The constant gardener
Immanuel Wallerstein
Nancy Cook,
McMaster University
Immanuel Wallerstein is one of the most distinguished and influential professors of
sociology in the world today. Born on 28 September 1930, he received his PhD in 1959
from Columbia University. Since then he has taught sociology at Columbia and McGill
universities, and most recently holds the directorship of the Fernand Braudel Centre
for the Study of Economics, Historical Systems and Civilizations at Binghamton
University, State University of New York.
In his book The Modern World-System (1974), Wallerstein
makes his most significant contribution to both sociology and globalization studies
in the form of World-Systems theory. Unlike most other Marxist historical work that
is concerned with analysing the development of capitalist economic inequalities,
World-Systems theory does not concentrate on the relations between social classes or
between the state and workers. Rather, it focuses on a large, borderless economic
entity called the World-System. This ever-changing system is characterized by an
unjust division of labour that produces unequal exchange relations between different
geographical areas of the world. The World-System, then, is not maintained through
consensual agreement, but rather through social forces that are in constant
conflict, threatening to collapse the system.
Wallerstein argues that the modern capitalist world-economy is the current type of
World-System. Rather than relying on political domination as did an earlier form of
the system, this one operates on the basis of economic exploitation through an
unjust global division of labour. The World-System comprises three main geographical
areas: core, periphery, and semi-periphery. The core is the geographical region that
dominates the world economy. It exploits the peripheral region, which provides raw
materials and cheaply produced commodities to the core, while being forced to import
expensive finished products from the core region. The semi-periphery is the
remaining areas that are simultaneously exploited by the core and exploiting of the
periphery.
As the World-System gradually expands across the global, it exerts a pressure on
individual nations to become part of the world economy. Nations remain independent
as states, as long as they integrate themselves into the "interstate" system.
Otherwise they risk being taken over by states already incorporated into that
political system. Once states become part of the World-System, they must employ
various strategies, including the cultural denigration of "others," to protect their
economies from outside influence.
Wallerstein argues that the capitalist world-economy has skewed economic development
and increased social disparities between economic regions. Consequently, it needs to
be the focus of global anti-system movements such as the World Social Forum and
World Trade Organization protests in order to provide prosperity for everyone. This
social justice agenda has resonated most strongly in the Third World due to its
challenge to unequal development opportunities across nations.
A second of Wallerstein's key contributions to sociological and globalization
research is methodological. He has played a vital role in reviving
theoretically-informed historical research both within and outside his discipline.
Many social scientists have turned away from the painstaking historical,
interdisciplinary, and theory-driven work that was undertaken by the early pioneers
of sociology. But Wallerstein has advocated that scholars re-develop a wide range of
holistic, historically-oriented knowledge that integrates insights from economics,
history, political science, and anthropology so they are better able to analyze and
theorize large-scale social change over long periods of time.
World-Systems theory is not without its critics. Many Marxists have criticized its
failure to emphasize relations between social classes. To them the key issue is not
the core-periphery division of labour, but rather class relations within given
societies. As a mediating position, some scholars have suggested that core-periphery
relations are not only unequal exchange relations, but also global class relations
that denote power-dependence relationships.
Other critics have noted the Eurocentric nature of Wallerstein's work. By positing
that a world-system emerged 500 years ago in Europe, he envisions Europe as the
privileged site of global development, and attributes to the "West" a historical
destiny (i.e., continual advances in science, technology, industrialism), which it
bequeaths to the "Rest." In contrast, critics argue that a global world-system is
5000 years old, meaning that it is pre-modern, pre-European, and not distinctly
capitalist. Due to its Eurocentrism, Wallerstein's theory is sometimes understood as
part of the global system of power and material interests of which he is critical.
Suggested Readings:
Bergesen, Albert. 1984. The critique of World-System theory: Class relations or division of labour? In
Sociological Theory — 1984.
ed. Randal Collins,
365-72. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974.
The modern world system: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. New York:
Academic Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1980.
The modern world-system II: Mercantilism and the consolidation of the European world-economy, 1600-1750. New York:
Academic Press.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1989.
The modern world-system III: The second era of great expansion of the capitalist world economy, 1730-1840. New York:
Academic Press.