5 Mar 98 13:21:00 -600
    5 Mar 98 13:20:36 -600
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 98 13:22:37 
From: "Manjur Karim" <mkarim@moses.culver.edu>
Reply-To: <mkarim@culver.edu>
To: psn-seminars@csf.colorado.edu
Subject:  A Few Questions for Andre Gunder Frank
Dear Gunder,

I have a few questions for you, some of them may go a little beyond 
the present article.  Please don't take these questions as a challenge 
to your position.  I am just trying to learn something about these 
very interesting turns in world system analyses.

a. In spite of your differences, both you and Wallerstein agree on 
some level that the process of capital accumulation is the motor force 
of history.  In your work, is the category of capital accumulation 
something that can be reduced to, or may be similar to the marxist 
category of "mode of exchange"?  I remember that one of the focal 
points of the Marxist critics of your understanding of capitalism 
during your early formulation of dependency was that you understood 
capitalism in terms of mode of exchange, not in terms of production.  
Is your understanding of accumulation an extention of your earlier 
alleged preoccupation with exchange?  Or is it a category that 
transcends the dichotomy between production and exchange (athough it 
does not have to be a dichotomy; as Wallerstein reminded his critics, 
by refering to Marx, production and exchange are two moments of the 
same dialectical whole).  Is your understanding of accumulation 
different from Marx's own understanding, for instance in Vol. 1 of 
Capital?

2. Although I am not nearly well versed in the recent debates, but I 
see your attempts to understand the history of world system in terms 
of 5,000 years, as opposed to Wallerestein's fascination with 500 
years, with a certain degree of awe and appreciation.  I am fascinated 
with your thesis, based on archeological evidence, of the existence of 
"capital formation and true price-setting markets in the ancient 
economy." I really think that this is a groundbreaking idea.  But 
from my own historical knowldege from the part of the world that I am 
from, (South Asia) I also know that something revolutionary happened 
as a result of the hegemonic nexus that was established between my 
part of the world with the British colonial economy.  The 
manifestations of that radicalituy can be seen in the making of the 
modern wage earning working class, widespread circualtion of money and 
a radical expansion (not creation, as opposed to the earlier 
stagnationist, colonialist readings of Indian history) of the market, 
a qualitatively different form of transnational out-flow of surplus 
value and resources, radical change in the land tenure system etc. 
etc.  It seems to me that something very importnat, a major episodic 
shift, happened in the last several hundred years as a result of the 
British colonialism-led articulation with the world capitalist 
econmoy.  Now, I find that reading of history fairly compatible with 
Wallerstein's reading of world capitalism.  Even if we agree that 
the history of the world system is significantly longer than what the 
Braudelian/Wallerestian school allows for, is that view incompatible 
with a concrete historical recognition of the radicality of modern 
capitalism?  In other words, can Frankian and Wallerestian/Braudelian 
world system theories necessarly incompatible, or can they accomodate 
each other on some level?

3. It must be my lack of understanding, but I am not clear why 
you find it necessary to abandon (am I putting my words to your 
mouth?) the concepts of "mode of production" and "capitalism"? Why 
can't you include a theory of production in your framework of capital 
accumulation?  Why can't a meta history of a long duration of world 
capital accumulation incorporate a notion of the episodic 
transformative character of modern capitalism?  I think, you have 
showed a similar misgiving about the concept of "class."  Now those of 
us who do marxism from a self-conscious post-marxist vantage point in 
the late twentieth century recognize the simplistic nature of the 
rhetorical statemnt of "the history of all hitherto existing society 
is the history of class struggle."  Actually, my own view of 
class is close to, though not the same as, the view of Laclau 
(one of your major Latin American critics during your early phase of 
dependency theory) and Mauffe. Class, while concrete, is also 
discursively constituted.  I think that social sciences will do 
an enormous disservice to themselves by not recognizing the 
processes through which class identities are continously 
structures and destructured in different combinations with a 
multiplicity of other identities.  What would be your stand on it?
I am also specifically interested in the issue because of your and 
Marta Fuentes's work on social movements. 

4. Finally, you commented somewhere about the undesirability of the 
Marx's political project.  Are you refering to the utopian vision of 
an alienation-free society? If so, I wonder why?  Is your 
understanding of the world history necessarily antithetical to a 
reconstituted marxist histori-political agenda?  

These are only a few questions, which will hopefully lead 
to other points of debate in next few days.  I look 
forward to see your response.

Manjur Karim