Deck 5: The Rise of the Modern World

Question 1

In the core tends to predominate, whereas in the periphery we tend to find :

A) wage-labor; forced labor systems
B) sharecropping; forced labor systems
C) slavery; serfdom
D) wage-labor; semi-coercive labor systems

Answer 1

wage-labor; forced labor systems

Question 2

Peripheral market societies generally establish the prices of goods by:

A) impersonal market mechanisms
B) having them set by members of the elite
C) haggling
D) government committees

Answer 2

haggling

Question 3

Which of the following societies is a peripheral market society?

A) the Yanomama
B) the !Kung
C) medieval Europe
D) contemporary Mexico
E) all of the above

Answer 3

medieval Europe

Question 4

Wallerstein's most distinctive contribution to our contemporary understanding of capitalism is his:

A) view that capitalism is headed for self-destruction
B) notion that the United States is starting on a path of steady decline within world capitalism
C) notion that capitalism is inherently exploitative
D) concept that capitalism has always existed as a complex world-system

Question 5

According to Wallerstein, the capitalist core consists of:

A) those nations dominating the world-economy, having the highest levels of technological development, and concentrating on the production of the most advanced economic goods
B) those nations that are the most civilized and morally advanced
C) those nations that are highly exploited by others
D) the one nation that is more powerful than all others

Question 6

Marx thought that capitalism arose:

A) in ancient Greece and Rome
B) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy
C) in China and India some 2000 years ago
D) with the rise of the factory system in England in the late eighteenth century

Question 7

Peripheral areas of the capitalist world-economy tend to be economically specialized in terms of:

A) manufacturing using advanced technology
B) raw materials production for export
C) high-cost industrial products
D) diversified capitalist farming

Question 8

Hunter-gatherers, simple horticulturalists, and many intensive horticulturalists are:

A) market-based societies
B) marketless societies
C) peripheral market societies
D) market-dominated societies

Question 9

The Tokugawa period in Japan was typified by:

A) the improving economic condition of the feudal nobility
B) the gradual proletarianization of the labor force
C) a decline in the population of Japan's major cities
D) economic stagnation

Question 10

Outside of Europe, there was only one society which developed a genuinely feudal politico-economic system. This was:

A) China
B) India
C) Japan
D) Egypt

Question 11

In large-scale precapitalist societies with significant manufacturing sectors, craftsmen:

A) usually specialize with respect to the production process
B) are usually organized into work organizations known as guilds
C) seldom function as merchants in selling their products
D) usually produce for a mass market

Question 12

A world-empire and a world-economy are different in that:

A) a world-empire is politically fragmented, a world-economy politically centralized
B) a world-economy is geographically larger
C) a world-economy lacks cultural unity or integration
D) a world-economy lacks the political centralization of a world-empire

Question 13

Marx distinguished between two forms of capitalism. These were:

A) finance and industrial capitalism
B) economic and political capitalism
C) ancient and modern capitalism
D) merchant and industrial capitalism

Question 14

Sanderson and Alderson suggest that economic activity in precapitalist societies is organized in a largely "nonrational" manner. This is evidenced by the fact that:

A) artisans and merchants seldom adhere to fixed work schedules
B) precapitalist manufacturing is characterized by little synchronization of effort
C) the marketing of goods is subject to little standardization
D) all of these

Question 15

The long term trend toward world commercialization beginning about 5,000 years ago is evidenced in:

A) the dominance of production-for-exchange in most agrarian societies
B) the market-dominated character of most agrarian societies
C) the emergence of large, profit-oriented trading companies
D) growth in trade networks and urbanization

Question 16

Mercantilism was an early form of capitalism in which:

A) finance capitalists controlled everything
B) merchants and nobles entered into a coalition designed to improve their ability to exploit workers
C) capitalist trading companies were granted government monopolies to trade with their colonies
D) banking dominated the capitalist system

Question 17

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the capitalist core consisted of , whereas the capitalist periphery was composed of :

A) Holland, Spain, and Portugal; China and India
B) England, France, and Holland; Africa
C) England, France, and Holland; Eastern Europe and Iberian America
D) England, China, and the U.S. North; Africa and India

Question 18

The feudal mode of production in western Europe:

A) was based fundamentally on production-for-use
B) made no use of production-for-exchange relationships
C) underwent a crisis and collapse in the seventeenth century
D) all of these

Question 19

Sanderson and Alderson argue that by the Tokugawa period 1600-1868) Japan had:

A) developed a genuine feudal political and economic system
B) become a peripheral member of the capitalist world-economy
C) become a core member of the capitalist world-economy
D) become an essentially capitalist society in economic terms

Question 20

Wallerstein believes that the most severe form of exploitation within capitalism occurs between:

A) the core and the peripheral societies
B) workers and capitalists in the core societies
C) workers and capitalists in the peripheral societies
D) the semiperipheral and the peripheral societies

