World-system theory of I. Wallerstein

The world-systems approach is similar to the civilizational one, but goes a little further, exploring not only the evolution of social systems that embrace one civilization, but also those systems that embrace more than one civilization or even all the civilizations of the world. This approach was developed in the 1970s. A. G. Frank, I. Wallerstein, S. Amin, J. Arrighi and T. dos Santos. F. Braudel is usually considered as the most important predecessor of the world-system approach, who laid its foundations.

The most common version of world-system analysis was developed by I. Wallerstein.

According to I. Wallerstein, the modern world-system originated in the so-called. "long 16th century" (approximately 1450-1650) and gradually embraced the whole world. Until this time, many world systems coexisted in the world at the same time. Wallerstein divides these world-systems into three types: mini-systems, world-economies and world-empires.

Minisystems were characteristic of primitive societies.

Complex agrarian societies are characterized by world-economies and world-empires. World-economies are systems of societies united by close economic ties, acting as specific evolving units, but not united into a single political entity.

According to Wallerstein, all pre-capitalist world-economies sooner or later turned into world-empires through their political unification under the rule of a single state. The only exception to this rule is the medieval European world-economy, which turned not into a world-empire, but into a modern capitalist world-system.

The main work of I. Wallerstein is the multi-volume Modern World-System

The main concept of the concept developed by Wallerstein is the world-economy - a system of international relations based on trade. In addition to world-economies, different countries can unite into world-empires, based not on economic, but on political unity. He views history as the development of various regional world-systems (world-economies and world-empires), which competed with each other for a long time, until the European (capitalist) world-economy became absolutely dominant.

According to Wallerstein's concept, capitalism initially developed as an integral system of world relations, the individual elements of which were national economies.

Capitalism was born, according to Wallerstein, in the 16th century, when, due to a fortuitous combination of circumstances in Western Europe, world-empires gave way to a world-economy based on trade. The capitalist world-economy gave rise to the colonial expansion of Western European countries, by the 19th century. it suppressed all other world-economies and world-empires, remaining the only modern world-system.

The capitalist world-economy is characterized by an “axial division of labor” - division into a core (center) and periphery.

The countries of European civilization, which form the core of the world economy, play the role of the leading force in world economic development. Non-European countries (with some exceptions) form the periphery, i.e. are economically and politically dependent.

The backwardness of the countries of the periphery is explained, according to Wallerstein, by the deliberate policy of the core countries - they impose on the subordinate countries such an economic specialization that preserves the leadership of the developed countries. Although developed countries promote the ideology of "free trade", Wallerstein considers capitalism to be a deeply anti-market system, since the core countries monopolize their privileged position and defend it with force. However, in the 20th century. The line between the core and the periphery began to be partially erased due to the active attempts of previously backward countries (for example, Japan) to break into the circle of active participants in the world economy.

In addition to the antagonistic relationship between the core and the periphery, another core of the evolution of the capitalist world-economy is the struggle between the countries of the core. The role of hegemon in world trade was successively played by Holland (17th century), Great Britain (19th century) and the USA (20th century); the gaps between periods of hegemony were filled with economic and political confrontation between the economically strongest powers (the Anglo-French wars of the 18th century, the First and Second World Wars in the 20th century). According to Wallerstein, in the modern era, America is losing its status as an absolute leader: “The United States is still the strongest power in the world,” he writes, “but it is a fading power.”

Unipolarity, bipolarity and multipolarity in history and in the modern era.

Today, relations between the United States and Europe - these two major centers of power around which the world order is built - are becoming increasingly tense. The United States and Europe have completely different visions of how a market economy and society should be managed, how the greatest public goods can be achieved and preserved.

The United States is positioning itself as a global superpower, believing after the demonstration of force in Afghanistan that from now on there are and should be no obstacles to the implementation of American will. The belief in the special destiny of America, which should serve as a global beacon of freedom and unlimited opportunity, became the main principle of the George W. Bush administration. Such a one-sided approach to the processes of globalization is disastrous even if the United States were a model of all economic, social and moral virtues. It is based on the superiority of brute force, demanding that everyone else submit to American interests, values and ways of thinking.

W. Hutton believes that if the rest of humanity does not resist the trends of globalization in its American conservative version, then in the near future the world may become unipolar. The United States will put forward its strategic objectives and seek their solution unilaterally when it deems it necessary.

The only real force capable of resisting American hegemony may be a united Europe. The European Union's commitment to the ideas of a social contract, as well as the universal accessibility of social services, can become a guide for the rest of humanity. Moreover, the EU itself provides an example of a forum in which European states can iron out their differences, evaluate each other's policies and develop common positions on economic, social and defense policies.

While there is no America that is necessary to achieve a sustainable global world order, the main initiative must be taken by the European Union. By being a proponent of hard liberalism rather than soft liberalism—a liberalism that upholds the principle of universal justice as the central condition for individual fulfillment and is willing to take tough action to implement its principles—the EU can provide an example to the best representatives of American liberalism and help them rediscover themselves.

Two countries – Great Britain and Russia – will have to make their choice regarding two possible paths of globalization.

Although Britain likes to boast that it combines the best of America and Europe, in reality it has an economic model that reproduces the worst tendencies of American capitalism and does not deliver convincing benefits. The British are faced with the task of creating their own socio-economic model under the patronage of the increasingly politically powerful European Union.

As for Russia, it makes sense for it to set itself the goal of creating socio-economic institutions and procedures similar to those existing in Europe. If Russia had done this from the very beginning of democratic and market reforms, rather than focusing on America, the reforms would have been less painful, and the future would have been brighter.

An American sociologist of Russian origin, professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi, Georgy Derlugyan, spoke at the site of the Dmitry Pozharsky University (Russian Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Science). He read a report dedicated to the publication of the Russian translation of Immanuel Wallerstein’s work “The World-System of Modernity.” Derlugian told how Wallerstein saved him from the secret police in Mozambique, how the author of the Modern World System was almost appointed US Secretary of State, and why sociology will inevitably die out in the 21st century. Lenta.ru recorded the main points of his speech.

“Most American sociologists have hardly read Marx.”

As an Armenian, I have always advocated the purity of the Russian language and wrote “world system”, but today I accept the version of the translators who translated world-system as “world-system”. I even agree with “modernity,” although Wallerstein always avoided the word modernity and was against the theory of modernization. In addition, he wondered whether in Russian adjectives should be coordinated with “world” or “system”, and then he finally said “world”.

I have been reading “The Modern World System” all my adult life, since 1980, when it evoked much more admiration than understanding. I continued to do this in the 90s as a graduate student with Wallerstein. Now I re-read the book in Russian and realized how little I understood about it before and to what extent the author anticipated a huge number of areas of science. On the other hand, his work is not even yesterday in science, but the day before yesterday, which is what he is famous for. It was written at the height of the 60s, and then the last time in fashion was what art critics called “grand style.”

Wallerstein is not taught in the West. People ask me all the time: “What’s fashionable there?” It is fashionable for us to calculate, to the tenth of a percent, to what extent American schools are unfair to African Americans or why New York homeless people do not take pills that are prescribed for free. Specific issues are popular. The vast majority of American sociologists last read Max Weber (German sociologist, philosopher, historian, political economist - approx. "Tapes.ru") in the first year of graduate school, Marx was barely read at all, and Wallerstein is mentioned in survey courses as a “paradigm changer.” By the way, many are surprised that he is still alive.

The cutting edge of modern sociology has long stopped asking the questions Wallerstein poses. Today, laboratory experiments on students, computer games for money, when subjects are given dollars, and absolutely unrealistic tasks, are popular.

This is the dimension of a stopped world, it is eternal. This is exactly what the latest book we wrote with Wallerstein, Michael Mann, Randall Collins and Craig Calhoun, Is There a Future for Capitalism, is about. It was translated into 17 languages, but not a single review appeared in English. No one even knows where to apply our work; these kinds of questions are simply not asked anymore (but they will soon begin to ask them - sometimes “the day before yesterday” returns).

Hide and Seek with Grandpa Wallerstein

Once Randall Collins came to visit me, or rather, there was Caucasian hospitality: we dragged him to visit. He is a very prim, proper Anglo-Saxon, sitting at the table, eating Armenian food. They mentioned Wallerstein, and then my 10-year-old son said: “Oh, Grandpa Wallerstein! He and I played hide and seek in his office. He has so many bookcases there!” Collins put down his fork and said very seriously: “I wonder how I would feel if my son was playing hide and seek with Max Weber?”

Then I put my fork down. On the one hand, I owe everything to Wallerstein - as you know, I am his faithful nuker. Back in 1987, he saved me in Mozambique, pulling me out of the clutches of the local counterintelligence - the National Service of People's Vigilance, then Colonel Sergio Vieira intended to hand me over to the Soviet embassy for unauthorized contact with the Americans. Wallerstein told him: “Sergio, stop your antics. Do you want to talk like an intellectual with an intellectual? Sit down, I’ll pour you a beer.”

On the other hand, I went through many trials because of Wallerstein. People knowledgeable in the academic environment said: “Try not to mention this name and the fact that you ever knew him. You will be healthier, and your career will go well. Try to do something normal like everyone else, count something - like single mothers in Philadelphia."

That evening I asked Collins, “Are you for real? Seriously?" Collins’ response was in his typical style: “It’s not our generation to judge. Who knew Weber during his lifetime? But throughout the twentieth century, the questions posed by Weber were the main agenda of both empirical and theoretical research, although he, with his Protestant ethics, was simply empirically wrong.

Recently I defeated Vakhshtain (Viktor Vakhshtain - Candidate of Sociological Sciences, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Moscow Higher School of Social Sciences and Social Sciences - approx. "Tapes.ru") and his students are horrified, explaining that Weber can be refuted: what about all the other merchants who are not Protestants? But this does not cancel Weber, and in the same way nothing cancels Wallerstein, although 20 years ago he said that the chapter on Russia in the World System should be rewritten.

