New World Slavery in the Capitalist World Economy

Capitalist World ◽

Historical Capitalism ◽

Modern Era ◽

Over Time

This chapter explores, first, how New World slavery and other forms of coerced labour appear in the volume organized by Larry Neal, The Cambridge History of Capitalism, published in 2014. The second half of the chapter offers a brief alternative interpretation of the history of slavery in the Americas as a constitutive part of historical capitalism. In this way, it tackles a central problem in The Cambridge History of Capitalism: its static representation of slavery, which, abstracted from the broader world structures of which it was part, appears as a single immutable institution throughout the modern era. The main goal of the article is to emphasize, first, how slavery changed over time and, second, how it was part of the total ensemble of global relations that formed the capitalist world economy between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. It is a history of slavery in capitalism.

Commodity frontiers and the transformation of the global countryside: a research agenda

Journal of Global History ◽

10.1017/s1740022820000455 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Sven Beckert ◽

Ulbe Bosma ◽

Mindi Schneider ◽

Eric Vanhaute

Keyword(s):

World Economy ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Modern World ◽

Global History ◽

History Of Capitalism ◽

The Past ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Abstract Over the past 600 years, commodity frontiers – processes and sites of the incorporation of resources into the expanding capitalist world economy – have absorbed ever more land, ever more labour and ever more natural assets. In this paper, we claim that studying the global history of capitalism through the lens of commodity frontiers and using commodity regimes as an analytical framework is crucial to understanding the origins and nature of capitalism, and thus the modern world. We argue that commodity frontiers identify capitalism as a process rooted in a profound restructuring of the countryside and nature. They connect processes of extraction and exchange with degradation, adaptation and resistance in rural peripheries. To account for the enormous variety of actors and places involved in this history is a critical challenge in the social sciences, and one to which global history can contribute crucial insights.

Mapping Transformation of Nineteenth-Century Chinese Cities within China’s Incorporation Process

Comparative Sociology ◽

10.1163/15691330-12341509 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 18 (5-6) ◽

pp. 822-848

Author(s):

Sung Hee Ru

Keyword(s):

19Th Century ◽

World Economy ◽

Port City ◽

Port Cities ◽

Chinese Cities ◽

Spatial Changes ◽

Capitalist World ◽

Historical Capitalism ◽

The 19Th Century

Abstract During the 19th century, China’s socioeconomic geography experienced unprecedented spatial changes. Through these spatial transformations, which were caused by the penetration of western capitalism, Chinese cities morphed into epicenters of international trade between Western powers and China. By examining the major transformations having taken place in 19th century Chinese cities, the author investigates unexplained or neglected transformations in three areas: (1) the decline of interdependent inland cities connected by waterways; (2) the simultaneous rise of independent port cities under the influence of the capitalist world-economy; and (3) the forging of port city–hinterland relationships in connection with the capitalist world-economy. It helps to understand the role that port cities have played in the development of China’s historical capitalism.

THE FUTURE OF W. WARREN WAGAR

Journal of World-Systems Research ◽

10.5195/jwsr.1996.70 ◽

1996 ◽

pp. 94-102

Author(s):

Stephen K. Sanderson

Keyword(s):

System Theory ◽

World Economy ◽

World System ◽

Short History ◽

World System Theory ◽

The World ◽

The Future ◽

History Of ◽

In his fascinat ing book "A Short History of the Future," published in 1992, W. Warren Wagar lays out a futuristic vision of the world over the next two hundred years that draws extensively on Inunanuel Wallerstein' s world-system theory. In the year 2001 began the last of the great Kondratieff upswings of the capitalist world-economy. That economy had come to be increasingly dominated by a few giant corporations, so that by 2015 12 "megacorps" had assumed control of the world-economy and thegovernments of the major capitalist powers. The Kondratieff upswing ran its course by the early 2030s and then a devastating worldwide depression set in, the lowest point of which was reached in 2043.

The Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of the Capitalist World-Economy

International Journal of Comparative Sociology ◽

10.1177/002071528302400107 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 24 (1-2) ◽

pp. 100-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

I. Wallerstein

Keyword(s):

World Economy ◽

History Of ◽

Asian Capital in the Age of European Domination: The Rise of the Bazaar, 1800–1914

Modern Asian Studies ◽

10.1017/s0026749x00013986 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 449-554 ◽

Cited By ~ 57

Author(s):

Rajat Kanta Ray

Keyword(s):

World Economy ◽

Rudyard Kipling ◽

Long Distance ◽

The West ◽

European Origin ◽

History Of ◽

Capitalist World ◽

East And West ◽

The Individual

There was a time when the economic confrontation between East and West was perceived as a confrontation between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,’—thus wrote J. H. Boeke, quoting Rudyard Kipling with warm approval. The notion has since been undermined by deeper explorations into the history of the Chinese and Indian merchant bankers, and the Jews of the Islamic world. Over large parts of Java, with which Boeke was most familiar, there was indeed a sharp contrast between the local communal economy and the sophisticated capitalism of the Dutch colonists. It appeared an inevitable process of history that the Dutch corporations should subjugate the petty Javanese communities of princes, peasants and pedlars. It was also taken for granted that the phenomenon was general and that European gesellschaft did not confront and conquer such petty gemeinschaften in Java alone. But when the individual studies of the Chinese, Indian and Islamic—Jewish long-distance trade and credit networks are seen in over-all perspective, the impression that emerges is one of confrontation, at the higher level, between two gesellschaften: one of European origin, the other Eastern. Nor does it appear to be the sort of outright collision that simply resulted in the latter being broken up and relegated to a corner. The idea nevertheless persists that the ‘bazaar economy’ of the East was a debased, fragmented and marginal sector absorbed and peripheralized within the capitalist world economy of the West.

Preparing to Understand Feminism in the Twenty-First Century: Global Social Change, Women's Work, and Women's Movements

Journal of World-Systems Research ◽

10.5195/jwsr.1998.155 ◽

1998 ◽

pp. 96-111 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Torry Dickinson

Keyword(s):

World Economy ◽

Women's Work ◽

Women's Movements ◽

First Century ◽

Wage Labor ◽

Work Relations ◽

Women’S Work ◽

History Of ◽

The history of women's non-wage work, women's wage labor, and contemporary women's movements can be understood with greater clarity if studies of "globalization", feminism, and the capitalist world-economy are examined in relationship to each other. Today many women's movements clearly reflect, respond to, and attempt to shape changes in wage (employer-organized) and non-wage (labor-organized) work relations. This paper is a conceptual, theoretical and historical exploration of how scholars, who study inter-related global areas, can prepare to do research on women's work and women's movements that will contribute to the development of "globalization", feminist, and world-economy scholarship.

The Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of the Capitalist World-Economy

Comparative Sociology ◽

10.1163/156854283x00071 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 100-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Immanuel Wallerstein

Keyword(s):

World Economy ◽

History Of ◽

Coal's Persistence in the Capitalist World-Economy

Sociology of Development ◽

10.1525/sod.2020.6.2.194 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 194-221 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paul K. Gellert ◽

Paul S. Ciccantell

Keyword(s):

World Economy ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

Energy Transition ◽

Ecological Modernization ◽

World Systems ◽

Coal Consumption ◽

The World ◽

Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by teleological assumptions. The key assumption that a complete energy “transition” will occur leads some to conceive of a renewable-energy-dominated twenty-first century led by China. After critiquing the teleological assumptions of modernization, ecological modernization, energetics, and even world-systems analysis of energy “transition,” this paper offers a world-systems perspective on the “raw” materialism of coal. Examining the material characteristics of coal and the unequal structure of the world-economy, the paper uses long-term data from governmental and private sources to reveal the lack of transition as new sources of energy are added. The increases in coal consumption in China and India as they have ascended in the capitalist world-economy have more than offset the leveling-off and decline in some core nations. A true global peak and decline (let alone full substitution) in energy generally and coal specifically has never happened. The future need not repeat the past, but technical, policy, and movement approaches will not get far without addressing the structural imperatives of capitalist growth and the uneven power structures and processes of long-term change of the world-system.