Centers, Peripheries and Technical Progress

Global HumanitiesStudies in Histories, Cultures, and Societies

01/2015 On the Correlation of Center and Periphery

GH-01-2015_a.indd 1 29.01.2015 01:05:12

GH-01-2015_a.indd 2 29.01.2015 01:05:12

Global HumanitiesStudies in Histories, Cultures, and Societies

01/2015

On the Correlation of Center and Periphery

Edited by Frank Jacob

Neofelis Verlag

GH-01-2015_a.indd 3 29.01.2015 01:05:12

Global Humanities – Studies in Histories, Cultures, and Societies01/2015: On the Correlation of Center and PeripheryEd. by Frank Jacob

German National Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the German National Library:http://dnb.d-nb.de

© 2015 Neofelis Verlag GmbH, Berlinwww.neofelis-verlag.deAll rights reserved.

Cover Design: Marija SkaraPrinted by PRESSEL Digitaler Produktionsdruck, RemshaldenPrinted on FSC-certified paper.ISSN: 2199-3939ISBN (Print): 978-3-943414-68-4ISBN (PDF): 978-3-943414-91-2

Global Humanities appears biannually.Annual Subscription: 40 €; Single Issue: 25 €Available in bookshops or directly from Neofelis Verlag:[email protected]

Scientific BoardDr. Jessica Achberger (University of Lusaka, Zambia), Prof. Saheed Aderinto (Western Carolina University, USA), Prof. Shigeru Akita (Osaka University, Japan), Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Altgeld (Würzburg University, Germany), Prof. Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr. (Angelo State University, USA), Prof. Dr. Roland Borgards (Würzburg University, Germany), Prof. Dr. Sarah K. Danielsson (QCC, Citiy University of New York, USA), Prof. Timothy Demy (Naval War College, Newport, USA), Dr. Julia Hauser (Göttingen University, Germany), Prof. Dr. Stephan Köhn (Cologne University, Germany), Prof. Dr. Helmut Löffler (QCC, City University of New York, USA), Dr. Eike Lossin (Würzburg University, Germany), PD Dr. Sabine Müller (Kiel University, Germany), Dr. Petra Ney-Hellmuth (Würzburg University, Germany), Prof. Jeffrey Shaw (Naval War College, Newport, USA).

GH-01-2015_a.indd 4 29.01.2015 01:05:12

Inhalt

Editorial .....................................................................................................................7

ReceptionsHenner KroppHalfway around the WorldRussian America as a Part of the Russian Empire............................................13

Ingo Löppenberg Their Knowledge about Arctic Nature ...................................................................The Utility of Indigenous Knowledge for German Polar Exploration and Knowledge of the Inuit in Imperial Germany ....................24

Dina MansourStirring the “Mix”Gender and Religion within Islamic Contexts in Europe ................................ 41

ExchangesOliver Schlenkrich / Christoph Mohamad-KlotzbachOpen and Closed Electoral Autocracies in the (Semi-)Periphery from 1996 to 2010: Democratization and Foreign Aid Flows ........................57

Evangelidis Vasileios Centers, Peripheries and Technical Progress .....................................................78

Jeffrey M. Shaw Self-Transcendence in Thomas Merton, Reza Arasteh, and Daisetz Suzuki .......................................................................89

Exploitation and StereotypesJulia HarnoncourtLabor-Relations and the PeripheryThe Example of trabalho escravo in Pará (Brazil) ..........................................105

Liony Bauer Can German Nationalism after WWII Be Characterized by the Concept of ‘Economic Securitization’? Case Study: Securitization of the Roma Minority ...........................................115

GH-01-2015_a.indd 5 29.01.2015 01:05:12

De-Valera N.Y.M. BotchwayDefiance, Rhetoric and Ideologies of Order, and the Rewriting of Colonial Historiography: An Exploration of Cultural Nationalism in Colonial and Post-Colonial Ghana.........................................131

ConstructionsSolveig Lena Hansen / Cathrin CronjägerTranscending the Spatialized Other in and through Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods .......................................157Kyle J. WanbergDisrupting the Center: Toward a Theory of Global Aesthetics .................. 170

Julia BrühneA Revolutionary Myth: Border Crossing, Nostalgia and Identification in Robert Rodríguez’s Machete (2010) .......................................186

Reviews .................................................................................................................211Abbildungsverzeichnis .........................................................................................225

