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Immanuel Wallerstein Biography

Immanuel Wallerstein

Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (/ˈwɔːlərstiːn/; born September 28, 1930) is an American sociologist, historical social scientist, and world-systems analyst, arguably best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his world-systems approach. He publishes bimonthly syndicated commentaries on world affairs. He has been a Senior Research Scholar at Yale University since 2000.

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Immanuel Wallerstein Quotes

Production for sale in a market in which the object is to realize the maximum profit is the essential feature of a capitalist world-economy. In such a system production is constantly expanded as long as further production is profitable, and men constantly innovate new ways of producing things that will expand the profit margin.

Expanded, Long, Men, Producing, Things, Way

When Time magazine conducted a poll in Europe in March [2003] asking which of three - North Korea, Iraq, or the United States - was the biggest threat to world peace, a whopping 86. 9% answered the United States.

Answered, Europe, Iraq, Korea, Time

That is why we may say that the historical development of capitalism has involved the thrust towards the commodification of everything.

Development, Historical, May, Towards

The second reason why we haven't observed the growing gap is that our historical and social science analyses have concentrated on what has been happening within the 'middle classes' - that is, to that ten to fifteen percent of the population of the world-economy who consumed more surplus than they themselves produced. Within this sector there really has been a relatively dramatic flattening of the curve between the very top (less than one percent of the total population) and the truly 'middle' segments, or cadres (the rest of the ten to fifteen percent).

Class, Concentrated, Curves, Fifteen, Historical, Surplus

It is historically the case that virtually every new zone incorporated into the world-economy established levels of real remuneration which were at the bottom of the world-system's hierarchy of wage-levels.

Real, World, Levels, Virtually, Established, Zone

The very concept of universal formal education is a product (and a relatively late product) of the capitalist world-economy.

Economy, Formal, Relatively, Universal, World

This is a steady, ceaseless process, impossible to contain as long as the economy driven by the endless accumulation of capital. The system may prolong its life by slowing down some of the activities which are wearing it out, but death always looms somewhere on the horizon.

Horizon, Long, May, Process, Steady, Wearing

What can be done? Well, the governments of the world can undertake what amounts to a vast clean-up campaign and a vast campaign of organic renewal. The problem is the cost of an effective operation, which is enormous, and thus must be paid by someone via some form of taxes.

Amounts, Campaigns, Environmental, Government, Organic, Problem

The basic question that the 'new science' raises for our balance sheet is the issue of what scientific questions have not been asked for 500 years, which scientific risks have not been pursued. It raises the question of who has decided what scientific risks were worth taking, and what have been the consequences in terms of the power structures of the world.

Issues, Years, Risk, Pursued, Taking, Consequences

Capitalism is first and foremost a historical social system.

Capitalism, Firsts, Historical, Social, System

The break from the supposedly culturally-narrow religious bases of knowledge in favor of supposedly trans-cultural scientific bases of knowledge served as the self-justification of a particularly pernicious form of cultural imperialism.

Bases, Favors, Pernicious, Religious, Self, Served

But even in the absence of direct interference by those who had the power to interfere, the process was usually aborted by the non-availability of one of more elements of the process - the accumulated stock in a money form, the labor-power to be utilized by the producer, the network of distributors, the consumers who were purchasers. One or more elements were missing because, in previous historical social systems, one or more of these elements was not commodified or was insufficiently commodified.

Availability, Missing, Historical, Direct, Usually, Purchasers

For the other end of the spectrum, the 50 to 85 percent of the world's population who are not the recipients of privilege, the world they know is almost certainly worse than any their earlier counterparts knew. It is likely they are worse off materially, despite the technological changes. In substantive as opposed to formal terms, they are more, not less, subject to arbitrary constraints, since the central mechanisms are more pervasive and more efficient. And they bear the brunt of the various kinds of psychic malaise, as well as of the destructiveness of civil wars.

Changes, Know, Mechanisms, Psychics, Technological Change, War

The mode of reconciling the promise of ever-increasing reward for the cadres and the demands of the working classes for a quid pro quo for their loyalty to the state was to offer the latter a small piece of the pie.

Class, Loyalty, Mode, Pie, Reconciling

I am suggesting that there is, and always has been, a rather high correlation between ethnicity and occupation
economic role throughout the various time-space zones of historical capitalism.

Ethnicity, Space, Historical, Various, Capitalism, Zones

We must distinguish between the kind of structural transformation that would leave in place (even increase) the realities of the exploitation of labor, and one that would undo this kind of exploitation or at least radically reduce it

Reality, Transformation, Kind, Structural, Exploitation, Distinguish

The way in which these two practices contain each other is that it has always been possible to use the one against the other: to use racism-sexism to prevent universalism from moving too far in the direction of egalitarianism; to use universalism to prevent racism-sexism from moving too far in the direction of a caste system that would inhibit the work force mobility so necessary for the capitalist accumulation process.

Egalitarianism, Moving, Practice, Two, Way

We can tentatively credit capitalist civilization with a positive, if very geographically uneven, record in the struggle against disease.

Civilization, Credit, Record, Struggle, Tentatively, Uneven

We seem to be in the midst of a process of cascading bifurcations that may last some 50 more years. We can be sure some new historical order will emerge. We cannot be sure what that order will be. Concretely, we may symbolize the first bifurcation as the effect of the world revolution of 1968 which continued up to and including the so-called collapse of the communisms in 1989, the social bifurcation.

Order, Years, Historical, Including, Collapse, Concretely

What is surprising is that their ideological opponents, the Marxists - the anti-liberals, the representatives of the oppressed working classes - believed in progress with at least as much passion as the liberals.

Passion, Class, Progress, Liberals

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