Topic 4 - Modern World System and Global Economic Integration

World Economy

A large geographic zone with labor division.

Economie-monde

Braudel's concept of interconnected world economies.

Division of Labor

Specialization of tasks within a world economy.

Internal Exchange

Significant trade of essential goods within regions.

Flows of Capital

Movement of financial resources across regions.

Flows of Labor

Migration of workers within the world economy.

Geoculture

Common cultural patterns emerging in diverse societies.

Political Units

Multiple governing bodies within a world economy.

Interstate System

Network of political units interacting globally.

Cultural Homogeneity

Uniformity in culture, often absent in world economies.

Capitalism

System prioritizing endless capital accumulation.

Wage-Labor

Workers compensated for their labor in capitalism.

Endless Accumulation

Continuous growth of capital by individuals and firms.

Structural Mechanisms

Systems that reward capital accumulation behaviors.

Elimination from Social Scene

Removal of non-capitalist motivated individuals.

Modern World-System

Current global economic structure characterized by capitalism.

Efficacy of Division of Labor

Effectiveness of task specialization in wealth generation.

World Empires

Historical political structures formed from military conquests.

Political Structure

Organizational framework governing a society or economy.

Cultural Diversity

Variety of cultures within a world economy.

Economic Integration

Process of unifying economies across regions.

Accumulation of Capital

Gathering financial resources for investment and growth.

Immanuel Wallerstein

an American sociologists, historical social scientist, and

world system analyst.

1. Karl Polanyi 2. Nikolai Kondratiev 3. Joseph Schumpeter

Other influences on the world-systems theory

1. reciprocal 2. redistributive 3. market modes.

business cycles and developed concepts of three basic modes of economic organization:

1. mini systems 2. world empires 3. world economies.

Wallerstein's reframes the 3 basic modes of economic organization

Immanuel Wallerstein

sees the development of the capitalist world economy as detrimental to a large

proportion of the world's population.

"age of transition"

the period since the 1970s as an ____________________ that will give way to a future world system (or world systems) whose

configuration cannot be determined in advance.

Immanuel Wallerstein

sees the development of the capitalist world economy as detrimental to a large proportion of the world's population.

John W. Meyer

who formulated World Polity Theory

Oliver Cox, Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, and Andre Gunder Frank

Other world-systems thinkers:

Christopher Chase-Dunn, Beverly Silver, Janet Abu Lughod, Li Minqi, Kunibert Raffer

Major contributors to other world-systems thinkers

Dependency theory

(theory) core states exploit poor states.

Immanuel Wallerstein

He said, core

countries do not exploit poor countries for two basic reasons. He broke with orthodox dependency theory's central proposition

core capitalists exploit workers in all zones of the capitalist world economy (not just the

periphery) and therefore, the crucial redistribution between core and periphery is surplus

value, not "wealth" or "resources" abstractly conceived.

first reason why core countries do not exploit poor countries

economically relevant structures such as metropolitan regions, international unions and bilateral agreements tend to weaken and blur out the economic importance of nation-states and their borders.

first reason why core countries do not exploit poor countries

Capitalism is inter-regional and transnational division of labor rather than an international division of labor.

secondsecond reason why core countries do not exploit poor countries reason why core countries do not exploit poor first reason why core countries do not exploit poor countriescountries

Capitalism is inter-regional and transnational division of labor rather than an international division of labor.

second reason why core countries do not exploit poor countries

economically relevant structures such as metropolitan regions, international unions and bilateral agreements tend to weaken and blur out the economic importance of nation-states and their borders.

third reason why core countries do not exploit poor countries

English capitalists

During the Industrial Revolution, they exploited slaves (unfree workers) in the cotton zones of the American South, a peripheral region within a semiperipheral country,

Weberian perspective

Fernando Henrique Cardoso described the main tenets of dependency theory

Weberian perspective

Large bureaucracies laden with rules and procedures can deprive employees of a sense of autonomy, individuality, and control

Dependency and world system theory proposes

-that the poverty and backwardness of poor countries are caused by their peripheral position in the international division of labor. Since the capitalist world system evolved,

-the distinction between the central and the peripheral states has grown and diverged. In recognizing a tripartite pattern in the division of labor, world-systems analysis criticized dependency theory with its bimodal system of only cores and peripheries.

Immanuel Wallerstein

developed the best-known version of the world-systems approach

Immanuel Wallerstein

noted that world-systems analysis calls for a unidisciplinary historical social science

and contends that the modern disciplines, products of the 19th century, are deeply flawed because they are not separate logics, as is manifest for example in the de facto overlap of analysis among scholars of the disciplines.

World System

a system is defined as a unit with a single division of labor and multiple cultural

systems

Core

is the developed

Periphery

is the underdeveloped

Immanuel Wallerstein

he characterizes the world system as a set of mechanisms, which redistributes surplus value from the periphery to

the core.

Cyclical rhythms

represent the short-term fluctuation of economy

Secular trends

mean deeper long run tendencies, such as general economic growth or decline

Contradiction

means a general controversy in the system, usually concerning some short term versus long term tradeoffs.

Contradiction

For example, the problem of underconsumption, wherein the driving down of wages increases the profit for capitalists in the short term, but in the long term, the decreasing of wages may have a crucially harmful effect by reducing the demand for the product

Crisis

occurs if a constellation of circumstances brings about the end of the system.

Immanuel Wallerstein

he said there have been three kinds of historical systems across human history

1."mini-systems" or what anthropologists call bands, tribes, and small chiefdoms, and two types of world-systems,

2. one that is politically unified and

3. the other is not (single state world empires and multi-polity world

three kinds of historical systems