I'm tagging this to illustrate bias in writing. This is mentioned by Mickelthwait and Wooldridge (2003) with an off-handed remark on page 177, mocking those who criticize Shell's actions in Nigeria as "they did not go around overthrowing governments."
I may be reading to much into the wording, but do we really want to "compare" cultures. When we talk about comparing cultures, it seems as if we are holding them to a certain standard.
Three primary elements characterized feudalism: lords, vassals and fiefs; the structure of feudalism can be seen in how these three elements fit together. A lord was a noble who owned land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal_system
In Latin America, the Spanish and Portuguese conquests destroyed indigenous authority structures and replaced them with weak bureaucracies under the control of these European states.
According to Wallerstein, the semi-peripheries were exploited by the core but, as in the case of the American empires of Spain and Portugal, often were exploiters of peripheries themselves. Spain, for example, imported silver and gold from its American colonies, obtained largely through coercive labor practices, but most of this specie went to paying for manufactured goods from core countries such as England and France rather than encouraging the formation of a domestic manufacturing sector.
Similarly, Protestants, who were often the merchants in Catholic countries, found they were targets of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, a trans-national institution, found the development of capitalism and the strengthening of the state threatening.
Is the merchant class the first indication of a middle class? If so, then why the fall in wages becasue it seems to me that all they created was a middle man to continously take the wages from the working class that supported the goods that were traded?
With the independence of the Latin American countries, these areas as well as previously isolated zones in the interior of the American continent entered as peripheral zones in the world economy. Asia and Africa entered the system in the nineteenth century as peripheral zones.
the core enriched itself at the expense of the peripheral economies. This, of course, did not mean either that everybody in the periphery became poorer or that all citizens of the core regions became wealthier as a result.
Wallerstein asserts that an analysis of the history of the capitalist world system shows that it has brought about a skewed development in which economic and social disparities between sections of the world economy have increased rather than provided prosperity for all.
Compare this question to Diamond's question. Here the question is, "why are some able to constrain the options of others" whereas Diamond's question was more like, "why are some so rich and others so poor." Just by rephrasing the question, Wolf is calling into question 2 things Diamond never considers: Power and Relationships with others.
Group Bookmarks shared by Mike Wesch
rhanley (70)
jcoop11 (45)
Amanda Stueve (41)
Josh Sparkman (36)
Seiji Ikeda (34)