Question 21

The capitalism of Bruges and of the Italian city-states in the period between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries was capitalism:

A) merchant
B) industrial
C) primitive
D) competitive

Question 22

The politico-economic system known as feudalism is characterized primarily by:

A) dependent serfdom and centralized government
B) fiefs, vassals, and decentralized government
C) a class of landlords dominating a class of peasants
D) vassals, priests, and centralized government

Question 23

The semiperipheral countries:

A) are more technologically and economically advanced than the peripheral countries, but less so than the core countries
B) are stronger politically and militarily than the peripheral countries, but less so than the core countries
C) have historically combined wage labor with certain types of forced labor
D) all of the above

Question 24

In accounting for why capitalism did not emerge earlier in world history, Sanderson and Alderson suggest that its emergence was dependent upon the development of:

A) highly stratified societies and the intense group competition that stratification produces
B) religious ideologies, such as Protestantism and Confucianism, that emphasized rational action in the world
C) technological innovations such as the steam engine
D) a "critical mass" of mercantile activity achieved as a result of expanding world commercialization

Question 25

When Sanderson and Alderson suggest that the capitalist world-economy and the interstate system go hand in hand, they are referring to the fact that:

A) a fundamental characteristic of the modern world-system is its politically decentralized character
B) the logic of capitalism seems to work against the formation of a world-empire
C) the capitalistic nature of the world-system would probably decay if the interstate system evolved into a world-empire
D) all of the above

Question 26

Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, an early form of capitalism based on trade developed in the Italian city-states. This form of capitalism was capitalism, and thus was based mainly on :

A) merchant; trade
B) industrial; manufacturing
C) state-oriented; government
D) none of these

Question 27

Sanderson and Alderson refer to a process of expanding world commercialization. This occurred during the period:

A) between about 5000 BP and 1500 CE
B) after 1500 CE
C) between 3000 and 2000 BCE
D) between 1600 and 1900 CE

Question 28

Karl Marx and Immanuel Wallerstein have both argued that:

A) capitalism requires the existence of a class of wage laborers
B) the distinction between merchant and industrial capitalism is a vital one
C) capitalism originated in fourteenth-century Italy
D) the maximum accumulation of profits over time is the guiding aim of capitalist economic activity

Question 29

Sanderson and Alderson argue that the emergence of capitalism in Europe and Japan is attributable to a combination of:

A) favorable preconditions and the timing of the critical mass of commercialization
B) dominant ideology and technology
C) demographic collapse and political decentralization
D) growing class conflict and the revival of long-distance trade

Question 30

The principal economic activity carried on in the core states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was:

A) mineral extraction
B) manufacturing
C) capitalist farming
D) plantation agriculture based on slave labor

Question 31

What feature of the political structure shared by Europe and Japan is argued by Sanderson and Alderson to be most important for the emergence of capitalism?

A) its democratic nature
B) its imperial nature
C) its political decentralization
D) its authoritarian nature

Question 32

Which of the following is not one of the major types of states identified by Charles Tilly as existing in Europe in the last thousand years?

A) agrobureaucratic states
B) large territorial states
C) small city-states or urban federations
D) national states

Question 33

Expanding world commercialization involved:

A) increasing importance of markets
B) growth in the size and density of trade networks
C) growth in the number and size of cities
D) all of these

Question 34

A world-system is defined by Wallerstein as any relatively large social system having:

A) a high degree of interdependence with other social systems, an extensive division of labor, and a plurality of cultures
B) a high degree of autonomy, a simple division of labor, and a plurality of cultures
C) a high degree of autonomy, a complex division of labor, and a plurality of societies and cultures
D) a high degree of autonomy, a complex division of labor, and a single unified culture

Question 35

Europe and Japan shared four basic characteristics which contributed to the emergence of capitalism. Which of the following is not one of these characteristics?

A) size
B) population density
C) climate
D) political structure

Question 36

Mercantilism:

A) became prominent as a form of capitalism in the seventeenth century
B) occurred within an economic context of colonial trade
C) involved trading companies that were granted monopolies by various governments
D) all of these

Question 37

One weakness shared by all traditional theories of the transition from feudalism to capitalism is that they:

A) ignore the Japanese transition to capitalism altogether
B) are idealist theories
C) focus almost exclusively on demographic factors in explaining the transition
D) ignore the role of class struggle and economic exploitation in the transition

Question 38

In the feudal system that preceded capitalism, the basic unit of economic production was the:

A) factory
B) manor
C) guild
D) workshop

Question 39

Sanderson and Alderson suggest that the capitalist world-economy and the interstate system:

A) are fused together as part of a single reality, which is governed by the logic of capital accumulation
B) are highly independent of each other
C) closely interrelate during periods of economic prosperity, but are highly independent during periods of economic decline
D) none of these

Question 40

According to Wallerstein, the capitalist world-economy is held together by:

A) an overarching political structure
B) a single culture
C) a loosely structured set of economic relationships
D) the dependence of its elements on industrial technology

Question 41

Karl Marx viewed capitalism as any sort of economic system in which people seek profits through buying and selling goods.

