1 Overview

The Modern World System

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 2 The Emergence of the World System
• The world system is the result of the increasing interdependence of
cultures and ecosystems that were once relatively isolated by distance
and boundaries.
• Of particular significance to the development of the world system was
the European Age of Discovery, wherein the European sphere of
influence began to be exported far beyond its physical boundaries by
means of conquest and trade.

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 3
Influence of the Capitalist World
Economy
• The defining attribute of capitalism is economic orientation to the
world market for profit.
• Colonial plantation systems led to monocrop production in areas that
once had diverse subsistence bases (beginning in the seventeenth
century).
• Colonial commodities production was oriented toward the European
market.

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 4 Wallerstein’s World System Theory
• Wallerstein has argued that international trade has led to the creation of
a capitalist world economy in which a social system based on wealth
and power differentials extends beyond individual states.
• The world system is arranged according to influence: core (most
dominant), to semi-periphery, to periphery (least dominant).
– The core consists of the strongest and most powerful nations in which
technologically advanced, capital-intensive products are produced and
exported to the semiperiphery and the periphery.
– The semiperiphery consists of industrialized Third World nations that lack
the power and economic dominance of the core nations (Brazil is a
semiperiphery nation).
– The periphery consists of nations whose economic activities are less
mechanized and are primarily concerned with exporting raw materials and
agricultural goods to the core and semiperiphery.

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 5 Causes of the Industrial Revolution.
• The Industrial Revolution transformed Europe from a domestic (home
handicraft) system to a capitalist industrial system.
• Industrialization initially produced goods that were already widely
used and in great demand (cotton products, iron, and pottery).
• Manufacturing shifted from homes to factories where production was
large scale and cheap.
• Industrialization fueled a new kind of urban growth in which factories
clustered together in regions where coal and labor were cheap.

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 6 England and France
• The Industrial Revolution began in England but not in France.
• The French did not have to transform their domestic manufacturing
system in order to increase production because it could draw on a
larger labor force.
• England, however, was already operating at maximum production so
that in order to increase yields innovation was necessary.
• Weber argued that the pervasiveness of Protestant beliefs in values
contributed to the spread and success of industrialization in England,
while Catholicism inhibited industrialization in France.

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 7 Industrial Stratification
• Although initially, industrialization in England raised the overall
standard of living, factory owners soon began to recruit cheap labor
from among the poorest populations.
• Marx saw this trend as an expression of a fundamental capitalist
opposition: the bourgeoisie (capitalists) versus the proletariat
(propertyless workers).
• According to Marx, the bourgeoisie owned the means of production
and promoted industrialization to maintain their position, consequently
intensifying the dispossession of the workers (a process called
proletarianization).
• Weber argued that Marx’s model was oversimplified and developed a
model with three main factors contributing to socioeconomic
stratification: wealth, power, and prestige (see previous chapter).

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 8

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 9 Industrial Stratification (cont.)
• Class consciousness (Marx) is the recognition of a commonalty of
interest and identification with the other members of one’s economic
stratum.
• With considerable modification, it is recognized that a combination of
the Marxian and Weberian models may be used to describe the modern
capitalist world.
• The distinction, core-semiperiphery-periphery, is used to describe a
worldwide division of labor and capital ownership, but it is pointed out
that the growing middle class and the existence of peripheries within
core nations complicate the issue beyond the vision of Marx or Weber.

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 10

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 11

• A core nation is a wealthy, industrialized nation that controls and

benefits from the global economy. Core nations have complex
infrastructures, strong governments, cosmopolitan cities, and diverse
economies. They control the global market and use it to their
advantage by exploiting periphery nations for their cheap labor and
natural resources. They also have strong militaries and international
partnerships. Core countries include the United States, Canada, the
United Kingdom, much of Western and Northern Europe, Australia,
and Japan.

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 12

• A periphery nation is a low-income nation that depends on and is

exploited by wealthier nations. Periphery nations have little global
power. They have weak, decentralized governments, poor
infrastructure, and low education levels. Periphery nations often
depend on a single industry or export to support their economies and
have large rural populations. Periphery nations include much of sub-
Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and some nations in Central and
South America.

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 13

• A semiperiphery nation exhibits characteristics of both core and

periphery nations. These nations are generally industrializing and
could be elevated to core nation status with development.
Semiperiphery nations include China, India, Mexico, Brazil, South
Africa, and Israel.