“There were rumors that Wallerstein would become US Secretary of State”

How was the “Modern World System” created? A brilliant idea was born, it was necessary to stick flesh on this skeleton, and Wallerstein quickly and quickly sculpted it. He managed to write the first volume of the work in eight months, while he was in exile. As Sima Qian said, the greatest works are written by historians in disgrace, and Wallerstein was in disgrace. He was on an upward trajectory for the first forty years of his life, the "golden child" of Manhattan, part of the American establishment, the youngest professor at Columbia University.

In the early 60s, he became an adviser to the Kennedy administration. There were rumors that Wallerstein was about to become US Secretary of State, but this post was taken by his colleague, Henry Kissinger. Wallerstein, fortunately for science, fell out of the picture in 1968. He dropped out of Columbia University, lost his apartment in New York, moved to Canada, and wrote the first volume of The World System to show his opponents that modernization theory did not work. For the same reasons he attacked Marxism. Wallerstein made enemies from absolutely all sides.

Photo: Bruno de Mon / Roger Viollet / East News

The only person who praised him was no less, Fernand Braudel (a famous French historian who revolutionized historical science with his proposal to take into account economic and geographical factors when analyzing the historical process - approx. "Tapes.ru"), which in his declining years has already become a monument to himself. In the third volume of the epic of his life, he wrote that the young American sociologist came up with the “World-System” - well done! He was the only one who immediately recognized Wallerstein, so it is very difficult to say who is the successor of whose work. It is usually written that Wallerstein is the successor of Braudel’s work, but Braudel recognized him as an equal.

Since then, the author of the “Modern World System” has been terribly out of fashion, in all areas. It is very difficult to argue with him; it is not clear what to apply his research to. He attacked three large areas at once. The world-system is not modernization, not formation, and not civilization.

Not civilization

In Braudel's “Mediterranean world,” two civilizations confront each other: Islam and Christianity. All work is aimed at showing these two civilizations as parts of one world. It shows two groups of barbarians (or what became of them by the 16th century) vying for the inheritance of the Roman Empire from the east and west.

But a world-system is not a civilization; very little works through the civilizational approach in world-system analysis, and Wallerstein has separate works on what civilization is. These are modern claims on the past. Then people did not know that they were a civilization; they understood that they had their own king, their own gods, their own way of preparing food. We create nationalistic constructs in relation to the past - they say, “our ancestors are there,” and Wallerstein wrote about this in the early 70s, much earlier than the criticism of the constructivists.

Not modernization

Modernization refers to individual societies, like carriages pulled by a steam locomotive along one time scale. Uganda today is, for example, at the level of England in 1824.

There have been empirical works devoted to how to measure this diversity, using what social and economic indicators. How to show that Uganda is 1824 in England and India is 1885? Who is approaching? According to the theory of modernization, everyone follows one track, but then complications began to arise, and experts asked themselves the question: maybe there are several tracks? Maybe multiple modernity is happening?

Wallerstein proposed a very simple way out - we need not a time scale, but space. At its center is the core, around it are various peripheral and semi-peripheral orbits. Regarding the latter, I have my own debate: can the orbits be eccentric, for example oval, and is Russia in such an orbit? Wallerstein said to me: “You know enough about Portugal to answer this question.” Such comparisons can be very productive. For example, the Ottoman, Portuguese and Russian empires are empires on the peripheries of the capitalist center.

Not a formation

From the point of view of Marxists, world-system analysis is a heresy, they say, where are the methods of production? Everything is based on market circulation. In this sense, the founder of world-system analysis was Adam Smith (Scottish economist, one of the founders of modern economic theory - approx. "Tapes.ru"). As a classicist, Smith has it all, including the regret that the Europeans took advantage of the “power differential” - everything that they could not buy, but seize by force, they seized. This was written in the mid-18th century, long before machine guns and gunboats. He complained about what the Spaniards, Portuguese and Dutch had already done - Smith considered this a perversion of the market mechanism.

Terence Hopkins, a close friend and student of Wallerstein, to whom the first volume of The Modern World-System is dedicated, said that the intellectual pedigree of world-system analysis goes from Adam Smith to Marx. This is a theory of conflict, not cooperation, it is a theory of domination. Then she goes to Schumpeter and, perhaps, to Gramsci - but to him not as a theorist of culture, but as a theorist of hegemony, and further to Braudel.

In addition, the world-system is not a formation, because in it there is no primacy not just of the worker, but of any class (moreover, there are classes themselves). The dispute with the Weberians about status groups, parties or classes is removed. Wallerstein, by taking a step back and seeing the entire system, removes a huge amount of controversy altogether.

Firstly, people poured their souls into these disputes, secondly, they invested their titles, academic ranks, their positions into them, and then some Wallerstein comes along and, casually, destroys or clarifies entire areas of debate. What to do after this? You can either be terribly offended, or say that nothing happened, and this, in fact, is what is observed so far. But the simple logic of science will continue to operate. Wallerstein beautifully wrote in a new preface 36 years later that some critics “are no longer there, and those are far away.”

World-systems analysis is not Marxism. Previously, there were large-scale debates about the Demidov factories and Russian manufactories of the 18th century. They said that since these were manufactories, the industry in the country was growing. Does this mean that Russia in the 18th century also had capitalism? But they are serfs, so this means feudalism?

Wallerstein connected the Demidov factories with plantation slavery in Barbados and Jamaica and said that these are exactly the same thing, these are not methods of production, but ways of controlling labor. The question was dropped. What's left of Marxism? At a minimum, the idea that there is class conflict and domination.

Two ways of extinction

Let me end with one more funny anecdote that definitely needs to be told. Perhaps this is the meaning of my life - to remember the great sayings of Immanuel Wallerstein, long forgotten by himself.

At the end of the 90s, conferences in the spirit of “Something in the 21st century” were popular: “History in the 21st century”, “Sociology in the 21st century”, “World in the 21st century”. So, another sociological conference is underway. A feminist sociologist comes out and says: the 21st century will be the era of gender research. A cliometrician emerges: everything will become cliometrics and a mathematical model. An old Marxist comes out: “We will return to the idea of imperialism!”

Wallerstein comes out and says: “Ladies and gentlemen, there will be no sociology in the 21st century. Sorry, the subject of our conference is formulated incorrectly. Sociology will inevitably die out, just as botany once died out. Before the Second World War there were departments of botany, but today I don’t know of any, except that some remain in conservative academies. This does not mean that no one studies plants anymore, but that they have become part of the broader discipline of biology. The same threatens us.

Frame: Youtube video / Hamatext

There are two ways of extinction: shameful and honorable. Shameful way: we are grinding to the point that we will create a department for the study of Mexican women emigrants, and then we will be closed down during the next budget cut (and the reduction will be sure). It is not your intellectual debate that will bury you, it will be your downsizing that will bury you, because you cannot stand alone.

There is a method of honorable extinction. Among sociologists there are economic sociologists, historical sociologists, cultural sociologists, there are disciplines that study economics and anthropology. Let's capture them all! Let's create one unified science of studying society from a historical perspective. This is also a way of extinction - as a result, there will be no sociology left, but at least a very large science will remain, and one can even hope that it will be more interesting.” This is what he forgot, but we can only remember.

World-system analysis is one of the approaches to the periodization of human history along with formational, civilizational, modernization and neo-evolutionism.

Formational The approach assumes that humanity, as it develops, goes through several successive stages (formations) - primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist.

Civilization approach developed by D. Vico, N. Ya. Danilevsky,

O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, considers the historical process as a system of conditionally distinguished civilizations, going through the same phases from birth to death. According to one of the common classifications of civilizations, there are: 1) local civilizations, each of which has its own set of interconnected social institutions, including the state (ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Indus, Aegean, etc.); 2) special civilizations (Indian, Chinese, Western European, Eastern European, Islamic, etc.) with corresponding types of states; 3) modern civilization with its own statehood, which is currently just emerging and which is characterized by the coexistence of traditional and modern socio-political structures. A. Toynbee identified 21 civilizations - Egyptian, Chinese, Western, Orthodox, Arab, Mexican, Iranian, Syrian, Orthodox Christian in Russia, etc.

Modernization The approach examines the internal development factors of any given country based on the assumption that “traditional” countries can be involved in development in the same way as more developed ones.

W. Rostow, when identifying the phases of development of society according to production methods, proposed taking into account the following economic criteria - technical and technological innovations, rates of economic growth, transformation of the structure of production, etc. In accordance with this, W. Rostow identifies five stages of development of society:

1) traditional society is an agrarian society with imperfect technology and simple technologies, the presence of classes and the power of large landowners;
2) transitional society - at this stage, entrepreneurial activity arises, national self-awareness increases, and centralized states are formed;
3) the “shift” stage, accompanied by industrial revolutions and, as a consequence, major political, social and economic changes;
4) the stage of “maturity”, which arose as a result of the development of scientific and technological progress and the rapid growth of cities;
5) the era of “high mass consumption”, characterized by a significant growth in the service sector, the transformation of the production of consumer goods into the main sector of the economy.

World-systems analysis was developed in the 1970s. A. G. Frank, I. Wallerstein, S. Amin, J. Arrighi and T. dos Santas, etc. F. Braudel is usually considered as the most important predecessor of the world-system approach. He introduced the concept world-economy (l "economiemonde). As F. Braudel noted, in contrast to the world economy, which by definition coincides with the whole world, the world-economy is a self-sufficient economic entity, which is only part of the world, striving to spread to the entire space.

In contrast to previous sociological approaches, in which theories of social evolution examined the development primarily of individual societies, the world-system approach consists of studying the social evolution of the entire society. The world-system approach, in contrast to the civilizational approach, considers not only the evolution of individual social systems of one civilization, but also systems that include all civilizations of the world.

