is starting to get a little more crowded all the time. Is it really a good idea, Gunder, to try to get everyone into it? They won't get much rest. More seriously, it seems to me that much of this discussion is beside the point. I always understood Wallerstein to say that what happened around 1500 was the beginning of a DIFFERENT MODE OF PRODUCTION, a CAPITALIST mode that differed significantly from its feudal predecessor. As Warren Wagar has said in his latest post, the system started small and grew much bigger over time. It doesn't really matter very much whether China had more vessels and more trade. Europe eventually conquered the world, for better or worse, like it or not, and that is an undisputed fact. It did that, Wallerstein and I and many other WSystemites argue, because it had a new mode of production built around incessant capital accumulation, something not found elsewhere (except, I would say now, for Japan) in the world. There was a lot of "capitalism" in Asia, but it was stuck within a tributary mode of production and couldn't flex its muscles as it could in Europe. The issue, thus, is not the quantitative one of who had more ships and more trade, but who had shifted to a qualitatively new mode of production, one that would soon be world-transforming. Yours in denial (but also willing to stretch some), Stephen Sanderson From dlj@inforamp.net Fri Mar 7 22:31:17 1997 Date: Fri, 07 Mar 1997 23:57:15 -0500 From: David Lloyd-Jones Reply-To: dlj@inforamp.net To: ms44@cornell.edu Subject: Re: Asia/World References: mark selden wrote: > = > Recent compelling research (much of it still forthcoming) on Asian > political economy by T. Hamashita, R. Marks, B. Wong, K. Pomeranz, R. > Barendse and others, now synthesized, theorized and extended globally b= y G. > Frank requires a paradigm shift whose most important dimensions seem to= me > the following: > = > 1. Asia, with China at its core (but also with a significant So= uth > Asian presence) from at least the fourteenth until well into the eighte= enth > century retained predominance in world trade, finance,technology (inclu= ding > shipping), agriculture, and manufacture. The European challenge, when i= t > came, rested predominantly on military predominance subsequently transl= ated > into economic and political primacy. = I don't want to take anything away from Hamashita, Marks, Wong et al., nor from Gunther. Nevertheless, when I took East Asian under the excellent Chris Priestley at University of Toronto (with Reischauer & Fairbank, nothing outr=E9, as texts) in 1962-64, we had roughly the above= pretty well taped. = = Maybe the good people you give credit to above were among the first to break out the very well-known secret. <2 snikpped: I hope to pursue it some other time> > 3. Without minimizing the devastating (but also energizing) imp= act > of the colonial experience in Asia, it is important to recognize that i= t > was relatively brief and, by comparison with Africa and Latin America, = in > some ways superficial: for example, in large areas of Asia owner cultiv= ator > agriculture and not European plantations remained predominant; not only= in > Japan, but also in China, from early on locally managed enterprise in k= ey > industries was competitive attempts at colonization failed. By 1905 (an= d > by certain measures1895 or even 1868) we see clear signs of the shift o= f > the pendulum with Japan's defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War > followed by Japan's rise as the dominant Asian power at the expense of > Western powers, paving the way for anti-colonial movements and the > resurgence of Asian economies in an era of independent states. = Every sentence in this paragraph makes my liver jiggle a little. They are somewhat-to-mostly true, but they are not quite right, one by one. = The major difference between the Asias on the one hand and Africa and Soutyh America on the other is simply epidemiological: the Asias were not subject to European pneumonias and smallpox. These two diseases smashed the Congo Basin, West Africa, and Central and South America, at the various different times. This statement of the Russo-Japanese War is a little on the simple side. The Japanese victory at Tsunashima-Kaikyo was total; on the other hand the war up in Sakhalin and the Russian peninsula -- western pro-Japanese propaganda to the contrary -- was a horrible bloody precursor of the Front in France in WWI, according to all the Japanese versions I have read. The American President -- was it Wilson or TR? I forget. -- who brought about an armistice was revered by the Japanese for doing so. Herman Kahn, and other bloviating amateurs, attribute this to Japanese inferiority complex; my own interpretation would be different: the Japanese knew a draw when they saw one, and were damn glad to have a figure of some prestige to pull it out of the fire for them. > Perhaps the third point is my own. > = > In the event, the old verities will no longer suffice. That includes > rethinking the c question. = The Japanese put out a certain amount of anti-colonial agitprop during WII -- but after Manchuria it was a little difficult to make it stick. = I don't know much about Chandra Bose (and neither does anybody else) so I jes' dunno what the Japanese thought for India might have been. Had they ever conquered the joint, no doubt their generals would have been disappointed at how few Indians can actually read the Sanskrit which is standard in Japanese temples... = In the ABCD colonial countries which the Japanese conquered, they governed with a breathtaking incompetence, with a result that they retain no presatige as anti-colonials whatsoever. = * * * = Mark, = Lynn White died the other day, so it is no longer compulsory for eager undergraduates to say "paradigm shift" whenever they go on autopilot. = -dlj. From jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu Fri Mar 7 23:31:37 1997 Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 01:31:24 -0500 (EST) From: jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu Subject: w-s critique of po-mo To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Among my peers (I am a Ph.D. candidate in history), postmodern theory is the rage. Culture, gender, the body, and the psyche are preferred topics whose treatment seems to ignore social-economic foundations. I feel most comfortable with Marxist-Braudel-Wallerstein style, yet I appreciate much about my peers' approach. I would like to hear w-s critiques of postmodernism in order to have a better idea about its merits and pitfalls. Also, could anyone recommend an article critiquing postmodernism from a w-s perspective? Thanks, John C. From dlj@inforamp.net Sat Mar 8 19:36:14 1997 Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 21:10:12 -0500 From: David Lloyd-Jones Reply-To: dlj@inforamp.net To: jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu Subject: Re: w-s critique of po-mo jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu asks: > > Among my peers (I am a Ph.D. candidate in history), postmodern theory > is the rage. Culture, gender, the body, and the psyche are > preferred topics whose treatment seems to ignore social-economic > foundations. I feel most comfortable with Marxist-Braudel-Wallerstein > style, yet I appreciate much about my peers' approach. I would like to > hear w-s critiques of postmodernism in order to have a better idea about > its merits and pitfalls. Also, could anyone recommend an article > critiquing postmodernism from a w-s perspective? No. W-S and po-mo are agreed on the Fundamental Proposition(tm) that Everything is Related to Everything. To suggest otherwise would obviously be otherwise. And vice versa. My suggestion to you would be that if you want to critique a particular assertion you do it on the basis of fact; if you wish to criticise any school, ridicule is probably the best weapon. Using one school to attack another school would be like attacking a creampuff with donuts, woonit now? -dlj. From 6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Sat Mar 8 21:14:40 1997 Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 20:14:29 -0800 (PST) From: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> To: David Lloyd-Jones Subject: Re: w-s critique of po-mo In-Reply-To: <33221C04.272@inforamp.net> Try not to appreciate too much about your peers' approach. You seem to be right on track (I am a doctoral student in sociology - global industry and commodity chains) - glad to meet you. Not long ago I was visiting some colleagues at el colegio de la frontera norte, a northern Mexico college that generates a ton of great literature on the political economy of Mexico. Over lunch I asked a visiting post-doc how el colef dealt with post-modern theory. His response (in a kind a gracious spirit): (laugh) You American scholars may have the luxury to wallow around in post-modern rhetoric - here in Mexico, we have big problems that need solving - we simply don't have time to waste on such matters (I applauded him). Saludos! On Sat, 8 Mar 1997, David Lloyd-Jones wrote: > jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu asks: > > > > Among my peers (I am a Ph.D. candidate in history), postmodern theory > > is the rage. Culture, gender, the body, and the psyche are > > preferred topics whose treatment seems to ignore social-economic > > foundations. I feel most comfortable with Marxist-Braudel-Wallerstein > > style, yet I appreciate much about my peers' approach. I would like to > > hear w-s critiques of postmodernism in order to have a better idea about > > its merits and pitfalls. Also, could anyone recommend an article > > critiquing postmodernism from a w-s perspective? > > No. > > W-S and po-mo are agreed on the Fundamental Proposition(tm) that > Everything is Related to Everything. > > To suggest otherwise would obviously be otherwise. And vice versa. > > My suggestion to you would be that if you want to critique a particular > assertion you do it on the basis of fact; if you wish to criticise any > school, ridicule is probably the best weapon. Using one school to > attack another school would be like attacking a creampuff with donuts, > woonit now? > > -dlj. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Judi A. Kessler University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Sociology Santa Barbara, California 93106 (805) 893-3751 fax (805) 893-3324 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From p34d3611@jhu.edu Sat Mar 8 22:33:09 1997 09 Mar 1997 00:32:28 -0500 (EST) 09 Mar 1997 00:32:18 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 09 Mar 1997 00:30:42 -0500 From: Peter Grimes Subject: WST & Po-Mo To: WSN Although I commend DLJ for his wit, I think that there *IS* a slight disagreement between WST & Po-Mo that he neglected in his reply. It is at the epistemic level. Po-Mo is inclined to attack both WST and the Neo-Marxism that gave it birth as each being "TOTALIZING DISCOURSE" or "META-NARRATIVES" (I'm not sure which evil is greater) that deny the unique individuality of views. For its part, WST suspects Po-Mo of being so subjective in its Mannheimian relativism that it would castigate the entire project of social science as impossibly postivistic. Take your choice. I wouldn't lose sleep over it. Cheers, Peter Grimes From mps@U.Arizona.EDU Sun Mar 9 12:10:17 1997 Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 12:07:21 -0700 (MST) From: Michael P Sullivan To: David Lloyd-Jones Subject: Re: w-s critique of po-mo In-Reply-To: <33221C04.272@inforamp.net> jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu asks: > > Among my peers (I am a Ph.D. candidate in history), postmodern theory > > is the rage. Culture, gender, the body, and the psyche are > > preferred topics whose treatment seems to ignore social-economic > > foundations. I feel most comfortable with Marxist-Braudel-Wallerstein > > style, yet I appreciate much about my peers' approach. I would like to > > hear w-s critiques of postmodernism in order to have a better idea about > > its merits and pitfalls. Also, could anyone recommend an article > > critiquing postmodernism from a w-s perspective? Dear jcrocitti: My colleague Albert Bergeson has an interesting take on po-mo from a w-s perspective; see Albert Bergeson, "Postmodernism: A World System Explanation," in *Protosoziologie* 7 (1995) 54-59. ---------------------- Michael P Sullivan PH: 520-621-7600 Department of Political Science FAX: 520-621-5051 University of Arizona E-MAIL: mps@u.arizona.edu Tucson, AZ 85721 From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Sun Mar 9 13:12:23 1997 Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 15:12:07 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: po-mo and all that In re the po-mo "debate", an item that I had preferred to forget. Incidental intelligence: I received several responsess from the cc's below. All expressed sympathy with Tim and me, except one - which sided with the students and said that what they said is all on the up and up -- and THAt one came from my China historian son, Paulo! [if anyone wants and if he permits and if i can still find it, I can forward his too!] Alas, not even hara-kiri seems to offer a way out. gunder frank ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 17:49:17 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: agf "R. Bin Wong" , Ken Pomeranz , "jack a. goldstone" , lynn nelson , Paulo Frank , J B Owens , Albert J Bergesen , Nancy Howell Subject: I have been sitting in on Tim Brook's "Theories of Wofld History" Seminar. ...... The topic today was BRAUDEL. The only saving grace was that we never got to the CRITIQUE of Braudel that i had written and that Tim had assigned. Thats because Tim and I spent the two hours DEFENDING Braudel, despite the awful things he says about China and his - to me? - Eurcopean world-economy. The students lit into/dismissed/attacked/disdained/rejected and what not Braudel because he uses/ refers to: numbers - no goodnick population data - no point material life - not interesting commonalities - its differences that count comparisons - he compares aplles & oranges and fails to also compare elephants, stars, funny ideas, and a thousand other etcs. He does NOT, what an unforgivable sin- emphasize - agency -ideas -culture -the differences between humans and animals and rocks -individuality -medieval history = Ideas in and about the same Every "discussion" that Tim or indeed a student tries to initiate/guide/anticipate/or anything ... leads into a swamp on top of concrete, and disappears there into nothing. Start again on the same or another topic, with the same result. Besides Po-Mo reigns to the po-mo power. Its sooooooo frustrating, that not even hara-kiri seesm to be able to offer any out... .... and Al Bergeson told me just never you=me mind that our contemporaries and friends cant accept or even listen to "my version" of "history"; It's the "next" generation of graduaste studeents that will come around, he says. Well.... I just saw the future - and it does NOT work! g/ From ishiguchi@bemax.ac.jp Sun Mar 9 17:56:46 1997 To: ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Keynesianism and the Theory of the State From: Masatoshi Ishiguchi Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 09:46:25 +0900 I would like to sign off this forum. From denemark@UDel.Edu Mon Mar 10 10:18:34 1997 Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 12:18:12 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Denemark To: world system network Subject: Re: w-s critique of po-mo In-Reply-To: <33221C04.272@inforamp.net> I've organized a couple of panels where I tried to let some post-modern folks, especially constructivist students of Nick Onuf, interact with world system stalwarts. It is a frustrating experience. There is a strong sense in 'social construction' that the world is made up of no more than our own perceptions. Hence the idea that material interactions provide some reasonably constant set of incentives that we might come to understand is simply not acceptable. As such, all of world systems work is an unfortunate error. This is 'illustrated' by constructivists by picking at cases that fall outside the already broad parameters of world system predictions. The argument that world systems work is invalid because of the behavior of Albania in the l970s and 80s (actually made at one panel) did nothing but infuriate the world system folks and certainly didn't help the cause of reasonable interaction. World system folks, on the other hand, tend to be overly sensitive about the charge that they do not provide much of an agential foundation for their work. Fearing the rational choice cul-de-sac I suppose, all suggestions that agency ought be taken seriously elicit a negative response. The problem we face is that structural analyses of the world system sort suffer from indeterminancy. Different scholars offer similar predictions based on dissimilar arguments. It is difficult to evaluate which arguments are the best. One solution would be to trace the various logics down through the effects they have on individuals. If one argument has the capacity to predict the specific individual responses we subsequently see, while others do not, that logic would appear more complete. Hence a 'microfoundational' analysis would serve the cause. This is an extraordinarily difficult standard to meet, especially because world system folks are better at dealing with structural than agential issues. Nonetheless, it seems one way of dealing with the methodological tasks involved. I'm trying to complete a paper on this issue now, though the task of hacking through Giddens and Habermas seems more trouble than it might be worth. I may never get much beyond the "agree to disagree" stage, though I would be happy to send you a copy when the work is complete if you would forward your address to me individually. Best, Bob Denemark On Sat, 8 Mar 1997, David Lloyd-Jones wrote: > jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu asks: > > > > Among my peers (I am a Ph.D. candidate in history), postmodern theory > > is the rage. Culture, gender, the body, and the psyche are > > preferred topics whose treatment seems to ignore social-economic > > foundations. I feel most comfortable with Marxist-Braudel-Wallerstein > > style, yet I appreciate much about my peers' approach. I would like to > > hear w-s critiques of postmodernism in order to have a better idea about > > its merits and pitfalls. Also, could anyone recommend an article > > critiquing postmodernism from a w-s perspective? > > No. > > W-S and po-mo are agreed on the Fundamental Proposition(tm) that > Everything is Related to Everything. > > To suggest otherwise would obviously be otherwise. And vice versa. > > My suggestion to you would be that if you want to critique a particular > assertion you do it on the basis of fact; if you wish to criticise any > school, ridicule is probably the best weapon. Using one school to > attack another school would be like attacking a creampuff with donuts, > woonit now? > > -dlj. > > From creitz@toto.net Mon Mar 10 14:07:22 1997 From: creitz@toto.net Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 15:02:30 -0600 (CST) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: w-s critique of po-mo To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK FR: Charles Reitz creitz@toto.net Re: critique of po-mo Postmodernism, critical theory and "Western Marxism" seem to find aesthetic theory as the most critical theory of all. This is grounded in their particular theorization of the phenomenon of alienation as reification (as Verdinglichung per Lukacs in History and Class Consciousess 1923? removed from the materialist analysis of Marx in Capital and 1844 Manuscripts). Reification is seen as a faulty projection of reality that views the world in "dehumanized" terms, as consisting of real, external, and independently existing objects, structures, and processes (i.e. materialistically, historically, and dialectically interrelated). They argue that these should instead be viewed as projections of the human senses (body) and human imagination (psyche). Thus they "humanize" theory that they otherwise reject as alienated, mechanical, objectivistic. World systems theory in their estimation would have to give way to an "aesthetics of history" per Wilhlem Dilthey, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Herbert Marcuse. They castigate social science that seeks an analysis of social structure and substitute methodological empathy and an aesthetic appreciation for the tragic paradoxes and ambiguities of life. Insight is attained only through the deconstructive and reconstructive power of critique grounded in the aesthetic imagination. I am a student of philosophy not world systems analysis as such, but I have addressed the issue of reification in a paper "Liberating the Critical in Critical Theory" accessible on the web at http://www.lib.wmc.edu/researcher/issueXI-2/reitz.html I will enjoy looking up Michael Sullivan's citation to "Postmodernism: A world System Explanation" The idea the both w-s and po-mo share the "fundamental proposition that Everything is Related to Everything" misses the point that the analytical center of gravity for po-mo is the unthetherable human imagination, not the political-economic systems that condition human freedom. From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Tue Mar 11 04:12:55 1997 11 Mar 97 17:01:37 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: Robert Denemark , wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:01:30 -0600 (NSK) Subject: Re: w-s critique of po-mo i agree with distinction between world-system theory (wst) and postmodernism (po-mo) by Peter Grimes and strongly support Gunder in his anger and conclusions. i use to name post-modernism THE INTELLECTUAL PLAGUE OF MODERN RICH SOCIETIES. this serious blame is based on one simple observation: those who rush into po-mo very soon become unable for any on-going, systematic, responsible, logically constrained intellectual work. to involve into po-mo is to buy INDULGENCE FOR NON-THINKING, (take any po-mo journal and you'll