GH-01-2015_a.indd 6 29.01.2015 01:05:12

Exchanges

GH-01-2015_a.indd 55 29.01.2015 01:05:12

Centers, Peripheries and Technical Progress

Evangelidis Vasileios

Prolonged Productive Continuities versus Militaristic RupturesA notorious controversy among historians refers to the issue of ‘technologi-cal determinism’ and the categories related to theoretical aspects of mod-ernization. The ambivalence between instrumental, contextual and social approaches is obvious in these disputes.1 A justified answer to these problems may be that the mediators of technology are not simply channeling technol-ogy, but neither are the users passive consumers. Societies resist and eventu-ally incorporate the new into the old, and their citizens selectively modify and use technologies to create new cultures and new forms of modernization. There is an interactive social construction which modifies technologies and creates new forms of artificial life.Technology has been defined as the ‘tool-making’ ability, which character-izes humans and intelligent apes.2 Moreover: “When each process has been reduced to the use of some simple tool, the union of all these tools, actuated by one moving power, constitutes a machine”.3 From prehistoric times, tech-nical skills were used mainly for collective work. But if agrarian and urban communities were the organizations facilitating the productive activities of their members, wars destroyed this cycle. Regardless of the differences in access to technology between peace and wartime, the latter was particularly rare in southeastern ancient populations, which were well-acquainted with Asiatic despotism,4 rural and urban civil war. In pre-capitalistic societies, the primal distinctive marks of the exercise of power were the division between worker and warrior, the significance of dis-persed copper and tin ores and ingots, the importance of long distance trade

1 Keith Grint / Steve Woolgar: The Machine at Work: Technology, Work and Organisation. Cam-bridge: Polity 1997 (Chapter 1 – Theories of Technology, especially on social shaping and technological determinism); Ronald Kline: Consumers in the Country, Technology and Social Change in Rural America. Baltimore / London: John Hopkins University Press 2000.2 David E. Nye: Technology Matters, Questions to Live With. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2006.3 Charles Babbage: On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press 2009 [first published 1832], p. 136.4 John Milios: Asiatic Mode of Production. In: Phillip Anthony O’Hara (ed.): Encyclopedia of Political Economy. London: Routledge 1999, pp. 18–20.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 78 29.01.2015 01:05:12

• 79Centers, Peripheries and Technical Progress

and ‘organized robbery’, the introduction of taxes, rents and administrative systems for military victuals.5 Just as agrarian communities failed to innovate production, so state formation did not always merge commercial and military spirit. Critical improvements, such as the spoked wheel, chariots and wheelwrights, archery and bow-mak-ing, facilitated the barbarian conquests between 1800 and 1500 B. C. Char-iot warrior élites formed aristocratic, slaveholding societies, which remained stable until the introduction of iron, around 1200 B. C. Not only iron weap-onry but also iron plowshares, made the widespread diffusion of cheap metal applications a possibility. The formation of markets, states, and cities such as Troy were critical frame-works for the interaction between technologies and communities. Crossroads and gateways, especially Dunhuang, were also important sites for connecting peripheries. Cities and countries between China and Syria were joined by the old Silk Roads.6 Cultural, artistic and religious monuments, such as the Dia-mond Sutra,7 verify this significant instrumentality:

Dunhuang is only one of many Buddhist cave complexes along the Silk Road. Others of almost equal importance are the complexes at Bezeklik, northeast of the Taklamakan Desert, and Kizil in western Xinjiang. In 1906, the German explorer Albert von Le Coq removed many of the most important of Bezeklik and Kizil’s murals, which he then deposited in Berlin. A significant number of them were destroyed in the bombings of World War II; the survivors are today in Berlin’s Museum of Asian Art. Fragments of the murals also made their way to Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States.8

The economic policies of the Song (960–1276), Yuan (1271–1368), and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties had influenced global trade, as shown by the historic travels of Zheng He (1371–1433), who voyaged around Africa and up to Por-tugal before Henry the Navigator’s expeditions.9 Meanwhile, after the dissemination of stirrups, feudal reorganization was introduced in the West, with Charles Martel’s new style of cavalry, in A. D. 732;

5 William H. McNeill: The Pursuit of Power. Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A. D. 1000. Chicago: Chicago University Press 1982.6 Alfred J. Andrea: The Silk Road in World History: A Review Essay. In: Asian Review of World Histories 2,1 (2014), pp. 105–127.7 Frances Wood / Mark Barnard: The Diamond Sutra: The Story of the World’s Earliest Dated Printed Book. London: British Library 2010. 8 Andrea: The Silk Road, p. 110.9 Tansen Sen / Victor H. Mair: Traditional China in Asian and World History. Ann Arbor: Asso-ciation for Asian Studies 2012; Paul Kennedy: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Random House 1987.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 79 29.01.2015 01:05:13

80 • Evangelidis Vasileios

this occurred in the Byzantine East only after A. D. 900. In parallel, the rise of Islam, according to William H. McNeill,10 proves the influential impetus of ideas, with their preference toward urban, mercantile, and bureaucratic prin-ciples rather than feudal ones.