The most common version of world-system analysis was developed by I. Wallerstein (Fig. 8.11). His main contribution to the development of social sciences was the development of an original theory of world systems. The world-system theory he developed synthesizes sociological, historical, economic and geopolitical approaches to social evolution. Wallerstein analyzes the evolution of the capitalist world-economy in the 19th and 20th centuries. and even makes forecasts for the 21st century. In accordance with the world-system approach, the level of development of each country is the result of general development processes of the entire world-system.

Rice. 8.11.

World-system – this is a global social system with its borders, structures, elements, rules of legitimation and hierarchy; it has a certain “life” duration, during which some of its properties change, while others remain stable. The processes of functioning of the world-system as a material and economic entity are self-sustaining on the basis of a wide functional and geographical division of labor, cultural diversity, etc., and the dynamics of its development are predominantly intra-system in nature.

Global world-system is a relatively independent integrity with spatiotemporal boundaries. According to I. Wallerstein, in the process of historical development there were three types of systems:

1) mini systems, characteristic of the primitive communal system, corresponding to the concepts of clan or tribe. They are short-lived - the life span of only a few generations of people - local elements of the world-system no longer exist;
2) world-empires (world-empire ), consist of several local cultures annexed by conquest (for example, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Russia during the era of serfdom, or the Ottoman Empire). World-empires are characterized by the predominance of agricultural production, the presence of a developed military-bureaucratic ruling class, and a redistributive mode of production;
3) world-economy ) is a part of the world or the whole world, which are a single economic whole, where the economy becomes the main sphere of social activity. It is represented by independent nation-states with a capitalist mode of production - Europe from the New Age to the present day, the USA, Japan, etc.

The actual world-systems are world-empires and world-economies. Until the 16th century The most stable and long-lasting were world-empires, which united vast territories on different continents into single political systems. The world-empires from Europe were replaced by the capitalist world-economy, which spread in the 19th century. the entire globe, which absorbed all other systems and formed the modern world-system.

Wallerstein also singled out world socialism, which represents a theoretical system that has never been implemented anywhere.

The world-economy has a three-level structure (Fig. 8.12). In her center, or core, There are highly developed states that dominate economic relations, extract additional profits from the global division of labor, and determine world politics (in the modern world, these are highly developed countries). The core of the world-system consists of several states, i.e. actually sociohistorical organisms. But they are not equal. One of them is the hegemon. The history of the core is the history of the struggle for hegemony between several contenders, the victory of one of them, its dominance over the world-economy and its subsequent decline. But the main thing is the relationship between the core and the periphery. Their essence lies in the fact that the core states appropriate free of charge the surplus created in the periphery countries. Periphery ) world-economies are made up of countries that supply raw materials to core countries and are therefore economically and politically dependent on the latter. Semiperiphery The countries of the world economy occupy an intermediate position between the states of the core and the periphery (states of Central and Eastern Europe, rapidly developing countries of Southeast Asia, Russia).

I. Wallerstein identified three stages in the development of the world-economy. At the first stage (XV–XVI centuries), a world-economy emerged from world-empires as a result of geographical discoveries and colonial expansion of European countries. The states that make up the core of the system (Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, etc.) gained access to cheap labor and peripheral areas rich in natural resources, which became part of the world-economy. This contributed to the initial accumulation of capital and the development of the world-economy at the second stage (XVI - first third of the XVII century). Each level of part of this system has its own nature of work. In the core countries there is a free labor market, in the semi-peripheral zone the non-economic, forced nature of labor predominates with a lower level of qualification of labor resources, in the peripheral areas slave labor is represented.

At the third stage of world-economy development, the role of political processes increases. This is manifested in the increasing role of the state in regulating economic activity. With the development of the economy, state structures are strengthened through the training of a large number of officials, permanent national armies are formed, which serve to maintain the internal stability of states. The strengthening of states and the strengthening of their role in the economy causes increased competition between them in the international arena, the rise of some and the fall of others.

World-systems analysis received further development in the 1990s. in the works of Andre G. Frank, Barry Gills and their followers, who developed a new version of the theory of the world system. However, some of its provisions partially deny the early world-system theory of I. Wallerstein and his students.

Rice. 8.12. :

- core; – semi-periphery; – periphery

The new theory of the world system is based on the following provisions.

1. The world system is a set of regions united by trade ties. The peculiarities of its functioning are manifested through the interaction of the center with the periphery, cycles of accumulation and distribution of capital, the relationship between hegemony and competition.
2. The world system began to form 5 thousand years ago in Western Asia and North Africa (Mesopotamia, Egypt), then spread to most of Eurasia and Africa; in the 15th century it began to include North and South America, and in the 18th century. – Australia and Oceania. Therefore, the world system is the only structure within which most of human history over the last 5 thousand years can be understood.
3. Peripheral countries in this world system turn into elements of the mechanism for distributing surplus created value to the center, and therefore their development is subject to the requirements of the countries that form it.
4. It is impossible to understand the development of individual parts of the world economy without their relationships with each other and with the rest of the world. The global economy can have both positive and negative impacts on peripheral countries. This means that countries develop within a certain global structure, where global trade, movement of finance, labor and technology have a huge impact on domestic development.
5. It is a mistake to consider the existing world system as “capitalist” and expect its replacement by a better “socialist” alternative.

Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein. World-system analysis

1. Biography of I. Wallerstein and briefly about the main works of the writer

Born September 28, 1930 in New York, USA. Wallerstein's parents belonged to a wave of intellectual refugees from the collapse of Austria-Hungary. After graduating from high school, the young man entered Columbia University, where he studied sociology and graduated with honors. From a young age, Wallerstein belonged to the intellectual and political elite of New York, moreover, at the peak of the glory of the cosmopolitan metropolis, in the post-war 1950-1960s. Columbia University then enjoyed a triple advantage over the much more traditional Harvard and Princeton. In 1951, Wallerstein received a bachelor's degree, a little later a master's degree, and in 1959 he became a doctor of philosophy.

From 1959 to 1971 he worked as a lecturer at Columbia University. There he began his scientific career, studying sociology and African studies. Since the 1960s, he has been involved in issues of the general theory of socio-economic development. From 1971 to 1976, Immanuel Wallerstein held a professorship at McGill University (Montreal, Canada). Wallerstein's career moved forward rapidly, and in the period from 1976 to 1999. From 1976 to 1999 - Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University (New York, USA). Since 2000, he has been a leading researcher at Yale University. From 1994 to 1998 he served as chairman of the International Sociological Association.

Wallerstein is distinguished by his great capacity for work and scientific productivity; he became the author of more than twenty books and over three hundred articles. His research on the problems of the origin and evolution of the capitalist world-economy, global prospects and development trends in modern societies has gained worldwide fame. The concept of world-system analysis developed by I. Wallerstein, which focuses on the “ecumenical”, global vision of the process of world-historical changes, has in the last two decades turned into an influential direction of modern social and political theory. By placing the main blame for the backwardness of the “Third World” on the developed countries of the West, Wallerstein continues the traditions of the Marxist theory of imperialism. The approach he proposed to explaining history has gained enormous popularity among left-wing economists in developed and developing countries. They are especially impressed by the pronounced anti-Americanism of Wallerstein's ideas.

The main work of I. Wallerstein is the multi-volume Modern World-System: the first volume (1974) examines the genesis of the European world-economy in the 16th century, the second (1980) examines its development during the period of mercantilism, and in the third volume (1989) he brought it to an end history up to the 1840s. In other works, Wallerstein analyzes the evolution of the capitalist world-economy in the 19th and 20th centuries. and even makes predictions for the 21st century.

World-system analysis. The Birth of World-System Analysis

The main work of I. Wallerstein is the multi-volume “Modern World-System”: the first volume (1974) examines the genesis of the European world-economy in the 16th century, the second (1980) examines its development during the period of mercantilism, and the third volume (1989) brought its history up to the 1840s. In other works, Wallerstein analyzes the evolution of the capitalist world-economy in the 19th and 20th centuries. and even makes predictions for the 21st century.

The concept of “world-economy” (l "economie-monde) was introduced by Braudel, so it is advisable to begin the presentation of the world-system approach with his views. When speaking about world-economy, the historian did not mean the world economy as a whole. This type of economy (world market) arose recently, and he does not consider it. In the word “world” Braudel put the concept of regional self-sufficiency, economic independence from other regions. He wrote: “The world economy... affects only a part of the Universe, an economically independent piece of the planet, capable of being basically self-sufficient, such as its internal ones. connections and exchanges impart a certain organic unity.”

The world economy exists across political, cultural and religious boundaries (considered to be the boundaries of “local civilizations”). What unites such a “world” is its economy: in any “worlds,” even in the empires of the East, the state can be stronger than society, “but not stronger than the economy.” Subsequently, when Wallerstein introduced the term “world empire,” Braudel did not accept this innovation.

World-economies have existed since ancient times: Phenicia, Carthage, Rome, India, China, the world of Islam - all these are world-economies, although different. Fixing the fact of their differences, Braudel does not propose a classification of world economies, but at the same time notes a number of common features for them. First of all, the world economy is spatially limited, its boundaries change rarely and slowly. This is due to the fact that such a border is a zone that is unprofitable to cross on either side. Therefore, world economies as a whole were stable until the end of the 15th century, when “Europe moved its borders” and began to conquer the rest of the world.

In addition, each world economy has its own center. Such a center is the “capitalist” city that dominates the region. The center of the world economy may be shifting. This may be the result of a political decision (Beijing becomes the capital of China instead of Nanjing in 1421) or economic reasons (the relocation of the center of Europe), but always has important consequences for the entire world economy. The center-“supercity” economically subordinates other cities.