see that thinking is not necessary for any of these free- style irresponsible essays) degradation comes rather soon. i was told that most famous anthropological schools in UK and US are already almost destroyed by po-mo, now the turn of history and sociology comes each epidemy has some interior strenth which is the reason of its power and i am ready to recognize value of original works of Foucalt concerning knowledge, power, language, etc, but most latter waves seem to be totally muddy, i would be grateful if somebody presents any really new, clear, productive and testable idea of last years in this tradition at the same time, just as each new epidemy is a challenge for medicine, each new wave of irrationalism is a challenge for rationalism, and here i must agree with Robert Denemark (see below) that rational wst has no sufficient and persuadive arguments. but i don't agree with Robert when he sees the problem in: >. Different >scholars offer similar predictions based on dissimilar arguments. i think that Robert here kept in mind explanations of the past , not predictions of the future. the real problem is that in social sciences now ALMOST NOBODY DARES TO PREDICT, everybody are afraid of theirs renome' (i know the only positive and bright example of prediction: Randall Collins by means of his geopolitical theory predicted USSR collapse). The well- reasoned carefulness (not to say cowardice) turns into total intellectual impotence of rational social sciences (including wst), why then to wonder that new generations of students see no prospect in systematic work and prefer po-mo, where non-work leads to non-worse results! i use to take that the breaking-point between OLD AGE of witch processes and NEW AGE of Enlightment's rationalism (which i don't idealize, of course) was the bright prediction of Galey's comet coming by means of sky-mechanics theory what we need now for defense and prosper of rational social thinking is predictive theories and braveness to make predictions Nikolai P.S. dear Bob, i am interested in your paper, the address below > for their work. Fearing the rational choice cul-de-sac I suppose, all > suggestions that agency ought be taken seriously elicit a negative > response. The problem we face is that structural analyses of the world > system sort suffer from indeterminancy. Different scholars offer similar > predictions based on dissimilar arguments. It is difficult to evaluate > which arguments are the best. One solution would be to trace the various > logics down through the effects they have on individuals. If one argument > has the capacity to predict the specific individual responses we > subsequently see, while others do not, that logic would appear more > complete. Hence a 'microfoundational' analysis would serve the cause. > > Best, Bob Denemark *********************************************************** Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe /philofhi.html ************************************************************ From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Tue Mar 11 07:21:14 1997 11 Mar 1997 09:12:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:12:27 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Po-Mo To: Network World-Systems I'll throw my 2 cents in here. 1st I think Al Bergesen's article in Protosoziologie is quite good on this topic: the < 25 version: po-mo, deconstruct etc, is a SYMPTOM of hegemonic decline and lack of hegemon in the core. If Immanual W is online, may he can point us to his address from fall '96 ASA paper. One of his memorable lines, in paraphrase was: I appreciate some of their critiques. They are important. But they have not said anything we did not say earlier and better. That, too, is my take on all this. It is ironic, and tragic as Nikolai just said, that lit-crit types discovered anthro & cultural relativism a few years back and have turned it into a fad, that is now infecting social sciences. However, contral Nikolai, I think it is a "project" that has peaked, for precisely the reasons Nikolai pointed out: it has gotten nowhere fast. tom hall Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From wally@cats.ucsc.edu Tue Mar 11 07:44:24 1997 From: wally@cats.ucsc.edu id GAA01983 for ; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 06:44:24 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 06:44:20 -0800 To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: more pomo Waves of radical romantic cultural analysis routinely follow the decline of radical political initiatives. Po-mo is the latest in a long line that stretches back at least to the post-1815 romantic movement. Cultural critics from Ortega on the right to the Frankfurt School on the left are probably the most familiar, as they date from the last trough of reaction, the fascist era. One interesting feature of these intellectual movements is that they announce themselves as radically critical but are largely incomprehensible to regular people. By the way, on my campus there are some posters advertising a lecture with the phrase "the geography of desire" in its title. Can someone tell me if this refers to where to go on a vacation? Or does it pertain to erogenous zones? Or the back seat of a car versus the bear rug by the hearth? Is there a radical geographer who can help me out? w From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Mar 11 07:56:02 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:55:56 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: wally@cats.ucsc.edu Subject: Re: more pomo In-Reply-To: <199703111444.GAA00707@buddy.UCSC.EDU> go out and ask the seals 5 blocks from your house! and dont expect help from the likes of us snowbounders, even if this one for this once agrees with your pre/po/mo cycles. gunderOn Tue, 11 Mar 1997 wally@cats.ucsc.edu wrote: > Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 06:44:20 -0800 > From: wally@cats.ucsc.edu > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: more pomo > > > Waves of radical romantic cultural analysis routinely > follow the decline of radical political initiatives. > Po-mo is the latest in a long line that stretches back > at least to the post-1815 romantic movement. Cultural > critics from Ortega on the right to the Frankfurt School > on the left are probably the most familiar, as they date > from the last trough of reaction, the fascist era. One > interesting feature of these intellectual movements is > that they announce themselves as radically critical but > are largely incomprehensible to regular people. > > By the way, on my campus there are some posters advertising > a lecture with the phrase "the geography of desire" in its > title. Can someone tell me if this refers to where to go > on a vacation? Or does it pertain to erogenous zones? Or > the back seat of a car versus the bear rug by the hearth? > Is there a radical geographer who can help me out? > > w > From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Mar 11 08:00:05 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:00:00 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Re: Po-Mo I can only hope that THIS infectious virus , unlike some others, has not yet become/developed resistance to our anti-viral remedies and/or to the natural environment gunder On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU wrote: > Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 09:12:27 -0500 (EST) > From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Po-Mo > > I'll throw my 2 cents in here. > > 1st I think Al Bergesen's article in Protosoziologie is quite good on > this topic: the < 25 version: po-mo, deconstruct etc, is a SYMPTOM of > hegemonic decline and lack of hegemon in the core. > > If Immanual W is online, may he can point us to his address from fall '96 > ASA paper. One of his memorable lines, in paraphrase was: > I appreciate some of their critiques. They are important. But they have > not said anything we did not say earlier and better. > > That, too, is my take on all this. It is ironic, and tragic as Nikolai > just said, that lit-crit types discovered anthro & cultural relativism a > few years back and have turned it into a fad, that is now infecting > social sciences. > > However, contral Nikolai, I think it is a "project" that has peaked, for > precisely the reasons Nikolai pointed out: it has gotten nowhere fast. > > tom hall > > Thomas D. [tom] Hall > thall@depauw.edu > Department of Sociology > DePauw University > Greencastle, IN 46135 > ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE > 765-658-4519 > http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm > From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Tue Mar 11 08:17:35 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:17:28 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Subject: Re: w-s critique of po-mo In-Reply-To: <18462D473F@cnit.nsu.ru> Yes Nicolai, but surely the virus has reached Moscow too, if not Novosibirsk. I dont remember if in my anguish, I mentioned that one of the main frustrations was/is that it was/is no longer possible to carry any analysis or argument from A to C via B; because, if not already at A itself, at B it gets derailed into the wild blue yonder. gunder \n Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Nikolai S. Rozov wrote: > Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:01:30 -0600 (NSK) > From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: Re: w-s critique of po-mo > > i agree with distinction between world-system theory (wst) and > postmodernism (po-mo) by Peter Grimes and strongly > support Gunder in his anger and conclusions. i use to name post-modernism > THE INTELLECTUAL PLAGUE OF MODERN RICH SOCIETIES. > > this serious blame is based > on one simple observation: those who rush into po-mo very soon become unable > for any on-going, systematic, responsible, logically constrained intellectual > work. to involve into po-mo is to buy INDULGENCE FOR NON-THINKING, (take any > po-mo journal and you'll see that thinking is not necessary for any of > these free- style irresponsible essays) > > degradation comes rather soon. i was told that most famous anthropological > schools in UK and US are already almost destroyed by po-mo, now the turn of > history and sociology comes > > each epidemy has some interior strenth which is the reason of its power > and i am ready to recognize value of original works of Foucalt concerning > knowledge, power, language, etc, but most latter waves seem to be totally > muddy, i would be grateful if somebody presents any really new, > clear, productive and testable idea of last years in this tradition > > at the same time, just as each new epidemy is a challenge for medicine, > each new wave of irrationalism is a challenge for rationalism, and here i > must agree with Robert Denemark (see below) that rational wst has no > sufficient and persuadive arguments. > > but i don't agree with Robert when he sees the problem in: > >. Different > >scholars offer similar predictions based on dissimilar arguments. > > i think that Robert here kept in mind explanations of the past , not > predictions of the future. > the real problem is that in social sciences now ALMOST NOBODY DARES TO > PREDICT, everybody are afraid of theirs renome' (i know the only positive and > bright example of prediction: Randall Collins by means of his > geopolitical theory predicted USSR collapse). > > > The well- reasoned carefulness (not to say cowardice) turns into total > intellectual impotence of rational social sciences (including wst), > > why then to wonder that new generations of students see no prospect in > systematic work and prefer po-mo, where non-work leads to non-worse results! > > i use to take that the breaking-point between OLD AGE of witch processes > and NEW AGE of Enlightment's rationalism (which i don't idealize, of course) > was the bright prediction of Galey's comet coming by means of sky-mechanics > theory > > what we need now for defense and prosper of rational social thinking is > predictive theories and braveness to make predictions > > Nikolai > > P.S. dear Bob, i am interested in your paper, the address below > > > > for their work. Fearing the rational choice cul-de-sac I suppose, all > > suggestions that agency ought be taken seriously elicit a negative > > response. The problem we face is that structural analyses of the world > > system sort suffer from indeterminancy. Different scholars offer similar > > predictions based on dissimilar arguments. It is difficult to evaluate > > which arguments are the best. One solution would be to trace the various > > logics down through the effects they have on individuals. If one argument > > has the capacity to predict the specific individual responses we > > subsequently see, while others do not, that logic would appear more > > complete. Hence a 'microfoundational' analysis would serve the cause. > > > > Best, Bob Denemark > *********************************************************** > > Nikolai S. Rozov # Address:Dept. of Philosophy > Prof.of Philosophy # Novosibirsk State University > rozov@cnit.nsu.ru # 630090, Novosibirsk > Fax: (3832) 355237 # Pirogova 2, RUSSIA > > Moderator of the mailing list PHILOFHI > (PHILosophy OF HIstory and theoretical history) > http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~dew7e/anthronet/subscribe > /philofhi.html > ************************************************************ > From 6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Tue Mar 11 09:02:31 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 08:02:19 -0800 (PST) From: Judi Kessler <6500jk@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> To: wally@cats.ucsc.edu Subject: Re: more pomo In-Reply-To: <199703111444.GAA00707@buddy.UCSC.EDU> It must refer to the "locality" of good guacamole dip. Of course, the questions remains: does this spatiality reside in the mind or on the ground? This represents my fundamental Po-Mo alienation. I am only interested in the geographic distance between me and good guac.(ie, can get there on foot, by bicycle, do I need to use my car and as such lose my parking place?) On Tue, 11 Mar 1997 wally@cats.ucsc.edu wrote: > > Waves of radical romantic cultural analysis routinely > follow the decline of radical political initiatives. > Po-mo is the latest in a long line that stretches back > at least to the post-1815 romantic movement. Cultural > critics from Ortega on the right to the Frankfurt School > on the left are probably the most familiar, as they date > from the last trough of reaction, the fascist era. One > interesting feature of these intellectual movements is > that they announce themselves as radically critical but > are largely incomprehensible to regular people. > > By the way, on my campus there are some posters advertising > a lecture with the phrase "the geography of desire" in its > title. Can someone tell me if this refers to where to go > on a vacation? Or does it pertain to erogenous zones? Or > the back seat of a car versus the bear rug by the hearth? > Is there a radical geographer who can help me out? > > w > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Judi A. Kessler University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Sociology Santa Barbara, California 93106 (805) 893-3751 fax (805) 893-3324 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From albert@U.Arizona.EDU Tue Mar 11 10:38:48 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:35:56 -0700 (MST) From: Albert J Bergesen To: wsn wsn Subject: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus WSNers--Along with long waves in the global political economy there are corresponding long waves of cultural forms, which frame the discourse of the age. In short, hegemony (unicentricity) is associated with universalistic frames; rivalry (multicentricity) with particularistic frameworks. These are part of the world's power dynamics. They are not accidental, or "viruses". General, universal, theory--and abstract modernism in the arts (classicism earlier)--is a means of hegemonic cultural domination, suppressing the voices of particular groups within nations, and nations within the world. With hegemonic decline comes the lessening of this universalist grid of discourse, and with American decline, comes the Mannerism (the po-mo of Spanish/Hapsburgh hegemonic decline) of our age, post-modernism. Remeber what the title means: modernism was the world of universalism, and post-modernism is the world of particularism. Particular groups, ethnicities, genders, sexual preferences. What shifts is the frame: race, class, gender, can be done as a consequence of mode of production, capitalist development, world systemic position, etc. But that is from the frame of hegemonic cultural universalism, which has now passed on to particularism, such that one believes there is no longer any general theory, or if there is, it is but an intellectual fig leaf for oppressions of various particular groups: race, class, gender. In short, in our age of hegemonic decline, this is the way race, class, gender will be talked about. The goal is to join the debate, or to subsume it somehow, but not just put our world-systemic heads in the intellectual sand. To the Binghamton School's credit they have made, more or less, constant efforts to reach out to these new intellectual developments. For that IW should be praised. Remember too in ones world-systemic quickness to judge that these are not called the "new social movements" without reason: they seemed not to fall prey to explanation by traditional universalist theories of class, mode of production, and I would add, world system status. The "economic" lost favor in late 20th century intellectual life for a reason: class just wasn't the best explanation for the new social movements; neither, I would add, has world system theory been any better. IW's smugness of "we said it earlier" is not all that correct, of if so, how come we are on the margins of contemporary intellectual debates about gender, class, race, ethnicity, sexual preference? If world-systemness is a general frame, and this is an age of particularism, then we may be on the outside for a while, or even if making convincing arguments they will not be heard. Our conditionis a little of both: we aren't heard and we haven't made the best of arguments on these particular issues. So, over the long history of the world system, global consciousness swings back and forth between the general and the particular; each puts down the other; each claism to be the ideology of liberation--remember that po mo claims a better, more radical, more liberated, way of doing things. They claim a higher progressivity; they claim you are part of the past and irrelevant. The universalists make the same clain during their period, and both--and this is the key point here--serve the power of the world system. Particularism allows for the mobilization of national populations for core-wars, struggles, etc. Universalism allows for hegemonic domination by framing the world as a unity (under hegemonic leadership/domination, of course). We are in the pre-hegemonic succession struggles stage. We are heading from hegemonic universalism in theory and the arts, to a 30s like social realism of my group vs. yours. Both are functional. Both serve power. Both claim to be liberation and prgressivity; but ultimately both are cultural outlooks within the working framework of the world system, and as such, serve its power dynamics. al b. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 email: albert@u.arizona.edu From chad@ssu.southwest.msus.edu Tue Mar 11 11:04:05 1997 From: "Carl H.A. Dassbach" To: Subject: A critique of Pomo Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 12:09:36 -0600 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_01BC2E15.169E5F40 http://olympus.lang.arts.ualberta.ca:8010/vol001.002/Dassbach.maintext.html My comments on pomo can be found at the address above. Carl Dassbach ------=_NextPart_000_01BC2E15.169E5F40 [InternetShortcut] URL=3Dhttp://olympus.lang.arts.ualberta.ca:8010/vol001.002/Dassbach.maint= ext.html ------=_NextPart_000_01BC2E15.169E5F40-- From delgado@leland.Stanford.EDU Tue Mar 11 11:38:42 1997 Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:38:23 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:40:21 -0500 To: social-policy@mailbase.ac.uk, social-theory@mailbase.ac.uk, european-sociologist@mailbase.ac.uk, wsn@csf.colorado.edu From: "Juan M. Delgado-Moreira" Subject: Multiculturalism and EU's identity Dear colleagues, The Electronic Journal of Sociology has published my paper "Cultural Citizenship and the Creation of European Identity". Here is the URL for those of you who might be interested. http://olympus.lang.arts.ualberta.ca:8010/vol002.003/delgado-moreira.abstrac t.1997.html Any feedback will be appreciated. All the Best, Dr Juan M. Delgado-Moreira Fulbright Scholar Stanford University Department of Anthropology From akwebb@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Tue Mar 11 15:28:47 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:26:43 -0500 (EST) From: "Adam K. Webb" To: Albert J Bergesen Subject: postmodernism as an outgrowth of liberal capitalism In-Reply-To: Reply to Albert Bergeson on postmodernism as part of a particularist- universalist alternation: It would seem that there is a major qualitative difference between current postmodernism/new social movements and the particularistic relativism that AB sees in various historical periods. I am not a world-systems theorist as such--or an orthodox Marxist--but it strikes me that postmodernism, despite its radicalism, could emerge only from the social and ideological milieu of advanced liberal capitalism. Most obviously, proponents of postmodernism, by virtue of their origin in prosperous societies, display a certain philosophical "randomness" that is undoubtedly linked to the severing of a link to material conditions. More interesting, however, is that despite their self-proclaimed radicalism, their discourse is so heavily anchored in a liberal-capitalist "mental map" as to be almost indistinguishable from it at the most fundamental level. Individual autonomy, abdication of striving for certainty and consensus, wholesale relativism, etc.