The Modern World-System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600-1750 by Immanuel Wallerstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
In this amazingly detailed and rich work, Wallerstein illustrates how various economic principles — pursuit of a robust economy — pursuit of abundance — can be the seminal with which to read various political, military and policy actions of various European nations between the periods of 1600 to 1750… Of course, he also accounts for history and religion before and after this period to bookend his projections… but the implications are clear.
In a capitalist framework, nations themselves self-organize in as much as the industries and socio-economic sectors self-organize to support one another, to get purchase and gain a place within the emerging economy to ‘get their own’. In some cases, such as with Austria and Sweden, rules attempt to get by hook or crook, war or alliance, more resources with which to build a base of power and abundance. Often within the nations themselves, they may seek workers from other places that can build their economy, but more often than not, nations will oppress their own people for the plenitude of the upper classes who languish in plenitude.
Each nation, England, Prussia, Spain, France, the Dutch… they all do this in different ways, with various differences in success. Ultimately, a lucky combination of having access to trade, of being able to compete cheaply in trade (which is often enforced militarily) gives rise to the desired position of Hegemony… which can only last so long before financial control becomes the way to retire ones’ prior dominance… which is a basic example of the economic system, the world system Wallerstein has so noted in his career.
One of the direct implications of this reading though, leads to understanding that politics is always a delayed response in the symbolic area of language towards economic movement. That politics and language is how people tactically negotiate to position themselves among others. Seen in this way, the naked ambitions of nations can be brought to light.
While the history of this period was one that overall was seen as stagnation, it did lead towards British dominance and eventually WWI and WWII, both of which can be seen as military responses to economic aggression. The multitude of wars leading up to the 20th century can also seen as attempts by those in charge to limit the ability of semi-periphery nations to become core nations… often with great success. The frustration of those semi-periphery nations however, continues on to the next generation as they try again, sometimes with different allies, in order to claw their way up to the top, so they too can become richer than they already are.
While questions of why people create competition to compete among themselves is an interesting question, Wallerstein is more interested in pointing out how this happens than why — and he is very interested in showing how each industry, each nation’s contingencies and limitations led them to the actions they took, and why certain strategies, like those in France or Spain, did not lead them to become more powerful than they had already become. The lesson here seems to be that nations that can integrate themselves and move as a whole towards concentrated efforts in key areas will always find ways to dominant, whereas alliances that allow your allies to become stronger are always reluctantly allowed so long as the major competitors are not allowed to progress (which is how Germany came into power)… That the British with their smaller country (than France) was of a more manageable size, and geographically positioned for sea dominance won out becomes no surprise.
Some of these trends can also be seen today. In fact, the whole point of historic narrative is to see ourselves in its reflection and to understand trends today by their antecedents of yesteryear… and this book really holds to that advantage. As with any work though, the devil is in the details, and Wallerstein takes great pains to demonstrate how smaller areas of competition can add up to (or be eliminated by) areas in other places… and how the right push under the right condition can give way to larger movements that far outreach what we already can imagine.
As it is, someone’s got to be on top, right?, in as much as those that are in charge are doomed to lose their position inevitably.
I strongly look forward to reading the next work, World-System III.
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