Devolution processes and the theory of historical development by S. Sanderson

2021 ◽  
pp. 72-77
Author(s):  
A.V. Verkhoturov ◽  
◽  
A.A. Obukhov
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
World System ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Evolutionary Trend ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
American Historian ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein ◽  
Main Ideas

Analyzed is one of the most comprehensive modern approaches to the problem of the existence of evolution of human society as such and of specific human communities, i.e. “General Theory of Historical Development” by American historian and sociologist Stephen Sanderson. While agreeing, in general, with its main ideas, we believe that it is important to note that the issue of existence of individual communities demonstrating devolution (regression to an earlier historical state), stagnation or degeneration at certain historical stages is practically ignored in the framework of the theory under consideration. This creates its vulnerability in the face of specific empirical data, indicating a deviation from the evolutionary trend. We believe that overcoming this theoretical difficulty is possible in the process of comprehending the theory of S. Sanderson in the context of ideas of the world-system approach of Immanuel Wallerstein. We want to show that examples of devolution, stagnation and degeneration of societies do not deny general progressive evolutionary tendencies, characteristic for the world-system as a whole, but only indicate the transition of a particular society to a lower level within the world-system (from the core to the semi-periphery, or from the semi-periphery to the periphery).

World-System Theory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Chase-Dunn ◽  
Marilyn Grell-Brisk
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Latin American ◽  
World System ◽  
World Market ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
System Perspective ◽  
The Core ◽  
The World ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein

The world-system perspective emerged during the world revolution of 1968 when social scientists contemplated the meaning of Latin American dependency theory for Africa. Immanuel Wallerstein, Terence Hopkins, Samir Amin, Andre Gunder Frank, and Giovanni Arrighi developed slightly different versions of the world-system perspective in interaction with each other. The big idea was that the global system had a stratified structure on inequality based on institutionalized exploitation. This implied that the whole system was the proper unit of analysis, not national societies, and that development and underdevelopment had been structured by global power relations for centuries. The modern world-system is a self-contained entity based on a geographically differentiated division of labor and bound together by a world market. In Wallerstein’s version capitalism had become predominant in Europe and its peripheries in the long 16th century and had expanded and deepened in waves. The core states were able to concentrate the most profitable economic activities and they exploited the semi-peripheral and peripheral regions by means of colonialism and the emergent international division of labor, which relies on unequal exchange. The world-system analysts all focused on global inequalities, but their terminologies were somewhat different. Amin and Frank talked about center and periphery. Wallerstein proposed a three-tiered structure with an intermediate semiperiphery between the core and the periphery, and he used the term core to suggest a multicentric region containing a group of states rather than the term center, which implies a hierarchy with a single peak. When the world-system perspective emerged, the focus on the non-core (periphery and semiperiphery) was called Third Worldism. Current terminology refers to the Global North (the core) and the Global South (periphery and semiperiphery).

Two Paths of Agrarian Capitalism, or a Critique of Chayanovian Marxism

1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
World System ◽  
The State ◽  
Structural Function ◽  
Subsistence Agriculture ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
The Core ◽  
Cheap Labour ◽  
The World ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein

In the ideology of “dependency” and the “world system” the preservation of a comprador bourgeoisie highly dependent on its control of the state apparatus perpetuates the condition of underdevelopment to the benefit not only of that class but also of the world capitalist system, and obviously to the detriment of the remainder of the population of poor countries (Wallerstein 1984). According to these theories, the condition of dependency is sustained also by the perpetuation of petty-commodity production and other precapitalist relationships. In his enumeration of the implications of accumulation in “socially and sectorally disarticulated economies” (that is, third world countries), Alain de Janvry, who places himself, with some reservations, in the world-system school, states that “subsistence agriculture becomes the ultimate embodiment of the contradictions of accumulation in the disarticulated economies; … the peasant household constitutes an articulated-dominated purveyor of cheap labour and cheap food [even though] subsistence agriculture slowly disintegrates under this domination as it performs its essential structural function under disarticulated accumulation” (1981:39). For Immanuel Wallerstein, the state-class relationship and the persistence of pettycommodity production are both features of the “peripheral condition” and explain why it is so difficult (though not absolutely impossible) in his schema for countries to graduate from his periphery and semiperiphery to the core of advanced economies. The argument runs as follows: in its expansion across the globe the capitalist world economy creates social structures and state structures that fit the needs of the core economies by establishing a ruling class in control of the state and holding monopoly power within the national economy.