--seem to have much in common with the notions of consumer sovereignty that play such a vital role in the processes of their social milieu. One wonders, however, whether postmodernism and the new social movements associated with it represent an evolution of capitalism's ideological underpinnings, such that this "relativism" will become the "Core's" new hegemonic framework, diverting attention from more substantive concerns, or whether they are merely a tangential striving for a sense of political activism among those whose structural position in the world economy affords them no other banners to grasp. Any thoughts? --AKW From wwagar@binghamton.edu Tue Mar 11 16:26:54 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 18:27:57 -0500 (EST) To: Albert J Bergesen Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Dear Al, For once we are in synch. You are quite right about particularism and universalism both serving the same system, for all their vicious condemnations of one another. We have many pomo professors at Binghamton who hold ostensibly radical or progressive views, but such views always come down to enhancing the power WITHIN the system of particular groups currently marginal or supposedly marginal to the system. Like more tenured jobs for gays, Lesbians, and blacks. I'm all for tenuring gays, Lesbians, and blacks if they deserve tenure, but how is this going to disturb the system? The system is large, it contains multitudes. The only exception to the rule that particularlism and universalism both serve the system is my own universalism, i.e., the doctrine of the World Party. All power to the Party! Well, something like that. Cheers, Warren Wagar From albert@U.Arizona.EDU Tue Mar 11 16:50:48 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 16:47:15 -0700 (MST) From: Albert J Bergesen To: "Adam K. Webb" Subject: Re: postmodernism as an outgrowth of liberal capitalism In-Reply-To: Reply to Adam K. Webb--I don't know that any period is really severed from its material base. That I think is a modern vanity. Cylces repeat over historical time, so one hegemony is not the same as another--19th century Britain isn't 20th century US. But we wouldn't want to say there wasn't a recurring hegemony. So too with cultural forms: all the disjuncture, relativism, etc.of post modernism also characterized Mannerism centuries earlier. It is hard to sell the idea of cycles in economics or politics. It is particularly hard for culture, so I understand the resistance. You know, both things are correct: our time is, what, liberal, or late capitalism, and a period of hegemonic decline. So I don't think there is a necessary opposition here. Partly it depends on what you are interested in. For the world systemite it is the collective cyclic dynamics of the world system over longer periods of historical time. Hence I look for repetitions--they are never the same, of course, but neither is life a new each time either. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 email: albert@u.arizona.edu From albert@U.Arizona.EDU Tue Mar 11 17:01:43 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 16:58:45 -0700 (MST) From: Albert J Bergesen To: wwagar@binghamton.edu Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Dear Warren--Yes, it is nice to be on the same side of the world system fence for once. Being in English you are closer to the shifting tides of cultural frames through which we see/interpret texts, art, and in social science, lived lives. You mentioned the World Party, and in a friendly fraternal manner I would like to ask if this seems the best form of organization given the history of centralized parties and their outcomes in the 20th century. Somehow it seems to me that the idea of The Party will be off the agenda for politics for a while. It just seems a hard sell: let us lead you, let us be a vanguard, let us seize the high ground, let us make the revolution, let us give you the better world you want. Maybe its me, but given the history of what that call resulted in in our century I cannot imagine being able to mobilize people around the idea of a vanguard party any more. Mind you I don't as yet have an alternative rallying call, but the idea of a World Party makes me queezy. al b. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 email: albert@u.arizona.edu From ms44278@email.csun.edu Tue Mar 11 18:45:34 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 17:45:19 -0800 (PST) From: mike shupp To: Albert J Bergesen Subject: Re: postmodernism as an outgrowth of liberal capitalism In-Reply-To: On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Albert J Bergesen wrote: > Reply to Adam K. Webb--I don't know that any period is really severed from > its material base. That I think is a modern vanity. Cylces repeat over > historical time, so one hegemony is not the same as another--19th century > Britain isn't 20th century US. But we wouldn't want to say there wasn't a > recurring hegemony. So too with cultural forms: all the disjuncture, > relativism, etc.of post modernism also characterized Mannerism centuries > earlier. It is hard to sell the idea of cycles in economics or politics. > It is particularly hard for culture, so I understand the resistance... Mannerism? 16th Century? Well, why not. There do seem to be swings over roughly century long periods between eras which seem to favor elaborate/ornate/intricate/self-absorbed thought and cultural productions and those which prefer simple/clear/problem-oriented approaches. Think of Paris architecture of the late 19th century and Bauhaus, and of modern architectural electicism. Early Stravinsky and late Stravinsky and ??? Jane Austen to Dickens to James to Hemingway to Gass and Pynchon. So, if we're diving into post-modernism willy-nilly we have the prospect of emerging from it in another 50 years or so. Good- man should not live without hope of a better world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ms44278@csun1.csun.edu Mike Shupp California State University, Northridge Graduate Student, Dept. of Anthropology From tbehrend@csd.uwm.edu Tue Mar 11 19:59:32 1997 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 20:59:29 -0600 (CST) From: Tom Behrendt To: mike shupp Subject: Re: postmodernism as an outgrowth of liberal capitalism In-Reply-To: Please drop me from the list tbehrend@csd.uwm.edu tomb100623@aol.com From PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu Wed Mar 12 07:25:52 1997 From: PAT.LAUDERDALE@ASU.Edu Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 07:25:46 -0700 (MST) Subject: Re: postmodernism as an outgrowth of liberal capitalism In-reply-to: To: Tom Behrendt In the early 1970s world systems research was criticized for being largely political and the group doing the research often was called a SECT. It was a serious challenge to the status quo, as is PART of po mo in recent years. PART of the work in po mo is as relevant and important today as WS (aka pews) was then, and PART of WS continues to be relevant and important. The recent witch-hunt with po mo as the witch brings back memories of ws as witch. In essence, neither is close to being the monolithic problem or solution portrayed in recent citings (sic). P.S. For anyone who is going to claim that ws did the tough empirical work to move into the status quo, they are ignoring that PART of po mo which also has done the same. On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Tom Behrendt wrote: > Please drop me from the list > > tbehrend@csd.uwm.edu > tomb100623@aol.com > > From ba05105@binghamton.edu Wed Mar 12 08:42:34 1997 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:43:34 -0500 (EST) To: wally@cats.ucsc.edu Subject: Re: more pomo In-Reply-To: <199703111444.GAA00707@buddy.UCSC.EDU> Far be it for me to defend them--I amuse myself as much as anyone on this list with the nonsense that po-mos self importantly and humorouslessly promulgate--but there are plenty of people employing various insights from Foucault, Derrida, et al. doing reasonably interesting work (The journal 'Public Culture' is a relatively coherent, and relevant place for the wayward w-ser to start). The main point--that the categories by which social actors identify themselves and are categorized are historical creations embedded in power relations is not incompatible with w-s but if 'we have been saying it all along' I'd love to know where much was made of it amongst w-sers. Steven Sherman Binghamton University From ba05105@binghamton.edu Wed Mar 12 08:53:38 1997 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:54:39 -0500 (EST) To: wwagar@binghamton.edu Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Well, this is quite a dubious line!!! Forget actually trying to advance the interests of previously marginal groups, forget trying to undo the various oppressions embedded in current knowledge structures, just fall in line behind the white guy pushing world socialism--thats the only way to reallly fight the system! And people wonder why world systems has become of such marginal interest to progressives! Steven Sherman Binghamton University On Tue, 11 Mar 1997 wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote: > > Dear Al, > > For once we are in synch. You are quite right about > particularism and universalism both serving the same system, for all > their vicious condemnations of one another. We have many pomo professors > at Binghamton who hold ostensibly radical or progressive views, but such > views always come down to enhancing the power WITHIN the system of > particular groups currently marginal or supposedly marginal to the system. > Like more tenured jobs for gays, Lesbians, and blacks. I'm all for > tenuring gays, Lesbians, and blacks if they deserve tenure, but how is > this going to disturb the system? The system is large, it contains > multitudes. > > The only exception to the rule that particularlism and > universalism both serve the system is my own universalism, i.e., the > doctrine of the World Party. All power to the Party! Well, something > like that. > > Cheers, > > Warren Wagar > > From wwagar@binghamton.edu Wed Mar 12 08:59:07 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:59:43 -0500 (EST) To: ba05105@binghamton.edu Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Dear Mr. Sherman, Have you ever heard of irony? My last paragraph is ironic. Even self-deprecating. But you didn't get it. I wish I could believe, in my turn, that you were not making a racial slur when you called me a white guy, but I suppose that's too much to hope for. W. Warren Wagar On Wed, 12 Mar 1997 ba05105@binghamton.edu wrote: > Well, this is quite a dubious line!!! Forget actually trying to advance > the interests of previously marginal groups, forget trying to undo the > various oppressions embedded in current knowledge structures, just fall in > line behind the white guy pushing world socialism--thats the only way to > reallly fight the system! And people wonder why world systems has become > of such marginal interest to progressives! > > Steven Sherman > Binghamton University > > On Tue, 11 Mar 1997 wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote: > > > > > Dear Al, > > > > For once we are in synch. You are quite right about > > particularism and universalism both serving the same system, for all > > their vicious condemnations of one another. We have many pomo professors > > at Binghamton who hold ostensibly radical or progressive views, but such > > views always come down to enhancing the power WITHIN the system of > > particular groups currently marginal or supposedly marginal to the system. > > Like more tenured jobs for gays, Lesbians, and blacks. I'm all for > > tenuring gays, Lesbians, and blacks if they deserve tenure, but how is > > this going to disturb the system? The system is large, it contains > > multitudes. > > > > The only exception to the rule that particularlism and > > universalism both serve the system is my own universalism, i.e., the > > doctrine of the World Party. All power to the Party! Well, something > > like that. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Warren Wagar > > > > > > From ba05105@binghamton.edu Wed Mar 12 09:03:42 1997 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 11:04:47 -0500 (EST) To: Albert J Bergesen Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: WW Sorry about my previous intemperate post. One question to Al Bergesen--if hegemony is associated with universalistic frames, rivalry with particularism, how do you understand the second half of the eighteenth century--wasn't it precisely the case that the rival, France, was universalistic as could plausibly be, while, beginning with Burke, England became talking a blue streak about the virtues of local, untheorizable differences, and didn't really stop at least through the mid-17970s, with Thompson scolding Althusser for being too abstract. I'm not sure that whatever emerges out of East Asia won't build its hegemony on a skeptisicm about the universalism that in some ways proved to be the US's achilles heel. STeven Sherman Binghamton University On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Albert J Bergesen wrote: > WSNers--Along with long waves in the global political economy there are > corresponding long waves of cultural forms, which frame the discourse of > the age. In short, hegemony (unicentricity) is associated with > universalistic frames; rivalry (multicentricity) with particularistic > frameworks. These are part of the world's power dynamics. They are not > accidental, or "viruses". General, universal, theory--and abstract > modernism in the arts (classicism earlier)--is a means of hegemonic > cultural domination, suppressing the voices of particular groups within > nations, and nations within the world. With hegemonic decline comes the > lessening of this universalist grid of discourse, and with American > decline, comes the Mannerism (the po-mo of Spanish/Hapsburgh hegemonic > decline) of our age, post-modernism. Remeber what the title means: > modernism was the world of universalism, and post-modernism is the > world of particularism. Particular groups, ethnicities, genders, > sexual preferences. What shifts is the frame: race, class, gender, can > be done as a consequence of mode of production, capitalist development, world > systemic position, etc. But that is from the frame of hegemonic cultural > universalism, which has now passed on to particularism, such that one > believes there is no longer any general theory, or if there is, it is but > an intellectual fig leaf for oppressions of various particular > groups: race, class, gender. > > In short, in our age of hegemonic decline, this is the way race, class, > gender will be talked about. The goal is to join the debate, or to > subsume it somehow, but not just put our world-systemic heads in the > intellectual sand. To the Binghamton School's credit they have made, more > or less, constant efforts to reach out to these new intellectual > developments. For that IW should be praised. > > Remember too in ones world-systemic quickness to judge that these are not > called the "new social movements" without reason: they seemed not to fall > prey to explanation by traditional universalist theories of class, mode of > production, and I would add, world system status. The "economic" lost > favor in late 20th century intellectual life for a reason: class just > wasn't the best explanation for the new social movements; neither, I would > add, has world system theory been any better. IW's smugness of "we > said it earlier" is not all that correct, of if so, how come we are on the > margins of contemporary intellectual debates about gender, class, race, > ethnicity, sexual preference? If world-systemness is a general frame, and > this is an age of particularism, then we may be on the outside for a > while, or even if making convincing arguments they will not be heard. Our > conditionis a little of both: we aren't heard and we haven't made the > best of arguments on these particular issues. > > So, over the long history of the world system, global consciousness swings > back and forth between the general and the particular; each puts down the > other; each claism to be the ideology of liberation--remember that po mo > claims a better, more radical, more liberated, way of doing things. They > claim a higher progressivity; they claim you are part of the past and > irrelevant. The universalists make the same clain during their period, > and both--and this is the key point here--serve the power of the world > system. > > Particularism allows for the mobilization of national populations for > core-wars, struggles, etc. Universalism allows for hegemonic domination > by framing the world as a unity (under hegemonic leadership/domination, > of course). We are in the pre-hegemonic succession struggles stage. We > are heading from hegemonic universalism in theory and the arts, to a 30s > like social realism of my group vs. yours. Both are functional. Both > serve power. Both claim to be liberation and prgressivity; but ultimately > both are cultural outlooks within the working framework of the world > system, and as such, serve its power dynamics. > > al b. > > > Albert Bergesen > Department of Sociology > University of Arizona > Tucson, Arizona 85721 > Phone: 520-621-3303 > Fax: 520-621-9875 > email: albert@u.arizona.edu > > From chriscd@jhu.edu Wed Mar 12 09:44:58 1997 12 Mar 1997 11:44:42 -0500 (EST) 12 Mar 1997 11:44:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 11:44:53 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus To: albert@U.Arizona.EDU Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu References: warren is in the history departmetn, not the english dept. i am going to send you some flyers to hand out at the pews conf about jwsr. you need to type up a list of the contents of your upcoming special issue on green-w-s to go with it. think about how not to overlap with the stuff you are doing for wally because remember that he will be producing a book too. change the titles. chris From albert@U.Arizona.EDU Wed Mar 12 10:07:11 1997 Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 10:04:12 -0700 (MST) From: Albert J Bergesen To: ba05105@binghamton.edu Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: How we date the British hegemony is debatable, but some start at least part of it with the Treaty of Paris such that the second half of the 18th century would start a universalist trend. The generalizability of universal rights that is Enlightenment discourse would fit here, as would neo-classicism in art, Adam Smith's universal wants and needs as trans-social motivations for economic behavior. Similarly Romanticism concerns trans-social universal dispositions of all people and of nature as an eternal entity. All of this comes to be chopped up, collapsed, and particularized around mid-century with the rise of Realism in art, the particularistic snapshot images of Impressionism compared with the eternal images of nature inthe raw of Romanticism. In social theory the universalism of Smithian classical economics is challenged by the social particularism of specific classes of Marx and the rise of sociology, for which the particular group matters and the universalism of A. Smith is directly challenged, from Marx to Weber and Durkheim. It is not until the American hegemony that we see a sustained period of universalism across the board. Talcott Parsons tried universal social theory; Samuleson's text was a summary of the universal principles of neo-classical economic theory; and Chomsky's transformational grammar proposed a general universal grammar that applied to all languages. In the arts modernism was of universal principles--particulary Amereican abstraction gave no hint of the race, class, gender origin of its paintings. Contrast this with the particularism of today: no general theory in sociology; no general abstraction in art; everything is particular, for particular groups: Afrocentricism for some, queer theory for some, feminist theory for some, social movement theory for some, and so on. General theory is out. Particular theories for particular groups is in. It is the temper of our age. al b. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 email: albert@u.arizona.edu From jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu Wed Mar 12 10:26:42 1997 Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 12:26:36 -0500 (EST) From: jcrocitti@umiami.ir.miami.edu Subject: po-mo, possible scenario? To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Po-mo's promise as a liberating theory definitely coincides with the hegemonic crisis arising in the second half of the 20th century. Just as clear, however, is neo-liberalism's global rebirth along with intensified impoverishment of working classes, regardless of culture, gender or lifestyle. How is this apparent contradiction - the concurrent popularity of a liberating theory with its accompanying hegemonic crisis, and intensified economic exploitation - to be explained? Perhaps, the current situation is the manifestation of several, diachronic historical cycles turning simultaneously. To simplify matters, lets limit ourselves to three times, clocks or cycles. Arbitrarily picking 1960 or 1970, hegemonic challenges gained momentum, both within and outside of core areas. By the 1970s, the world economy entered a period of structural crisis. Finally, productive, investment, and administrative technology took a turn toward greater flexibility. The latter development favored dispersed production geared toward smaller quantities. To sum, somewhere around 1970 three cycles turn at the same time: 1) global economic restructuring (disorder?); 2) strengthening of particularist, counter-hegemonic theories (ideologies) 3) increasing flexibility in production, investment and administration, favoring small production runs and global dispersal. With #1, fewer people can afford goods and services, and there would be a crisis of overproduction except for... #3 which favors limited production of a wide variety of goods and services, which coincidentally fits quite well with... #2's generation of a multitude of tastes and wants, although #1 diminishes the number of consumers who can afford such a variety, and on and on. It can be seen from this scenario that the very counter-hegemonic theories that appear radical actually prevent severe dysfuntion of the world capitalist system by providing new cultural products and driving demand for them (often via politics). This is especially relevant if the products are instantly consumed, for example a vacation to Afro-Brazilian carnival in Bahia, a trip to the New Orleans Jazz fesitval to hear creole music, or dining at an Ethiopian restuarant in Manhatten. In other cases, changing fashion (drivien or inspired by counter-hegemonic cultural trends) amount to instant consumption of what normally should be more durable items. What should be long term products become momentary displays of cultural awareness (for example, Guatemalan handbags, World Beat CDs, jerseys and sneakers matching the current popular sport and sport hero). The irony is that many po-mo individuals who emphasize the aesthetic are actually advising and petitioning global capitalism about which products and services to produce. These individuals might sense cultural victory occassionally, and even achieve narrow, personal economic gains. But in the larger scheme, they are only breathing life into a system that is impoverishing more and more of its citizens, regardless of their culture, gender, or lifestyle. (Of course, the very pace of technological change plays well with production for fewer consumers. For example, computers are obsolete almost as soon as they hit the market, thus dictating future purchases by the few who can afford them.) Most of the ideas for this essay come from David Harvey, THE CONDITION OF POSTMODERNITY. John C. From wwagar@binghamton.edu Wed Mar 12 12:10:03 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 14:11:05 -0500 (EST) To: Albert J Bergesen Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Dear Al, Thanks for your reply. By the way, I'm in History not English. It's a grey area between the humanities and the social sciences. Anyway, I understand full well the resistance to any kind of vanguard party in the light of the experiences of our century. Of course it is, and will continue to be for some time, "off the agenda for politics." It may never return to the agenda. When I say "All power to the Party," I am indulging in a little elementary wry humor. All power to something that does not exist and may never exist? What a strange disposition of power! Nevertheless, the most valuable lesson of history in my judgment is that people learn (or believe they learn) too much from history, especially recent history. If the First, Second, and Third Internationals were either feeble failures or monstrous tyrannies, therefore we must never again try to build an International, or a global vanguard party. I don't see how that follows at all. It's a non-sequitur in the most classic sense. If what the world needs most is a democratic socialist world government capable of restoring the environment and bringing peace with justice to the human race, and no one nation or race or gender can accomplish this on its own, what choice is there--in the long run--except a World Party drawing on men and women of good will in every nation and race? Sooner or later, probably later, I do believe something like this will emerge and struggle to replace the current megacorporate multinational world-system with a better one. It will not always be able to live up to its own ideals, it may err badly from time to time, it may fail, but what is the alternative? Pointing with dismay at the horrors perpetrated in the name of socialism by Comrade Stalin is well and good, and let us learn something from those horrors, but we should not be paralyzed by the spectacle of past evil. Most of history is a spectacle of evil. This is no excuse for resignation or despair. All best wishes, Warren On Tue, 11 Mar 1997, Albert J Bergesen wrote: > Dear Warren--Yes, it is nice to be on the same side of the world system > fence for once. Being in English you are closer to the shifting tides of > cultural frames through which we see/interpret texts, art, and in social > science, lived lives. > > You mentioned the World Party, and in a friendly fraternal manner I would > like to ask if this seems the best form of organization given the history > of centralized parties and their outcomes in the 20th century. Somehow it > seems to me that the idea of The Party will be off the agenda for politics > for a while. It just seems a hard sell: let us lead you, let us be a > vanguard, let us seize the high ground, let us make the revolution, > let us give you the better world you want. Maybe its me, but > given the history of what that call resulted in in our century I cannot > imagine being able to mobilize people around the idea of a vanguard party > any more. Mind you I don't as yet have an alternative rallying call, but > the idea of a World Party makes me queezy. > > al b. > > Albert Bergesen > Department of Sociology > University of Arizona > Tucson, Arizona 85721 > Phone: 520-621-3303 > Fax: 520-621-9875 > email: albert@u.arizona.edu > > From wwagar@binghamton.edu Thu Mar 13 11:31:12 1997 From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 13:24:57 -0500 (EST) To: "Nikolai S. Rozov" Subject: Re: Kant's alternative In-Reply-To: <4B77806330@cnit.nsu.ru> Dear Nikolai and All, I have no problem with Kant's formula. In fact I once dedicated a book of mine to Immanuel Kant. The question is, how do we get to his Cosmopolis? Through the national governments and their megacorporate sponsors? Or through the people, mobilized by a World Party? And even if the national governments and their megacorporate sponsors did manage to establish a new world order, do you imagine they would obey Kant's categorical imperative? Not a chance. The best they could give us is a friendlier, more amiable version of Comrade Stalin, with fewer gulags and more sweatshops. Cheers, Warren Wagar From TBOS@social-sci.ss.emory.edu Thu Mar 13 14:57:20 1997 From: "Terry Boswell" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 16:54:11 EST5EDT Subject: The Geography of Desire _The Geography of Desire_ is a novel published a few years back by Knopf and recently reissued in paperback. The story is set in a small coastal town in a fictional Central American country (i.e., Nicaragua), where a North American owns a seedy hotel. He becomes involved in more than one tawdry love affair, and he trys to do the "right thing." Unfortunately, what he finds to be right and what is in his own interest, he cannot tell apart. Terry Boswell Department of Sociology Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 From ROZOV@cnit.nsu.ru Thu Mar 13 21:36:25 1997 14 Mar 97 10:34:14 NSK-6 From: "Nikolai S. Rozov" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 10:33:55 -0600 (NSK) Subject: Fwd:Re: Kant's alternative (About a New World Order) i forward here the philofhi response to my yesterday msg because the author while not using ws-terminology (and maybe even not acquainted well this WST) focuses attention to the very essence of curious symbiosis between legal, democratic and humanistic CORE and non-legal, 'feodal'(frequently based on violence and coersion) PERIPHERY best, Nikolai From: klaatu To: philofi@yorku.ca My remarks are at end of the letter. > Subject: Kant's alternative (About a New World Order) >=20 >=20 > From: Nikolai S. Rozov > To: PHILOFHI@YORKU.CA >=20 > In 1784 Kant suggested the idea of legal world order, with preservation o= f > sovereign states and realizing global security, peace and justice. Kant > named this global order great Nations Union (grosen Volkersbund), and, > following Greek tradition: Foedus Amphictionum (smth like union of tribes > that swear on sacred place to subordinate to common accepted laws).=20 >=20 > Now besides global security we have problems of economic gap, > environment, etc.=20 >=20 > For writing and realizing necessary corresponding laws we really need:=20 >=20 > 1) global parlament (can be easely created within UN), > 2) global hyerarchy and network of courts (can be created on the base of = such > patterns as Gaague, Court of Justice, and national courts) > 3) agreement of Interpol, national polices, NATO > and other major military forces (Russian, Chinese, West-European, Indi= an, > Brasilian, Islamic) to respect and if necessary to realize decisions > of international courts of justice >=20 > 4) neutralizing, or, better, making a coalition with Systemic Elits (G-7, > TNC, IMF, EU, NAFTA, APEC, etc) by means of projecting and transforming > their interests and strategies >=20 > (i realize that 3 & 4 are terribly complicate tasks, probably for decades= ) >=20 > Both Stalinist socialism and worst predator manifestations of capitalism > (in colonies, modern Africa, South America, new Russia) have a curious > common feature - neglecting legal order based on human rights for "all > rational beings". But it is namely the thing that Immanuel Kant promoted!= =20 >=20 I have noticed recently that what you call "worst predator manifistations o= f capitalism" do indeed have common features of neglecting legal order. But I would draw a comparison between these "predator manifestations" which are characterized by corruption, wide stratifications of classes, and so forth = - with Feudalism. I have been so struck by the similarities that I feel I can= not sufficiently draw attention to this. Feudalism, and for that matter much of transnational corporate culture (including organized crime) is characterized not by Rule of Law or by religious or political ideology, but is instead characterized by loyalties = to persons ("cult of personality"); defense of "turf" or territory (in the cas= e of Feudalism it was physical territory, in transnational corporate feudalis= m the territory is "market niche"); extreme separation of classes, each of wh= ich has a definite position and specific rights and responsibilities which proc= eed only from the relationship to other persons - there is no defined Constitution, and the roles of each caste or class can be immediately re-defined by the Authority, be that Authority a Duke or a Chief Executive Officer. This is an extreme contrast to the Rule of Law/Rights of Man ideol= ogy and mindset. But it strikes me as also true that such Feudalisms can exist only within the framework of a Rule of Law/Rights of Man superstructure. In= a purely Feudalist structure, the economic system will tend to collapse, sinc= e to retain one's relationship with Persons of Authority, one must expend disproportionate amounts of investment, as bribes or payoffs, or as expenditures for troops/security. Nothing would be accomplished and chaos would rule, not as a result of anarchy, but because of intense competition between armed bands operating as pack-predators, practically as family armi= es.=20 I would support this argument by pointing out that Feudalism occurred withi= n the Christian framework, which posited the Rule of (God's) Law and the Righ= ts of Man (if only in final judgement before God); Transnational Corporate Feudalism requires the Rule of Law since the vast majority of their dispute= s are settled in an adversarial manner by "champions" (attorneys in litigatio= n) and without the concept of Rights of Man, they might have difficulties with filling the lower-echelon positions. In particular, criminal transnational corporations (international organized crime) requires the Rule of Law becau= se one of their prime requirements for operation is their ability to hold thei= r victims helpless through the victims' fear - should the victims transgress = the laws to protect themselves, they would be doubly in jeopardy, hunted by bot= h the criminals and the police. Also, the Rule of Law allows them to extend t= his personal-relationships requirement through bribes and payoffs to compromise= d officials, increasing the victims' fears of potential risks should they ban= d together to defend themselves. Can much recent history be seen as the result of interplays between Feudali= st motifs and Humanist motifs? Is it reasonable to make the comparison between Feudalism and the emerging Transnational-Corporate powers? In item (4) above, you note that there must be co-ordination and compromise= s between various international elites such as G7, NAFTA, etc - but this in m= y view would be catering to Feudalistic tropisms, although interstingly those tropisms or movements are the result of Rule of Law incentives perhaps designed to pre-place a controlled Feudalistic power before natural economi= c forces might force the emergence on a non-Rule-of-Law power which must necessarily evolve to fill a power-vacuum. Perhaps this may be sufficient neutralization for now. regards,=20 klaatu@clark.net root@earthops.org From ba05105@binghamton.edu Fri Mar 14 07:56:51 1997 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 09:57:50 -0500 (EST) To: Albert J Bergesen Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Hmm... IN what sense was Britain hegemonic during the REvolutionary and Napoleanic wars?! Hegemony involves rule, not being menaced and disrupted! I find romanticism being associated with universalism quite unconvincing--romanticism--from Burke to 1848, was always closely associated with nationalism--the radical Marx was understandably fed up with the particularism of his age--thats why he prayed/predicted that for the working class ie. the future, nations, religion, the family would be exposed as bourgeois illusions and the workers could/would apprehend the universal truth. All the major thinkers of Sociology--Marx, Durkheim, Weber,Dilthey interpreted modernity as a universal phenomenon--they were progressives opposed to those clinging to a romanticised past. The particularists were in anthropology, literary studies, and orientalism--all stronger in England (the hegemonic power) than sociology (strong in Germany, a competitor). Impression recapitulated the Dutch direct apprehension of the bourgeois world--not unlike Marx, rejecting the nationalist, academist, religious wrapping most art was coming encased in at the time. STeven Sherman Binghamton University On Wed, 12 Mar 1997, Albert J Bergesen wrote: > How we date the British hegemony is debatable, but some start at > least part of it with the Treaty of Paris such that the second half of the > 18th century would start a universalist trend. The generalizability of > universal rights that is Enlightenment discourse would fit here, as would > neo-classicism in art, Adam Smith's universal wants and needs as > trans-social motivations for economic behavior. Similarly Romanticism > concerns trans-social universal dispositions of all people and of nature > as an eternal entity. All of this comes to be chopped up, collapsed, and > particularized around mid-century with the rise of Realism in art, the > particularistic snapshot images of Impressionism compared with the eternal > images of nature inthe raw of Romanticism. In social theory the > universalism of Smithian classical economics is challenged by the > social particularism of specific classes of Marx and the rise of > sociology, for which the particular group matters and the universalism of > A. Smith is directly challenged, from Marx to Weber and Durkheim. > > It is not until the American hegemony that we see a sustained period of > universalism across the board. Talcott Parsons tried universal social > theory; Samuleson's text was a summary of the universal > principles of neo-classical economic theory; and Chomsky's > transformational grammar proposed a general universal grammar that applied > to all languages. In the arts modernism was of universal > principles--particulary Amereican abstraction gave no hint of the race, > class, gender origin of its paintings. Contrast this with the > particularism of today: no general theory in sociology; no general > abstraction in art; everything is particular, for particular groups: > Afrocentricism for some, queer theory for some, feminist theory for some, > social movement theory for some, and so on. > > General theory is out. Particular theories for particular groups is in. > It is the temper of our age. > > al b. > > Albert Bergesen > Department of Sociology > University of Arizona > Tucson, Arizona 85721 > Phone: 520-621-3303 > Fax: 520-621-9875 > email: albert@u.arizona.edu > > From ba05105@binghamton.edu Fri Mar 14 09:04:16 1997 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:05:13 -0500 (EST) To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: A few more notes on po-mo. since Al Bergson suggests that Marx/Weber were particularists while to me they are the epitome of universalists, it might be worth using the terms universalist/particularist with a good deal of caution--apparently anyone one can be either. While the overwhelming consensus on this list is that postmodernism is 'particularist' an argument can be made that the currently fashionable terms radical democracy/multiculturalism suggest a new universalism. Even Lyotard's denunciation of 'master narratives' is itself a universalist philosophical position--suggesting everyone just tend to their corner of the universe is not the same as actually tending to your own corner of the universe. While a lot of contributors are associating po-mo with liberalism, consumer society etc. it seems worth noting the broader context (rarely mentioned in discussions of po-mo, but haunting most posts most of the time on this list) which is the decline of the Eurocentred world and its dominant groups--white male etc. INdeed, the French philosophers who currently haunt American academia can be seen as having played a brilliant trick, gaining one last moment in the world spotlight for the west by denouncing all it stands for and its foundational principles. po-mo postcolonial, feminist, queer theory etc. thought can be seen as working the paradox of trying to represent the interests/standpoints of previously excluded groups in a public sphere conceived and organized by Eurocentric forces. Those po-mos not concerned with marginal groups (Baudrillard, for example) deal with another paradox--that the western fascination with representing reality has created such a plethora of representations that it is now impossible to move beyond them to reality itself. Steven Sherman binghamton University From spector@calumet.purdue.edu Fri Mar 14 17:23:18 1997 X-NUPop-Charset: English Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 18:22:19 -0600 (CST) From: "Alan Spector" Sender: spector@calumet.purdue.edu Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, wsn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Who Rules America? To PSN and WSN (and apologies in advance for those of you on both lists for getting this twice...) I am working with some students who are doing research into the economic alliances and political connections among some of the "New Money" forces. (As distinct from the "Old Money" Rockefeller/Morgan/Chase Manhattan/Standard Oil/Ford Motor, etc. who established their fortunes in the early-middle part of the 20th Century) Some of these Newer groupings include, for example, Koch Industries. Koch seems to be the leader of these forces and apparently replaced the Hunt family after they got swatted down during the silver caper of the 70s. The Hunts are still around also. How strong are they, and who are they connected to? Other important issues include the economic base of forces like Buchanan, Trent Lott, etc. Is there a battle for control of the Republican Party that has deeper roots than just the public "culture wars" between the Religious Right and cultural mainstreamers? There have always been differences within the capitalist class, different banking circles, different industrial groups, different political expressions of those different economic interests. Are the differences sharpening over such things as GATT/NAFTA, MidEast Oil versus Domestic Oil, pro-war versus isolationist (where the pro-war group might actually be the Old Money "liberals"?) Might there be some factions within the CIA versus the FBI? Does the media consolidation (Time-Warner/ /Murdoch/Ted Turner) in both broadcasting and book publishing tie into this? Is there a breakdown based on interests in different parts of Asia and/or the MidEast and/or Latin America? All the criticisms about China can't simply be about Human Rights, since the situation there has actually softened a bit even as the criticisms have become louder. I know that Bill Domhoff (as usual) has done some valuable work in this area. If anyone out there has some info, especially on financial interconnections between Koch and various banks and some of the important political figures that would be a start. But any info you have, especially if you have some hard data that goes beyond speculation about these questions would be helpful. Thanks, Alan Spector From albert@U.Arizona.EDU Sat Mar 15 13:38:06 1997 Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 13:35:14 -0700 (MST) From: Albert J Bergesen To: ba05105@binghamton.edu Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Steven--This all gets tricky and depends alot on our definitions and what we mean by this and that. It is also a matter of relative universalism and relative particularism. If we take the 17th century with its "crisis" and the 30yrs war as a period of multicentricity--which seems reasonable--then by the second half of the 18th it seems reasonable to talk about a rising Britain. If by the latter half of the 19th we see a declining Britain and a rising Germany and US, then, in some ballpark way, late 18th to mid-19th constitutes something of a British hegemony period, remembering always that some of this is rising and falling hegemony. This dating does not seem controversial to me. Second, The Enlightenment is about the universal rights of man--not man in classes--but man in general. Adam Smith is about the universal propensity to truck and barter--not having to truck and barter