There may be two centers (Rome and Alexandria, Venice and Genoa). This situation arises during the struggle for leadership between cities. The success of one of the centers leads to the decline of the other. The centers of the European (more broadly Western) world economy were: Venice (1380s - about 1500), Genoa (1550/1560-1590/1610), Amsterdam (about 1610-1780/1815), London (about 1815-1929 years), New York (since 1929).

The center of the world economy is always cosmopolitan: trade links together regions with different cultures, and all roads lead to the capital of the world economy, which becomes “Noah’s Ark”. This provision requires the allowance of political and religious freedoms not possible in other zones. At the same time, the capital is characterized by sharp social stratification and the high cost of living.

Finally, the world economic space is divided into several interdependent zones. The most important feature of the world economy is the hierarchy of these zones. “Every world economy,” writes Braudel, “is a folding, a combination of zones connected together, but at different levels. At least three areas, three categories are outlined in space: a narrow center, secondary, fairly developed areas and, finally, huge outer outskirts... The center, so to speak, the “heart”, unites all the most advanced and most diverse... The next link has only a part of such advantages, although it enjoys some share of them: this is the zone of the “brilliant second”. The vast periphery with its sparse population is characterized by archaism, backwardness, and easy accessibility for exploitation by others.” It should be noted that Braudel hesitated in defining what should be considered a center - only the dominant city or the entire sociohistorical organism in which this city is located.

Another interesting element: “isolates” that are within the world-economy, but are not associated with it (peasant communities with a traditional way of life, “being outside the time of the world”). Beyond the boundaries of the world economy (at least of Europe) there are peculiar outgrowths, “antennas,” “the best example of which was undoubtedly the Levantine trade.” With the help of this image, Braudel shows the spread of influence of a stronger world economy on weaker ones, which leads to the gradual subjugation of the latter.

The cultural division of humanity coincides with the economic one only in part: within the same world-economy, different world-cultures can exist, which is explained by the relative autonomy of cultural worlds (Braudel is not a supporter of economic determinism). Within the world economy, the cultural capital and the economic center can exist separately (Florence under the hegemony of Venice, Paris under the hegemony of London in Europe). However, science and technology are developing in the capital of the world economy.

The history of the world economy is subject to time cycles. The economy has its own cycles, demography has its own, art schools have its own, crime has its own, fashion has its own, etc. Their addition creates “time of the world.” The problematic of cyclicity and continuity is only outlined by Braudel. It will be developed in more detail by Wallerstein. These are, in general terms, Braudel's theoretical views. His undoubted achievement is the study of horizontal connections within world economies and an equally undeniable problem is the relationship between world economies and individual societies. Braudel does not notice this problem and does not develop it theoretically. The concept of society as a special sociohistorical organism is present in him, like in many other historians, only implicitly. This is due to the lack of sufficient clarity in Braudel’s constructions. He writes about the Turkish or Japanese world-economies (coinciding with the boundaries of socio-historical organisms), along with this - about three giant world-economies (Islamic, Indian and Chinese), coinciding with the boundaries of local civilizations, and, finally, about the super-world-economy of all Asia.

Ignoring the level of a separate, specific society is also characteristic of other representatives of the world-system approach, which inevitably entails difficulties and ambiguities.

2. Development of the world-system approach by I. Wallerstein

The approach discussed above was further developed and specified in the works of Wallerstein. Having begun his scientific career as an African sociologist, Wallerstein began to work in the general theory of socio-economic development in the 1960s. The world-system theory he developed synthesizes sociological, historical and economic approaches to social evolution. It was Wallerstein who introduced the concept of world-system analysis (WSA).

Wallerstein opposes the excessive specialization of various scientific disciplines and considers the boundaries between these disciplines to be largely artificial and contrived. According to Wallerstein, a unified social science should take the place of anthropology, economics, political science and sociology. Any social research is necessarily historical. He considers the “historical system” as the basic unit of analysis.

Wallerstein considers “social systems” to be the true social reality, which are divided into mini-systems and world-systems. In turn, world systems are divided into world empires and world economies. The three main types of social systems are based on three different “modes” of production.

Mini-systems are relatively small, highly autonomous units with a clear internal division of labor and a common culture. They are not part of any higher level systems and do not pay regular tribute. Mini-systems are based on a production method that Wallerstein calls reciprocal-lineage. Being the only ones in the era of hunting and gathering, mini-systems subsequently coexisted with world-systems, then were supplanted by them and by now have almost disappeared. Wallerstein is not interested in mini-systems. All his attention is given to world systems.

“A world system is a social system that has boundaries, structure, rules of legitimation and coherence.” It is an organism whose life is determined by conflicting forces; an organism that has a living space (life-span), beyond which its characteristics change in one respect and do not change in another. The criterion of the world system is the self-sufficiency (self-contained) of its existence. The world-system is not a “world system”, but a “system” that is a “world”. Self-sufficiency is a theoretical absolute (like a vacuum), which does not exist in reality, but makes the phenomena of reality measurable.

The first political world systems to emerge in ancient times were “world empires.” With this term, Wallerstein designates not only the “worlds” themselves (China, Ancient Rome, etc.), but also the “mode of production” that is their basis. “The keynote of this mode of production is the political unity of the economy, which exists not only in the presence of relatively high administrative centralization (“imperial” form), but also in its absence (“feudal” form).” Practically in the first case, Wallerstein has in mind the political (Asian) mode of production, in the second - the feudal one. But in theoretical terms, Wallerstein does not recognize any “methods of production” other than those discovered by him.

Wallerstein also does not consider world empires themselves (followers will deal with them). The only thing that attracts his attention is the ability of a world empire to transform into a qualitatively different world system - a world economy.

Of course, the main concept of the concept developed by Wallerstein is the world-economy - a system of international relations based on trade. In addition to world-economies, different countries can unite into world-empires, based not on economic, but on political unity. He views history as the development of various regional world-systems (world-economies and world-empires), which competed with each other for a long time, until the European (capitalist) world-economy became absolutely dominant. Thus, Wallerstein challenges traditional formational and civilizational approaches to history, proposing a new, third paradigm of social development.

It was traditionally believed that capitalism as a social system initially arose in some of the most developed countries, and only then did the capitalist world economy begin to take shape. According to Wallerstein's concept, on the contrary, capitalism initially developed as an integral system of world relations, the individual elements of which were national economies.

According to Wallerstein's theory, all countries of the capitalist world-economy live in the same rhythm, dictated by Kondratieff's “long waves”.

The capitalist world-economy is characterized by an “axial division of labor” - division into a core (center) and periphery. The countries of European civilization, which form the core of the world economy, play the role of the leading force in world economic development. Non-European countries (with some exceptions) form the periphery, i.e. are economically and politically dependent. The backwardness of the countries of the periphery is explained, according to Wallerstein, by the deliberate policy of the core countries - they impose on the subordinate countries such an economic specialization that preserves the leadership of the developed countries. Although developed countries promote the ideology of "free trade", Wallerstein considers capitalism to be a deeply anti-market system, since the core countries monopolize their privileged position and defend it with force. However, in the 20th century. The line between the core and the periphery began to partially blur due to the active attempts of previously backward countries (for example, Japan) to break into the circle of active participants in the world economy.

According to Wallerstein, in the modern era, America is losing its status as an absolute leader: “The United States is still the strongest power in the world,” he writes, “but it is a fading power.”

The approach he proposed to explaining history has gained enormous popularity among left-wing economists in developed and developing countries. They are especially impressed by the pronounced anti-Americanism of Wallerstein's ideas.

Although many social scientists disagree with Wallerstein, world-system theory has had a huge impact on the growth of interest in history as a unified global process and contributed to the birth of historical global studies.

Wallerstein's concept developed in contact with Braudel's ideas, their influence was mutual. But if for Braudel the formulation of the principles of the world-economic (world-system) approach was the result of scientific research, then for Wallerstein it was their starting point. The latter sees in the world-system approach the only acceptable methodology for understanding social phenomena.

The world economy is a system that is fundamentally different from both the mini-system and the world empire. In the world economy there are no social restrictions for the development of production, which becomes possible, according to Wallerstein, when the economy is freed from the dictates of political power (in Europe - by the 16th century). Such dictatorship is the essence of a world empire. Its abolition is the victory of a new “mode of production” - “world-economy” (here the terms “world-system” and “mode of production” coincide).

World empires in the past periodically turned into fragile world-economies, which soon perished, again transforming into world empires. This is the fate of the world economies of China, Persia, Ancient Rome and others. They are also outside Wallerstein’s field of vision - he examines only one world system - the modern one (CMC), also known as the capitalist world economy (CWE), the only one of the world economies that not only survived, but also defeated the rest of the social systems, “pulling” them into itself6. In what follows we will only talk about LME.

The capitalist world-economy is based on an extensive division of labor (to a lesser extent determined geographically, to a greater extent - socially). Its components are the core, semi-periphery and periphery. Its population is divided into "status groups" and "classes". Let's look at these concepts in more detail. The core in the most general definition is a zone that benefits from unequal exchange with other parts of the world economy. The core is characterized by economic growth, political freedoms, scientific development and, most importantly, a strong, effectively functioning state pursuing an offensive policy in the international arena.

Wallerstein, like Braudel, in theoretical terms completely ignores the existence of societies as socio-historical organisms. Moreover, he essentially denies the existence of societies, declaring that at the late stage of social development the only realities are world systems. But it is characteristic that when he moves on to the study of historical reality, he practically cannot do without this concept. It is societies as sociohistorical organisms that he has in mind when he talks not about the core in general, but about core-states. As a result, its constructions acquire a character more adequate to reality.

So, the core of the world system consists of several states, i.e. actually socio-historical organisms. But they are not equal. Like Braudel, Wallerstein identifies the hegemon as an indispensable condition for the existence of the world system. The history of the core is the history of the struggle for hegemony between several contenders, the victory of one of them, its dominance over the world and its subsequent decline.

