Seeing Africa in “World-Systems Theory” by Immanuel Wallerstein

Immanuel Wallerstein

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Emanuel Wallerstein is an American sociologist and economic historian known for proposing and establishing “world systems theory,” which views world history and society as a whole as a “single system” from a macroscopic perspective.

What is World Systems Theory?

Viewing world history and society as a whole as a “single system”

World History System Theory views world history and society as a whole as a “single system.

Until now, history has been considered separately according to time periods and regions, but Wallerstein states that the problems that occur around the world and the characteristics of the way the world moves through time can be summarized in a single system.

Regardless of region or era, the modern world operates according to this world systems theory.

It is a global division of labor consisting of three levels: core, semi-periphery, and periphery, where the periphery is directly or indirectly controlled by the core, and its autonomous development is inhibited.

In world systems theory, there is a global division of labor, which can be divided into three types of roles.

Modern society is one structure, which was established in the long 16th century with Western Europe as the “core” and Eastern Europe and Latin America as the “periphery. The “semi-periphery,” as the Iberian Peninsula and other areas are defined, plays an intermediate role between the two.

【In 16th century】

• Western Europe was the “core”

• The Iberian Peninsula and other areas were the “semi-periphery”

• Eastern Europe and Latin America are the “periphery”

The “core” receives much of the economic surplus of the entire system, while the “periphery” is at the opposite end of the spectrum and is economically exploited.

The division of labor here includes not merely the functional division of labor, that is, with respect to occupations, but also the geographical division of labor. Economic roles are not homogeneous throughout the world system.

One reason for this geographic unevenness is made up of the fact that ecological conditions differ from region to region.

A more significant reason, however, is that each region has established its own unique organization of social labor.

In other words, the organization is created to strengthen and justify the ability of certain groups within the system to exploit the labor of others, that is, to expand their share of surplus receipts, and these differences lead to regional differences in economic roles!

The more this system, a grand division of labor, unfolds, the more development and industrialization progresses in the core, while the periphery is conversely forced to specialize in the production of cheap raw materials and food, leading to underdevelopment.

In the core, “free” wage labor becomes the mainstay and the sovereign state is strengthened, while in the In the latter, some form of forced labor, such as slavery or serfdom, becomes common.

The state apparatus melts down and becomes a colonial or semi-colonial state. Since the essence of this system is world capitalism, the essential character of capital, what Marx called its “insatiable desire for self-aggrandizement,” will be evident there.

As a result, this system will engulf the various outer edges of the earth from then on, and by the beginning of the 20th century, it will engulf almost the entire earth.

Changing Positions in Historical World System Theory

The regions covered by “core,” “semi-periphery,” and “periphery” change over time.

As Wallerstein states, one of the reasons for the economic disparity among regions caused by the modern world system is the fact that the capitalist division of labor system of “core,” “semi-periphery,” and “periphery” is not established in a specific region, but is established across regions on the world stage.

In other words, the core changes from Europe to the U.S. to China as time goes by.

When you look at Africa’s economic exploitation by the U.S. from European domination and now being caught in a debt hell by China, you can see that the position of this core is changing.

What is even more interesting is that China, which is now beginning to take on the nature of a core, was “peripheral” in the past. When Japan lost the Sino-Japanese War, it is clear that Japan was the “core” and China was the “periphery.

Thus, a region has three periods: “the period when it was an outgrowth,” “the period of incorporation,” and “the period of marginalization.

While “incorporation” refers to “locking” the region in question into the global economic sphere of influence, from which it can no longer escape, “peripheralization” is the deepening of capitalist development, including constant changes in the mini-structure of this region.

By “incorporation,” we mean that some important production process in a region becomes an integral part of the commodity chain that constitutes the division of labor system of the capitalist world economy.

And when firms in a given region begin to become linked to the world economy, large-scale integration becomes essential.

Conclusion and Problem Statement

What happens when the number of core regions increases from neighboring countries, when there are no more targets for exploitation outside of Africa?

Will the end of global capitalism come when there are no more regions to incorporate and no more targets to exploit?

In other articles, I will explain more about world systems theory and Africa in more detail.