Technological Invention and Slaveholding CentersA prominent theme of the debates surrounding ancient history is the relation-ship between slavery and technological innovation. According to Benjamin Farrington,11 the ancient Greek and Roman societies’ lack of technological inventions was because slavery rendered cheap labor overabundant, and the philosophy of Plato and other Greek scholars focused on mathematics and astronomy rather than labor-saving technology.This argument was rejected by Aage G. Drachmann,12 who claimed that slav-ery cannot provide sufficient explanation for the technological delay until 1759, since unlike in antiquity slaves increased competition between large companies, especially in technological matters, with a wide range of applica-tions and machinery production. Drachmann argued that technology in antiquity (i. e. between 900 B. C. and 500 A. D.) had reached the stage of replacing slave labor with animal and water power. Simultaneously, technological applications were disseminated in the uses of fire; agriculture; taming domestic animals; building houses with wood, clay tiles and stones; spinning and weaving; the wheel; shipping; pot-tery; the extraction and processing of metals, especially iron; and writing.In the peripatetic Problemata Mechanica, we read about the simple tools known in ancient times, i. e. the lever, pulley, balance, wedge, screw, and wheel and axle.13 The development from the ancient to classic and modern culture was incredibly gradual, from the Pythagorean belief that things are numbers, to the corpuscular theories, the invention of the concept of energy, the con-tributions of Latin and Islamic Science, etc. There were frequent transfers between centers and peripheries:

When, in the year 529, the last school of ancient philosophy in Athens was closed by the Emperor Justinian and Alexandria, at about the same time, lost its importance as a cultural

10 McNeill: The Pursuit of Power. 11 Benjamin Farrington: Greek Science. Its Meaning for Us. Nottingham: Spokesman 2000.12 Aage G. Drachmann: Große Griechische Erfinder. Zürich: Artemis 1967.13 Eduard J. Dijksterhuis: Die Mechanisierung des Weltbildes. In: Physikalische Blätter 11 (1956), pp. 481–494.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 80 29.01.2015 01:05:13


centre, the ancient sources for the light of science became in fact extinguished, but this light itself by no means disappeared; it had already reached, long ago, other centres, which should emit it once again from the beginning.14

Byzantium, of course, became a center for centuries, while other centers such as Chartres, Antioch, Baghdad, Damascus, Cordova, Toledo and Salerno were also famous. An insightful, retrospective view of the power-antago-nisms from antiquity and the Middle Ages until the eve of the modern indus-trial era is helpful to understand the historical roots of our topic, and the great transformation achieved.

From Archimedes’ to Leonardo da Vinci’s PeripheriesThe argument that we want to support insists that the establishment of world centers – in other words, the systematic concentration of knowledge and power – was based on three main sources of scientific and technological advance: measurement, experiment and construction, more recently incorpo-rated into global business systems. Construction, in scientists such as Menelaus, was critical for the discovery and representation of the intuitive, synthetic and analytical methods leading to proof.15 Heron and Philon’s works are excellent examples of the construc-tivist transformation of space. Archimedes’ experiments are certainly the most representative instances of this new innovative science. Measurement by construction, experiment and observation became exact only after Archi-medes and Heron’s approaches that facilitated a physical science fully justified, because it measured, for the first time, liquids, air and gases.16

However, these contributions required very broad exchanges between cul-tures. Babylon, Egypt, and Greece, at least in ancient times, were centers in the continuous quest for practical and theoretical discoveries. The bench-marks of this concentration of knowledge were mainly advances in mechan-ics, navigation, geography, astronomy, and geometry.Colonization was an important factor of this creative movement. The com-munities’ plans for survival, their trading activities, their wondering about the unknown were natural attitudes, always accompanying scientific practice.

