Session 16: Immanuel Wallerstein: Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System

Immanuel Wallerstein echoing Marxists provides a well organized step by step historical development of the World Capitalist system. Like Marxism, he also predicts the ‘future demise’ of the system. This demise for Wallerstein to some extent is inevitable due to the two inherent contradictions in this world system. 

Wallerstein’s historical analysis of the development of this World Economy is fascinating.The rise and decline of mercantilism, the process of decolonization and the establishment of a stable structure of the world economy which includes the core, semi-periphery and periphery, played a vital role in the development of this particular system. 

Mercantilist interests developed during the first wave of colonization. When empires were interested in reaping as much raw materials as they could from a countries, mercantilism thrived. However, as industrialization gained momentum, a new sense of economics developed, this modern phenomenon was capitalism. Capitalism required new markets thus a need for decolonization. What I find particularly interesting about decolonization is, how the emergence of this world system may have had far more impact on the independence of colonies than the mass uprisings within these colonies. For example, the American Revolution although to an extent played a vital role in gaining independence from the British however it seems as if Britain itself did not put up a major fight due to it’s own economic interests which coincided with the rise of Capitalism. 

Wallerstein’s structure of the world economy is known as the World System theory and it has had a huge impact on International Relations. The breakup of the system into three regions; the core, semi-periphery and the periphery shows how deeply economics controls relations between states. The core is made up states which are technologically advanced, Wallerstein in his paper gives the example of Britain in the 17th century which was known as the ‘workshop of the world’. The core provides the periphery and the semi periphery with high priced manufactured products and to manufacture these products it extracts raw materials at low cost from the peripheral regions. The semi-periphery plays a mixed role, by performing the functions of the core as well as the periphery. Many argue that this theory does not take into account other ideological concerns of the states which play a role in their relationship with one another.

Another interesting notion by Wallerstein was the rise of the urban proletariat could be seen as an anti-capitalist. This class makes up the trade unions and socialist parties which stand in opposition to this particular system. Recently, the Occupy Movement could be seen as the ‘anti-capitalist mass spirit’ to a degree. Thus the demise of the World capitalist system can be atributed to this as well as the two contradictions identified by Wallerstein.