Define Wallerstein’s world-empires and world-economies and discuss how the concept of the state apparatus connects to them.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

According to Wallerstein, to this point in history there have been only two types of world-systems in existence: world-empires and world-economies. Empires, such as those that existed in ancient Rome or Egypt between 8000 B.C. and A.D. 1500, are ruled by, and integrated through, political and military domination. Those regions making up the empire pay taxes in the form of “tributes” to those who control the empire. World-economies, conversely, are not structured according to political rule but, instead, are based on economic exchanges that extend beyond the politically defined boundaries and control of any given state. Thus, it is not politics but economics that is the integrating force within worldeconomies, an integration that nevertheless remains based on relations of domination. And from roughly the sixteenth century to the present, only one world-system has been in existence: the capitalist world-economy. This economy is the only mode of production in which the maximization of profit is the central reward for participating in economic production. Thus, the capitalist’s interest in producing particular goods or services is determined not by their use, but rather by the potential value of their exchange on the market. Moreover, the logic of capitalism demands that those who profit from the market are required to accumulate yet more capital in an effort to further increase their economic reward. This leads in turn to the constant expansion of capitalist enterprises (Wallerstein 1979:85). In the attempt to consolidate their economic power, emerging capitalist classes appealed to political leaders to intervene in the market on their behalf. Those capitalists who were able to turn to a strong state bureaucracy (which is itself largely a product of large tax revenues) capable of dictating trade policy and possessing the military power to secure its demands were able to reap a greater share of the world’s wealth.