Revolution,racism and sexism: Challenges for world-system analysis

Terry R. Kandal is professor of sociology at California State University, Los Angeles. He is the author ofThe Woman Question in Classical Sociological Theory (Florida International University Press: Miami, 1988) and co-editor ofStudies of Development and Change in the Modern World (Oxford University Press, 1989). He is editor ofCalifornia Sociologist. Currently his research is focused on the history of Marxian theories of revolution.     

World formation or world mode of production? Alternative approaches to world system analysis

Conclusion Bergesen has identified the right problem but the wrong analogy. If we can make the analogy from a social formation to a world perspective then what were are analyzing is the world formation and not a world market or a world production. The capitalist world formation is the ensemble of economic relations (both the determinant production relations and the dominant world system), political relations, and ideological relations which are manifested at the world level. A world formation, as opposed to a world mode of production approach, avoids the confusion between the capitalist mode of production and participation in the capitalist world system, which Laclau pointed to as a necessary step in clarifying theories which utilize a world perspective. Furthermore, it allows us to establish the determinant effects of production in the world formation and the structuring of production by class struggle which Brenner argues is essential for the theory. And in the process it avoids economic reductionism by including the relative autonomy of the state and ideological structures.Finally, a world formation approach does not reduce the efficacy of the world perspective. This is especially true since the capitalist world formation did not arise from dust, but was a result of transformation of the feudal world formation. In this sense, the world formation has an a priori relation to social formations, which is the key insight of the world perspective.