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> > In the past few centuries, what was once the European and then American > periphery became the core of the world economy. Now, the economies that > became the periphery are re-emerging as the core. This is transforming the > entire world. What this means for us all will be the subject of next > weeks column. > > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/072c87e6-1841-11e0-88c9-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz1ASEnH9A3 Wolf is a plagiarist. In that world economy/system, we can observe "the development of underdevelopment" here and there, then and now. Much of Latin America and Africa are still underdeveloping. However, now we can also observe that "Great" Britain is also underdeveloping. We noted that my son Miguel already observed that in 1978, before Margaret Thacher took over as Prime Minister! Miguel and maybe Mrs. Thacher did not see it for lack of sufficient world systemic hindsight, but in fact we can observe Britain underdeveloping already since the beginning of "The Great Depression" in 1873. How so? Well even with the benefit of Wallerstein's modern-world- system perspective, we can now see that some sectors, regions, countries and their "economies" not only move up, but also move down in their relative and even absolute positions within the world economy and system as a whole. Britain began its decline over a century ago, when its pride of place began to be taken by Germany and North America. They fought two world wars - or one long war from 1914 to 1945 - to dispute who would take Britain's place. Alas for some, today their place in the sun is also being displaced by the "Rising Sun" in East Asia. One of the theses of this book is that these developments should come as no surprise, because parts of East Asia already were at the center of the world economy/system until about 1800. In historical terms, "The Rise of the West" came late and was brief! So one of the [early] purposes of the present book was to show first that there already was an ongoing world economy before the Europeans had much to do and say in it. There were two naturally derivative points: One was to show that Asia, and especially China and India, but also Southeast Asia and West Asia, were more active and the first three also more important to this world economy than Europe was until about 1800. The other derivative point is that therefore it is completely counter-factual and anti-historic to claim what "historians already knew that Europe built a world around itself." It did not; it used its American money to buy itself a ticket on the Asian train. However, this historical fact has still other far-reaching implications, both for history and for social theory based on historical understanding. full: http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/papers/gunder/prefreor.htm ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