Wallerstein proposes a different sequence of KME hegemons than Braudel: the United Provinces (Holland) in 1620-1672, Great Britain in 1815-1873, and the United States of America in 1945-1967. The time of decline of each of the hegemons was the time of struggle between their possible successors: Great Britain and France, the USA and Germany, Western Europe and Japan, respectively. By placing the main blame for the backwardness of the Third World on the developed countries of the West, Wallerstein continues the traditions of the Marxist theory of imperialism.

The future winner entered into an alliance with the decrepit hegemon, which helped him defeat his opponent.

But no matter how significant the relationships within the core are, the relationship center - periphery and the contradictions that arise between these two components of the world economy are incomparably more important. If the world system is a “world” due to self-sufficiency, then a “system” is due to the interaction of the center and the periphery.

“The periphery of the world economy is a geographical sector whose products are of low quality (and worse paid) goods, but this sector is included in the system of division of labor because there is constant demand for its products.”

In an unequal exchange, the periphery loses to the same extent as the center gains. On the periphery, the rule is economic and political decline, including colonial dependence and the absence of its own statehood or the weakness of the latter under neo-colonialism. The socio-economic structure of a society is determined by its place in the world system. Changes in the system in the core entail changes in the periphery, which can only be understood based on the history of the world system as a whole. These changes are not derived from the logic of the development of societies “in themselves” (as they are considered in the orthodox version of the theory of formations).

An example of systemic dependence, which became almost textbook thanks to Braudel and Wallerstein, is serfdom in Eastern Europe and plantation slavery in America, brought to life by the emergence of capitalism in Western Europe (the core of the world system).

In addition to the core and periphery, the world system contains an intermediate (in terms of a set of socio-economic indicators) zone - the semi-periphery. Its composition is fluid - some countries become part of the core, others go to the periphery (which is more common - the semi-periphery is still not a “semi-core”). The role of the semi-periphery is twofold: it is both a stabilizer of the world system and an “agent of change” in it.

The problem of the semi-periphery has become central to discussions among world-systemists, especially since Wallerstein himself, not being a dialectician, sees an insurmountable difficulty in the contradictory position of the semi-periphery. Without going into details, I note that among Wallerstein’s followers there have been two polar approaches to the semi-periphery: either it is a zone that serves as the main source of progressive changes in the system (Chase-Dunn), or the embodiment of sub-imperialism, transferring the influence of the center to the periphery (Amin) . Wallerstein's own position is closer to Amin's.

The periphery closes the world system in space. Beyond the periphery, the external arena begins - another world system, with which this world system has trade relations, “based mainly on the exchange of jewelry,” and not goods vital to this world system. Every world system is an external arena in relation to another world system. In the event of absorption of the world-system external arena, the latter becomes the periphery or semi-periphery of the victorious system.

The population of the world system forms “status groups” and “classes”. The boundaries between them are fluid. A “class” for Wallerstein is a “status group” that has self-consciousness. Self-awareness is a function of a conflict situation, i.e. "class" arises when the struggle to acquire or maintain rights begins. It follows that there can be no more than two “classes”: none (unstable, transition state), one (the most common phenomenon) or two (the most explosive state). As we see, contrary to the authors who consider Wallerstein a Marxist, his “classes” have nothing to do with social production - their existence depends on the awareness of the members of “status groups” of their interests.

The history of LME is determined, according to Wallerstein, by the overlap of economic cycles (boom - bust) of varying lengths. He pays special attention to the “Kondratieff cycles” (45-60 years) and R. Cameron’s “trends” (150-300 years). Kondratieff cycles have an A-phase (boom) and a B-phase (bust), and, as Wallerstein notes, both phases are necessary: these are cycles of fluctuations in average world profits, born of constant fluctuations in supply in combination with inconsistent fluctuations in demand. Different cycles overlap each other. By solving short-term problems, “social agents” create medium-term problems, the same can be said about the ratio of medium- and long-term problems. A systemic crisis occurs when unresolved problems of varying urgency overlap, so history, although subject to cycles, never repeats itself.

Wallerstein de facto recognizes the development of the world system as a unity of forward movement and the circulation of economic cycles. But in theory, the concept of “development” in relation to society and the concept of “progress” in relation to history as a whole are rejected by him. At the same time, he contradicts himself. The stage of world-economies for humanity is noticeably more progressive than the stage of mini-systems, no matter what meaning you put into the word “progress”. Each individual society also goes through a certain path, sometimes progressive, sometimes regressive, in any case - the path of natural progressive development, and Wallerstein perfectly shows this using rich factual material.

But the higher the level of Wallerstein’s generalizations, the weaker the conclusions. The historian has to resort to various verbal tricks to bring the facts into conformity with his declarations. Thus, he declares capitalism a “failure” caused by random reasons. “Conjunctural circumstances,” writes Wallerstein, “led to the fact that Europe, having given birth to capitalism, sent itself and all of humanity into an irrational adventure, which was not at all inevitable, just as a way out of the crisis was not necessary.”

Unlike many contemporary authors, Wallerstein did not change his views under the influence of fluctuating political and academic conditions. He consistently developed his theory over two decades of scientific work. In those years, the countries of Africa and Asia, one after another, gained independence, and their leaders and people were full of hope. The problem of backwardness was seen as predominantly technical - it was believed that the whole issue was insufficient development of industry and the lack of modern technologies. Colonialism was a political obstacle to development, but with independence this problem was solved, and all that remained was to speed up technological modernization.

Along with new technologies came new relationships, changing lifestyles, in other words, a brilliant future awaited developing countries, exemplified by the richest and most powerful industrial societies.

The development of events showed the complete failure of such hopes. Despite the construction of factories, social and cultural changes, the gap between rich and poor countries increasingly widened, sometimes not only relatively, but absolutely. Attempts at industrialization in developing countries mainly stimulated economic growth in more developed countries. With each new cycle of modernization, the relationship of backwardness and dependence was reproduced at a new level, but new problems and imbalances arose.

Researchers became less and less enthusiastic about modernization. Many turned to the experience of Latin America, which gained independence 150 years earlier than the colonial countries of Africa and Asia, but faced the same problems. At the same time, the radicalization of the Western intelligentsia was taking place. Even before the student protests of the second half of the 60s. An increasing number of people in academic circles began to turn to the Marxist tradition, but not to “Soviet Marxism,” but to “Western Marxism,” represented by the works of Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci, and the philosophers of the Frankfurt School. It was under such conditions that the school of world-system analysis began to form, the leaders of which were Immanuel Wallerstein, Andre Gunder Frank and Samir Amin.

Since the mid-1970s, Wallerstein has taught and worked in both the United States and Europe, and from 1994 to 1998 was president of the International Sociological Association. By this time he already had an established reputation as a living classic. His works have been translated into many languages, including the most exotic, they are constantly cited, and dissertations are defended about him.

For a reader accustomed to the official language of Soviet official science, the terms used by theorists of this school may resemble the terminology used in the same years in our country. We also talked about the “world system of capitalism” and “dependence.” Meanwhile, in reality, the school of world-system analysis took shape precisely in sharp polemics with the Soviet ideology of development. In the interpretation of Soviet social science, the “world capitalist system” was a purely political abstraction, and the development of each country was thought of as a linear process. All countries go through constant phases, it’s just that some lag behind others. Backwardness can be overcome with the help of the fraternal help of the Soviet people, and political problems can be solved by reorienting from the “imperialist camp” to the “socialist one.” In this regard, Soviet ideology differed methodologically little from Western development theory.

This is precisely what the proponents of world-system analysis pointed out. That is why they were persistently not published in the Soviet Union (except for abstracts “for official use” published by the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences).

Meanwhile, Rosa Luxemburg, in “The Accumulation of Capital,” was one of the first in economics to write about capitalism as a world system in which the development of some countries occurs at the expense of others. Consequently, mechanical “progressive” development that repeats the stages of someone else’s path is impossible. Lenin did not accept Luxemburg's conclusions, just as he did not consider it necessary to take the populist critique of capitalism seriously. Rosa Luxemburg's ideas were developed only in the works of Western researchers who viewed the capitalist world economy as an organic whole. If Andre Gunder Frank focused his attention on studying the experience of Latin America, and Samir Amin on Arab countries, then Wallerstein set himself the task of studying the world system as such. A significant part of his work is devoted to economic history. Studying the processes that unfolded on both sides of the Atlantic after the discovery of America, Wallerstein came to the conclusion that already in the 16th century. in this space an integral world-economy is emerging. The transatlantic market preceded the formation of national markets. The American researcher comes to the conclusion that capitalism first emerged as a world system and only then developed in individual countries. These thoughts are formulated in the three-volume historical study “The Modern World System”, as well as in the book “Capitalist World Economy”.

In other words, it is impossible to understand the current state of capitalism and its future without considering its history. Like any system, capitalism had a beginning and therefore will have an end. Its laws are not “natural”, for there were other societies before that lived according to different laws, but in the same way they are not “unnatural” or contrary to human essence, for they worked successfully for five hundred years.

The problem is not the moral merits or demerits of capitalism, not the hard work or laziness of individual peoples, but the historical boundaries that exist for the development of any system. In this regard, according to Wallerstein, it is the global expansion of capitalism, the integration of the whole world into one world economy that is a harbinger of upheavals: the possibilities of external, extensive expansion have been exhausted. Almost all known sources of growth have already been mobilized. Big changes are coming. Throughout its existence, the school of world-system analysis has constantly faced criticism, both from the “right” (from liberal economists) and from the “left” from representatives of “orthodox” Marxism. Yet the most serious criticism of Wallerstein's work can be found in the authors who were most influenced by him. This criticism mainly centered around two issues. The first is how “capitalist” the capitalist world economy is. Neither Wallerstein nor his critics deny that this system contains in a subordinate form numerous elements that are actually inherited from the past and live according to a different logic. Traditional Marxism saw in them only “relics” that hampered development. In the same way, modern liberalism in Russia constantly struggles with the remnants of Soviet communism, without asking the question of how these “remnants” themselves are a necessary and inevitable element of post-Soviet capitalism. At the same time, the nature of these non-capitalist structures and relations was never the subject of specific analysis for Wallerstein. From his point of view, since the system as a whole is capitalist, then everything included in it is also capitalism. On the contrary, a number of other authors who generally share the world-system approach, following Rosa Luxemburg, speak about the non-capitalist nature of these structures (be it a post-Soviet “city-forming” enterprise or a Latin American latifundia).

