WORLD SYSTEMS THEORY
WORLD SYSTEMS THEORY (Teori Sistem Dunia)
(Immanuel Wallerstein)
World systems theory arises from the inability of dependency theory to explain the symptoms in Third World development. Which can be explained by the dependency theory was but a symptom occurs backwardness. World system theory owes to the Annales School, whose major representative is Fernand Braudel, its historical approach. Wallerstein got from Braudel’s his insistence on the long term. He also learned to focus on geo-ecological regions as units of analysis, attention to rural history, and reliance on empirical materials from Braudel. The impact of the Annales is at the general methodological level. Wallerstein retained the broad spatial reach and long historical time of Annales by treating in world history as the development of a single system.
In his own first definition, Wallerstein said that a world system is a multicultural teritorial division of labor in which the production and exchange of basic goods and raw materials is necessary for the everyday life of its inhabitants. This division of labor refers to the forces and relations of production of the world economy.
According to him, there are three basic types of social systems. The first is the “mini system” that discusses the economic activities of a small community in the form of hunting and gathering, simple horticultural activities, and activities to produce goods and services within the community itself. The second is a “world empire” which economic activity based on the extraction of surplus goods and services from remote areas. Results of economic activity used to pay administrators and military officers who have the dominance, the rest to the political authorities in the empire. Third type is the “world economies” based on the extraction of surplus from outlying districts to the people who ruled in the center. the world capitalist system began in Europe at around the 1500s and focused on the activities of capital accumulation, and then expanded over the next few centuries that extends to the whole world, and this system has been absorbed by the mini-system, world empire, and world economies.
For Wallerstein, a world system is a social system, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence. Its life is made up of the conflicting forces which hold it together by tension and tear it apart as each group seeks eternally to remold it to its advantage. It has the characteristics of an organism, in that is has a lifespan over which its characteristics change in some respects and remain stable in other. Life within it is largely self contained, and the dynamics of its development are largely internal.
A world-system is a “world economy”, integrated through the market rather than a political center, in which two or more regions are interdependent with respect to necessities like food, fuel, and protection, and two or more polities compete for domination without the emergence of one single center forever.
According to Wallerstein, the world is too complex if it is only divided into 2 poles (core and periphery countries) because of the fact that there are countries that are not included in the two categories. There are countries that can not be classified as a core or periphery countries. According to Wallerstein, the capitalist world system is divided into three main economic zones:
1. The Core
Countries making up the core have efficient, complex production systems and high levels of capital accumulation. Core states are administratively well organized and are militarily powerful. The core regions benefited the most from the capitalist world economy. For the period under discussion, much of northwestern Europe (England, France, Holland) developed as the first core region. Politically, the states within this part of Europe developed strong central governments, extensive bureaucracies, and large mercenary armies.
2. The Semiperiphery
The semiperiphery combines elements of both, from core and periphery countries. These areas represented either core regions in decline or peripheries attempting to improve their relative position in the world economic system. They often also served as buffers between the core and the peripheries countries. As such, semiperipheries exhibited tensions between the central government and a strong local landed class.
3. The Periphery
Peripheral countries have the opposite characteristics. Lacked strong central governments or were controlled by other states; exported raw materials to the core, and relied on coercive labor practices; unequal trade relations existed between periphery and core.
The emergence of semiperiphery countries by Wallerstein thought if only because there are two poles of the world in the core and periphery countries alone, the disintegration will come with ease in the world system. Thus, the semiperiphery countries considered would avoid disintegration. Then, the semiperiphery countries are also considered to be the new economic climate. The owners of capital can move the capital from places that are no longer efficient to a new place that is growing. This is because in the center of what had been a superior economic decline or loss of comparative cost advantage as a result of the continuous increase in wages due to the exploitation of workers in the periphery countries.
Differences in the core of the three economic zones are on the economic and political power of the respective zones. The most powerful group is the core countries, as a strong state, then this country can benefit the most, because it can manipulate the world system to a certain extent. Furthermore, semiperiphery countries will take advantage of the periphery which is the most exploited. The dynamics of these three groups determined by the world system.
According to Wallerstein, the emphasis on this theory is that the countries can “rise/fall classes”, for example from the core state became semiperiphery state and then into the periphery, and conversely. Rise/fall class of these countries is determined by the dynamics of social systems. This is evident in World War II, Britain and the Netherlands which had been the center of the State replaced the United States dropped the class after the terrible destruction in Europe.
World systems theory rests on the global capitalist economy. From this geo-sosiological perspective, Wallerstein outlined the main stages in the history of the global capitalist economy as follows: first, The European world economy emerged during the extended 16th century (1450-1640). The crisis of feundalism posed a series of dilemas that could only be resolved through geographic expansion of the division of labor. Second, Mercantilist struggle during the recession of 1650-1730 left England as the only surviving core state. Third, Industrial production and the demand for raw materials increased rapidly after 1760, leading to geographic expansion of frontriers in what now became truly a world system under British hegemony. Forth, World War I marketed the beginning of a bew stage characteristic by revolutionary turmoil (the Russian Revolution ended that country’s further decline toward peripheral status) and the consolidation of the capitalist world economy under the hegemony of the US instead Britain. After World War II, the urgent need was expanded markets, met by reconstructing western Europe, reserving Latin America for US, investment and decolonizing southern Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Since the late 1960s, a decline in US political hegemony has increased the freedom of action of capitalist enterprises, now taking the form of multinational corporations.
World systems theory places regional development dynamics in a global context. Influence of world systems theory has been able to explain the success of economic development on the periphery and semi periphery. Socialist countries, which later proved to also receive a capital of world capitalism, it is only considered a single unit of the capitalist world economy. Capitalism that was originally just a change in the way of production from production to use to production for sale, has penetrated much further into permissibility of possession of goods as much as possible, together also develop individualism, commercialism, liberalization and free markets. Capitalism is not only changing the means of production or economic system, but even into all aspects of life and institutions in public life, of relationships between countries, even to levels between individuals.
So that’s why, we know not only the capitalist enterprise, but also the structure of society and the state form. However, the lack of world system theory is less focus on the internal structure of the existing states and more to external factors. If the dependency theory, the external factor is the central states are more powerful, then on the world system theory is the result of interaction of the countries there.
REFERENCE:
Budiman, Arief. 2000. Teori Pembangunan Dunia Ketiga. Jakarta: PT. Gramedia Pustaka Utama.
Theresia Octastefani 