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World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (A John Hope Franklin Center Book)

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When Robert Strange McNamara became Secretary of Defense in 1961, one of the innovative ideas that he introduced was an analytic methodology called `Systems Analysis' which was then in vogue in private industry. The Pentagon then spent the next decade trying to figure out what Systems Analysis was and how it could apply to military issues. Systems Analysis in point of fact is a very useful analytic tool that recognizes that problems are best solved when viewed not in isolation, but as part of a larger integrated whole. While this is a perfectly valid analytic methodology, it fell out of favor as a management tool once it became apparent it was not a solution to bad management styles ( such as those of McNamara himself).

Yet while Systems Analysis was enjoying its moment in the Sun, academic scholars from every discipline tried to adapt Systems Analysis to their particular discipline. Which brings us to Immanuel Wallerstein and his book "World Systems Analysis." Wallerstein has postulated that a world wide system could be described as a "Capitalist World Economy" and that system could be analyzed in accordance with the principles of systems analysis. Several things need to be noted at this point. First, `Capitalist World Economy' is in itself not a pejorative term, but simply describes a very specific kind of economic system. Second this term which Wallerstein insists on using really is more widely known under the rubric of "Globalization" which indeed can be studied by means of systems analysis. To his great credit Wallerstein has spent the last thirty years studying and refining the application of systems analysis methodology to worldwide problems. While he is clearly influenced by the works of Karl Marx ( and probably George Hegel as well), this does not negate his basic premise that the world can be understood best in terms of world wide systems that can indeed be subjected rigorous analysis. A good and accessible book that provides an alternative way of looking at the phenomena associated with Globalization.

This book, and the world-systems approach, is an antidote to learning about the world by following "current events" in "the news" - the kind of approach taken, for instance, by people who were surprised by the onset of the current financial crisis.

"Part of the problem is that we have studied these phenomena in separate boxes to which we have given special names - politics, economics, the social structure, culture - without seeing that these boxes are constructs more of our imagination than of reality. The phenomena dealt with in these separate boxes are so closely intermeshed that each presumes the other, each affects the other, each is incomprehensible without taking into account the other boxes.
...
World-systems analysis meant first of all the substitution of a unit of analysis called the 'world-system' for the standard unit of analysis, which was the national state. On the whole, historians had been analyzing national histories, economists national economies, political scientists national political structures, and sociologists national societies. World-systems analysts raised a skeptical eyebrow, questioning whether any of these objects of study really existed... they substituted 'historical systems' [for these objects].
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[The] world-economy was said to be marked by an axial division of labor between core-like production processes and peripheral production processes, which resulted in an unequal exchange favoring those involved in core-like production processes. Since such processes tended to group together in particular countries, one could use a shorthand language by talking of core and peripheral zones" or of core, peripheral, and semiperipheral states depending on the types of production processes predominant in each particular state. Core processes are those which are relatively monopolized (oligopoly) and highly profitable (think aerospace and genetic engineering); peripheral processes are relatively free market and less profitable (think textile manufacturing). "When exchange occurs, competitive products are in a weak position and quasi-monopolized products are in a strong position. As a result, there is a constant flow of surplus-value from the producers of peripheral products to the producers of core-like products. This has been called unequal exchange.
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The strong states, which contain a disproportionate share of core-like processes, tend to emphasize their role of protecting the quasi-monopolies of the core-like processes. The very weak states, which contain a disproportionate share of peripheral production processes, are usually unable to do very much to affect the axial division of labor, and in effect are largely forced to accept the lot that has been given them. [] The semiperipheral states which have a relatively even mix of production processes find themselves ... [u]nder pressure from core states and putting pressure on peripheral states. ... These semiperipheral states are the ones that put forward most aggressively and most publicly so-called protectionist policies. ... They are eager recipients of the relocation of erstwhile leading products, which they define these days as achieving 'economic development.'"

Core states would be the G8, and the OECD countries; semiperipheral states would be "emerging markets" like the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries, and peripheral states would be those also called underdeveloped or "least developed countries." This is a much clearer and more useful perspective than that of looking at the world solely as what this or that particular nation is up to.

Do NOT buy the hard-copy. Amazon obscures the fact that the paperback is available, this is a very thin book, buy the paperbackWorld-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (A John Hope Franklin Center Book). I would have been furious had I bought the hard copy at the grotesquely inflated price for 100 pages at 1.5 line spacing.

The big eye-opener for me was that "World Systems" is NOT the same as Whole Systems. World Systems is entirely anthropomorphic and addresses the inter-relationships among forms of human organization, with the state and the marketplace/capitalism being the primary focus.