The second problem that critics have pointed out is that the world-systems approach primarily focuses on exchange processes and interstate relations in the global economy, whereas capitalism is primarily a system of relations of production. It is easy to see that both of these issues are interconnected.

It seems that in peripheral and semi-peripheral countries capitalism both destroys pre-capitalist structures and builds on them. Is this not where we should look for an explanation for P. Struve’s famous observation that the further one goes to the East, the worse the bourgeoisie? Or the collapse of the Russian Empire, where urban industrial capital collapsed along with landlordism? Or the notorious “inconsistency” of modern Russian reforms? But if the capitalist world system still contains pre-capitalist elements, doesn’t this mean that along with them, post-capitalist structures, elements of an as yet unknown future, have developed and already exist?

It is quite obvious that anyone who undertakes to seriously analyze global world processes faces questions so multifaceted that unambiguous answers become simply impossible.

Meanwhile, the enormous attractive power of Wallerstein’s works is also due to the fact that his conclusions, despite some complexity of academic language, are made extremely concretely and clearly. This allows us to always very clearly imagine the predictive capabilities of the theory. The author does not try to hide behind polysemantic formulas. Any inaccuracy in the forecast is immediately detected. But it is all the more striking that the last few years have shown with utmost clarity the enormous possibilities of the theory and its predictive potential.

The positive conclusions that should be drawn from the forecast are a special issue. Here, the American sociologist remains extremely cautious. More precisely, he remains precisely a scientist, without turning into a propagandist of any political idea. His political sympathies are obvious - he belongs to the left flank of social thought. And these political views are closely related to the logic of his theory. But the requirements of scientific correctness remain extremely stringent for him. No matter how much one would like to point the way to a bright future, one can only speak seriously about what is visible and predictable in the present.

The future remains dangerous, uncertain and open. This future depends on ourselves.

wallerstein capitalism society world system

Conclusion

In Russia, the publication of any book by Wallerstein can only be welcomed. World-system analysis is much more useful for sociology and history in Russia than theoretical surrogates, such as the “civilization approach”, the concept of the “clash of civilizations”, or the complete rejection of theory in historical research, which became fashionable after the passing of the Soviet “historical mathematics”. In this situation of “theoretical confusion” (in the words of the famous Soviet historian A.Ya. Gurevich) of Russian sociology and history, Wallerstein can only be useful.

The works of Wallerstein and other world-systemists are especially important because they clearly and clearly - generalizing the works of other, alas, unknown in Russia theorists of dependent development and peripheral capitalism - showed the defining nature of relations between the center and the periphery for modern capitalism. Moreover, they restored interest in a holistic socio-economic analysis of capitalism.

Wallerstein comes to conclusions very similar to those of K. Marx, but comes his own way. We are dealing here not with a variant of Marxism, but with an independent confirmation of the correctness of some of the provisions of K. Marx, which came from the concept that claimed to replace Marxism.

List of sources

1.Wallerstein I. Analysis of world systems and the situation in the modern world. Per. from English P.M. Kudyukina. Under the general editorship of Ph.D. political scientist B.Yu. Kagarlitsky - St. Petersburg: Publishing house "University Book", 2001. -416 With.

2.Zavalko G.L. The emergence, development and state of the world-system approach // Social sciences and modernity. - 1998. - No. 2. - pp. 140-151

3.Historical capitalism. Capitalist civilization. - M.: Partnership of Scientific Publications KMK, 2008. - 176 p.

4.Skurlatov V.I. Trotsky, Wallerstein and Kagarlitsky [Electronic resource] // Philosophical and political diary. Subscribe information channel. Ru

5.#"justify">. Zavalko G. WORLD CAPITALISM IN THE EYES OF I. WALLERSTEIN [Electronic resource] // Almanac East No. 3 (27), March 2005 URL: #"justify">7. Wallerstein I. WORLDSYSTEM ANALYSIS: INTRODUCTION Trans. from English N. Tyukina. Moscow Publishing House "TERRITORY OF THE FUTURE" 2006

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Immanuel Wallerstein (b. 1930) is an American thinker, the founder of world-systems analysis, one of the leaders of modern left-wing social science.

Born in New York on September 28, 1930. Studied sociology at Columbia University in New York (BA 1951, MA 1954, PhD 1959). He worked at Columbia University (1958–1971), McGill University (1971–1976), Binghamton University (1976–1999) and Yale University (since 2000). Since 1976, he has headed the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations (at Binghamton University), whose employees are actively involved in the development and promotion of the world-system approach. In 1994–1998 he was president of the International Sociological Association.

Having begun his scientific career as an African sociologist, Wallerstein began to work in the general theory of socio-economic development in the 1960s. The world-system theory he developed is based on the principles of comprehensive historical analysis proposed by the French historian Fernand Braudel. It synthesizes sociological, historical and economic approaches to social evolution.

I. Wallerstein is distinguished by his enormous scientific productivity: he has published more than 20 books and over 300 articles.

I. Wallerstein’s main work is the multi-volume Modern World-System: the first volume (1974) examines the genesis of the European world-economy in the 16th century, the second (1980) examines its development during the period of mercantilism, and in the third volume (1989) he brings it to a close history up to the 1840s. In other works, Wallerstein analyzes the evolution of the capitalist world-economy in the 19th and 20th centuries. and even makes predictions for the 21st century.

The originality of I. Wallerstein’s approach lies in the fact that he offers a fundamentally new research perspective for the analysis of social, economic and political processes - a world-system perspective, in which the world appears as a certain systemic and structural whole, the laws of development of which determine the trajectories of movement of all individual national societies and states. The immediate emergence of world-system theory dates back to the early 70s. This theoretical approach was a synthesis of several theoretical traditions:

Firstly , geohistoryF. Braudel and, more broadly, the entire legacy of the Annales school,

Secondly, the “dependency theory” in the version of A.G. Frank (which, in turn, goes back to Marxist theories of imperialism),

Thirdly, non-classical economic theory (including the concept of economic cycles), where the works of K. Polanyi, J. Schumpeter and N. Kondratiev should be especially highlighted.

In one of his theoretical works entitled “World-systems analysis”, which was published for the first time at the dawn of modern globalization - in 1987, the author wrote: “Today we are faced with the question: are there any criteria that can be used to establish in a relatively clear and appropriate manner the boundaries between the four supposed disciplines of anthropology, economics, political science and sociology? World systems analysis answers this question with an unequivocal “no.” All the supposed criteria - level of analysis, subject, methods, theoretical starting points - either no longer correspond to practice, or, if confirmed by it, are more barriers to further knowledge than incentives for its creation. Or, on the other hand, the differences between acceptable topics, methods, theories or theorizing within any of the so-called disciplines are much greater than the differences between them. This means in practice that the overlap is substantial and, in terms of the historical evolution of all these disciplines, is increasing all the time. It's time to break through this intellectual quagmire by saying that these four disciplines are just one." The science that unites the four disciplines he listed is nothing more than global studies. The merit of I. Wallerstein is that he gave it not a narrow political science, but a cultural perspective. It cannot be otherwise if global studies is understood as a science included in political science, and the latter is included in cultural studies, since politics is one of the products of culture.

I. Valerstein argues that world-system analysis is not a theory about the social world or part of it. This is a protest against the way social scientific research was structured for us all when it began in the mid-19th century. This research method has become a set of often unquestionable a priori assumptions. World-systems analysis argues that this method of scientific research, practiced throughout the world, has had the effect of closing rather than opening many of the most important and most interesting questions. World-system analysis was born as a moral and as a political, in its broadest sense, protest. However, it is precisely on the basis of scientific requirements, i.e. requirements related to the possibilities of systemic knowledge about social reality, world-system analysis challenges the dominant method of research.

In the broadest sense, world-system analysis is a continuation and extension of the ideas of the “world revolution” of 1968 into the sphere of social knowledge, a reaction to the “ideologized positivism and false apolitism” of the social sciences of the 50s and 60s. In a narrower sense, world-systems analysis challenged the two dominant theories of the time—developmentalism (the theory of “development”) and the concept of modernization. Although world-systems analysis was only one variant of this critique, it is now clear that it broke more deeply with nineteenth-century social science than did other critics.

I. Wallerstein's criticism is concentrated around the key, paradigmatic foundations of modern social knowledge, which he calls “the terrible legacy of 19th-century social science.” According to I. Wallerstein, we need not just a rethinking, but a radical replacement of 19th-century social science, “because many of its premises (in my opinion, erroneous and limited) are still too ingrained in our thinking. These premises, once conducive to the liberation of the spirit, today act as the main intellectual barrier to the successful analysis of the social world.

First of all, this is the idea that social reality supposedly exists in three special and separate spheres: political, economic and sociocultural. By economic phenomena we mean that which relates to the functioning of the market, political - that which relates to the functioning of state institutions, and sociocultural - that which is determined primarily by the state of our spirit. Each of these spheres - economics, politics and culture - represents an autonomous type of activity and has its own internal logic of development (therefore, contradictions and mutual conflicts may arise between them). However, according to I. Wallerstein, the separation of economics, politics and culture is more likely a dogma of the dominant liberal ideology than a reflection of the real mechanisms of functioning of the modern world. A variation of this myth is the idea that in pre-capitalist systems these spheres were indeed indivisible, and only capitalism (“modernization”, “transition from traditional to modern”) separates them from each other.