because of class menbership and requirements from particular mode of production, but in general, for all time, for all people, for all situations. Romanticism is about nature in general; about the sublime in general, about feelings that transcend class, race, gender. it is in this sense that this is a period of universalism. Third, from 1850 on with Realism in art and what will be called the sociological critique of classical political economy, these eternals are now particularized: not universal nature, but specific places; not univesal human motives but class bound motives. Marx, Weber, Durkheim all qualify, limit, particularize, historicize classical political economy. It is in this sense that I am calling this a particularzing period. al b. Albert Bergesen Department of Sociology University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721 Phone: 520-621-3303 Fax: 520-621-9875 email: albert@u.arizona.edu From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Sat Mar 15 23:34:09 1997 Date: 16 Mar 97 00:59:40 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems network Subject: the usual March 15, 1997 Subject: More of the same Date: March 15, 1997 From: Jim Blaut To: wsn'ers all... The part of the Europe/Asia discussion that I saw, before Mar. 6 and after Mar. 12, contains a few arguments that I'd like to answer. Bruce McFarling's posting of (?) Mar. 3.: How does feudalism "have a differential propensity to shift into a system in which capitalist relations are a predominant institution for the organization of production?" Forgive me, but I don't see either logic or evidence to support this scenario. Weber's argument was based on his racist idea of European rationality plus ignorance of feudal systems elsewhere. Marx's argument was based on ignorance of medieval systems, feudal and otherwise, elsewhere, leading him to think (with everyone else of his time) that European feudalism was the nursery bed of private property, class relations, etc. Second point, regarding "non-central status" of europe and Japan. There were other edges to the system: Insular Southeast Asia, East Africa, etc. Why write them off? Here we come to one of the classic problems with traditional explanations: they chain together, so that you can defend any one by drawing in some other one. If one were to say that Indonesia and East Africa didn't "have it," one would have to shift from the "edge" argument to some other argument/s. When these, in turn, are confronted, the venue shifts to still another argument, and so it goes. Bill Thompson's of (?) Mar. 5: The word "innovation" is like the emperor's clothes. Look closely and it vanishes. Either it dissolves into some psychological quality of inventiveness, innovativeness, progressiveness, etc., i.e., the traditional theory of "European rationality," or into an argument about some new culture trait, material or otherwise: an "innovation." If the former, you're on weak Weberian (though not racist) grounds. (See Jack Goody's new book _The East in the West_ for a critique. Also my book.) If the latter, the argument shifts from "innovation" to some theory about technology or social organization or whatever-- throw it up and I'll try to shoot it down. Salvatore Babones' of (?) Mar. 5: This "arbitrage" thing: other societies did much the same thing (see e g Goody op cit), so what happens then to your theory of the rise of Europe? The same I think holds for intense "saving for the future": this is an attribute of an already-rising economy, an effect not a cause (save us from the Protestant ethic myth!); and it is hardly limited to Europe. And banking (cf Goody, Needham, et al) was widespread in Asia. As Tome Pires said of Gujerati businessmen in c.1509: ""They are men who understand merchandise; they are...properly steeped in the sound and harmony of it," and "those of our people who want to be clerks and factors ought to go there and learn, because the business of trade is a science." Also, see Goody op cit. George Modelski's of (?) Mar. 5: Firstly: see above on "innovation." Secondly: What is this "active epistemic community?" Are we back into the myth of "European rationality?" Thirdly: Navies? The Portuguese did beat an Egyptian/Ottoman navy in c.1510 but you can't generalize. The Chinese had huge navies, and the relative peacefulness of the Indian Ocean does not extend to the China Seas. "Alliance-capability (among equals?" In my book I critique this view that pre-modern European politics were unique in quality, in the sizes of states, etc. "Autonomous traders...?" Again, hardly a European monopoly at any era and, moreover, this argument as it is usually expressed (by e.g. Eric Jones) is a telescoping of history: traits of early-modern, already-rising europe projected back to premodern times. Fourthly: you are wrong about China. In pre-Ming times they were amazingly progressive. In Ming times, the putative "authoritarian and isolationist mood" has been shown to be a myth. Fifthly: it is hardly true that Venetians, Egyptians, Malaccans, et. al., had "no incentive to innovate." (See above on "innovation.") Sixth: I, too, am a cultural-evolutionist. But I see no reason to think that Europe had a greater evolutionary potential than any other civilization. And we must avoid both teleology and circularity (it happened, so it had the "potential" to happen). Tom Hall's of (?) Mar. 5: Firstly: to say that the ,Medieval systems were "tributary" is not to say very much. Amin introduced (?) this term to avoid having to use "feudal." There is no real evidence that "the tributary form is...prone to cycles -- any more or less than the feudal form. Secondly: The argument that "highly fragmented terrain helped to keep political organization fragmented" is a popular tune rendered by Michael Mann Jones, and others but it is simply not valid. See my book. Likewise Christianity as a unique facilitator of communication (Islam? Hinduism?). The idea (Lynn white, Jr)that the plow somehow (1) transformed Europe and (2) was uniquely European has also been demolished, as had the more general idea that Europe had an edge in technology, in "seafaring capabilities," etc. -- early enough to play a causal role differentiating Europe from the Other. Thirdly: It is not true that "Chinese sailors had been forced home." This is part of the traditional Eurocentric canon but it is not true. See So on "Japanese pirates," Needham on Chinese shipping 1450-1500; also I discuss this in my book. Fourthly: The "fighting, "fierceness," "zeal," etc. was not peculiar to Europeans. It described a lot of societies. It held true in the China Seas (see above). As to my argument that Africa was on a par with Europe in 1492, we must simply agree to disagree. The quantity of trade eastward across the Indian Ocean -- and it was not a simple raw materials-for products exchange as traditionally argued -- and northward across the Sahara was, in my view, much more important than you suggest. Like you, I "reserve the right to change" my mind. The biggest challenge that we face is to review all of the arguments which we have internalized over the decades and see which of them are empty and Eurocentric.  From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Sun Mar 16 07:09:04 1997 16 Mar 1997 09:09:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 09:09:00 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Reply to Blaut, another round To: Network World-Systems Jim, I'll respond to only two of your arguments. as an Aside, you may not see much this week, as a nuumber of the people you mention are decamping for Toronto for the Interntl Studies Assoc meetings. Sat fetures two panels on cycles... ON Japan & Europe on the edge: 1) SEAsia is not on the edge, but a major cross over region, by land and by sea of Asian trade; 2) why not other edges? Sanderson, myself, do NOT argue it is solely being on the edge, but several things in combination. The point is NOT that Europe was unique, but rather that several conditions, trendes, events all occurred there (& in Sanderson's argument only slightly later in Japan). All of those making these arguments do so in the same direction that you have: Europe was not necessarily special or "better", maybe luckier and was able to seize that luck and parlay it into world dominance (relatively temporarily if Gunder is right). 3) tributary is a more general term, the way Chris C-D & I use it than feudalism. Feudalism is the most decentralized form of tributary state and world-systems; something that vaguely resembles Marx's 'asiatic despotism' is th other extreme. Tributary states vary, throught time and place along this continuum, shaped among other things, by their position in relevant world-systems. All these systems experience cycles of pulsation (expansion-contraction OR rapid and slower expansion) and states within them experience cycles of rise and fall. For details on all of this see _Rise & Demise_ and or papers at aforementioned ISA panels. Now, an olive branch of sorts. I think we are spending far too much energy trying to establish who is least eurocentric. Indeed, we are falling into the standard left/radical game of self-criticism via forming a firing squad in a circle with all shooting inwards. Meanwhile the right laughs its ass off and continues selling inherent Eurocentric superiority. I know that I must spend a good deal of time in the classroom demolishing the still widely held view that European dominance is due to inherent superiority of white folks. This can be done from a variety of perspectives, with varying degrees of intensity, and most importantly with varying degrees of success. In THAT game, whether this one factor or that one process is more or less significant in the explanation of the fact of European dominance in the late 19th and 20th centuries is often a relatively minor finesse. The counter argument to all anti-eurocentric is always the fact of recent European dominance. Some answer IT by highlighting its recency and relative brevity, others by emphasizing it is the result of concatenation of events and processes--ones, that given a little more time might well have happened elsewhere. This is the importance of Sanderson's discussion of Japan. There are, no doubt, other such locales. For sure we can argue about both the strategy & tactics of how to combate Eurocentrism and about how Europe came to dominance and about what might come next, but nothing is gained by incessantly tarring those with whom with disagree as Eurocentric. I do NOT think that you, Gunder, Steve S, or the reset are Eurocentric, but I do disagree on several points. Most of which are laid out in detail in Rise & Demise [and I recognize since it is literally hot ff the press, few have had a chance to read it yet. Fortunately, or unfortunately, what came out this year is, at least as far as Chris & I are concerned, MUCH better than the draft Mss that were discussed at ISA in 95 and circulated--indeed because we tried to attend to a number of criticisms. Now, whether 'much better' is 'good' others will need to say.] To the point here [a seredipitous typo had that pint, and maybe all need to share a few...], is the R&D is anti-eurocentric as much as Colonizers... but in substantially different ways. As a careful geographer, you know very well that there are many different paths from place A to place B, each with its own advantages and disadvantages... tom Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From 70671.2032@CompuServe.COM Sun Mar 16 14:22:17 1997 Date: 16 Mar 97 16:21:31 EST From: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> To: world systems network Subject: Blaut to Hall Date: 16-Mar-97 at 12:37 From: James M. Blaut, 70671,2032 Tom: I am not accusing people of being Eurocentric. Every one of us who has been brainwashed in the European educational and academic universe is Eurocentric. All we can do about it is question the tenets, one by one, and get as far as we can in a lifetime. My problem with your formulation is: it goes part way but not far enough. I am convinced of the truth of one empirical proposition: Europe had absolutely NO advantages, actual or potential, in 1491. This includes its sociopolitical system, technology, mentality, environment -- the works. Having thought for many years about 500 years of colonialism, racism, slavery, underdevelopment (*fide* Gunder), I am now convinced that it was the wealth obtained in colonial adventures that allowed Europeans (European protocapitalists, in my terminology) to move large parts of the continent to a new political form, symbolized by the "Glorious Revolution," to begin the process of destroying non-European protocapitalist communites, and, eventually, to achieve a condition which allowed them to sell as much of everything as they could produce -- thus generating an industyrtial revolution whose signature was the increase in production without limit (industrial technology was strictly a dependent variable, at least until c.1850). So I am compelled to criticize every formulation concerning the "rise of Europe" which allows that place to have had any advantage prior to the onset of colonialism, or, much the same thing, which assigns to any other place any DISadvantage (or "blockage"). This holds even for your relatively uneurocentric formulations about differences in sociopolitical forms between centralized and uncentralized medieval tributary forms. Also, the "edge" idea: a seductive notion when taken in isolation, but yet a theory of regional advantage and one whicxh is empirically very questionable (why the edge and not some central point which enjoys maximum accdessibility to diffusions? why not insular Southeast Asia and East Africa and Ceylon, etc., which were indeed "edges" -- look at the map! -- ?). Also, the conventional but false thesis that Europe's terrain was uniquely made up of many small cores, each of which supposedly becomes the center of an independent nation-state and all eventually coalescing into a kind of late-medieval version of the League of Nations -- an argument I try to dispose of in my book. Also, the argument about medieval European technology, signalized by the Myth of the Heavy Plow. Also, the myth of Oriental despotism. Etcetera. Forgive me, I have to savage all such formulations, even when they come from non-Eurocentric scholars whom I respect and like. In systems terms, my argument can be stated as follows. Given the uniformitarian principal of "psychic unity" (universal equality of mental capabilities among human communities), and given the fact of intense, constant, massive, criss-cross diffusion among all of the core-and-periphery regions of the Eastern Hemisphere since Neolithic times, I would argue that no one of these regions can gain a historically significant, permanent, superiority (relatively lasting hegemony) over all the other regions. Yet, whether we date it from 1500 or from 1800, Western Europe DID gain such a position of hegemony, powerr, and wealth, and there is no sign that it is yielding place to East Asia -- rather, Japan has joined the hegemonic world core, which now confronts essentially the Third World as world-scale periphery. To explain the fact that one subsystem in this hemispheric world system gained such an almost absolute superiority, you have to look at the boundary processes surrounding the system. Europe alone breached the system boundary and thereatfer sucked in huge amounts of value, which it converted into (1) political transformation, (2) power, and (3) world hegemony. Had there been no such breach (the Conquest et seq.), power in the system would have continued to pass from one regional hegemon to another, then another, etc. Jim  From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Sun Mar 16 16:12:43 1997 17 Mar 1997 10:12:04 +1100 Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 10:12:03 +1100 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: the usual In-reply-to: <970316055939_70671.2032_EHM30-1@CompuServe.COM> To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> On Sun, 16 Mar 1997, James M. Blaut wrote: > Bruce McFarling's posting of (?) Mar. 3.: How does > feudalism "have a differential propensity to shift into a > system in which capitalist relations are a predominant > institution for the organization of production?" Forgive > me, but I don't see either logic or evidence to support > this scenario. Weber's argument was based on his racist > idea of European rationality plus ignorance of feudal > systems elsewhere. Marx's argument was based on ignorance > of medieval systems, feudal and otherwise, elsewhere, > leading him to think (with everyone else of his time) that > European feudalism was the nursery bed of private property, > class relations, etc. The first point would be that both of the original capitalist transitions were two of the few feudal systems that were around. The second argument would be found in Jane Jacobs arguments and E.A.J. Johnson's arguments regarding the role of urban centers (in part. market towns) in promoting agrarian development. As far as I am aware, I haven't mentioned either Weber or Marx in this regard. > Fourthly: you are wrong about China. In > pre-Ming times they were amazingly progressive. In Ming > times, the putative "authoritarian and isolationist mood" > has been shown to be a myth. Fifthly: it is hardly true > that Venetians, Egyptians, Malaccans, et. al., had "no > incentive to innovate." (See above on "innovation.") Sixth: > I, too, am a cultural-evolutionist. But I see no reason to > think that Europe had a greater evolutionary potential than > any other civilization. And we must avoid both teleology > and circularity (it happened, so it had the "potential" to > happen). On the urban structure argument, it seems fairly clear that the number of administrative centers in the Chinese imperial system was fairly constant (with upsurges at the beginning of a new dynasty, but lapsing back down) while the area and population were both increasing dramatically. So the average area covered by each administrative center was increasing over the centuries. That's a persistent negative trend wrt agrarian development. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Sun Mar 16 16:36:41 1997 Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 18:36:37 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Re: Blaut to Hall In-reply-to: <970316212131_70671.2032_EHM72-1@CompuServe.COM> To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> Jim, I'll get back to this when I return from Toronto, but your latest post clarifies one area where we do disagree: Europe DID have some advantages, but they were locational in both conventional geographic sense, and more importantly in world-systemic sense. The rip-off of wealth from the New World (& Africa in the form of slaves) IS a major part of the story, but not ALL of it. tom Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University Greencastle, IN 46135 ***EFFECTIVE FEB 1, 1997 NEW AREA CODE 765-658-4519 http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm From prins@ksu.edu Sun Mar 16 18:21:13 1997 Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 19:21:03 -0600 (CST) From: Harald E L Prins To: "James M. Blaut" <70671.2032@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: the usual In-Reply-To: <970316055939_70671.2032_EHM30-1@CompuServe.COM> Due to my departure for South America, I will not be reading my e-mail until late June. Please, unsubscribe! Thanks - Harald Prins Harald E.L. Prins Professor of Anthropology Kansas State University Manhattan, KS 66506 From prins@ksu.edu Sun Mar 16 18:22:50 1997 Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 19:22:42 -0600 (CST) From: Harald E L Prins To: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Re: Reply to Blaut, another round Please, unsubscribe due to impending departure for South America. Will not be able to read e-mail until late June. Thanks. Harald E.L. Prins Professor of Anthropology Kansas State University Manhattan, KS 66506 From chriscd@jhu.edu Mon Mar 17 14:10:01 1997 17 Mar 1997 16:09:26 -0500 (EST) 17 Mar 1997 16:09:11 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 16:09:26 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: paper on world-systems in north america To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Tom Hall and I have written a paper for the International Studies Association meeting in Toronto that is now available. The title is "World-Systems in North America: Networks, Rise and Fall and Pulsations of Trade in Stateless Systems" It is available at http://csf.colorado.edu/wsystems/archive/papers.htm comments welcome chris From OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu Tue Mar 18 11:48:12 1997 From: "J B Owens" To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 11:51:42 -0600, MDT Subject: Lisbon Conference 1998 I forward the following message on behalf of Richard Clement. Please do not contact me for further information. Jack Owens, Idaho State University ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: "Richard W. Clement" Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:40:44 -0600 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Richard W. Clement Associate Special Collections Librarian Kenneth Spencer Research Library University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045 913-864-4217 rclement@ukans.edu ------------------------------------------------------ CALL FOR PAPERS The conference "Discovery, New Frontiers, and Expansion in the Iberian World" will be held on May 27-30, 1998 at the Biblioteca Nacional in Lisbon. The conference is sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Association, the Luso-American Development Foundation, the Biblioteca Nacional, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and Arizona State University. Selected revised papers on the conference theme will be published in _Discovery, New Frontiers, and Expansion in the Iberian World_ (New York: Peter Lang). Selected revised papers on other Mediterranean themes will be considered for publication in the Association's journal, _Mediterranean Studies_. Proposals for papers and