Introduction
Immanuel wallerstein is among the prominent proponents of the world-systems analysis.
[In 1974 he defined it “a system is defined as a unit with a single division of labor and multiple cultural systems.”] (Wallerstein, 2004). I n a longer definition he says “a social system,, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimating and coherence. It is held by conflicting forces of tear and tension since each group seeks to remold it to its advantage.” Then in 1987 he gave a fuller description.
He says “Not a system of the world, but a system that is a world which can be, most often, has been, located in an area less than the entire globe. The theory argues that units of social reality within which we operate, whose rules constrain us are the world system as opposed (to mini-system that once existed on earth). It recognizes only two varieties of world-system: world economics and world empires. World Empire (e.g. The Roman Empire, Han china) are large structures of bureaucracy with a single political centre and an axial division of labor with multiple cultures (Wallerstein, 2004). To look at the development of the capitalist structure, from feudal Europe, capitalists harnessed the advantages of trade in the 15thcentuary, gaining control over the industrial means of production with result of unequal distribution of wealth. During this time, the social unit of analysis was the nation state.
In the world-systems analysis, the nation state ceases to be a unit of analysis; this is occasioned by emergence of globally straddling labor division. The core countries or the developed world focus on a production system which is dependent on a highly specialized and skilled labor force and very capital intensive. The peripheral states on the other hand depend on low-skill, extractive raw material and meager capitalization, resulting in unequal distribution of wealth (Wallerstein, 2004). The distribution has been generalized into regional profiling, i.e., north –south countries, one poor the other rich, in between the intermediate middle.
Reference
Wallerstein, I (2004) World-systems analysis: an introduction
Publisher Duke University Press.