Question 42

In many ways what Wallerstein has done is to expand Marx's model of capitalist exploitation to the world-system as a whole.

Question 43

Wallerstein believes that any capitalist nation's economic actions cannot be understood apart from the global network of capitalist relations.

Question 44

Marx argued that the manner in which profits were realized in the centuries preceding the Industrial Revolution was essentially the same as the manner in which they were obtained after the Industrial Revolution.

Question 45

Wallerstein argues that Marx's distinction between merchant and industrial capital is of little real significance.

Question 46

Expanding world commercialization is the name Sanderson and Alderson give to the increased importance of capitalism after the sixteenth century.

Question 47

The Roman Empire was a market-dominated society.

Question 48

Traditionally, it has been thought that economic commercialism was of little significance in precapitalist societies.

Question 49

In feudal society the central economic relationship was that between landlords and peasants.

Question 50

Sanderson and Alderson argue that the traditional view of the limited commercialism of precapitalist societies is essentially correct.

Question 51

In peripheral market societies the principal focus of economic life is the market and its activities.

Question 52

The most severe forms of exploitation in the capitalist world-economy are those that occur between core and periphery.

Question 53

Semiperipheral countries are even worse off economically than peripheral ones.

Question 54

Sanderson and Alderson suggest that the creation and maintenance of monopolies over specific types of economic activity is the most important function of guilds.

Question 55

A market is a physical place where people assemble in order to buy and sell valuables.

Question 56

According to Sanderson and Alderson, the development of capitalism in Japan was largely the result of forces endogenous internal) to that country.

Question 57

Capitalism began to develop in Japan only after its renewed opening to the West in the middle of the nineteenth century.

Question 58

Sanderson and Alderson argue that throughout world history there is been a long- term process in which commercialism has gradually increased in importance and world trade networks have grown larger and denser.

Question 59

Countries chosen for peripheral development by core nations are those best suited at the time for particular forms of raw materials production using large supplies of cheap labor.

Question 60

Marx identified the beginnings of the capitalist mode of production with the Industrial Revolution in England.

Question 61

What is capitalism? According to Marx? According to Wallerstein? When did capitalism emerge in human history?

Question 62

Some of the most important Italian city-states that were highly commercialized and oriented toward trade were Venice, Genoa, and Florence.

Question 63

The rise of the absolutist monarchies was closely associated with the emergence and expansion of a capitalist world-economy.

Question 64

A major trend in the political evolution of Europe in the past 500 years has been a marked reduction in the number of sovereign states.

Question 65

Distinguish among marketless, peripheral market, and market-dominated societies.

Question 66

Industrial capital was entirely absent from the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
European economic landscape.

Question 67

The interstate system is a form of political organization consisting of a large number of competing and conflicting states.

Question 68

Most theories of the rise of modern capitalism have concentrated on Europe and ignored Japan.

Question 69

In early modern Europe, large territorial states tended to be found where capitalists dominated the economy, whereas city-states and urban federations were more closely associated with the power of the landlord class.

Question 70

Sanderson and Alderson claim that modern capitalism developed in three major regions of the world: in Europe after the sixteenth century, in Japan after the eighteenth century, and in Sung China between the tenth and thirteenth centuries.

Question 71

Sanderson and Alderson claim that the development of modern capitalism depended on a long-term process of growth in the size and density of trade networks.

Question 72

Many of the methods and practices that define modern capitalism i.e., double- entry bookkeeping) were actually developed centuries earlier in Italian city-states such as Venice.

Question 73

The fact that capitalism has not been transformed into a world-empire is believed by Wallerstein to have contributed greatly to its long-term persistence.

Question 74

According to Sanderson and Alderson, capitalism developed earliest and farthest in western Europe and Japan because these societies possessed the most favorable preconditions for capitalist development.

Question 75

Discuss some of the important characteristics of the feudal mode of production in western Europe that preceded capitalism.

Question 76

Slavery, serfdom, and other forms of forced labor disappeared as the capitalist world-economy grew to encompass the globe.

Question 77

Sanderson and Alderson argue that the emergence of the modern capitalist world cannot be understood properly without a full consideration of the development of capitalism in Japan.

Question 78

As a peripheral region in the sixteenth century, eastern Europe engaged primarily in large-scale grain farming based on a system of forced labor similar to the serfdom of
earlier days.

Question 79

According to Sanderson and Alderson, western Europe and Japan became the first truly capitalist societies primarily because they had religions and cultural systems that were highly conducive to the rational acquisition of wealth.

Question 80

Wallerstein has argued that the proper unit to use in analyzing capitalism is the individual nation-state, like England or the United States.