Havens and Cages: Reinventing States and Households in the Modern World-System

In the work of Immanuel Wallerstein the concepts of modern world-system and capitalist world-economy are used interchangeably; they are alternative names for the historical system we are currently living in. In the substance of his work, however, Wallerstein has been more concerned with capitalism than modernity. At one level this is unimportant because, if they are indeed ‘two sides of the same coin,’ understanding one must enhance inevitably our knowledge of the other. But, of course, it is never as simple asthat. When we choose to think of our contemporary world as either capitalist or modern, we take on board a different social theoretical baggage. It was this train of thought which led me to ask “what’s modern about the modern world-system?” (Taylor, 1996a) and this essay is part of a continuing project (Taylor, 1996b; 1999) to link Wallerstein’s (1984: chapter 3) ‘institutional vortex’ to Marshall Berman’s (1982: Introduction) ‘modern maelstrom.’