Out of the Ordinary

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
William H. Durham
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Human Impact ◽  
Native Species ◽  
World System ◽  
The Core ◽  
Local Perturbations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Marine Iguanas ◽  
El Niño Events

Galápagos stands out for its vast collection of extreme life: the world’s only tropical albatross, its only flightless cormorants, and its marine iguanas; three colorful species of boobies; and 15 species of giant tortoises, one on each major volcano, except for one especially large volcano that has two. Each of these organisms has evolved adaptations to the unique rigors of life in an isolated archipelago on the equator. As Galápagos has recently grown ever more connected to the world system, many species’ adaptations have become vulnerabilities in the face of human-induced change. Fortunately, long before people arrived, evolution also endowed native species with forms of resilience to local perturbations like El Niño events and periodic droughts. The eight case studies in this book highlight these vulnerabilities and resiliences and argue that the mismatch between them, stemming from human impact, is the core conservation challenge today.

NEW INSPIRATION FROM CHINA'S PHILOSOPHY OF "UNITY OF MAN AND HEAVEN": CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS UNDER THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
PU JINGXIN
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
New Type ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The Ancient Chinese ◽  
Self Protection ◽  
Harmonious Community

Abstract: The danger of the novel coronavirus has not yet come to an end, and new variants have begun to attack the world. What philosophy should humankind’s strategy be based on when human society as a group is fighting against Covid-19, as the pandemic ravages the world? Unfortunately, political leaders of various countries have failed to achieve the overall awareness of attacking the pandemic for a shared future for mankind so far. In the face of the pandemic, mankind as a whole urgently needs to break through the narrow nation-oriented ideology of seeking only self-protection. The International Community should establish a new type of international cooperation featuring the concept of harmony of "all things under heaven as a unity". The international relations system dominated by the power ofwestern discourse is now in a bottleneck. The main aim of this article is to study the ancient Chinese wisdom of "the Unity of Man and Heaven" philosophy and build a global harmonious community. The author argues that the “export” of the aforementioned wisdom must be a priority for Chinese scholars. Keywords: Tao; Unity of Man and Heaven; Novel Coronavirus; Anthropocentrism; Harmony.

Notes from the Editors, November 2019

2019 ◽  
pp. c2-64
Author(s):  
The Editors
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
World Economy ◽  
World System ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
The World ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein

buy this issue Immanuel Wallerstein, the celebrated world-systems theorist and longtime contributor to Monthly Review and Monthly Review Press, died on August 31, 2019. Wallerstein first achieved international fame with the publication in 1974 of his The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (the first in a four-volume masterwork on the Modern World-System. We pay tribute to Wallerstein in this new issue of Monthly Review.

Culture in the World-System: An Interview with Immanuel Wallerstein

2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anand Kumar ◽  
Frank Welz
Keyword(s):  
World System ◽  
The World ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein

scholarly journals The world-system of academic capitalism: Process of consolidation of the entrepeneurial university

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
World System ◽  
Academic Capitalism ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Academic Communities ◽  
The World ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
New Policies ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein ◽  
The University

The goal of this article is to analyze two institutional contexts in which academic communities develop their educational activities: the enterprising university and academic capitalism. The methodology of analysis of Higher Education institutions in the world system uses the model developed by the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein. This analysis focuses on three dimensions: the "consolidation of the world-economy of the academic capitalism" (the transformation of higher education as a commodity), the "de-capitalization of the public university" (the new policies of quasi-market and of financing associated with the "entrepreneurial university") and "geoculture of the system-world of the academic capitalism," linked to the society of the knowledge, managerial ideologies, and intellectual entrepreneurship, but also to counter-hegemonic ideologies that supports the autonomy of the university as a pre-condition for social development.

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