In fact, according to I. Wallerstein, within the capitalist system these three spheres work together and inextricably: at the personal level there are no separate (economic, political, sociocultural) types of motivations, just as there are no objective institutions that acted exclusively in one sphere . For example, the functioning of the economic sphere cannot be correctly understood on the basis of only what belongs to the sphere of the “market”: any production system is organized as a network of social relations that embodies a certain value system of ideas, in turn implied and realized through certain political processes . Even “economic” markets are rather socio-political entities, and, for example, the true price level depends on many socio-political circumstances. All political activities serve the purpose of securing economic advantages or needs, as well as achieving certain sociocultural goals. The desire for political power, as I. Wallerstein points out, also cannot be separated from these moments. Finally, sociocultural activity is made possible and explainable through economic and political circumstances. Social (and/or cultural) activity cannot be imagined separately from these factors. “All institutions,” notes I. Wallerstein, “operate simultaneously politically, economically, and socioculturally and cannot be effective otherwise.”

the trinity of politics, economics and culture today has no intellectual value. There is a need for a fundamental reorganization of all cognitive activity in the social sciences on a global scale, which involves going beyond the disciplinary division of social science that developed in the 19th century.

Several innovative conceptual provisions can be identified that form the theoretical premises of world-system analysis: firstly, this is a rethinking of the problems of historical temporality (from calendar linear time to the multiplicity of different types of “time-and-space”); secondly, this is a new unit of analysis (historical systems, rather than individual societies and/or states); thirdly, it is a rethinking of the essence of social change (stochastic development instead of linear progress).

I. Wallerstein replaces the term “society” with the term “historical system”. “Historical system” as a term emphasizes the unity of historical social science. Integrity is both systemic and historical. Historical systems have three defining characteristics. They are relatively autonomous, that is, the parameters of their functioning are determined by the action of internal processes. They have time boundaries, i.e. they have a beginning and an end. They have spatial boundaries, which, however, can change during their historical existence.

I. Wallerstein wrote about the cyclical development of historical systems. It uses the concept of long waves N.D. Kondratieva. Quite important and complex, according to the researcher, is the problem of determining cyclical rhythms, secular trends and crises, which are transitional stages, and therefore breaks. Due to the fact that everything is always changing, cycle parameters and periodicity are never determined precisely, at best very approximately. But changes are not arbitrary. They are predictable in principle, within the framework of the rules by which the system functions - otherwise it would not be a system.

World-systems analysis argues that the categories that inform our history were formed historically (and most only a century or so ago).

World-systems analysis wants to remove the idea of progress from the position of the trajectory and reveal it as an analytical variable. Historical systems can be better or worse. It is not necessary for the trend to be linear - up, down or straight ahead. Perhaps the trend line is fluctuating; or perhaps indeterminate. If this possibility were allowed, a whole new arena of intellectual analysis would immediately open up. If the world has many patterns, types, historical systems, and if all historical systems have beginnings and endings, then we will want to know something about the process by which the succession (across time-space) of historical systems occurs.

I. Wallerstein divided all societies into three types - “mini-systems”, “world empires” and “world economies”. The former are small societies characterized by a unified culture. I. Wallerstein argues that today almost nothing is known about how mini-systems work. Firstly, because they no longer exist. Moreover, most of the phenomena that were described as mini-systems were in fact only local components of world-systems, since one of the premises of their study was their inclusion in world-systems. And finally, the life of mini-systems was short and now there are no methods for determining their life path. So we are faced with a problem similar to that faced by physicists who tried to study extremely small particles whose existence eluded them. It will probably someday be possible to invent a way to comprehend these particles (mini-systems) that filled a significant part of the social history of mankind; but today this does not seem realistic. Therefore, further discussion will focus mainly on world-systems.

The second type of society is world empires, within which various cultures were gathered. By the latter type of society, I. Wallerstein meant nothing more than capitalism (“capitalist system”). This is how I. Wallerstein himself defines them: “I claim that empirically there were three such models. "Mini-systems", so called because they are small in space and perhaps relatively short in time (lifespan of about six generations), are highly homogeneous in terms of cultural and governing structures. The basic logic is the logic of “reciprocity” in exchange. "World Empires" are vast political structures (at least on top of the process of expansion and contraction that seems to be their destiny) and cover a wide variety of "cultural" patterns. The main logic of the system is the extraction of tribute from simultaneously locally self-governing direct producers (mainly rural), which is sent to the center and redistributed to a thin but crucial network of officials. "World economies" are vast, uneven chains of production-inclusive structures cut through by numerous political structures. The basic logic is that accumulated profits are distributed unequally to those who are able to achieve various types of temporary monopolies in market networks. This is “capitalist” logic.

Table 1. Typology of historical systems by I. Wallerstein

In the pre-agricultural era there were many mini-systems whose permanent death may have been largely the result of environmental accidents plus the splintering of groups growing too abundantly. Knowledge of this period, as noted earlier, is very limited. There was no written language, and information can only be gleaned from archaeological reconstructions. Between 8000 B.C. and 1500 AD there were many historical systems of all three varieties existing on the planet at the same time. World Empire was the most powerful form of this era because whenever it expanded, it destroyed and/or absorbed both mini-systems and world-economies, and when it contracted, it provided the opportunity for the restoration of mini-systems and world-economies. Much of what we call the history of this period is the history of such world-empires, which is understandable because they raised cultural scribes to record what happened. The world economies were a weak form, individual, never lasting long. This is because they either disintegrated, were absorbed into the world empire, or were transformed into it (through the internal expansion of a single political whole).

Around 1500, one such world economy managed to avoid this fate. For reasons that require explanation, the "modern world-system" was born out of the consolidation of the world economy. As a consequence, it had time to reach its full development as a capitalist system. By its own internal logic, this capitalist world economy then expanded to cover the entire globe, absorbing in the process all existing world empires. As a result, by the end of the nineteenth century, for the first time ever, there was only one historical system on the globe. This has created an entirely new structural situation whereby there are currently no coexisting historical systems external to the only surviving system called the capitalist world-economy.

The constant spatial expansion of the capitalist world-economy was a function of its main driving force, the continuous accumulation of capital. This driving force has acted and operates in a threefold way. First of all, horizontal spatial expansion contributes to the restoration of the coefficient of extraction of surplus value whenever this coefficient decreases on a global scale after the world economy has emerged from a market recession (overcome by expanding global effective demand through the partial redistribution of this surplus value into relatively less profitable sectors) . The process of geographic expansion supports the incorporation into the world-economy of new low-paid direct producers, which restores to its previous level the share of surplus value centralized in the hands of a small number of relatively large “accumulators” of capital.

Second, the capitalist world-economy includes structures that particularly encourage technological development. World-empires also encouraged technological development, but there were also tangible obstacles (which significantly slowed down this process), since centralized power was constantly faced with the serious political problem of controlling its governors scattered along the axes of the territory, and technological development made such control more difficult (which could be called a “trend towards democratization of the use of force”). Rapid technological progress, very productively integrated into the normal functioning of the capitalist world-economy, made this technically possible, since it provided the military ability to overcome the resistance of world-empires to their inclusion in the world-economy.

Third, the capitalist mode of production includes mechanisms that place at a particular disadvantage those who are not sensitive to changing opportunities to maximize capital accumulation. Those who control economic activity and make no effort to maximize the accumulation of capital eventually fail and are eliminated from the scene. On the contrary, there are no special mechanisms of power that could exist in a world-empire aimed at pursuing irrational ways of consuming the world product. There are no ways to systematically and persistently introduce anti-market values into the decision-making process (as in world-empires). Consequently, there is no basis for effectively opposing geographic expansion, once it has shown itself to be beneficial to the interests of accumulation of wealth.

The deepening of capitalist processes and the geographical expansion of the boundaries of the social division of labor were the result of the action of powerful forces that created and consolidated the world-economy itself. Their action is still unstoppable.

I. Wallerstein challenges traditional formational and civilizational approaches to history, proposing a new, third paradigm of social development.

It was traditionally believed that capitalism as a social system initially arose in some of the most developed countries, and only then did the capitalist world economy begin to take shape. According to the concept of I. Wallerstein, on the contrary, capitalism initially developed as an integral system of world relations, the individual elements of which were national economies.

Capitalism was born, according to I. Wallerstein, in the 16th century, when, due to a random combination of circumstances in Western Europe, world-empires gave way to a world-economy based on trade. The capitalist world-economy gave rise to the colonial expansion of Western European countries, by the 19th century. it suppressed all other world-economies and world-empires, remaining the only modern world-system.

According to the theory of I. Wallerstein, all countries of the capitalist world-economy live in the same rhythm, dictated by “long waves”. Kondratieva.

The capitalist world-economy is characterized by an “axial division of labor” - division into a core (center) and periphery. The countries of European civilization, which form the core of the world economy, play the role of the leading force in world economic development. Non-European countries (with some exceptions) form the periphery, i.e. are economically and politically dependent. The backwardness of the countries of the periphery is explained, according to I. Wallerstein, by the deliberate policy of the core countries - they impose on the subordinate countries such an economic specialization that preserves the leadership of the developed countries. Although developed countries promote the ideology of “free trade,” I. Wallerstein considers capitalism to be a deeply anti-market system, since the core countries monopolize their privileged position and defend it by force. However, in the 20th century. The line between the core and the periphery began to be partially erased due to the active attempts of previously backward countries (for example, Japan) to break into the circle of active participants in the world economy.

