Continuities and Transformations in the Evolution of World-Systems

* Article / chapter: Continuities and Transformations in the Evolution of World-Systems. Christopher Chase-Dunn. In: Globalistics and Globalization Studies 2013, pp. 36–55

URL = http://www.sociostudies.org/books/files/globalistics_and_globalization_studies_2/036-055.pdf

"I employ three different time horizons in the discussion of continuities and transformations: 1. 50,000 years; 2. 5,000 years; 3. 500 years."

Contextual Quote

"The main idea is that sociocultural evolution can only be explained if polities are seen to have been in important interaction with each other since the Paleolithic Age. Hall and Chase-Dunn (2006) propose a general model of the continuing causes of the evolution of complexity, technology and hierarchy within polities and in linked systems of polities (world-systems). This is called the iteration model and it is driven by population pressures interacting with environmental degradation and interpolity confl ict. This iteration model depicts basic causal forces that were operating in the Stone Age and that continue to operate in the contemporary global system."

- Christopher Chase-Dunn [1]

Abstract

"This paper discusses continuities and transformations of systemic logics and modes of accumulation in world historical evolutionary perspective and the prospects for systemic transformation in the next several decades. It also considers the meaning of the recent global fi nancial meltdown by comparing it with earlier debt crises and periods of collapse. Has this been just another debt crisis like the ones that have periodically occurred over the past 200 years, or is it part of the end of capitalism and the transformation to a new and different logic of social reproduction? I consider the contemporary network of global counter-movements and progressive national regimes that are seeking to transform the capitalist world-system into a more humane, sustainable and egalitarian civilization and how the current crisis is affecting the network of antisystemic movements and regimes, including the Pink Tide populist regimes in Latin America and the anti-austerity movements. I describe how the New Global Left is similar to, and different from, earlier global lefts. The point is to develop a comparative and evolutionary framework that can discern what is really new about the current global situation and that can inform collectively rational responses."