14 Eduard J. Dijksterhuis: Die Mechanisierung des Weltbildes. Berlin / Heidelberg / New York: Springer 1983, p. 121.15 Stephen W. Hawking: On the Shoulders of Giants. The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy. London: Penguin 2003. 16 Thomas Heath: A History of Greek Mathematics. Oxford: Clarendon 1921.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 81 29.01.2015 01:05:13


Confidence in the infinitude of space was increased by maritime commerce and colonization. Optimistic beliefs were related with various theoretical and empirical conceptions of space, for instance, with the early establishment of geometry and geography, as expressed in the worldviews of the Egyptians, during their practical achievements after the 18th dynasty.17

Further historical fields of argumentation emerged in antiquity, many con-cerning novel sciences and technologies, e. g. metallurgy, medicine, linguistics, numismatics etc., while the interaction between knowledge, production, cen-ters, and peripheries was always dynamic.Apart from the political and social circumstances, the aforementioned instru-mental aspect of the scientific exploration of space is very important. The ancient scientists used various instruments, such as sundials, heavenly spheres, the diopter, the astrolabon organon, the parallactic instrument and the mural quadrant. The conscience of this progress appears again, as Homo Universalis in Leon-ardo’s mechanics and in Galileo’s kinetics. At the same time, the founders of the Enlightenment movement supported a European and global international cooperation; for example, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had correspondents ranging from London to Beijing.18

Capital Accumulation in the “Real Home of Capitalism”After the so-called Dark Ages, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the development of mining and industry in Europe increased the demand for gold, silver, iron, copper, and other materials. From 1771, the Industrial Revolution, the age of steam and railways, the introduction of steel, electricity, and heavy engineering in England, USA, Germany, and so on, built a global market and a world system, which was further diversified in the age of oil, automobiles, and mass production.Along with modernity, the foundation of public electric and telecommunica-tions utilities, the introduction of new technology and machinery, acceler-ated the division of labor as never before, while formulating internal markets and promoting commercialization. Industrialization appeared as a revolu-tionary force, with the introduction of electricity, the internal combustion engine, pumps, roller mills, cement, steel constructions, transportation, land reclamation, chemical industry, etc. Thus, technology radically transformed

17 John Chang’ach: History of Science. Students’ Handbook. Saarbrücken: Lambert 2012.18 Reinhard Finster / Gerd van der Heuvel: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1990.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 82 29.01.2015 01:05:13


community life, by repeatedly introducing and transferring multifaceted innovations.Competition, interaction, peripherization, subsidiarity, decentralization, border regions, financialization, “disengagement from and integration into the world market” are characteristic aspects of the modern age.19 In parallel, imperialism had been a continuous process from antiquity up to the industrial epoch, although decolonization processes were accelerated after 1945.20 Around 1880, Ethiopia, Liberia, Japan, China, and Thailand were the only sovereign states in Asia and Africa, while Japan was also imperialistic. Upris-ings for territorial liberation were widely disseminated with increasing fre-quency, from Cuba, to West and East Africa, up to The Philippines. From this perspective, Africa, Asia, Latin America, Russia, and the Middle East may constitute significant case studies of center-periphery historical and geopolitical issues, in correlation with the maritime exchanges, the agrarian nexus to mechanization and industrialization (e. g. mechanical engineering), the transformation in energy production, and the presumed transition from closed or semi-closed economies to the shaping of an international global market.The relevant historical explanations must analyze the framework of the tran-sition from city-centered economies to the emergence of neo-colonialism, i. e. the interstate competition for mobile capital; because the global sequence of leading capitalist states consists of units of increasing size, resources, and global power.21

Non Complementary Development in the PeripheriesThe specific difference between center and periphery is expressed as a con-tradiction between capital-intensive production in highly industrialized countries and labor-intensive production in the periphery; in terms of redis-tribution between center and periphery, the developed countries import raw materials and cheap labor, acquire profits from direct capital investments, gain the periphery’s markets for exports, etc.22 This uneven redistribution and

19 Martin Heintel: Einmal Peripherie – immer Peripherie? Szenarien regionaler Entwicklung anhand ausgewählter Fallbeispiele. Abhandlungen zur Geographie und Regionalforschung, vol. 5. Wien: Institut für Geographie der Universität 1998.20 Michael Collins: Decolonisation and the ‘Federal Moment’. In: Diplomacy & Statecraft 24,1 (2013), pp. 21–40.21 Max Weber: General Economic History. New York: Collier 1961.22 Immanuel Wallerstein: The Modern World System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750. New York: Academic Press 1980.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 83 29.01.2015 01:05:13


inequality is caused by the demand for endless accumulation of capital, which requires high profits through monopolized commodity chains.23 When a region supports “free trade and freedom of movement for the labor force and enterprises”24 and distributes a high per capita income, it is called an industrial core region. However, the core regions were developed only when