sessions are now being solicited. Papers and proposals for sessions (in English) are encouraged which focus on the conference theme, but any paper or session proposal with a Mediterranean theme, from any period and any discipline, will be considered. Proposals for roundtable discussions of a topical work or theme are also welcome. The typical panel will include three papers, each lasting twenty minutes, a chair, and (optionally) a commentator. Proposals should include a 200-word abstract for each paper and a one-page curriculum vitae for each participant, including chairs and commentators. Each participant's name, e-mail and regular address, and phone number should also be listed. The deadline for the first round of consideration is October 1, 1997. Please send proposals to: Mediterranean Studies Association, Office of the Provost, University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300. For information on the conference or the Association contact Richard W. Clement: rclement@ukans.edu. From tk0kxa1@corn.cso.niu.edu Tue Mar 18 20:18:05 1997 Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 21:17:58 -0600 (CST) From: anderson kevin Subject: Uncovering Marx's Unpublished Writings ( (fwd) To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Below is a brief history of the MEGA and other editions of Marx which I put together a few weeks ago, with particular emphasis on Marx on non-Western societies. I thought it might interest people on the WSN for a number of reasons, including the fact that Immanuel Wallerstein is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the new MEGA. My apologies if it has already been posted on WSN. Kevin Anderson Uncovering Marx's Yet Unpublished Writings By Kevin Anderson, author of *Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism* When Lawrence Krader published his historic transcription of Marx's *Ethnological Notebooks* 25 years ago, a new window was opened into Marx's thought. What in published form had become 250 pages of notes by Marx on Lewis Henry Morgan and other anthropologists compiled in his last years, 1880-81, showed us as never before a Marx concerned as much with gender relations and non-Western societies such as India, pre-Columbian Mexico, and the Australian aborigines, as well as ancient Ireland, as he was with the emancipation of the industrial proletariat. To this day there are a significant number of writings by Marx on these and other issues which have never been published in any language. Why this is still the case in 1997, 114 years after Marx's death, is the subject of this essay, in which I will also take up plans now in progress in Europe to publish many of these writings for the first time. The problem really begins with Engels and continues today. While Engels labored long and hard to edit and publish what he considered to be a definitive edition of Vol. I of *Capital* in 1890, and brought out Vols. II and III of that work in 1885 and 1894 by carefully editing and arranging Marx's draft manuscripts, Engels did not plan or even propose the publication of the whole of Marx's writings. Under the post-Engels Second International, little more was done. The First MEGA: New Vistas After 1917 It took the Russian Revolution of 1917 to break the impasse. With the encouragement of Lenin, the great Marx scholar, David Riazanov, and his colleagues began the first Marx-Engels *Gesamtausgabe* (Complete Works - hereafter MEGA1) in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s. Since the anti-Bolshevik Second International still owned the manuscripts and letters of Marx and Engels, the newly established Frankfurt School's director, Carl Gruenberg, who had relations with both Communists and Socialists, became the go- between. Riazanov established a far-reaching plan for MEGA1, part of which was actually published during the years 1928-35. He divided MEGA1 into three series, each of which was to contain writings in the original language in which Marx or Engels had written them, usually German, English, or French [ftn 1] as well as a rigorous scholarly apparatus of footnotes and prefaces: Series I. Philosophical, Economic, Historical, and Political Works. MEGA1 eventually published eight volumes of this series covering the years up to 1850, including most notably the 1844 *Humanist Essays* and the *German Ideology*, neither of which had been published by Engels or the Second International. Riazanov had first published a Russian translation of the *Humanist Essays* in 1927. Series II. *Capital* and other economic manuscripts. This series was to include all editions of Vol. I of *Capital* as Marx wrote them or Engels edited them, from the first German edition of 1867, to the last which Marx prepared for the printer, the 1872-75 French edition, to Engels' "definitive" fourth German edition of 1890. It was also to include Vols. II and III as edited by Engels, the original manuscripts for those volumes, plus other texts such as the *Grundrisse* and *Theories of Surplus Value*. None of this series of MEGA1 was published, although the *Grundrisse* eventually appeared as a separate volume in 1939-41. Series III. Letters from and to Marx and Engels. Only four volumes were actually published, covering all known letters of Marx and Engels to each other from 1844 to 1883, but not letters to or from third parties. Marx's Excerpt Notebooks Left Out For all his commitment to publishing the whole of Marx, even Riazanov rejected the idea of publishing one type of writing by Marx, his excerpt notebooks, such as the *Ethnological Notebooks* in which Marx had copied extracts from, summarized, and commented on many of the various texts he had studied throughout his life. In a 1923 report on his plans for MEGA1 to Moscow's Socialist Academy, a report which was also published in Germany the following year by Frankfurt School Director Gruenberg, Riazanov referred to a fourth or "final group" of Marx's writings, "the notebooks," which he indicated would be of use mainly to Marx biographers. He mentioned in particular "three thick notebooks on the economic crisis of 1857... a chronological survey of world history up to the middle of the seventeenth century" as well as "some mathematical notebooks." He made an exception for the latter, which was apparently slated for publication. But, in a surprising outburst of condescension, this usually rigorous Marx editor added: "If in 1881-82 he lost his ability for intensive, independent intellectual creation, he nevertheless never lost the ability for research. Sometimes, in reconsidering these Notebooks, the question arises: Why did he waste so much time on this systematic, fundamental summary, or expend so much labor as he spent as late as the year 1881, on one basic book on geology, summarizing it chapter by chapter. In the 63rd year of his life -- that is inexcusable pedantry. Here is another example: he received, in 1878, a copy of Morgan's work. On 98 pages of his very miniscule handwriting (you should know that a single page of his is the equivalent of a minimum of 2.2 pages of print) he makes a detailed summary of Morgan. In such manner does the old Marx work." This attitude helps explain why Marx's notebooks were not slated to appear in MEGA1. [ftn 2] By the late 1920s, Riazanov, this century's greatest Marx archivist and editor, began to feel the heavy hand of Stalin's regime. In 1931, Stalin had him arrested and deported to a forced labor camp, where he was executed in 1938. MEGA1 ceased to appear in 1935, it too having become a victim of Stalinism. Publication of Marx's mathematical manuscripts, already edited by the young German mathematician Julius Gumbel (who had been recommended by Einstein) and even set in proofs by 1927, did not appear until 1968. [ftn 3] The Marx-Engels *Collected Works* Riazanov also developed a plan for a somewhat more popularized *Collected Works* of Marx and Engels, which was eventually published in Russian during the years 1928-46. This edition became the basis for the German Marx-Engels *Werke* (1956-68) as well as other single language editions such as the English language Marx-Engels *Collected Works* (hereafter MECW), which has been appearing since 1975. Taking the MECW as our example, we find that this edition also has three parts. I. Vols. 1-27 include Marx's and Engels' published and unpublished books, articles, and manuscripts. These have all appeared. II. Vols. 28-35 are Marx's major economic writings, all of which except Vols. II and III of *Capital* have appeared. III. Vols. 38-49 are the letters of Marx and Engels. All but Vols. 48 and 49, letters of Engels after 1885, have appeared. Like all Stalinist editions, MECW has serious omissions as well as other problems. The prefaces and explanatory notes are often dogmatic and sometimes misleading. Divergences between Marx and Engels are covered over. Their sharp attacks on the Russian Empire's territorial ambitions, and their strong support for anti-Russian freedom fighters such as the Poles and the Chechens are sometimes concealed, or even ascribed to errors by Marx or Engels. But the biggest problem with MECW and similar editions is that they are not a MEGA. For example, we do not get to see the whole of Marx's *Capital*, Vol. I, especially the 60 pages left out by Engels (see below), or the process by which Marx changed and developed it through its various editions. Rubel's Marx *Oeuvres* During the long years from the 1930s to 1989 when Stalinist Russia and East Germany exercised a near monopoly over publishing Marx's collected writings, in no small part because of the stinginess of academia and the labor bureaucracy in the West, French Marxologist Maximilien Rubel's independent editions, chronologies, and biographies of Marx offered a libertarian alternative, albeit on a smaller scale. In 1952, Rubel co-authored an attack on the Marx-Engels- Lenin Institute in Moscow for its "silence" regarding "the fate of Riazanov and his enterprise," adding that Stalin "could not tolerate the publication in its entirety of an oeuvre that stigmatized his despotism via the merciless struggle waged by Marx and Engels against police states: those of Louis Napoleon, of Prussia, of tsarism." [ftn 4] A decade later, Rubel began to issue his Marx *Oeuvres*. >From 1963 to 1994, four volumes, each containing about 1500 pages of Marx and 500 pages of Rubel's scholarly prefaces and footnotes have appeared. Unlike in Stalinist editions, differences between Marx and Engels are noted, especially with regard to *Capital*. However Rubel's commentary is often marred by a virulent anti-Hegelianism. In addition, as a Marx editor, Rubel too was opposed to publishing the excerpt notebooks. Just before his death in 1996 he gave a revealing response to an interviewer's question on whether we could expect to see any important new material from Marx in the coming years: "Frankly, I do not believe so. Riazanov only wanted to publish forty volumes quite simply because he thought it useless to publish the whole of the excerpt notebooks (more than two hundred!). These Notebooks are no more than simple copies, often without personal observations, of what he was reading. For Marx was an obsessive reader." [ftn 5] The Second MEGA In 1975, a second MEGA (hereafter MEGA2) was begun from Moscow and East Berlin. In pure Stalinist style, the editors made no reference to the pioneering work of Riazanov, their illustrious martyred predecessor. As with MECW and other similar editions, the prefaces and notes had a dogmatic character, although the actual editing of Marx's texts was quite meticulous. After the collapse of Communism in 1989-91, MEGA2's funding disappeared, but today, after a struggle, it is receiving new funding from German and Dutch foundations. While the funding is much more limited than before 1989, and the edition has been slightly scaled back, editorial control has now passed to a varied group of mainly Western Marx scholars. MEGA2 includes four series, the fourth one being Marx's and Engels' excerpt notebooks [ftn 6]: Series I. Works, Articles, and Drafts. Of 32 volumes now planned, 15 have appeared. Especially notable in this series is Vol. I/2, which includes Marx's 1844 *Humanist Essays*. Here, for the first time, two versions of these manuscripts are published, the one as established by MEGA1 with which we are familiar, and a new version, rougher in form but closer to the original. Interestingly, in the first 10 pages of the new version, Marx on the same pages is writing three essays at once, in separate vertical columns. Later on, we can see that what we know today as the "Critique of the Hegelian Dialectic" was composed in at least two parts, with the part on Feuerbach separated from the text in which Marx extols "the dialectic of negativity as the moving and creating principle" of Hegel's *Phenomenology* (p. 292). Series II. Marx's Major Economic Writings. Of 15 volumes now planned, 10 have been published. What has already been published includes all the editions of Vol. I of *Capital* which either Marx or Engels prepared for publication. Especially important here is Vol. II/10, a reprint of Engels'' 1890 fourth German edition, but with an important addition, an appendix which gathers together 60 pages of text, much of it very significant, from Marx's 1872-75 French edition of Vol. I. This material was not included by Engels in Vol. I, and has yet to appear in standard German or English editions of Vol. I. [ftn 7] Series III. Correspondence. Of 35 volumes now planned, 8 volumes covering years through 1857 have been published. Since MEGA2 includes letters to Marx, there are some interesting items, one of which bears on the epigraph from Aeschylus' *Prometheus Bound* with which Marx began his 1841 doctoral dissertation on Epicurus and Democritus: Better to be a servant of this rock Than to be a faithful boy of father Zeus (MECW 1, p. 31) Having apparently read the dissertation, Marx's friend the Left Hegelian Bruno Bauer, who was already a university lecturer, wrote advising him: "You must under no circumstances include those lines from Aeschylus in your dissertation, and above all nothing which goes beyond the bounds of philosophical development" (letter of April 12, 1841). Bauer was evidently worried that Marx would never get a university position if he included those now famous lines on Prometheus. Unfortunately Marx's response has not been preserved, but those lines were, as we know, kept in the thesis. Series IV. Excerpt Notebooks. Of 32 volumes now planned, 7 have been published. Here what is most exciting are the notebooks which have never appeared in print. Although Marx's *Notes on Bakunin's "Statehood and Anarchy"*, and the *Notes on Adolph Wagner* are in MECW, and the *Ethnological Notebooks*, the *Notes on Indian History, 664-1858*, and the *Mathematical Manuscripts* have been published separately, many new discoveries await us here. While the actual contents of the new material in Series IV can today be studied in the archives only by those who can overcome the obstacle of Marx's very difficult handwriting, a look at the topics of the excerpt notebooks, most of which will hopefully be published in the coming years, reveals the following: (1)notes in 1853 and 1880-81 on Java, (2)1852 notes on the history of women and gender relations, (3)many notes from the 1870s and 1880s on agriculture in Russia plus some on prairie farming in the U.S., (4)notes on Ireland from the 1860s, (5)notes on agriculture in Roman and Carolingian times, (6)a massive chronology of world history. Once these materials are published in the original language (Marx's later notebooks are often a combination of English and German), they can be translated into English and other languages in more accessible editions. Vol. IV/6 containing Marx's 900-page 1846-47 notebooks on the worldwide history of agriculture and trade from the earliest times to the present has already been published, and we will reportedly also soon see in print Vol. IV/3 with his notebooks from 1844. For the first time since the 1920s, a major edition of Marx's work is being published under auspices other than those of Stalinism. Raya Dunayevskaya once referred to the "incredible time, energy, and vigilance" which the Russian state-capitalist regime expended to "imprison Marx within the bounds" of its ideology. [ftn. 8] That period is now over, although as Marx wrote in the *Eighteenth Brumaire*, "the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living" (MECW 11, p. 103). Notes: 1. Some background in English on this is provided by Hal Draper in an appendix to his *Marx-Engels Register* (Schocken, 1985), and a much fuller account is given by Maximilien Rubel in the "Avertissement" (Preface) to his edition of Marx's *Oeuvres. Politique. I* (Paris: Gallimard, 1994). 2. Most of these citations from Riazanov's report can be found in Raya Dunayevskaya, *Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's Philosophy of Revolution* (Humanities Press, 1982), pp. 177-78. For the full report in German, see Riazanov's "Neueste Mitteilungen ueber den literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels," *Archiv fuer die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung*, Vol. 11 (1924), pp. 385-400. Raya was to my knowledge the first person to publicize and critique Riazanov's attitude toward the excerpt notebooks. As she pointed out, in his edition of the *Ethnological Notebooks*, even Krader had held back from mentioning Riazanov's dismissive attitude to the excerpt notebooks. 3. In Stalinist style, that 1968 edition did not even mention Gumbel - see Annette Vogt, "Emil Julius Gumbel (1891-1966): der erste Herausgeber der mathematischen Manuscripte von Karl Marx," *MEGA-Studien* No. 2 (1995), pp. 26-41. See also R. Brokmeyer, F. Dmitryev, and R. Dunayevskaya, *The Fetish of High Tech and Marx's Unknown Mathematical Manuscripts* (Chicago: News & Letters, 1985). 4. Rubel and Bracke-Desrousseaux, "L'Occident doit a Marx et a Engels une edition monumentale de leurs oeuvres," *La Revue socialiste*, No. 59, July 1952, pp. 13-114. 5. *Le Monde des Livres*, Sept. 29, 1995, p. viii. 6. For a good summary of the present state of MEGA2, see Jacques Grandjonc and Juergen Rojahn, "Aus der MEGA-Arbeit. Der revidierte Plan der Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe," *MEGA- Studien* No. 2 (1995), pp. 62-89. *MEGA-Studien* (c/o IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, 1019 AT Amsterdam), established in 1994, is an international multi-lingual journal of discussion and debate on the history and future of MEGA. Another forum for debate and information on MEGA is the yearly *Beitrage fuer Marx-Engels- Forschung* (c/o Rolf Hecker, Ribbecker Str. 3, 10315 Berlin). 7. For a discussion of Vol. II/10, see my "On the Relevance of Marx's *Capital*: Why Is the Full Text as He Wrote It Unavailable?", *News & Letters*, October 1992. 8. Dunayevskaya, *Marxism and Freedom. From 1776 until Today* (Bookman, 1958), p. 63. ************************************** The above article first appeared in *News & Letters*, Vol. 42:1 (Jan.-Feb. 1997). Reprinting is permitted gratis if the source is fully credited. Comments, including for publication, may be sent to: News & Letters 59 East Van Buren Street, Suite 707 Chicago, IL 60605 USA Tel. 312-663-0839 FAX 312-663-9069 email: NANDL@IGC.APC.ORG Subscriptions: $5.00/year (10 issues) Comments may also be made directly to: Kevin Anderson Department of Sociology Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 USA email: kanderson@niu.edu From OWENJACK@FS.isu.edu Thu Mar 20 10:05:40 1997 From: "J B Owens" To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 10:08:52 -0600, MDT Subject: SSPHS Program ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 10:52:10 -0600 Reply-to: History of the Iberian Peninsula From: J B Owens Organization: Idaho State University Subject: SSPHS Program For your information, I am forwarding the program of next month's annual meeting of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies. I received the document from Jesus Cruz of the University of Delaware, the program chairperson. He informs me that there may be some slight modifications in the final program which will be distributed at the meeting. Jack Owens, Idaho State University ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 97 10:15 EST From: Jesus.Cruz@mvs.udel.edu Subject: SSPHS Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOCIETY FOR SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE HISTORICAL STUDIES 28th Annual Meeting - Minneapolis - April 24-27, 1997 Thursday, April 24 Welcome Reception, ca. 6:00 - 9.00 Friday, April 25 8:45-10:15 Two Sessions 1) Iberian Women in Historical Perspective Chair and Commentator: Sandie Holguin, University of Oklahoma Alain Saint-Saens, Dowling College, "Physical Violence and Verbal Abuse against Hermitesses in Early Modern Spain" Constance Sullivan, University of Minnesota, "Toward a Biography of Josefa Amar y Borbon: The Early Years." Anne Cova, Universidade Aberta, Lisbon, "Women under the Portuguese New State" 2) Esthetics and Culture in Modern Spain Chair: James D'Emilio, University of Southern Florida Jody Brotherson, Lousiana Tech University, "Arthur Byne: An American Architect in Spain" Allan M. Hing, The Atlanta College of Art, "Rafael Moneo - Merida, Madrid and Palma Museums" 10:15-10:30 Coffee 10:30-12:00 Two Sessions 1) Women, Politics, and Spirituality in Early Modern Spain Chair and Commentator: Jodi Bilinkoff, University of North Carolina, Greensboro Luis Corteguera and Sherry Velasco, University of Kansas, "Authority in the Margin: Reexamining the Autograph Letters of Sor Maria de Agreda and Philip IV" Maria Pilar Manero Sorolla, Universidad Central de Barcelona, "Poder real y autoridad femenina: las cartas de Maria de Agreda al rey Felipe IV" Carole Slade, Columbia University, "'Que se me da a a mi de los reyes': Teresa de Jesus and Felipe II" 2) Historical Memory and National Identity in Modern Spain Chair and Commentator: Pamela Radcliff, UCSD Carolyn P. Boyd, University of Texas at Austin, "'Statue-mania' in Nineteenth Century Spain" Brian D. Bunk, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 'The Study of History and Memory in 20th Century Spain" Jose Alvarez Junco, Tufts University, "Nationalism and 'Virility' in 1900 Spain" 12:00-1:00 Lunch 1:00-2:00 Plenary Session Antonio Costa Pinto, ISCTF, Universidade de Lisboa, "Is the European Union Re-making Iberia? Luso-Spanish Relations in the 20th Century." 