The Modern World-System III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730s-1840s by Immanuel Wallerstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Once again, Wallerstein looks at great detail into a topic as complex as world systems analysis. This time, he focuses on a big question: What was the French Revolution and what did it do?
His analysis is largely historical, and from, as always, an impressive number of sources. When reading this book though, while the first chapter is devoted to further developing and answering the question, I think this book is a little weaker than its previous two. In part, because Wallerstein answers his question in the first chapter: The French Revolution did not spark capitalism, but was a continuation of it — and essentially did not provide a break in the logic of the world system, only a further point of it… so consequently the rest of the book examines how this time period developed and then exceeded the Napoleonic wars without much interruption. For sure, the French Revolution was a major event. It did give pause to all the actors who then perhaps, changed policy or strategy in order to account for it. But the world was already run by economic consideration, so really, business as usual.
Wallerstein instead locates the French Revolution as the last spasm of the French in their fight against the developing British Hegemony. As always, Wallerstein looks at economic basis and reads how policy responds to attempt to capitalize on this material basis, and whether or not these policies had its intended effect.
What I found really interesting was how freedom and ideology were instead utilized as a narrative to rally an unhappy people — especially in the Americas in part with the British colonies (most of which did not join the American Revolution) and also with the Spanish colonies, whose racial complexity (300 years of interbreeding gave rise to a mixed race that was part of the economic and social fabric) told a completely different story, giving rise to a different response. In part, the liberation of the Americas as political and economic units reflected the level of their economic development and inherent quasi-independence as individual actors in the world economy. Independence then, comes politically because it the opportunity presents itself as Europe goes through the Napoleonic war to reshuffle her political structure to “catch up” with its economic reality. What I would have liked Wallerstein to write more on, was how the rise of nationalism in Europe, something which happened with the French reshuffling, could be accounted for when people identify with their body-politic as an economic realization. Do people become nationalistic because they realize they need to be politically responsible for their economic wealth? I think this is the answer he would give. Reading between the lines it seems so, but if he had said it directly, then that would have been nice.
On the other hand, political instability follows a shifting of economic basis, as with the case of West Africa, China, India, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Now Russia went voluntarily, with that intention, it seems, so that’s a little different but with each other, their inclusions into the world economy were first marked by a destablization of their economic power base, a reshuffling of economic power into a new rising class, and then the dissolution of their major political unity as this new rising class pursued their own agendas rather than keeping social stability. India was particularly interesting as the British eventually tried to keep the country together in order to ensure profitable trade… this did not prove fruitful for them, as the cost was too great, except in keeping India under their control as a route to China which was more profitable.
Within all this, I see the rise of the bourgeois class, with their identity and social ambitions… their taste for exotic foods, goods, and status helped enslave entire foreign populations, and restructured the entire world to learn to acquire the same taste for luxury items… Wallerstein doesn’t look to this as a driving force, at least he doesn’t really mention this in this book. Instead, he concentrates on the economic exploit and the changing political landscape as an attempt to solidify lines of trade, political dominance and military exercise in the name of the former two. If anything, over the last three books of his, he has been convincing me that economics — access to resources — remains the primary motive for individuals and populations. That our political well being and agendas are not due to ideology (it can be for individuals) but it is due in greater part, for our desire to secure wealth for ourselves (or with the masses, at least enough to maintain an accustomed lifestyle).
Seen in this way, the French Revolution like many other revolutions, as Wallerstein points out, was mainly the very poor rising up, caught in the ideology and stirrings of a merchant class that is unhappy with how the ruling class has managed their interests… and then the merchant class taking command of the rising masses (only because they want to direct its growth to secure their own stability, rather than seeing their own place in society like-wise overturned) and then a finally, the installation of conservative governance, or at least a government somewhat conservative, to maintain at least enough of the power structure so as to secure some economic status quo so that resource and ownership are not taken away from the wealth that be. It is in this way that many Latin-America countries have their “revolutions” (that those that benefit most from the existing order would see a revolution that continues to benefit their order), revolutions where the existing economic infrastructure remains the same.
I hang back from giving him 5 stars mainly because I would have liked to see some examination of ideology in this view… something touched upon but not fully developed… if anything a strong view of ideology from an economic position would be to claim that all ideology is propaganda, meant to direct the masses either to overthrowing the ruling class or maintaining some economic basis for those who already have economic power… a weak view of ideology is that it does reflect some new ideas about the role of people, to legitimatize the freedoms that people can gain through mass political action. While this is not Wallersteins thesis in this book, his introduction to his world systems analysis promises a deeper view of world capitalist systems in order to also account for ideology… something which is largely takes a backseat in this book to the actual moves of economic realities… that is to say, save for questioning the role of the French Revolution in the rise of capitalism.
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