“direct producers were losing their direct access to the means of subsistence and therefore becoming dependent upon markets for their access to subsis-tence goods”.25 Therefore, the analysis of internal markets should not presuppose the peas-antry’s unwillingness to trade, but look to the other side, stressing the inherent tendency of commercial capital to move abroad, to prefer liquidity and finan-cial expansion.26 For instance, the role of London and Manhattan maritime companies is crucial today, as their leaders – most of them Greek shipping owners – are among the most mature in the global naval sector. Rising shifts in global trade are compatible with capital-intensive produc-tion in highly industrialized countries and with labor-intensive production in peripheral countries. The center obtains access to a large quantity of minerals, e. g. African gold,27 skilled professional labor through migration etc., facilitat-ing its own technological superiority. From the other side, the periphery has no choice but to increase imports from developed countries, but not from other periphery countries, because dependent industrial enterprises are not complementary to each other. The same is true for agriculture. Almost all other productive sectors, apart from international trading, remain non-com-plementary in peripheries. In developing countries, the so-called capitalist globalization has not surpassed the fragmented industrialization, causing a growing trend for vital industrial imports (raw industrial materials; intermediate products; mechanical equip-ment; industrial consumer products, etc.) as a result of urbanization.

23 Terence K. Hopkins / Immanuel Wallerstein (eds): The Age of Transition. London: Zed Books 1996.24 Konrad Lammers: Die Osterweiterung aus raumwirtschaftlicher Perspektive. Prognosen regionalökono-mischer Theorien und Erfahrungen aus der bisherigen Integration in Europa (= HWWA Discussion Paper 195). Hamburg: Hamburgisches Weltwirtschaftsarchiv 2002, p. 3.25 Michael Andrew Žmolek: Rethinking the Industrial Revolution. Five Centuries of Transition from Agrarian to Industrial Capitalism in England. Leiden: Brill 2013, p. 3.26 Giovanni Arrighi: The Long Twentieth Century. Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times. London / New York: Verso 1994, p. 14.27 Marian Malowist: Quelques observations sur le commerce de l’or dans le Soudan occiden-tal au moyen âge. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 25,6 (1970), pp. 1630–1636.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 84 29.01.2015 01:05:13


The following is an example of the non-complementarity of the periphery’s industrial infrastructure. During the second half of the 20th century, Greek industrial production included some basic metal industries: mainly aluminum, ferronickel, to some extent, and steel. However, the entirety of this nickel production and 85% of the aluminum was exported. The aluminum indus-tries which were settled in Greece only processed the bauxite for the first two stages. The aluminum was then exported abroad, e. g. to France, for further processing. This happens because, in the context of globalization, the penetration of cap-ital is based on the comparative advantages of each country, and does not take into account the needs of the country hosting the investments. The forms of control employed by capital include direct equity participation, assigning labels and similar agreements, and subcontracting, e. g. clothing, footwear, and textiles. For instance, multinational firms outsource clothing production to periphery countries with low wages for the final stages of processing, which are labor-intensive. Thus, in 1983, 43% of total Greek exports in clothing and shoes were subcontracted products. Immigrant laborers from Asia, Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans worked in these jobs. At the same time, “unpaid subsistence and domestic work, underpaid work in informal and precarious conditions, shadow work, slave- and other forced labor” coexisted.28

However, throughout the period 1950–1980, this export orientation and increasing imports led the Greek economy to face international competi-tion. The result was that capital-intensive techniques (investment in buildings, structures, and machines) ultimately prevailed, and employment growth was curbed.29

Global powers are economically diversified, highly industrialized, specialized in information, finance and high-technology, possess considerable military power, and so on. That is to say, the core countries dominate in the fields of production, trade and finance. Under these criteria, Greece, Africa, or the Middle East cannot be considered as belonging to the center. What is more, the periphery countries lack diversified social-political organization, while the

28 Andrea Komlosy: Arbeit und Werttransfer im Kapitalismus. Vielfalt der Erscheinungsfor-men und Operationalisierung. In: Sozial.Geschichte Online 9 (2012), pp. 36–62.29 Sofia Antonopoulou: The After War Economy and the Housing Phenomenon (Special Lessons of City Planning I, 7th Semester). Department of Architecture Engineering, Sector: City and Social Practices. Athens: National Technical University 1989.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 85 29.01.2015 01:05:13


leading capitalist states develop “political structures endowed with ever-more extensive and complex organizational capabilities”.30