2:00-2:15 Coffee 2:15-3:45 Two Sessions 1) Religious Identities in 17th Century Spain and Portugal Chair and Commentator: Allison Poska Miriam Bodian, University of Michigan, "Burned at the Stake: The Martyrdom Literature of the Converso Diaspora as Counter-Statement" Thomas Dandelet, Bard College, "Celestial Heroes and the Splendor of Iberia: Spanish Saint-Making in Baroque Rome, 1588-1690" Susan Laningham Smith, University of Arkansas, "Authority and Convent life in Early Seventeenth Century Spain" Scott Taylor, University of Virginia, "Masculinity, Ignatius of Loyola, and the Catholic Reformation" 2) Aspects of Medieval Spain Chair: Lorraine Attreed James D'Emilio, University of South Florida, "The Formation of the Parish in Early Medieval Galicia" Theresa M. Vann, Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, "The Recapture of Toledo (1085) Considered as a Proto-Crusade" James Powers, College of Holly Cross, "Trial by Combat and Municipal Freedom in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Iberia" Commentator: Francisco Garcia-Serrano, Saint Louis University at Madrid 3:45-4:00 Coffee 4:00-5:30 Two Sessions 1) Iberian Economy and Society, 1350-1700 Chair and Commentator: Francis A. Dutra, UCSB Martin M. Elbl, "Jewish Merchants, Religious Politics and Business Competition in Late Medieval Majorca" Darlene Abreu-Ferreira, University of Toronto, "Excluded but not Secluded: Women in the Maritime Economy of Early-Modern Portugal" Sabino Lizana Fernandez, European University Institute of Florence, "Los hombres de negocios portugueses en la encrucijada economica de los anos 1650-1665 en Castilla: La Renta del Tabaco" 2) Church and Society in the Early Modern Hispanic World Chair and Commentator: Alain Saint-Saens, Dowling College Sean T. Perrone, University of Wisconsin, Madison, "The Castilian Assembly of the Clergy in the Sixteenth Century" Oscar Mazin Gomez, El Colegio de Michoacan, "The Cathedral Chapter of Valladolid, Michoacan in the 'Forgotten' Century of Historiography" Valentina Tikoff, Indiana University, "Assisted Transitions: Young People in the Charitable Institutions of Seville during the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries" 6:30-8:00 Dinner at the Calhoun Beach Club (time tentative) 7:30-9:00 Dessert and coffee at the home of William and Carla Phillips Saturday, April 26 9:00-10:30 Two Sessions 1) Old Empire, New Regime: Rethinking the Spanish Colonial Project Chair: Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Stanford University Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Stanford University,"Amargo comercio: Slavery, Colonialism, and the Spanish Bourgeoisie in the Nineteenth Century" Javier Morillo-Alicea, University of Michigan, "Demystifying Spanish Empire in Contemporary Colonial Studies" John Tone, Georgia Institute of Technology, "Frascuelo versus Edison? Spanish Nationalism in 1898" Commentator: Josep Maria Fradera, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 2) Status and Strategies Among Late Medieval and Early Modern Portuguese Elites Chair and Commentator: Bill Donovan, Loyola College Jose M. Valente, UCSB, "The Templars in Portugal: 1128-1320" Ivana Elbl, Trent University, "Overseas Expansion and Social Mobility in Late Medieval Portugal" Francis A. Dutra, UCSB, "Medical Practitioners and the Portuguese Order of Santiago" 10:30-10:45 Coffee 10:45-12:15 Two Sessions 1) Educating Aristocrats, Royals, and Rogues: Ideals and Practices of Medieval and Early Modern Education Chair and Commentator: Sara Nalle, William Patterson College Mark D. Johnston, Illinois State University, "'Letradura y caballeria': An Ideal of Aristocratic Education, from Llull to Baena" Anne J. Cruz, University of Illinois, Chicago, "Cristobal Perez de Herrera's *Amparo de pobres* and Educational Reform" Martha K. Hoffman-Strock, Brooklyn College, "The Practice of Royal Education at the Spanish Court, 1601-16034" 2) Liberal Crises, Spanish Solution Politics and Culture in Fin-de-Siecle Spain Chair: Dan Crews, Central Missouri State University Geoff Jensen, University of Southern Mississippi, "Cultural Despair, Military Rhetoric, and the Making of Modern Nationalism in *Fin-de-Siecle* Spain" Eric Storm, University of Groningen, "The Social Question and the Crisis of Liberalism Political Thought in Spain Around 1890" Joshua Goode, UCLA, "The Spanish Nose, Head and Soul: Racial definitions of the Spaniard in a Comparative Perspective, 1894 and 1923" Commentator: Charles J. Fleener, Saint Louis University 12:30-1:30 Lunch 1:30-2:30 Plenary Session Hilario Casado Alonso, Universidad de Valladolid, "Los Bernuy: la trayectoria de una familia de comerciantes, siglos XIV-XIX." 2:30-3:30 Business Meeting Afternoon and evening free Sunday, April 27 9:00-10:30 Two Sessions 1) Economic Change and Social Relations in the Iberian World Chair and Commentator: Jesus Cruz, University of Delaware Luciano Amaral, European University Institute of Florence, "'Proximate' Sources of Economic Growth in Portugal: a Growth Accounting Study of the Portuguese Economy (1951-1973)" Rob van Veggel, University of Chicago, "The Muleteers of Miravet (Tarragona) and their Social and material Space" Marcelo Borges, Northern Illinois University, "'Maria vae com as outras': The Role of Social Networks in the Emigration from Algarve to Argentina" 2) Las Mendoza Chair: Constance Mathers, Virginia Union University Cristian Berco, University of Arizona, "Mayorazgo: The Illicit Aspects of Personal Power" Grace Coolidge, Indiana University, "Choosing Her Own Buttons: The Guardianship of Dona Magdalena de Bobadilla" Stephanie Fink, University of Arizona, "Maria Pacheco and the Construction of Mendoza Identity" Commentator: Gwen Barnes-Karol, St. Olaf College 10:30-10:45 coffee 10:45-12:15 Two Sessions 1) Power Relations and Propaganda in the Court of the Spanish Habsburgs Chair and Commentator: David Ringrose, University of California, San Diego Patricia Lopes Don, San Jose State University, "This event having no other like it": From a Function in the Spanish Habsburg *Entrada*, 1570-1640" Antonio Feros, New York University, "A Web of Patrons and Clients: Political Clientelism and the Monarchy in Early modern Spain" Elizabeth R. Wright, Johns Hopkins University, "Pilgrimage to Patronage: Lope de Vega and the Royal Wedding of 1599" 2) Ideologies, Politics, and War in Spain, 1920-1945 Chair: George Esenwein, University of Florida Robert A. Tyree, "Joaquin Maurin and the Democratic Revolution in Spain" Michael Seidman, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, "Quiet Fronts in the Spanish Civil War" Antonio Cazorla, York University, "What should we do with the *Caciques*?: Old Politics in the Francoist New State" Commentator: Robert H. Whealey, Ohio University 12:15 Conference ends From ba05105@binghamton.edu Fri Mar 21 08:02:50 1997 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 10:03:55 -0500 (EST) To: Albert J Bergesen Subject: Re: po-mo is part of the world-system, not a virus In-Reply-To: Let me just express some more reservations--1. Hegemonies are not inevitable, and simply the products of getting tired of calling some period crisis--hegemony involves having key forces follow one's leadership--enough forces that any challengers can be easily repressed. This was not the case for England until 1815, when, as a result of its presenting a conservative (also in some important senses 'liberal') alternative to France, all the aristocracies, and important elements of the middle classes of Europe, as well as the revolutionary middle classes of latin America rallied to its side. Same is true, on a larger scale with the US and worldwide business classes, organized labor forces, and even some important anti-colonial forces after WWII. Simply indicating that hegemonies are always rising and falling would suggest that the system cannot ever work without active leadership--something I don't believe is true, and is in fact demonstrated historically by both the sixteenth century experience and that between 1650 and 1815. Secondly, the period from 1690-1750 involved highly universalist sense of order as I understand the term--meaning an order based on mathematics, reason, etc. rather than on historical/religious traditions. Finally, it is important in this sort of project to attend to the historical contexts of culture--I don't know where it fits into your project, but modernism in almost all its forms was marginal/counter-hegemonic in Europe and the US pretty much until after WWII--before then it was seen by the dominant aristocratic/nationalistic forces as a Jewish plot to destroy Europe's historical/national foundations. It is precisely these aristocratic/nationalistic forces, now forgotten except by historians like Arno Mayer and Fritz Ringer, who bother to ask what forces were actually dominating European intellectual/cultural life, which I asssociate with British nineteenth century hegemony. Hopefully I will have an article soon clarifying this viewpoint. Sincerely Steven Sherman On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, Albert J Bergesen wrote: > Steven--This all gets tricky and depends alot on our definitions and what > we mean by this and that. It is also a matter of relative universalism > and relative particularism. If we take the 17th century with its "crisis" > and the 30yrs war as a period of multicentricity--which seems > reasonable--then by the second half of the 18th it seems reasonable to > talk about a rising Britain. If by the latter half of the 19th we see a > declining Britain and a rising Germany and US, then, in some ballpark way, > late 18th to mid-19th constitutes something of a British hegemony period, > remembering always that some of this is rising and falling hegemony. This > dating does not seem controversial to me. > > Second, The Enlightenment is about the universal rights of man--not man in > classes--but man in general. Adam Smith is about the universal propensity > to truck and barter--not having to truck and barter because of class > menbership and requirements from particular mode of production, but in > general, for all time, for all people, for all situations. Romanticism is > about nature in general; about the sublime in general, about feelings that > transcend class, race, gender. it is in this sense that this is a period > of universalism. > > Third, from 1850 on with Realism in art and what will be called the > sociological critique of classical political economy, these eternals are > now particularized: not universal nature, but specific places; not > univesal human motives but class bound motives. Marx, Weber, Durkheim all > qualify, limit, particularize, historicize classical political economy. > It is in this sense that I am calling this a particularzing period. > > al b. > > > > > Albert Bergesen > Department of Sociology > University of Arizona > Tucson, Arizona 85721 > Phone: 520-621-3303 > Fax: 520-621-9875 > email: albert@u.arizona.edu > > From chriscd@jhu.edu Tue Mar 25 16:05:47 1997 25 Mar 1997 18:05:29 -0500 (EST) 25 Mar 1997 18:05:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 18:05:38 -0500 From: christopher chase-dunn Subject: a world-system study of japanese social movements To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu Reply-to: chriscd@jhu.edu Elson Boles is working on a dissertation on an important social movement in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Boles is looking at the world-system contextual factors involved in this last millinarian rebellion and how it was related to Japan's incorporation into the Europe-centered system. An abstract of his thesis follows: --------- ABSTRACT: Ph. D. Dissertation TITLE: REBELS, GAMBLERS, AND SILK: Agencies and Structures of the Japan-US Silk Network, 1858-1890 AUTHOR: Elson E. Boles, Sociology, Ph. D. Candidate, State University of New York, Binghamton eeb@hknet.com DEFENSE: 11 April, 1997 ABSTRACT: In 1884, Meiji Japan's largest armed peasant uprising, involving 3000-7000,erupted in Saitama prefecture. The nature of the incident has been passionately debated among Japanese historians. The orthodoxy sees it as the climax of the Liberty Movement; revisionists argue it was the last and greatest millenarian peasant uprising. This study scrutinizes and resolves the debate by revealing the role of bakuto (gamblers) in this and other incidents tied to the Liberty Movement. The revision furthermore transcends the local focus of earlier studies by exploring the world-historical dimensions of the rebellion and related struggles. Social-history and world-systems perspectives are united through an multi-level movement from global to local developments, showing the world-historical dimensions of events and agencies and, conversely, the local faces of global-scale processes. The rebellion occurred as part of the Japan-US silk network's formation, 1860-84. The division of labor's emergence saw the decline of Chichibu petty sericulturists, the rise of new filatures in Japan, and high-technology silk weaving factories in the US. The interrelated class-patriarchal changes among the network's sectors engendered new forms of resistance, including the first known factory strikes in Japan, by women reelers in Kofu (1885-86), and strikes by silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey (1886-90). Meiji silk export development programs during the 1870s nurtured the network's formation. But Meiji state policy was less a product of Western ideas, as previously thought, than the reconstitution of earlier "domain development" strategies of Satsuma and Choshu han. Indeed, these domains seized power in 1868 on the basis of successful export-oriented accumulation 1750-1860, and then extend their strategies on a national scale after the Restoration. The retrenchment phase of modernization, 1880-86, triggered peasant debt deferral movements across Japan and repression of gamblers and political activists led to new inter-class alliances. This work explains, for the first time, how activists recruited bakuto and indebted peasants to form revolutionary armies, why the latter joined, and the "incidents of violence" that followed. Narrowing in on Chichibu with primary resources, we detail how local bakuto joined the Liberty Party and fused their party status with gambler-style chivalry. Villagers accepted redeemed bakuto as righteous leaders, reinvented millenarianism, and followed bakuto leaders in a revolt against corrupt officials and land expropriating creditors. As the last millenarian uprising in Japan, the uprising marks the terminus of Japan's incorporation into the modern world-system; the Liberty Movement, struggles by gamblers, and the Kofu and Paterson strikes, signify Japan's systemic transformation as part of the world-system. From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Wed Mar 26 07:00:59 1997 26 Mar 1997 09:00:55 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 09:00:55 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Roundtables List To: Network World-Systems M E M O R A N D U M TO: WSNers FROM: Thomas D. Hall & Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz RE: PEWS Round Tables DATE: March 26, 1997 Here are the Round Tables as submitted to ASA. It should be an exciting hour with lots happening. tom & patricio ------------- ASA 1997 Meeting Political Economy of World-System Roundtables Organizers: Tom Hall (DePauw University) and Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz (University of Maryland at College Park). Roundtable 1: Anti-Systemic Movements and Global Democracy. Charles McKelvey (Presbyterian College), "The Crisis of the Modern World Economy and a Discourse of Radical Democracy." Christopher Chase-Dunn (Johns Hopkins University), "Guatemala and Global Democracy." Warren Wagar (Binghamton University), "Global Democracy." Roundtable 2: Incorporation: Rethinking the Concept & Process. Wilma A. Dunaway (Colorado State University), "Capitalist Incorporation, Ecological Degradation, and the Transformation of Women's Work: Eastern Cherokees, 1790-1830" Thomas D. Hall (DePauw University), "Rethinking Incorporation, Ancient and Modern." Leslie S. Laczko (University of Ottawa), "Canada's linguistic and ethnic dynamics in an evolving world system." Ravi Palat (University of Auckland-New Zealand), "Rethinking Incorporation: Agency and Process"? Roundtable 3: Post-Fordist Consumption in the World-Economy. Victoria Carty (University of New Mexico), "Production, Consumption and Gender: A Case Study of Nike Corporation." Melanie Dupuis (New York State Department of Economic Development), "Post-Fordist Food: Mis-placed Origins and Magnified Identity." Walter Goldfrank (University of California at Santa Cruz), "Healthy Eating." Miguel Korzeniewicz (University of New Mexico), "The Unfolding of a Global Consumer Culture." Roundtable 4: Paths of Transition? Alex Chan (University of Wisconsin-Madison), "China's transition from planned economy to market economy." Erin Leahey (University of Massachusetts), "Development Dependence, and Inequality: South Korea and Taiwan as Deviant Cases." Thomas D. Robinson (Emory University), "A Theoretical Reinterpretation of the Current Controversy Surrounding World- System Theory." Alvin Y. So (University of Hawaii-Manoa) and On-Kwok Lai (The University of Waikato), "Americanization, Asianization, and the Transformation of Hong Kong and the Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs)." Rountable 5: Legacies. Thomas J. Burns (University of Utah), Edward L. Kick (University of Utah) and Byron Davis (University of Utah), "Development and the Colonial Legacy in Former British and French Colonies: The Contributions of Militarization and Education." Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz (University of Maryland-College Park) and Timothy P. Moran (University of Maryland-College Park), "Past and Future Trends in World Income Inequalities." Kristin Marsh (Emory University) and Dwight Raby (Emory University), "European Revolutions Since 1500: A Classification and Descriptive Analysis of Intra-State Rebellion in the World- System." Jason D. Smith, "500 years of Western Philosophy: A Sketch of a Theory." Roundtable 6: Commodity Chains. John M. Talbot (University of California at Berkeley), "Sectors and States: Do Leading Export Sectors Shape the Developmental Prospects of Nation-States?" Rueyling Tzeng (Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica), "Foreign Direct Investment in Southeast Asia: Implications of Regional Economic Integration in the Western Society." Roundtable 7: Latin America in the World-Economy Leah Carroll (St. Lawrence University), "The Demise of Rural Clientelism: The Silver Lining of Trade Liberalization for Agrarian Labor Movements? A Colombian Case Study." Trudie O. Coker (Florida Atlantic University), "Global Processes and Democratic Action in Venezuela." Leslie Gates (University of Arizona), "Explaining Intensity in Foreign Capitalist Reactions to Host Country Policies: American Mining and Oil Industry in Mexico, 1910-1920." Roundtable 8: Gender in the World-Economy. Naihua Zhang (Florida Atlantic University), "Connection and interaction of the global and local feminisms: A case study of China." Roksana Bahramitash (McGill University), "Glimpsing Women in the Labor Market in Taiwan: Through the Lens of Western Women's Experience." Mahua Sarkar (Johns Hopkins University), "Gender, Religion, Class, and the Imagining of the Indian Nation." Roberta Lessor (Chapman University), "Global Structural Adjustment and Situated Gender and Class Relations: Continuing Struggle in a Costa Rican Women's Medicinal Plant Collective." Roundtable 9: Nationalism and Social Movements. Farshad A. Araghi (Florida Atlantic University), "The Discourse of Development and the Peasantry." Hassan Elnajjar (Dalton College), "Arab nationalism and the Gulf War." Rachel Schurman (University of California at Berkeley), "Tuna Dreams: Resource nationalism and the Pacific Tuna Industry" Terisa Turner, "New Social Movements in Africa." Roundtable 10: Markets. Kiersten C. Hatt (McGill University), "'Just the Company and its Workers': Recent Changes in the Costa Rican Banana Industry." Cynthia Hewitt (Univ. of Georgia), "Job Segregation, Ethnic Hegemony and Earnings Inequality in Atlanta." Romoji Ishi (Japan Pacific Resource Network), "Japanese Transnationals and American Grassroots." Michael Alan Sacks (Northwestern University), Brian Uzzi (Northwestern University) and Marc Ventresca (Northwestern University), "Structural Holes in the World System --Structural Autonomy and Nation Status in the Global Economy, 1965-1980)." Roundtable 11: Global Feminist Movements. Nancy Forsythe (University of Maryland at College Park). Valentine Moghadam (Illinois State University). From CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Wed Mar 26 10:49:43 1997 Date: Wed, 26 Mar 97 11:39:04 EST From: CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Subject: global feminist movements To: W-S Network Here's the listings for the Global Feminist Movements session that Valentine Moghadem and I organized for PEWS. We're excited about the session -- we hope it will prove to be intellectually invigorating and draw in a wide audience. We plan on running this session a little differently from the traditional approach. Val will serve as discussant, and will open the session by providing an overview of the issues important about global feminist movements from a PEWS perspective. Each author will have a few minutes to bring up the key issue that her paper focuses upon, and why it's important (rather than a traditional paper-reading format). Finally, Val will discuss the papers, critiquing the arguments and pushing them into a larger frame. I believe that Nancy Forsythe and Val organized a roundtable on the same subject, where