The Capitalist World-Economy

In The Capitalist World-Economy Immanuel Wallerstein focuses on the two central conflicts of capitalism, bourgeois versus proletarian and core versus periphery, in an attempt to describe both the cyclical rhythms and the secular transformations of capitalism, conceived as a singular world-system. The essays include discussions of the relationship of class and ethnonational consciousness, clarification of the meaning of transition from feudalism to capitalism, the utility of the concept of the semi peripheral state, and the relationship of socialist states to the capitalist world-economy. This book is the first in a three volume collection of Wallerstein’s essays. The Politics of World-Economy (1984) elaborates on the role of states, the antisystemic movements and the civilizational project. Geopolitics and Geoculture (1991) analyses both the events leading up to the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and the subsequent process of perestroika in the light of Wallerstein’s own interpretations, and the ways in which the renewed concern with culture is a product of the changing world-system.

Some reflections on history, the social sciences, and politics; Acknowledgments; Part I. The Inequalities of Core and Periphery: 1. The rise and future demise of the world capitalist system: concepts for comparative analysis; 2. Three paths of national development in sixteenth-century Europe; 3. The present state of the debate on world inequality; 4. Dependence in an interdependent world: the limited possibilities of transformation within the capitalist world-economy; 5. Semiperipheral countries and the contemporary world crisis; 6. The rural economy in modern world society; 7. Modernization: requiescat in pace; 8. From feudalism to capitalism: transition or transitions?; 9. A world-system perspective on the social sciences; Part II. The Inequalities of Class, Race and Ethnicity: 10. Social conflict in post-independence Black Africa: the concepts of race and status group reconsidered; 11. The two modes of ethnic consciousness: Soviet Central Asia in transition; 12. Class and class conflict in contemporary Africa; 13. American slavery and the capitalist world-economy; 14. Class formation in the capitalist world-economy; Part III. Political Strategies: 15. Old problems and new syntheses: the relation of revolutionary ideas and practices; 16. Fanon and the revolutionary class; 17. An historical perspective on the emergence of the new international order: economic, political, cultural aspects; Concluding essay; 18. Class conflict in the capitalist world-economy; Index.

‘The thesis is argued vigorously and with considerable sophistication and will help sharpen perceptions of an important dimension of the structure of world economic relationships which informs much of the demand for a new international economic order.’ International Affairs

‘The Capitalist World-Economy deserves to be read carefully, critically, and intelligently.’ Journal of Economic Issues