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 14 Poverty on the Periphery
• With the expansion of capitalism into the periphery, most of the local
landowners have been displaced from their land by large landowners
who in turn hired the displaced people at low wages to work the land
they once owned.
• Bangladesh is a good example of this in which British colonialism
increased stratification, as only a few landowners own most of the
land.

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 15 Malaysian Factory Women
• To combat rural poverty, the Malaysian government has encouraged
large international companies to set up labor-intensive manufacturing
operations in rural Malaysia.
• Factory life contrasts sharply with the traditional customs of the rural
Malaysians.
• Aihwa Ong has studied the effect of work in Japanese electronics
factories on Malaysian women employees.
• Severe contrasts between the work conditions and the culture of the
women generate alienation, which results in stress.

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 16 Malaysian Factory Women (cont.)
• This stress has been manifested as possession by weretigers, which
expresses the workers’ resistance, but has as yet effected little change
in the overall situation.
• Ong argues that spirit possession is a form of rebellion and resistance
that enable factory women to avoid direct confrontation with the
source of their distress.
• Spirit possessions were not very effective at bringing about
improvements in the factory conditions, and actually they may help
maintain the current conditions by operating as a safety valve for
stress.

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 17 Open and Closed Class Systems
• Formalized inequalities have taken many forms, such as caste, slavery,
and class systems.
• Caste systems are closed, hereditary systems of stratification that are
often dictated by religion (the Hindu caste systems of the Indian
subcontinent are given as an example).
• South African apartheid is given as comparable to a caste system, in
that it was ascriptive and closed through law.
• State sanctioned slavery, wherein humans are treated as property, is the
most extreme form of legalized inequality.
• Vertical mobility refers to the upward or downward change in a
person's status.
– Vertical mobility exists only in open class systems.
– Open class systems are more commonly found in modern states than in
archaic states.

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 18 The World System Today
• World system theory argues that the present-day interconnectedness of
the world has generated a global culture, wherein the trends of
complementarity and specialization are being manifested at an
international level.
• The modern world system is the product of European imperialism and
colonialism.
– Imperialism refers to a policy of extending rule of a nation or empire over
foreign nations and of taking and holding foreign colonies.
– Colonialism refers to the political, social, economic, and cultural
domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an
extended period of time.
• The spread of industrialization and overconsumption has taken place
from the core to the periphery.

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 19 The American Periphery
• Thomas Collins compared two counties at opposite ends of Tennessee,
both of which used to have economies dominated by agriculture and
timber, but now have few employment opportunities.
• The population in Hill County in eastern Tennessee is mostly white
and opposes labor unions, which has attracted some Japanese
companies to the county.
• The population in Delta County in western Tennessee is mostly black
and strongly supports labor unions, which has deterred companies
from setting up factories in the county.

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 20 Industrial Degradation
• The Industrial Revolution greatly accelerated the encompassment of
the world by states, all but eliminating all previous cultural
adaptations.
• Expansion of the world system is often accompanied by genocide,
ethnocide, and ecocide.

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 21 Overview

Colonialism and Development

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 22 Imperialism
• Imperialism refers to a policy of extending rule of a nation or empire
over foreign nations and of taking and holding foreign colonies.
• Colonialism refers to the political, social, economic, and cultural
domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an
extended period of time.
• Imperialism is as old as the state.
• Modern colonialism began with the Age of Discovery during which
European nations founded colonies throughout the New World.

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 23 British Colonialism
• The search for resources and new markets to increase profits fueled
British colonialism.
• The first phase of British colonialism was concentrated in the New
World, west Africa, and India and came to a close with the American
Revolution.
• During the second period of colonialism, Britain eventually controlled
most of India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and large portions of
eastern and southern Africa.
• British colonial efforts were justified by what Kipling called “white
man’s burden,” which asserted that native peoples were not capable of
governing themselves and needed the white British colonialist to
provide and maintain order.

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 24 French Colonialism
• French colonialism was driven more by the state, the church , and the
military, rather than by business interests.
• The first phase of French colonial efforts was focused in Canada, the
Louisiana Territory, the Caribbean, and west Africa.
• During the second phase of French colonialism (1870 to World War
II), the empire grew to include most of north Africa and Indochina.
• The ideological legitimization for French colonialism was mission
civilisatrice (similar to “white man’s burden”): to spread French
culture, language, and religion throughout the colonies.
• The French used two forms of colonial rule.
– Indirect rule refers to the French practice of governing through native
political structures and leaders.
– Direct rule refers to the French practice of imposing new governments
upon native populations.