they hope that people will come together to discuss the issues raised at this panel. Hope to see you all there, Joya Misra ASA 1997 Meetings, Political Economy of the World-System Section, *Global Feminist Movements* "Global Feminist Values and Forms or Organization: Alternatives to Neo-Liberal 'Globalization'" Angela Miles, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education "Connection and Interaction of Global and Local Feminisms: A Case Study of China" Naihua Zhang, Florida Atlantic University "Shaping the Possibilities: Political Fields and Women's Movements" Raka Ray, University of California, Berkeley "Women's Work and Feminist Movements Around the World" Torry Dickinson, Kansas State University "Anti-systemic Movements in World-Historical Perspective: the Transition from Men's Movements to Women's Movements" Nancy Forsythe, University of Maryland, College Park CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU *********************************************************************** Assistant Professor Department of Sociology University of Georgia Baldwin Hall Athens, Georgia 30602 (706)542-3190 From joseph@indigo.ie Thu Mar 27 11:40:29 1997 Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:40:11 GMT Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:40:08 GMT From: "Karl Carlile" To: postcolonial@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:33:58 +0000 Subject: Sub-Saharan Africa KARL CARLILE:Can anyone offer an explanation as to why capital flows to sub-Saharan Africa have dminised to a trickle flow over the last decade or more? Given that the rate of profit must be higher in this region why and how does it happen that capital fails to accumulate there in a substantive way. Marxist political economy's failure to explain this yet offer cogent expalanation of the character of capital accumulation in the West or in economies of the gang of four. Yours etc., Karl From jbrooks2@lib.drury.edu Thu Mar 27 12:02:42 1997 Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 13:06:40 -0600 (CST) From: Jason Brooks To: Karl Carlile Subject: Re: Sub-Saharan Africa Without more specific information, i.e. what countries you are referring to in specific, my educated guess would be that capital flow tends to follow wherever there is immediate profit potential. WHat I mean by this is that captial tends to be invested in places that show immediate, or at least short-term improvements, which usually almost always is coupled with some kind on non-democratic regime as the basic political structure. A marxist might point out that it is better to share the economic wealth with the proletariat, but provisions to do so generally take longer to implement and even longer to have any substantial results. The critique of capitalism is that it has a tendency to ignore the long term effects, whether the long term effects are good or bad. In places where there is a substantial move toward modernization, and almost always also substantial economic stratification, Core countries will have a tendency to invest there, becasue the chances for $profit$ are greater. Again, this may not be the case with all periphery countries, but it may help to explain some of it. Let me know what you think. -Jason Brooks On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, Karl Carlile wrote: > KARL CARLILE:Can anyone offer an explanation as to why capital flows > to sub-Saharan Africa have dminised to a trickle flow over the last > decade or more? > > Given that the rate of profit must be higher in this region why and > how does it happen that capital fails to accumulate there in a > substantive way. > > Marxist political economy's failure to explain this yet offer cogent > expalanation of the character of capital accumulation in the West or > in economies of the gang of four. > > > > > > Yours etc., > Karl > From mreview@igc.apc.org Fri Mar 28 11:13:44 1997 From: mreview@igc.apc.org for ; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:13:02 -0800 (PST) for ; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:11:16 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 10:11:16 -0800 (PST) To: WSN@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Exam/Review copies Sender: mreview@igc.org Dear Educator: Monthly Review Press has a new title that we think you will find of interest. Exam copies are available. Please contact Renee Pendergrass at mreview@igc.apc.org, Monthly Review Press, 122 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001, Tel: 1-800-670-9499, Fax: (212) 727-3676. HOW TO READ KARL MARX by Ernst Fischer with Franz Marek translated by Anna Bostock Historical Notes by John Bellamy Foster Has any major thinker been more poorly understood than Karl Marx? Over the last 150 years, his name has been invoked in connection with everything from unemployment insurance to guerrillas wars. Although critics continue to proclaim the death of Marx's theories, new and old audiences continue to draw vital insights from the works of the most important philosopher and economist of the industrial era. To introduce new readers to Marx's contributions, Monthly Review Press presents How to Read Karl Marx. The noted Austrian critic Ernst Fischer has crafted a brief, clear, and faithful exposition of Marx's major premises, with particular attention to historical context. This new edition of the English translation of Was Marx wirklich sagte (1968) includes new commentary by John Bellamy Foster that sharpens Fischer's focus for 1990s readers. Also included are a biographical chronology, extracts from major works of Marx, and "Marx's Method," an early and valuable essay by the preeminent political economist Paul M. Sweezy. Ernst Fischer (1889-1972) was a philosopher, editor, literary critic, and author of many books and plays, including The Necessity of Art (1963) and Art Against Ideology (1969). John Bellamy Foster is associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Theory of Monopoly Capital and The Vulnerable Planet, both published by Monthly Review Press. 0-85345-974-6 paper/$12.00 0-85345-973-8 cloth/$26.00 Sociology/political Science 224 pp. Contents: INTRODUCTION/John Bellamy Foster BIOGRAPHICAL DATA AUTHOR'S FOREWORD 1. THE DREAM OF THE WHOLE MAN 2. CREATIVE LABOR 3. DIVISION OF LABOR AND ALIENATION 4. THE FETISH CHARACTER OF THE COMMODITY 5. CLASSES AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE 6. HISTORICAL MATERIALISM 7. VALUE AND SURPLUS VALUE 8. PROFIT AND CAPITAL 9. THE PROBLEM OF INCREASING MISERY 10. THE THEORY OF REVOLUTION 11. DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT, SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM 12. LABOR MOVEMENT AND INTERNATIONAL 13. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRACTICE 14. MARXISM TODAY APPENDIX MARX'S METHOD/Paul M. Sweezy MARX'S STARTING POINT: THESES ON FEUERBACH THE BASE-SUPERSTRUCTURE METAPHOR: FROM PREFACE TO A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY: FROM THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE NOTES INDEX From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Fri Mar 28 13:46:41 1997 Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 15:45:29 -0500 (EST) From: "A. Gunder Frank" To: christopher chase-dunn Subject: Re: a world-system study of japanese social movements In-Reply-To: <33385A42.7B6F@jhu.edu> Andre Gunder Frank and Marta Fuentes "On Studying Cycles in Social Movements" RESEARCH ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, CONFLICT AND CHANGE L. Kriesberg, M. Doboswki, & I Walliman, Eds. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, vol. 17, 1994 contains stuff on soc movs in Eur & North Am and on cycles in peasant movs also in Asia,Afr,Lat Am also see TRANSFORMING THE REVOLUTION, by S.Amin,G.Arrighi.A.Frank,I Wallerstein Monthly Review Press 1990. On Tue, 25 Mar 1997, christopher chase-dunn wrote: > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 18:05:38 -0500 > From: christopher chase-dunn > To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK > Subject: a world-system study of japanese social movements > > Elson Boles is working on a dissertation on an important social > movement in Japan in the late nineteenth century. Boles is looking at > the world-system contextual factors involved in this last millinarian > rebellion and how it was related to Japan's incorporation into the > Europe-centered system. An abstract of his thesis follows: > > --------- > ABSTRACT: Ph. D. Dissertation > > TITLE: REBELS, GAMBLERS, AND SILK: Agencies and Structures of the > Japan-US > Silk Network, 1858-1890 > > AUTHOR: Elson E. Boles, Sociology, Ph. D. Candidate, State University > of New York, Binghamton > eeb@hknet.com > DEFENSE: 11 April, 1997 > > ABSTRACT: > > In 1884, Meiji Japan's largest armed peasant uprising, involving > 3000-7000,erupted in Saitama prefecture. The nature of the incident has > been passionately debated among Japanese historians. The orthodoxy sees > it as the climax of the Liberty Movement; revisionists argue it was the > last and greatest millenarian peasant uprising. > > This study scrutinizes and resolves the debate by revealing the role of > bakuto (gamblers) in this and other incidents tied to the Liberty > Movement. > The revision furthermore transcends the local focus of earlier studies > by > exploring the world-historical dimensions of the rebellion and related > struggles. Social-history and world-systems > perspectives are united through an multi-level movement from global to > local developments, showing the world-historical dimensions of events > and agencies and, conversely, the local faces of global-scale processes. > > The rebellion occurred as part of the Japan-US silk network's formation, > 1860-84. The division of labor's emergence saw the decline of Chichibu > petty sericulturists, the rise of new filatures in Japan, and > high-technology silk weaving factories in the US. The > interrelated class-patriarchal changes among the network's sectors > engendered new forms of resistance, including the first known factory > strikes in Japan, by women reelers in Kofu (1885-86), and strikes by > silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey (1886-90). > > Meiji silk export development programs during the 1870s nurtured the > network's formation. But Meiji state policy was less a product of > Western ideas, as previously thought, than the reconstitution of earlier > "domain development" strategies of Satsuma and Choshu han. Indeed, > these domains seized power in 1868 on the basis of > successful export-oriented accumulation 1750-1860, and then extend their > strategies on a national scale after the Restoration. > > The retrenchment phase of modernization, 1880-86, triggered peasant debt > deferral movements across Japan and repression of gamblers and political > activists led to new inter-class alliances. This work explains, for the > first time, how activists recruited > bakuto and indebted peasants to form revolutionary armies, why the > latter joined, and the "incidents of violence" that followed. > > Narrowing in on Chichibu with primary resources, we detail how local > bakuto joined the Liberty Party and fused their party status with > gambler-style chivalry. Villagers accepted redeemed bakuto as righteous > leaders, reinvented millenarianism, and followed bakuto leaders in a > revolt against corrupt officials and land expropriating > creditors. > > As the last millenarian uprising in Japan, the uprising marks the > terminus > of Japan's incorporation into the modern world-system; the Liberty > Movement, struggles by gamblers, and the Kofu and Paterson strikes, > signify Japan's systemic transformation as part of the world-system. > From joseph@indigo.ie Sat Mar 29 11:36:54 1997 Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:36:52 GMT Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:36:49 GMT From: "Karl Carlile" To: postcolonial@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:30:42 +0000 Subject: Re: Sub-Saharan Africa Karl: Thank you for repsonding Hassan. I doubt if the rate of profit and exploitable resorces are high enough in this region to attract private capital. The other main source of capital in-flow is from the IMF/Wold Bank, who lend least to the poorest countries because the recovery of the loans and interest is not fully secured. On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, Karl Carlile wrote: > KARL CARLILE:Can anyone offer an explanation as to why capital flows > to sub-Saharan Africa have dminised to a trickle flow over the last > decade or more? > > Given that the rate of profit must be higher in this region why and > how does it happen that capital fails to accumulate there in a > substantive way. > > Marxist political economy's failure to explain this yet offer cogent > expalanation of the character of capital accumulation in the West or > in economies of the gang of four. > > > > > > Yours etc., > Karl > > > --- from list postcolonial@lists.village.virginia.edu --- > --- from list postcolonial@lists.village.virginia.edu --- Yours etc., Karl From joseph@indigo.ie Sat Mar 29 11:36:58 1997 Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:36:55 GMT Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:36:53 GMT From: "Karl Carlile" To: postcolonial@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:30:42 +0000 Subject: Re: Sub-Saharan Africa KARL: Hi!I go along with you Francis on this one. I get this kind of racist stuff all the time. Do yourself have any explanation to offer as to why tropical Africa is so "underedeveloped"? > I doubt if the rate of profit and exploitable resorces are high enough in > this region to attract private capital. > what a remarkable statement! it combines an odious combination of ignorance and arrogance that is a grotesque legacy of the Victorian era. the notion that africa --whose enourmous natural resources have been plundered for centuries-- does not have "expoiltable resources" is one of the most vicious myths spread by racists while they were busy looting. it is extremely disturbing to see this forum being used as a conduit this kind of disinformation. --- from list postcolonial@lists.village.virginia.edu --- Yours etc., Karl From ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au Sun Mar 30 20:32:25 1997 31 Mar 1997 13:31:19 +1000 Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 13:31:19 +1000 From: "Bruce R. McFarling" Subject: Re: Sub-Saharan Africa To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, Karl Carlile wrote: > KARL CARLILE:Can anyone offer an explanation as to why capital flows > to sub-Saharan Africa have dminised to a trickle flow over the last > decade or more? > Given that the rate of profit must be higher in this region why and > how does it happen that capital fails to accumulate there in a > substantive way. One point is that the rate of profit that the corporations in charge of most private 'capital flows' are interested in are hard currency profits. The rate of profit of a 'capital' inflow may be tremendous in terms of command over locally production, but if it there is warranted uncertainty regarding whether it can be successfully translated into hard currency profits, the reluctance to divert hard currency finance to sub-Saharan African countries is also warranted, according to the commercial logic by which corporations gain and exercise power. The Marxists on the list will have to comment on whether this observation is compatible with one or several Marxisms, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be. Another point is that there is more than a little conflict between the basis for international corporate power and the requirements of a successful growth economy for countries at the bottom of the heap in terms of international economic power. The 'structural adjustment' policies of the IMF / World Bank are pretty poorly conceived as economic development policies, but are right on target for maintaining the economic power of international corporations. Assuming that the people who won the fights over the shape of these policies are not simply stupid (always a dangerous assumption, even if occasionally a valid one), it would seem that maintaining the economic power of international corporations was a higher priority than the economic growth of the countries concerned when formulating these policies. Now, assuming that the corporations are not run by people who are stupid, why invest hard currency in the face of the hammering that these economies are going to be experiencing "for their own good" while undergoing structural adjustment? Wait until it is clear which economies have been more successful at surviving structural adjustment policies, and when they have recovered and are able to resume economic gorwth, invest at that time. For much of sub-Saharan Africa, the phase of surviving 'structural adjustment' and its aftermath is the current phase. Again, Marxist political economists on the list would have to comment on the compatibility of that explanation with Marxist political economy, but I suspect that there are several strands of MPE that would be entirely compatible. Virtually, Bruce R. McFarling, Newcastle, NSW ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au From dlj@inforamp.net Mon Mar 31 03:13:35 1997 id FAA05391 for ; Mon, 31 Mar 1997 05:13:26 -0500 (EST) From: David Lloyd-Jones To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK , "'ecbm@cc.newcastle.edu.au'" Subject: RE: Sub-Saharan Africa Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 04:49:20 -0500 On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, Karl Carlile wrote: > KARL CARLILE:Can anyone offer an explanation as to why capital flows > to sub-Saharan Africa have dminised to a trickle flow over the last > decade or more? =20 > Given that the rate of profit must be higher in this region why and > how does it happen that capital fails to accumulate there in a > substantive way. I think the basic proposition here is that profit never must be = anything. There ain't nuthin'more empirical than profit. =20 Still, I think it's a fair question whether it's even plausible that one = could make a buck in Sub-Saharan Africa. The only successful industry = there so far has been the sale of weapons -- and in this biz the = ultimate consumer is the Western taxpayer who finances the World Bank, = the various national export guarantee funds, and so forth. These are = collectively holding about a trillion dollars in Third World debt, and = mirabile dictu that's roughly the amount of weapony these countries have = bought from the nations which finance these advanced financial = powerhouses. =20 The richest African business is the one which sells a beeswax, camphor = and menthol preparation named Tiger Balm -- completely independent of = the Har Paw empire who sell essentially the same stuff with = coincidentally the same name out of Hong Kong. This is as one would = expect on the basis of Peter Drucker's wise dictum that the best = industry for developing an economy is cosmetics. High value added, low = capital investment, extremely fast improvement in basic entrepreneurial = and organizational skills... Tiger Balm ain't lipstick, but the chemical = composition is about 90% the same, the wax, water, and emulsifier. =20 =20 Weapons and aches and pains, what else is there out there? Tourism is = going fairly well in Kenya, jewelery continues to be a prosperous = handicraft trade in several countries, and the Sudanese slave trade = continues at the same old Arab stand. Other than these, what could = possibly move anyone to think that business in Africa could be = profitable? =20 There are mines -- but thre is nothing in the mines that can't be mined = cheaper in countries that have roads, rails and, importantly, river = transport -- to say nothing of telephones, hospitals and cold beer. It's = difficult to imagine what Karl had in mind when he asked his question -- = unless it was some bizarre ideological notion that a.) the = industrialised countries live by exploitation, b.) Africa is = exploitable, and c.) exploitation is highly profitable. All three are = ridiculous. =20 -dlj. From wwagar@binghamton.edu Mon Mar 31 10:23:19 1997 Received: from bingsun1.cc.binghamton.edu (bingsun1.cc.binghamton.edu [128.226.1.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id KAA12711 for ; Mon, 31 Mar 1997 10:23:16 -0700 (MST) From: wwagar@binghamton.edu Received: from localhost (wwagar@localhost) by bingsun1.cc.binghamton.edu (8.8.3/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA24625; Mon, 31 Mar 1997 12:24:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 1997 12:24:19 -0500 (EST) X-Sender: wwagar@bingsun1 To: Tom Hall cc: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK Subject: PEWS Roundtables in Toronto In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Tom, I notice from your post of last week that the title of my contribution to the PEWS roundtable is still wrong. I wrote Roberto Korzeniewicz about this a couple of weeks ago. The correct title is "Anti-Systemic Movements, Real and Imaginary, in Historical Perspective." See my e-mail reply to Charles McKelvey's invitation below. Regards, Warren On Fri, 17 Jan 1997 wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote: > > > Charles McKelvey > Presbyterian College > > Dear Prof. McKelvey, > > Thanks for the invitation to participate in a PEWS roundtable. I > will be happy to do this, if you don't mind my riding my hobbyhorse about > the interplay of theory and praxis. My take on anti-systemic movements is > that currently there are few [or maybe none], although they did exist in > the eras of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin; and that our task, i.e., the task of > everyone who knows better, is to build such movements--multinational, > multidisciplinary, multiracial--in the coming century in anticipation of > the [nearly] inevitable implosion of the system to which we are "anti." > > My title is "Anti-Systemic Movements, Real and Imaginary, in > Historical Perspective." > > With best wishes, > > W. Warren Wagar > Department of History > Binghamton University, SUNY > > >