World-systems Theory - Criticisms

Criticisms

World-systems theory has attracted criticisms from its rivals; notably for being too focused on economy and not enough on culture, and for being too core-centric and state-centric.

According to Wallerstein himself, critique of the world-systems approach comes from four directions: from the positivists, the orthodox Marxists, the state autonomists, and the culturalists. The positivists criticize the approach as too prone to generalization, lacking quantitative data and failing to put forth a falsifiable proposition. Orthodox Marxists find the world-systems approach deviating too far from orthodox Marxist principles, such as not giving enough weight to the concept of social class. The state autonomists criticize the theory for blurring the boundaries between state and businesses. Further, the positivists, the orthodox Marxists and the state autonomists argue that state should be the central unit of analysis. Finally, the culturalists argue that world-systems theory puts too much importance on the economy and not enough on the culture. In Wallerstein's own words:

One of the fundamental conceptual problems of the world system theory is that the assumptions which define its actual conceptual units are social systems. The assumptions which define these need to be examined as well as how they are related to each other and how one changes into another. The essential argument of the world system theory is that in the sixteenth century a capitalist world economy developed which could be described as a world system.

The following is a theoretical critique concerned with the basic claims of world system theory: "There are today no socialist systems in the world-economy any more than there are feudal systems because there is only one world system. It is a world-economy and it is by definition capitalist in form." (Wallerstein 1979)

Robert Brenner has pointed out that the prioritization of the world market means the neglect of local class structures and class struggles: "They fail to take into account either the way in which these class structures themselves emerge as the outcome of class struggles whose results are incomprehensible in terms merely of market forces." (Brenner 1982) Robert Brenner: Director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA

Another criticism is that of reductionism made by Theda Skocpol. She believes the interstate system is far from being a simple superstructure of the capitalist world economy: "The international states system as a transnational structure of military competition was not originally created by capitalism. Throughout modern world history, it represents an analytically autonomous level of transnational reality-interdependent in its structure and dynamics with world capitalism, but not reducible to it." (Scokpol 1979) Theda Scokpol: American Sociologist and Political Scientist at Harvard University