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 25 Colonialism and Identity
• Ethnic and political distinctions around the world were severely
disrupted by colonialism.
• For example, many of the modern political boundaries in west Africa
are based on linguistic, political, and economic contrasts that are the
result of European colonial policies in the region.

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 26 Postcolonial Studies
• Postcolonial studies refers to research that targets the interactions
between European nations and the societies they colonized.
– The term has also been used to refer to the second half of the 20th century.
– The term may also be used to signify a position against imperialism and
Eurocentrism.
• The postcolonies can be divided into settler, nonsettler, and mixed.
– Settler postcolonies include countries that are dominated by European
settlers with only sparse native populations (e.g., Australia).
– Nonsettler postcolonies are characterized by large native populations and
only a small number of Europeans (e.g., India).
– Mixed postcolonies refer to countries with both sizable native and
European populations (e.g., South Africa and Kenya).

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 27 Development
• An intervention philosophy is an ideological justification for
interference in the lives of natives, based upon the assumption that one
is in possession of a superior way of doing or thinking.
– British Empire – white man's burden.
– French Empire – mission civilisatrice.
– Economic development plans – industrialization, modernization,
westernization, and individualism are desirable evolutionary advances that
will bring long-term benefits to natives.

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 28 Problems
• Problems Associated with Narrowly Focused Intervention and
Development.
• Situations construed as problems resulting from an indigenous lifestyle
may in fact be a result of the world system’s impact on that lifestyle.
• The systemic effects of development projects may actually be harmful
(e.g., tax and rent increases in response to raised income).
• Narrowly focused experts are not as likely to be aware of the broad-
spectrum implications of development schemes.

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 29 The Brazilian Sisal Scheme
• In the 1950s, Brazil’s government attempted to introduce sisal as a
cash crop into the subsistence economy of the sertão.
• Development increased dependence on the world economy, ruined the
local subsistence economy, and worsened local health and income
distribution.
• Sisal and Child labor
– http://www.globalmarch.org/cl-around-the-world/copy-sweat-
toil95/brazil-sisal.php3

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 30 The Greening of Java
• Worldwide, the green revolution has increased food supplies and
reduced food prices.
• However, the emphasis on front capital and advanced technological
and chemical farming allowed the bureaucratic and economic elites of
Java to strengthen their positions at the expense of poorer farmers.
• Ann Stoler’s analysis of the green revolution’s impact on Java
suggested that it differentially affected such things as gender
stratification, depending on class.

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 31 Equity
• A commonly stated goal of development projects is increased equity,
which means a reduction in poverty and a more even distribution of
wealth.
• This goal is frequently thwarted by local elites acting to preserve or
enhance their positions.

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 32 The Third World Talks Back
• Applied anthropologists have been criticized for ethnocentrism in their
own approaches to development (see the reference to Guillermo
Batalla).
– Too much focus on multiple and micro-causes while ignoring major social
inequalities.
– Early projects were too psychologically oriented.
– Too much focus on technological diffusion as the primary source of
change.
• Other critics have pointed out associations between anthropologists
and certain government agencies.

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 33 Strategies for Innovation
• Kottak describes his comparative analysis of sixty-eight development
projects, wherein he determined that culturally compatible economic
development projects were twice as successful financially as the
incompatible ones.
• Overinnovation refers to development projects that require major
changes on behalf of the target community
– Projects that are guilty of overinnovation are generally not successful.
– To avoid overinnovation, development projects need to be sensitive to the
traditional culture and concerns of daily life in the target community.

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 34 Underdifferentiation
• Underdifferentiation is the tendency to overlook cultural diversity and
view less-developed countries as alike.
• Many development projects incorrectly assume that the nuclear family
is the basic unit of production and land ownership.
• Many development projects also incorrectly assume that cooperatives
based on models from the former Eastern bloc will be readily
incorporated by rural communities.

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 35 Third World Models
• The best models for economic development are to be found in the
target communities.
• Realistic development promotes change, not overinnovation, by
preserving local systems while making them work better.
• The Malagasy example shows attention paid to local social forms
(descent organization) and environmental conditions (e.g., taking
livestock from strains adapted to a similar environment).

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