Textos de Economia (Dec 2014)
The Problem of Political Multiplicity for Historical Materialism: insights from World-System Analysis and Uneven and Combined Development.
Abstract
World-system analysis and the theory of uneven and combined development are two of the most insightful and innovative theoretical perspectives for the study of Global Political Economy within the historical materialist research program. In the founding texts of each of these perspectives, Trotsky and Wallerstein face the same question: how to overcome stage approaches of development, derived from ‘vulgar Marxism’, which stated the impossibility of the outburst of socialist revolutions in countries with backward productive structures in relation to central capitalist States. By different paths, Trotsky and Wallerstein refuse this approach. Trotsky suggests that modes of production in backward countries assume an uneven and combined character; Wallestein suggests a holistic perspective of development, in which modes of production appear in reference to the world-economy. In both cases, it is possible to identify the underlying problem posited by the fact of political multiplicity, as capitalism actually did not spread evenly across different countries. In this article I claim to identify the underlying problem posited by the fact of political multiplicity, as capitalism effectively did not spread evenly across different states. In this article I claim that, despite the substantial differences between those two perspectives, Trotsky’s and Wallerstein’s contributions can be regarded as complimentary, inasmuch as they broaden the explanatory power of historical materialism.
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