In addition to the antagonistic relationship between the core and the periphery, another core of the evolution of the capitalist world-economy is the struggle between the countries of the core. The evolution of the capitalist world-economy represents alternating periods of competition and hegemony of core states for relative (as opposed to world-empires) control over the world-system. In general, the concept of hegemony can be defined as such relations of dominance of some states over others, which allows them to establish principles, procedures and rules of behavior that are common to (all other actors) and the entire international system as a whole. The fact is that the maximum and most effective accumulation of capital in a capitalist world-economy occurs when it reaches a certain middle state between a world-empire (offering direct military-political integration of the entire core) and “open” competition of several approximately equal players. “The ideal situation from the point of view of the accumulation of capital within the system as a whole,” writes I. Wallerstein, “is the existence of a dominant power, strong enough to determine the rules of the game and ensure that they are followed to the end. When rivalry, as a systemic condition, is replaced by hegemony, this does not mean that the hegemonic power can do everything. But this means that it can prevent others from changing (violating) the rules.” That is, hegemony in the capitalist world-economy is determined by the presence of sufficiently strong actors who have the opportunity (economic, political, military or ideological) to force others to reproduce the established ( hegemon) regime of “distribution” of various forms of capital.

The desire for hegemony in the interstate system, according to I. Wallerstein, is similar to the desire to have a monopoly in the world production system, and this desire is never fully achievable. Therefore, the key, according to I. Wallerstein, is to find an answer to the following questions regarding hegemony: 1) how does one or another state achieve superiority in relation to other strong states, i.e. such a position that we can call it “hegemony”? 2) what kind of world structural policy are pursued by the hegemonic powers? 3) why do dominant powers lose their hegemony?

In history there were only three hegemonic powers: 1) the United Provinces (Holland) in the mid-17th century (1620-1672), Great Britain in the mid-19th century (1815-1873) and the USA in the mid-twentieth (peak - 1945-1967/73 ). According to I. Wallerstein, the initial prerequisite for the emergence of hegemony is not military force, but the achievement of primacy in production efficiency in the world-economy: production, trade and financial superiority. Each of the three hegemonic powers dominated only for a short period, namely when superiority was achieved simultaneously in all three areas.

At the same time, an important factor in achieving hegemony was that for a long time they did not make large investments in the creation of numerous armies, but each created a large merchant fleet, which, in addition to its obvious economic function, supported the capabilities of these states in maintaining naval forces. “Perhaps,” writes I. Wallerstein, “it was really the key factor that these states were able to defeat their main rivals in the struggle for hegemony, namely the fact that they Not invested money in creating large armies."

However, the consistent achievement of industrial, commercial and financial superiority can only be partially explained by the achievement of victory in the corresponding type of free market competition on the world market; overall victory always required state influence to create advantages of non-market origin, the gradual accumulation of which, sooner or later, was transformed into an overall structural -a privileged position within the capitalist world-economy. The final stage of the struggle for hegemony (qualitatively transforming non-market advantages into a structurally fixed privileged position) ultimately leads to a decisive military clash, which I. Wallerstein calls the “Thirty Years' War,” in which all opposing forces participate and the confrontation goes on throughout the globe.

There were only three such global thirty-year wars in the history of the capitalist world-economy: 1) In the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), Dutch interests prevailed over the interests of the Habsburgs, 2) in the Napoleonic wars (1792-1815), the British prevailed over the French, 3) in the thirty-year “American-German” wars of 1914-1945, the United States defeated Germany. They proceeded more sporadically than continuously (and the states participating in them often changed sides and allies, changing their ideological beliefs along the way), and ultimately ended in the defeat of one of the warring parties. In all three cases, sea (/air) power prevailed over land power. And in each case, the forces committed to preserving the basic structure of the capitalist world-economy defeated those forces that sought to transform it into a world-empire. Thus, Dutch hegemony, which led to the political institutionalization of the capitalist world-economy, acted as a historical alternative to the world-empire of the Habsburgs, the British - to the world-empire of Napoleon, and the American - to the world-empire of Hitler. Moreover, during the long period of decline of hegemony, two potential “contenders to the inheritance” always appeared: England and France after the decline of Dutch hegemony, the USA and Germany after the decline of British hegemony, and now Western Europe and Japan after the gradual decline of US hegemony.

The end of the “Thirty Years' War” was each time marked by a restructuring of the international system and the establishment of a new concept of world order that provided long-term political and economic advantages to the hegemonic power: this was the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, this was the “Concert of Europe” system after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and this was the UN after 1945. . A dominant power can maintain its hegemony over periods of average duration only as long as it is able to impose institutional restrictions on the degree of freedom and openness of the world market, which would then work exclusively for its benefit (for due to its greater efficiency, the producers of the power -hegemons in the short term would benefit from a maximally open and free world market, but in the medium term they would ultimately become losers, as they would face new, equally effective competitors). The immediate period of hegemony in each case is relatively short, usually lasting 25-30 years, after which the former hegemonic power again becomes an ordinary great power among the others (even if it remains for some time the most powerful among them militarily. Decline of Hegemony is determined by a decrease in overall economic efficiency through the emergence of additional types of non-production costs determined by the “burden of leadership” (redistribution of monopoly income in favor of the middle and lower strata, large investments in the development of military infrastructure), the absence of which at one time served as the basis for the rise of the state -hegemon.

Thus, according to I. Wallerstein, in history there have been constant cyclical ups and downs of hegemonic powers, which ensured the necessary degree of stable equilibrium in interstate relations, as well as the processes of unhindered accumulation of capital. “Hegemony that lasted too long would turn the system into a world-empire. And a system in which a hegemonic power did not emerge would not have the capacity to create the stable temporal orders necessary for maximum accumulation.”

Analysis of “cycles of hegemony” shows a fairly accurate correlation with both secular trends and the cyclical rhythms of N. Kondratiev. The slow growth of the hegemon occurs in conditions of long-term economic recovery in conditions of relatively free competition of many players, the consolidation of the dominant position of the most successful (i.e., effective) of them occurs through victory in the world “thirty years war” and a subsequent restructuring agreement. Consolidation of the hegemon's monopoly position leads to a long-term relative decline in efficiency and a return to a state of competition among many powers.

Analyzing the historical processes of the past, I. Wallerstein thinks about what awaits us in the future. Most likely, in his opinion, this will be the “golden mean” - between heaven and earth, between the prosperous “golden billion” and the eternally poor periphery, between the center and the periphery.

In the article “Peace, Stability, Legitimacy. 1990-2025/2050” he wrote: “The period from 1990 to 2025/2050 is likely to lack peace, lack stability and lack legitimacy. This is partly explained by the decline of the United States as the hegemon of the world-system, but even more so by the crisis of the latter precisely as a world-system.” The center of the world, in his opinion, will move in the next 50-75 years to maritime Japan. Japan will turn the USA into its junior partner (as Great Britain did with Holland, and the USA, in turn, with Great Britain) and the united Japanese-American condominium will sooner or later converge in a new large-scale “thirty years” world war with the “continental” EU, the winner from which Japan will emerge. The remaining regions of the capitalist world economy will be distributed to varying degrees between these two alliances: North and South America, China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific region will be included in the Japan-American zone, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa and India - into the European zone. The most important problem is the development and consolidation of these two zones in the period 2000-2025. will consist in choosing optimal methods of integration, first of all, of two giants - China and Russia. For successful integration, both Russia and China must achieve and maintain a certain level of internal stability and legitimacy, which has not yet been fully achieved.

So, in the picture of the world predicted by I. Wallerstein, we see, firstly, the Japanese center and, secondly, two peripheries - “Japanese-American” and “European”. Under certain conditions, China will enter the first zone, and Russia will find itself in the same company, on the one hand, with Europe, and on the other, with Africa and India. In this picture, at least two neighborhoods look unexpected - China with America and Russia with Africa.

I. Wallerstein also has more specific scenarios for the future. There are three of them. Here they are: “The first scenario consists of a transition to neo-feudalism, which can reproduce the era of a new time of troubles in a much more balanced form. The distinctive features of this system will be the parcellation of sovereignty, the development of local communities and local hierarchies, in general, the emergence of a “mosaic” of autarkic regions connected only by threads of horizontal connections. Such a system may be quite compatible with the world of high technology. The process of capital accumulation can no longer serve as the driving force for the development of such a system, but it will still be a kind of inegalitarian system, the way of legitimizing which may be a revival of faith in natural hierarchies. The second scenario is associated with the establishment of something like democratic fascism, when the world will be divided into two castes: an upper layer of approximately 20% of the world population, within which a fairly high level of egalitarian distribution will be maintained, and a lower layer consisting of working “proles”, i.e. e. from the proletariat deprived of political and socio-economic rights (the remaining 80% of the population). Hitler's project of the “new order” presupposed something close to this system, but it failed due to self-determination within the limits of too narrow an upper layer. A third scenario could be a transition to a radically more globally decentralized and highly egalitarian world order. This possibility seems the most utopian, but it should not be excluded. Its implementation will require a significant restriction of consumer spending, but this cannot simply be the socialization of poverty, because then this scenario becomes politically impossible.” Judging by the first two scenarios: it will not be better than now. As for the third, it is recognized as the most utopian by I. Wallerstein himself, and yet he considers himself a person who recognizes the inevitability of progress in human history.

I. Wallerstein looks at the modern world as a “great global disorder.” That is why it imposes a colossal responsibility on the people of our time, without which it is impossible to move forward, which involves not only immediate survival, but also a long struggle against social inequality. In the article “Geoculture of development or transformation of our geoculture?” he wrote: “In this period of great worldwide disorder, the crisis of our modern world-system, of historical capitalism, we will move forward only if we are able to clearly consider the whole picture. This will be a period of double struggle - the struggle for immediate survival and the struggle for the formation of the future historical system, which will ultimately emerge from the current systemic chaos. Those who are trying to create a new structure, repeating the key feature of the existing system - hierarchical inequality, will do everything to focus our attention on the problem of immediate survival, so that we cannot put forward historical alternatives to their project of counterfeit transformation, a superficial transformation that leaves the