THE CAPITALIST WORLD-ECONOMY: A REVIEW
This research reviews the concept of the capitalist world-economy as that concept was developed by Immanuel Wallerstein (1979, pp. 1-293) and as that concept is perceived by other political-economists and historians. The initial discussion in this research reviews the development and structure of the capitalist world-economy, while the second discussion addresses the conflicting ideas relevant to world development, and the third discussion considers the conceptualization and actualization of world inequality.
Development and Structure: Capitalist World-Economy
Following the end of the Second World War, the industrialized countries of the world began to loosen their political control over those countries that were formerly their colonies. During the Colonial Period, terms of trade had been manipulated in favor of the occupying countries, and the terms of trade for developing countries in the contemporary period are, in many ways, a legacy of the Colonial Period (Spraos, 1983, p. 1).
In almost every instance, the countries that were decolonized became worse off economically in the immediate aftermath of freedom than they had been as colonies. One result was a world full of very poor independent countries. The world was soon introduced to a seemingly ever-changing description of these countries--"poor countries," "peripheral economies," "Third World countries," "undeveloped countries," "under developed countries," and "developing countries." In essence, all of the descriptions conveyed the same meaning, although such designations as "Third World countries" also had political connotations, and although such terms as "peripheral economies" implied that specific poorer countries were tied to specific richer countries (Wallerstein, 1993, pp. 145-157). One of the principal reasons for the changing designations was the attempt to find a designation that was not considered demeaning...