Deck 13: The Modern World-System

Question 1

The first core capitalist hegemon was

A) Italy
B) Spain,
C) England
D) France
E) None of the above

Answer 1

E

Question 2

Capitalism became the predominant mode of production in a world-system

A) when capitalist states existed in the semiperiphery
B) when capitalism became industrialized
C) when merchant capitalism existed in Italy
D) when capitalist states emerged in the core

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following are characteristics unique to the modern world-system

A) the increase in the rate of scientific innovation
B) the increase in the numbers of wars
C) the increased happiness of people
D) the increase in the morality of people

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Trends in the modern world-system include

A) the expansion and deepening of commodity relations in land, labor and wealth
B) a decline in the power of states
C) an increasing fracturing of capitalist enterprises into smaller units
D) an increase in the amount of subsistence production in agriculture

Question 5

The Portuguese circumnavigated Africa in order to

A) reinforce Venetian control over the spice trade
B) develop the techniques of ocean-going navigation
C) find a route to the East Indies that could be used to import spices
D) obtain valuable raw materials from Africa

Question 6

The first wave of European expansion after the decline of Rome was

A) The Thirty Years War
B) English colonization of North America
C) the Crusades
D) the Spanish colonization of Japan
E) none of the above

Question 7

The main systemic constants of the modern system are:

A) capitalism
B) interstate system
C) core/periphery hierarchy
D) all of the above

Question 8

The interstate system is functional for capital because:

A) it encourages self-reliance
B) it allows capital to escape efforts to regulate it
C) it promotes patriotism
D) it prevents people from identifying with humanity as a whole

Question 9

World revolutions are:

A) the path that Earth takes around sun
B) the main cause of chaos in human affairs
C) local rebellions that cluster in time and are known to the core powers
D) organized primarily by rock and roll bands
E) coordinated by an alien life-form that is colonizing the earth
F) a constant process of resistance to authority

Question 10

The processes of semiperipheral development takes the following form(s):

A) Semiperipheral world regions
B) Semiperipheral marcher chiefdom
C) Semiperipheral marcher states
D) Semiperipheral capitalist city-states
E) Semiperipheral modern states
F) All of the above

Question 11

Neocolonialism is

A) The recent establishment of colonies
B) Plans to terraform Mars
C) Institutions that allow core states to exploit and dominate the periphery without formal colonialism
D) a new religion based in Southern California
E) a notion propagated by fundamentalists

Question 12

The model of systemic constants, cycles, trends and trending cycles presented in Chapter 13:

A) Assumes that nothing important has emerged since the 15ᵗʰ century
B) Claims that the behavior of humans is completely determined by the forces of the global system
C) Tries to describe patterns that have occurred in the Europe-centered modern world-system over the past 600 years.
D) demonstrates that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce.
E) presumes that Karl Marx's understanding of modern social change was flawless.

Question 13

Peripheral capitalism is

A) mostly a waste of the labor time of poor people in the global south
B) Functional and necessary for core capitalism
C) A type of production that uses coerced labor
D) Small business
E) b and c

Question 14

One of the characteristics of modern imperialism is that it conquers countries that are not contiguous with the conquering state.

Question 15

In state-based world-systems there were greater inequalities within core states than within the polities in the non-core.

Question 16

One of the fruits of the modern world-system is that even in the peripheral regions of the system the level of inequality has decreased.

Question 17

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations are examples of a world proto-state.

Question 18

After 1800 the three core regions of the Central System Europe, West Asia and South Asia became integrated into a single integrated core.

Question 19

In the modern world-system, the states in the periphery are weaker economically and politically than they were prior to their incorporation into the system.

Question 20

Capitalists are likely to favor the establishment of an effective world state

Question 21

The logic of accumulation based on taxation and tribute-taking got weaker when core states emerged that were under the control of capitalists.

Question 22

Capitalists always favor the rapid introduction of improved technologies.

Question 23

Before the rise of the modern system state power was always used to support accumulation based on taxation and tribute.

Question 24

The logic of empire-formation by conquest disappeared once capitalism became the predominant mode of accumulation.

Question 25

Military competition among polities is an important feature of all world-systems.

Question 26

Some colonial empires were established before the emergence of the modern world-system.

Question 27

Peripheral capitalism is not very important to the functioning of the modern world-system.

Question 28

Economic globalization goes up but it also periodically has gone down over the history of the modern system.

Question 29

Decolonization has eliminated the core/periphery hierarchy.

Question 30

Most sociologists treat the political development of nation-states as if they existed independently of each other.

Question 31

From a world-systems perspective how does the interstate system enable capitalists?

Question 32

Discuss the contradictions between the desire of capitalists to make a profit anywhere, and their claim to be loyal (patriotic) to their national states.

Question 33

Explain how contract law, price-setting markets and the expansion of wage labor fed into each other and expanded capitalism far beyond that which existed in semiperipheral city-states prior to modern times.

Question 34

Give a contemporary example that contradicts claims that capitalists always support technological innovation and discuss the overall effects of the rise of capitalism on the rate of technological innovation.

Question 35

Discuss the long-run evolutionary process in which state power held by capitalists moved from the semiperiphery to the core.

Question 36

Discuss and critique the definition of world revolutions proposed in Chapter 13.

Question 37

Discuss the similarities and differences between the modern system and earlier systems as described in Chapter 13.

Question 38

Discuss the idea in Chapter 13 that the balance between coercion and consensus has shifted toward consensus in the transition from tributary to a capitalist world-system. Describe the changes that seem to indicate such a shift.

Question 39

Discuss the changes in the patterns of rise and fall that have occurred with the emergence of the capitalist world-system.

Question 40

Discuss the ways in which the predominant pattern of imperialism has changed with the emergence of a capitalist world-system.

Question 41

What are the functions that peripheral capitalism performs for core capitalism?

Question 42

Describe the idea of "trending cycles" and give some examples.

Question 43

Describe the waves of European colonial expansion and decolonization.