ReOrient
* Book: ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills.
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The global system is not 500 years old, but 5,000, and European hegemony is but a blip in this Asian-centric evolution. See also: ReOrienting the 19th Century.
Introduction
Sing C. Chew:
"ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age questioned (theoretically and historically) the manner we have interpreted long-term social change, and especially, our common understanding of the timing of the rise of the European domination of the world economy/system (the 1500 divide), and therefore, the specific region that was the dominant power of the world system at the particular historical conjuncture. ReOrienting the 19th Century further buttressed this line of argument that the periodization of European dominance, as has been commonly accepted, needed even further revisions. With these two volumes, Frank not only challenged the contemporary understanding (theoretically and historically) of the making of the "modem" world, but as well, the writings of his colleagues (such as Wallerstein, Arrighi, Amin, etc.) in world-systems analysis, and even his own contributions to world-systems analysis prior to the early 1990s. Following Frank's typical critical iconoclastic stance, even Fernand Braudel was not spared (Frank 1994; Chew and Lauderdale 2010). Despite Gunder's numerous pleas, not too many in world-systems analysis pursued his demand for reorientation theoretically and historically in the rethinking of world history."
Contextual Quote
"Frank's RGEA and RI 9C propose that we consider seriously analyzing the trading patterns and networks in terms of volumes of trade flows at the world system level in order to understand the course of world development, and to distinguish the economic and financial trends according to the different regions of the world economy. Because of his demand that everything has to be considered at the world level, bilateral trading flows do not capture the socioeconomic historical reality of what really happened in world history. A historical multilateral trading pattern analysis would be more precise in determining the relative dominance of the world system, and therefore, in socioeconomic and political terms, the real hegemonic region of the world system that is not ideologically derived and mythically reinforced."
- Sing C. Chew [1]
Discussion
Dropping the concept of Capitalism in World-Systems Analysis ?
"Bergesen's going forward plan recommends dropping the concept of capitalism as a mode of production underlining the world-economy when dealing with the post-1500s global changes, and to realize the theoretical utility of his "world-system based globology approach." He joins Gunder Frank (1991) in dismissing the utility of the capitalist mode of production framework in understanding and explaining long-term change. Bergesen's argument, based on an ontological understanding of what is capitalism by definition, is rather straightforward. Because world-systems theory's level of analysis is the world economy or world economy, and the capitalist mode of production theoretically belongs to the national level defined by worker-owner social relations guaranteed by a national state, "capitalism, as a mode of production, remains a societal/national entity"; he suggests that there is an issue in terms of translation-utilizing a concept that is based at the national level and employing it at the global level, though as he has correctly suggests, it has not prevented Lenin and Hobson from doing so. This "theoretical error" of Lenin and Hobson that starts from national accumulation, and then leads to the export of capital for further accumulation ( exemplified by imperialism as the final stage of capitalism) on the world scale has to be dropped, according to Bergesen, if we intend to undertake a world-system level analysis.?
...
Whereas Bergesen utilizes ontological and epistemological assertions to dismiss the world-system as having a capitalist mode of production in the post-1500 era, Frank's ( 1991) dismissal of using capitalism as a mode of production to understand the evolution of the world system is based mostly on his fervent insistence that the only "correct" route to understand long-term change or system transition is a world systemic analysis based on history and theory. In Frank's case, his declaration that feudalism, capitalism, and socialism are transitional ideological modes that has put blinders on our eyes, and thus has prevented us from really understanding and explaining the course of world history, is based on an examination of the historical processes of global history, and whether the characteristics of capitalism existed prior to 1500-hence, his 'continuity thesis.' Frank's rejection was historically based, and not derived from ontological and epistemological shifts of the sort Bergesen has proposed for world-system theory after Frank. "
More information
- " in 1995, a core group of scholars from various disciplines, including Frank, convened in Lund (Sweden) to discuss the evolution of the world system/world-systems (Denemark et al. 2000). The product of the discussions was to engage and write world system history along a trans-disciplinary approach. It is best summed up by the title of the first volume of the group's collective research: World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change." [2]