Immanuel Wallerstein: Historie kapitalismu, globální nerovnosti a světová revoluce
Immanuel Wallerstein: History of Capitalism, Global Inequality and World Revolution

Review Essay on the Occasion of the Death of the Prominent Historical Sociologist

Summary/Abstract: This review essay is published on the occasion of the recent death of the American historical sociologist Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (1930–2019) and seeks to present, in outline, his ambitious work resulting in a major theory of the evolution of global capitalism. The author therefore looks first into the origin, expansion and structure of the world capitalist system and later examines the way in which Wallerstein explains the persistence or increase of inequalities in this system. In this context, he develops thoughts on Kondratieff waves, but also offers other alternative views on the long economic cycles not explored by Wallerstein. Apart from these long cycles, the study also critically presents the concept of periphery and the related unequal exchange between the global centre and the periphery, or semi-periphery. Finally, the author pays special attention to the late phase of Wallerstein’s scientific career, when his attention shifted to the issue of culture. The review is motivated by the fact that in the Czech environment the extensive work of this prominent historical sociologist has been reflected in a systematic way only by Stanislav Holubec, and apart from this, it has been reflected only marginally. The author presents a detailed critical argument challenging Wallerstein’s general thesis on the increase of global inequalities between the centre and the periphery by showing that different methodological approaches to measuring these inequalities lead to different, or even contradictory, conclusions.

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