Key Points

Box 7.4. Criticisms of World-System Theory

Wallerstein's world-system theory has provoked a storm of controversy. Some critics have focused on the theory itself whilst others have questioned how well Wallerstein's interpretations match up to the historical record.

Critics of world-system theory as theory have concentrated on several central assumptions.

Is Wallerstein's definition of capitalism correct? Wallerstein locates his definition of capitalism in the sphere of exchange. He argues that the prime character­istic of capitalism is the appropriation of the profit from exchange by selling goods at a higher price than they were purchased.

However for Marxists, the production process is the locus of capitalism. For them, capitalism is a particular mode of production in which production is controlled by a class of owners and managers, and in which labour is brought and sold like any other commodity leading to class conflict between the capitalists and workers. According to this view, profit is generated through an exploitative relationship whereby the labourers do not receive the full value of the goods they produce.

Is this issue of definition important? Writers such as Brenner suggest that it is (1977). Brenner argues that production for exchange has been a feature of many societies that are generally regarded as pre-capitalist, which, by implication, makes a nonsense of Wallerstein's use of the term. Furthermore, for Marxists, it is the ana­lysis of that production process which provides an under­standing of the dynamism, the contradictions, and the crises of capitalism.

Is Wallerstein's analysis deterministic? Wallerstein's work is certainly open to the charge that his analysis is deterministic because of his view that the various ele­ments within the world system—ethnic groups, classes, sovereign states, households, etc.—are a product of that system, and that their behaviour is determined by their position within it. He certainly suggests that actors have very little, if any, room for autonomous action. This posi­tion has come under strong attack, especially from those who argue that states can and do have a significant amount of autonomy whose importance should not be underestimated.

The charge of determinism may be correct in its essence, even if it does not do full justice to Wallerstein's position. For example, he accepts that state initiatives have permitted certain countries to move from one zone of the world-economy to another e.g. Japan. However, this is within very specific constraints and, as Wallerstein has pointed out, the same policies followed by another state may not lead to the same results. Additionally, dur­ing the transition between one system and another, Wallerstein is well aware that the structures weaken allowing much more room for autonomy. Even so, rather than attempt to defend Wallerstein against charges of determinism as if this were a major weakness, it may be more valuable for students of world politics to consider whether he is actually right. Do state leaders really have many real choices when it comes to policy-making? Aren't their options ultimately very constrained and isn't the source of these constraints the structure of the world-system? The example of the Arbenz government in Guatemala outlined in Box 7.5 graphically demonstrates what happens to those who try to exercise other options.

Is Wallerstein's work teleological? To accuse an analysis of teleology is to suggest that it imputes a particular mean­ing or purpose to events. I n the case of Wallerstein, it is also to suggest that he projects back from the contemporary condition of the world-system, and interprets all past events solely in terms of their contribution to a historical process which he views as having had one possible out­come. The problems with this are twofold. The first is that it implies too much coherence to history; the second is that he succumbs to the fallacy that things could only have 'turned out' in a certain way thus ignoring a myriad other possibilities. Thus, according to one critic, 'Wallerstein's decisions about history were made before he began ... on the basis of his theory' (Chirot 1982: 562).

This last point leads us to another set of criticisms which suggest that when viewed independently of the distorting lenses of Wallerstein's theory, the historical evi­dence actually undermines a number of his work's cen­tral propositions.

Has Wallerstein exaggerated the level of trade in his description of the early modern world-economy? P. O'Brien has argued that the levels of trade in the six­teenth century are much lower than implied by Wallerstein. He estimates that less than 1% of Europe's output was sold to Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the slave states of America, and that only a very low proportion of consumption by Europeans comprised imports from these areas (1984: 53). This crit­icism raises the question of whether it is possible to talk about a world-economy in the sixteenth century. Without significant levels of trade there can be no divi­sion of labour between different zones, a central part of Wallerstein's theory.

Is the semi-periphery a useful concept? Wallerstein's views on the semi-periphery have led to considerable criticism. Contrary to his argument that the semi-periph­ery provides a zone of political stability between the core and the periphery, it has been argued that it represents a particularly unstable zone from where any threat to the stability of the world-system is likely to emanate. Witness, for example, the tensions in the Middle East.

It has also been suggested that there is little evidence that the semi-periphery provides a site for capital to escape from pressures for higher wages in the core. However, the behaviour of multinational companies make it difficult to sustain this view.