The five thousand year world system

IntroductionOur thesis is that the contemporary world system has a history of at least five thousand years. The rise to dominance of Europe and the West in this world system are only recent -- and perhaps passing -- events. Thus, our thesis poses a more humanocentric challenge to Eurocentrism.Our main theoretical categories are:- 1. The world system itself. Per contra Wallerstein (1974), we believe that the existence and development of the same world system in which we live stretches back at least five thousand years (Frank 1990a, 1991a,b; Gills and Frank 1990/91, 1992; Frank and Gills 1992). Wallerstein emphasizes the difference a hyphen [-] makes. Unlike our nearly World [wide] System, World-Systems are in a "world" of their own, which need not be even nearly world wide. Of course however, the "new world" in the "Americas" was home to some world-systems of its own before its incorporation into our (pre-existing) world system after 1492.- 2. The process of capital accumulation as the motor force of [world system] history. Wallerstein and others regard continuous capital accumulation as the differentia specifica of the "modern world-system." We have argued elsewhere that in this regard the "modern" world system is not so different and that this same process of capital accumulation has played a, if not the, central role in the world system for several millennia ( Frank 1991b and Gills and Frank 1990/91). Amin (1991) and Wallerstein (1991) disagree. They argue that previous world-systems were what Amin calls "tributary" or Wallerstein "world empires." In these, Amin claims that politics and ideology were in command, not the economic law of value in the accumulation of capital. Wallerstein seems to agree.- 3. The center-periphery structure in and of the world [system]. This structure is familiar to analysts of dependence in the "modern" world system and especially in Latin America since 1492. It includes but is not limited to the transfer of surplus between zones of