The Concept of the Periphery As a Concepts

META 14 Introduction The center and periphery are fashionable The Concept of the Periphery as a concepts. They found their way from eco- Constitutive Part of the Capitalist nomic geography to all disciplines of social, and even economic sciences. In this World System expansion, they have taken several guises, but have remained most often descriptive concepts. Their relevance in explaining the actual state of global structures is the claim that a position within the international hierarchy determines countries’ possibilities for dealing with the chal- lenges of growth, autonomy and equality— one’s growth or “underdevelopment” are considered to result from this position within the international hierarchy. Local economies are ultimately shaped from their position in such a global system. The Center and Periphery as Labels Wherever there are divisions of labor with Hartmut Elsenhans products important for human life, there are centers and peripheries. Agriculture The category “periphery” is useful for and therefore, by deliberately accepting requires, as do recreational activities, large describing positions in the international exploitation for achieving comparative areas. Other activities require the close system. The analytical content however, advantage. With regards to the MENA proximity of the producers who partici- is limited: Under capitalist conditions, region, this “East Asian strategy” seems pate in a production chain. Cities are an overcoming “underdevelopment”/pe- unfit because of limited capacities in early manifestation of the formation of ripheral positions in the world system do wage goods production, especially food. such centers and peripheries. For long not depend on the availability of surplus. periods of time, it was believed that indus- Instead, overcoming “underdevelop- Keywords: Development; World Sys- trial activities were concentrated in the ment” has been achieved by devaluation- tems; Euro-Arab Cooperation; Imperial- most technically developed regions i.e. driven, export-oriented manufacturing, ism; Export-Led Manufacturing the core areas. However, industry increas- Middle East – Topics & Arguments #05–2015 META 15 ingly migrates to “less developed” areas. Asian quest for unlimited state power, the the position of a local area in the global Industries move from their coastal centers absolutist European monarchies dis- unequal hierarchy. to the interior, as is happening in China. placed their centers of government from This view is not shared by mainstream With the exception of some long-standing Paris to Versailles (17th century), and from neoclassical economics, which expect the geopolitical routes, there seem to be few Berlin to Potsdam (18th century). convergence of different localities. Growth stable distributions between the roles of From the phenomena of cities dominating is interpreted as the result of capital for- the center and the periphery. The afore- their surroundings, theories developed mation such that an increase in the use of mentioned exceptions include: The Bay of that explained inequality as the inevitable a production factor leads to diminishing Bengal to the branches of the Indian consequence of specialization. In the most returns. When capital is combined with Ocean that surround the Arabian Penin- diverse cultural settings, it was argued that more labor, its productivity declines. Cap- sula, the routes from the Indus Valley to solidarity of the brain and the stomach did ital will migrate from industrially more the mouths of the Ganga, and the pas- not allow the stomach to revolt against the advanced regions, defined as regions with sages from central Asia to China and India. brain and the brain’s claim to superior higher capital intensity of production, to In nearly all of these cases, the centers are income. Those who opposed such organic less advanced regions where labor is still at the endpoints or the crossings of trad- interpretations of the political order plentiful. The periphery is less advanced ing routes and are privileged as the col- claimed that the center did not serve the but is favored in its growth by the declin- lecting points of monopoly rents—nor- periphery but rather exploited it and con- ing capital productivity in the center. The mally the regions of high agricultural tributed to its further decay. From such periphery is catching up with the center in surpluses. theories, the stable dichotomies between economic growth and productivity. Hierarchical relations are linked to politics center and periphery are deduced. Although they introduce exploitation of and culture. The pre-capitalist city was the the periphery by the center, Marxist theo- center of administration and the “domi- Center and Periphery as Analytical Instru- ries of imperialism agree with this per- nant culture”. From the city, began the ments for Modeling the Dynamics of the spective. Rosa Luxemburg (286-87) process of state-building in the Indian Global System expects capital to migrate to the not-yet- and African contexts—even if dynasties An uneven development with the continu- capitalist areas, which are perceived as had established their own cities outside ous growth of the center, and with its con- being dominated by the natural econ- the urban economy with its concentration tinued dominance over a periphery that it omy,1 until the natural economy is of rising rebellious social classes. Fateh- exploits, has become dominant in West- absorbed and capitalist relations of pro- pur Sikri was built (late 16th century) as a ern and Southern interpretations of the duction have become generalized. Lenin political center in the Mughal Triangle global system—the result being that (279) shares a similar view as he assumes (Delhi, Agra, Jaipur) but did not replace changes in this set-up are believed to that capital in the periphery will create the commercially much more important come only from conscious modification of capitalist societies and technical devel- cities of Agra and Delhi. By imitating the opment and not “underdevelopment” as Middle East – Topics & Arguments #05–2015 META 16 argued later by dependency theory. In and strategic interests, etc. This dis- but also in the Soviet Block, took notice of both theories, the periphery becomes course is becoming a material force in the the nationalist revolutions in the South. transformed by being instrumentalized “underdeveloped” world that imperialist Western Marxism, more than the Marxism for resolving the contradictions in capital- powers can no longer afford to neglect. of the Communist world movement, ist growth in the center. Ironically, it is the These views became prominent in the increasingly perceived in the Wretched of periphery that becomes developed by wake of the economic depression of the the Earth (Fanon) the new revolutionary this instrumentalization. 1930s when the “underdeveloped” world subject. Capitalism had not established It was only when the limits of the capital- was particularly hit, especially by declin- capitalist growth in the periphery, yet, a ist growth impact in not-yet-capitalist ing terms of trade. The deteriorating revolutionary subject had emerged with- countries was diagnosed, as happened terms of trade were only the conse- out capitalism. Marxism joined depen- mainly during the 1930s Great Depres- quence of structural blockages, which dency theory while very few Marxists sion, that economic theories claimed that kept the societies of the periphery from stuck to the old idea of imperialism as a capitalism led to “underdevelopment” being able to accede to the mechanisms pioneer of capitalism (Warren). Post-war and even deepened polarization. Devel- of capitalist growth—mechanisms which Marxism, World Systems theory, and opment-thinking as a means of correct- worked rather successfully in the center Soviet-style Marxism converged in accepting the spontaneous tendencies of the despite all their contradictions. ing that polarization was inevitable under market, initially in the form of an obliga- New theories were developed, initially by the conditions of dominance of a capital- tion of the late colonial state, developed the nationalist Right in Europe ist world system. most when the national liberation move- (Manoïlescu), which alleged that the New variants of a Marxist critique of polit- ments strived for their freedom subse- unregulated capitalist world economy ical economy and World Systems theory quent to World War II. would inflict the periphery with “under- became prominent in debates on why the From the Indian complaints about the development” by exploitation and by periphery was locked into “underdevelop- drain of India in the early 19th century to imposing unequal specialization—a prob- ment” under capitalist dominance. World modern anti-imperialist discourse, there lem that the periphery could overcome Systems theory (Wallerstein, Modern is continuous argumentation that the only by gaining independence in order World System I esp. 350f.) argued that periphery has been blocked from devel- to avail itself of state power as an instru- more “developed” nations were able to opment and equality in performance in ment in the hands of newly rising dynamic draw resources from “less developed” comparison to Europe and North Amer- national elites. countries and so could further their own ica—those blocking factors being the Marxist positions had to accept that their development by blocking the develop- conscious or unconscious working of idea that the metropolitan working classes ment of others. Thus,

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