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"World-System Theory's (WST) basic assumptions have remained largely unchanged since their initial formulation in the mid-l970s (Wallerstein 1974). The world-economy is based upon the capitalist mode of production, whose operation yielded a division of labor between wealthier core countries and poorer peripheral ones, such that the advancement of the core is at the expense of the periphery. A middle zone is also added, the semi-periphery, theorized to be a blended mix of core and peripheral activities. The core-periphery relation is the key structural feature initially theorized to have emerged in the 16thcentury out of a crisis in feudal European agriculture, which then expanded over the centuries to incorporate the rest of the world into its three-tiered structure. By the mid-19th century, with the incorporation of East Asia, the system became truly global. This set of assumptions has in turn given rise to two research traditions: one seeking earlier historical origins of core-periphery inter-societal structures and the other utilizing multivariate statistical models to study dependency effects. There have also been critiques of WST theory, including those by A.G. Frank, whom I would like to focus upon, not just because he identifies limits, contradictions, and shortcomings of the standard WST model, but because he also provides rudiments of an alternative model of how the world economy produces inequality in the wealth of nations. The focus here, therefore, will be upon theoretical implications derived from Frank's last manuscript, assembled after his death by Bob Denemark as the book, ReOrienting the 19th Century: Global Economy in the Continuing Asian Age (2014)."

(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282390813_World-System_Theory_after_Andre_Gunder_Frank)

World-System Theory after Andre Gunder Frank

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