This is a 2004 work in its 5th printing, the author is a giant in his field that I am surprised to learn of so late (I am 57 years old with multiple graduate degrees), and therefore this overview is a most welcome work in my reading. The World Systems work originated in the 1970's concurrently with the Whole Systems work of Buckminster Fuller, the Meadows, and Robert Ackoff.

The heart of the book is found on page 88 after a very fine lead-up that explains the three competing human ideologies of conservativism, liberalism, and radicalism (anti-system).

QUOTE: "The key element of the debate is the degree to which any social system, in this case the future one we are constructing, will lean in one direction or the other on two long-standing central issues of social organization--liberty and equality--issues that are more closely intertwined than social though in the modern world-system has been willing to assert."

My notes from this rewarding read:

+ Science and philosophy did not part until the mid-18th century, they have been two cultures in conflict since then. See Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.

+ In the 19th century both split further (philosophy-humanities spinning off social sciences that remain moribund and unable to deal with a tough hybrid problem, "social reality"

+ The French Revolution spawned the social sciences in that it introduced the concept of public sovereignty, replacing "subjects" with "citizens," and creating a puzzle still not fully understood.

+ History has valued the scientific method, but tended to stay closer to the humanities. Who writes history matters--up to this point, history has generally been written within five Western nations, and tended to assume that indigenous tribes lack "history" which is erroneous.

+ Western approach to the non-western was to divide between "Orientalists" and anthropologists, the first studying China and "the East" while the second studied indigenous tribes in their CURRENT condition, assuming that nothing from their past was relevant. See 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus for the more righteous understanding.

+ The tendency of all "scholars" has been to study differences (the 20%) rather than generic commonalities (the 80%).

+ 1945 and the Cold War led to the 3rd world being a battleground (the author does not venture into "High Cabal" arena or the military-industrial complex) and also led to an explosion in higher education (GI Bill) and consequently a massive fragmentation of knowledge as area studies proliferated to meet the PhD need for "originality."

+ 1945-1970 saw four "debates"

---Core-periphery and dependency, the first focusing on the unequal trade between the Western core and the periphery nations, the second focusing on corporate predation. See Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations from the 1970's and more recently Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

---Marxist discussion of the Asiatic mode of production (neither communism nor capitalism)

---Transition from feudalism to capitalism (which is all consuming and NOT to be confused with a free and fair marketplace)

---"Total history," the Annales group in France, a holistic approach to anthropomorphism

INPORTANT: Structure of knowledge impacts on what you know, how you know

1968 was a revolution in human affairs, with student and labor and other protesters focused on university support of the status quo, the neglect of oppressed groups, and the need to break down barriers. See Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling.

The balance of the book is about world empires (state dominates) versus world economies (capitalism dominates), with three types of economics: reciprocal, redistributive (rich take from the poor and concentrate wealth), and market (theoretical)..

There is a good discussion of data and the need to FIND data, not just study the problems for which data is easily available.

QUOTE: "TimeSpaces are constantly constructed realities whose construction is part and parcel of the social reality we are analyzing."

Author defines capitalism as the system that gives priority to the ENDLESS ACCUMULATION of capital, and observes that the multiplicity of states and corporations is needed to give capitalists the wiggle room to secure advantage.

5 kinds of income: wage, subsistence, petty commodity, rent, transfer payments.

3 kinds of externalization of cost to society: toxicity, exhaustion of resources, transport cost (infrastructure funded by taxpayer but for the primary benefit of commerce)

Socializing instruments vital to the state: households, schools, and the armed forces

"Class struggle" is about the distribution of surplus value.

Politics of inclusion or exclusion has dominated for two centuries, driven by the conservative-liberal debate over whether people are inherently animal (bad) or human (good). While universal suffrage is the ideal, the use of race, sex, and ethnicity to exclude and subordinate is common.

INSIGHT: Use of military power is a sign of weakness that signifies the end of hegemony.

QUOTE: "Hegemony is crucial, repeated, and always relatively brief."

Geoculture is fought out across three fields: ideologies, radical anti-systemic movements (I would include gangs, terrorists, and drop-outs in this latter group), and the social sciences.

INSIGHT: Internal contradictions within hegemony, state, or corporation, will inevitably surface and cannot be denied. We must expect wild fluctuation in all things, for the internal contradictions of both state and corporations are just now beginning to bubble.

INSIGHT: The future of humanity will be fought on three battlefields, the intellectual, the moral, and the political. This is our challenge, we cannot opt out.

Among the many excellent works the author lists in his suggestions for further reading is The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History.

