Crammed onto the stairs and spilling out into the hallway, almost one hundred students, faculty, and community members attended renowned sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein’s open seminar entitled “On the Global Crisis,” Tuesday afternoon in the Public Affairs Center. Wallerstein, who is the former president of the International Sociological Association and is currently a senior researcher at Yale University, outlined his prediction for the demise of capitalism as we know it within the next 30 to 50 years.
Calling Wallerstein “one of the greatest social theorists of our time,” Wesleyan Professor of Sociology Charles Lemert moderated the discussion and introduced Wallerstein’s theory of the capitalist world system.
According to the theory, the current capitalist world system stratifies nations into the core (exploiters), the semi-periphery (exploiters that are also exploited), or the periphery (exploited). Wallerstein said that the United States, once the hegemonic power in the capitalist world system, has been losing its grip on core status since the late sixties, due in part to what Wallerstein refers to as the 1968 World Revolution. According to Wallerstein, the Revolution consisted of the student movement, other reactions to Vietnam, and the “rise of the forgotten peoples,” which included women, racial and ethnic minorities, and homosexuals.
Josh Scannell ’08, an aspiring social theorist who helped organize the forum, started off the seminar with a question regarding the influence of information technology on the theory of a single, unified world-system. Wallerstein said that he often omits technological advancement from his theories because he sees it as a constant that can be used equally by both those in power and those trying to bring down the powerful.
“Technology follows structure, it doesn’t cause it,” Wallerstein asserted.
Pointing to the role of Vietnam as a catalyst for student action in the 1960s, Nick Benacerraf ’08 questioned the difference between student activism in that decade and the apparent apathy of college students today, a common theme in several of the students’ questions. While Wallerstein wasn’t sure that he agreed with this characterization of the current student generation, he did note that his own generation had a more global perspective. He also pointed to the U.S. loss in Vietnam as a tremendous economic defeat, from which the U.S. never regained its economic strength. Because that international economic prowess has yet to be restored, he said, Americans may tend to focus more on pressing domestic issues as opposed to ambitious global ones.
Wallerstein feels that if the world has in fact reached a point at which the capitalist world-system can no longer sustain itself, global interconnection is essential if we want to have a hand in shaping our future. The distinguished sociologist pointed to two major bodies of influence, the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre and the World Economic Forum at Davos.
For students who sought Wallerstein’s advice on what can be done to support the effort towards a more just and equal world, Wallerstein encouraged a three-part strategy. This includes analyzing the state of the world and finding out where “pushing” can be effective, making a moral choice about what to support, and deciding where to take action.
“Activism adds up,” said Benacerraf on what he took away from the lecture. “Everything is important and necessary, and builds towards a breaking point.”
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