See also:
Critical Path
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

Immanuel Wallerstein is the recognized authority on World-Systems Analysis. In fact, to him is due most of the credit for the appearance of this relatively new and as of yet rather small school of thought in Political Science. This book does not contain any of the ground-breaking ideas and research that has earned him that reputation. It is not intended to be a scholarly work, as it has no thesis, proves nothing, and lacks supporting citations--in fact, omits almost altogether any discussion of related literature. It is, however, an excellent, albeit rather short introduction to the field for the laymen or scholar as of yet unfamiliar with its fundamental tenets; and it provides a solid, broad understanding of the theoretical basis for analyzing political phenomena in the context of systems that can be viewed as "worlds." Discussed herein are chiefly the themes of the historical development of scholarship--especially as it has given rise to the discipline of Political Science, fundamental principles upon which are based the nation-state system and the capitalist economy, and a brief description of the nature of and reasons for crisis in that system.

Immanuel Wallerstein is certainly one of the most revolutionary and influential social sciences thinkers alive today, so when he writes a very accessible and informative introduction to the general theory he and his colleagues developed, it is worth paying attention. This book introduces that theory, world-systems analysis (with hyphen!), and gives a quick overview of the historical worldview that underpins it. Despite the easy writing style, it may require some prior knowledge of and familiarity with historiography and political science - world-systems analysis is somewhat notorious for being at least as generous in inventing neologisms in the field as Marxism, so it's easy to get lost without having a firm footing in the terminology. Nonetheless, it is impressive how much information Wallerstein manages to pack in a readable manner into about 90 pages of actual text.

This introduction shows very well the benefits and the drawbacks of the world-systems approach. Wallerstein spends little time defending his theory, but only makes it explicit, which is helpful for keeping an easy overview. The great strength of world-systems analysis is precisely the capability to keep this overview: it is highly insightful and incisive as a tool for understanding international relations, international trade, economic cycles, and their relation to the broad outline of 'systemic' and 'antisystemic' politics roughly since the French Revolution. Possibly even more than Marxism, from which it is in some ways an offshoot, it deals in the grand overviews and the broad sweeps, and it has the virtue over much Marxist work until recently of being strongly embedded in the enormous expansion of economic history as a serious and critical discipline in the last couple decades. It is broadly 'Third Worldist' and anticapitalist in its orientation, and if I mention Marxism in this review more than the book actually does, it is because it consciously or unconsciously has set itself up as the main competitor in 'grand theory' on the anticapitalist social scientific scene. However, this is also where some of its flaws come in. Although as mentioned Wallerstein does not really defend his tenets in this book, and that may make attacking the premises somewhat unfair, the work clearly shows the inferiority of world-systems analysis on the topics of understanding collective action and understanding production and modes of production. Arghiri Emmanuel and others' lessons on international trade have been well taken by world-systems analysis, but in terms of 'hard' economic theory it lags far behind Marxist political economy. Wallerstein's completely incoherent household-based criticism of Marxist class theory in Chapter 2 proves this.

That said, much can be learned from the approach, in particular its highly fruitful use of the great advances in economic history since A.G. Frank, Braudel, Arrighi, Amin etc. An integration of this longue durée perspective with Marxist political economy seems to be the way forward for the social sciences.

This book is a coprenical revolution (after Nicolaus Copernicus) where it unveils both modern history and society in a clear manner, and it removes all of the ideological gibberish we have been fed in our schools. It tells us about capitalism as a system where the main goal is to acquire capital for the sake of capital. It tells us how this occurred system came into being and sheds deep insights into how such a system operates.

Excellent reading. Answers all the questions as to how and why we are at the point we are at. Still subjects are we.

If you are new to WS then start reading Marx and Political Theory by Richard Ashcraft a Professor at UCLA. It's a JSTOR article found in journal "Comparative Studies in Society and History," Vol. 26, No. 4. (Oct., 1984), pp. 637-671. Anyway, this book is typical Wallerstein. Having read everything he has written - the judgment is; he was born in 1930. Around the end of the 1970s he said that by 1990, the world would change forever, meaning it was his 60th birtday and he would become an emeritus at Yale, not have to teach and write books and spout daily newspaper articles. Now that he's 77 years old, well this book was written a few years back, and in hindsight, if you are able to drop out of sociology world system then do it. Any professor that is teaching this for a long time has to be a mental case. All the so called WS scholars do empirical testing on data that has no meaning or consequence to anything whatsoever. Stay away from world-systems. However, this book still gets four stars as it gives a decent overview. Note that there is no political economy in Wallerstein's version of the World System.

I am a skeptic of WSA, and this book did not persuade me to join the religion. Sorry, but I just don't get it.

The book is in good condition. The description of it by the seller was accurate. The quick delivery was what made this seller's service especially good and why I have given it 5 stars. Thank you!