Maritime Trade and Global RepositioningAdditional starting points of research might include the related problems of technology transfer and global transition e. g. from sail to steamships, gas, railway, electricity, oil, automobiles, informatics, and biotechnology. Until recently, the main feature of Greece and its broader region was investments in transportation and steamships (during the second half of the 19th cen-tury) and particularly seagoing ships (in the second half of the 20th century). Since 1950, the transport and communications sector has seen a remarkable increase in overall investment activity, both public and private, soaring from 2.62 billion drachmas in 1958 to 22.97 billion drachmas in 1974. The trans-port and communications sector saw larger public than private gross invest-ments only because seagoing ships were not included in the data.31 With regards the proportion of shipping in private investments, we must con-sider the upgrading of the role of the Greek entrepreneurs in Anglo-Ameri-can commercial antagonism, rising from being region-dependent (e. g. Greek communities in Egypt) to the status of asset teammate (e. g. Greek ship-own-ers). This was the result of: i) the high technological advances that accelerated the internationalization of markets; b) the war reparations that reached to 500% of the value of the entire commercial fleet; and c) the 100 Liberty ships endowed by the U. S. to Greek ship-owners in 1947. These Liberties tripled the capacity of the fleet. Thus, the ship-owner Laimos32 argued that the value of the ships in the Greek commercial navy was $5.5 billion in 1967, while the country’s national wealth without shipping amounted to $10.5 billion.33 Clearly, in this particular place and time, territorialism was not a factor:

In the territorialist strategy control over territory and population is the objective, and con-trol over mobile capital the means, of state- and war-making. In the capitalist strategy, the relationship between ends and means is turned upside down: control over mobile capital is the objective, and control over territory and population the means.34

30 Arrighi: The Long Twentieth Century, p. 15.31 Hellenic Republic: National Accounts of Greece, 1958–1975. Athens: Ministry of Coordina-tion, General Administration of National Accounts 1976, Table 17.32 Andreas Laimos: The Navy of the Greek Nation, 2 vol. Athens: Tsikopoulos 1969.33 Nikos Psyroukis: History of Modern Greece. Athens: Epikairotita 1975. 34 Arrighi: The Long Twentieth Century, p. 35.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 86 29.01.2015 01:05:13


But the fact remains that neither global cities nor territorial self-maintenance offer a sufficient strategy against monocentric misdistribution, as seen in the enormous differences in profits and GDP.35

Hegemony or Polycentrism?During the second half of the 20th century, the transatlantic contribution to European economic and scientific development was similar and decisive in many countries, by promoting and monitoring international advancements in science and technology,36 while posing critical questions about hegemony, e. g. the Rockefeller Foundation.37 The corresponding challenge today, however, is the redefinition of intellec-tual and moral leadership38: international cooperation in the fields of informa-tion technology and communications, eased by unlimited and free bandwidth, processing, speech technology, videoconferencing etc.39 Regardless of the disputes over historicists’ arguments, it is clear that inno-vative transformations are possible only at the level of global cooperation, which emerged after the birth and expansion of global trade.40 However, this transition cannot be fruitful without substantial progress in democratic and economic reforms, rather than categorizing entire regions and productive sectors as ‘problematic’. Therefore, such a repositioning should be both regionally and globally ques-tioned, without exceptions e. g. placements in shipping, which comprise 80% of global transportation, benefited from the internationalization of markets, rather than the development of local economies. The reformers should stress the common experiences, repeated in various times and places, such as the

35 Christine Schmid / Christine Unrau: Territoriale Zentren und Peripherien. In: Dorothee Koch / Arbeitsgruppe “Zentrum und Peripherie in soziologischen Differenzierungstheorien” (eds): Mythos Mitte. Wirkmächtigkeit, Potenzial und Grenzen der Unterscheidung ‘Zentrum/Peripherie’. Wiesbaden: VS 2011.36 Henry Gilman: Some General Observations Related to Organometallic Chemistry in the U.S.S.R.. In: Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 26,5 (1962), pp. 585–589.37 Jean-Paul Gaudillière: The U. S. in the Rebuilding of European Science. In: Science 317 (2007), pp. 1173–1174.38 Stephen Gill (ed.): Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press 1993.39 Robert Lucky: The Quickening of Science Communication. In: Science 289 (2000), pp. 259–264.40 Lincoln P. Paine: Maritime History. In: Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, vol. 3, ed. by W. H. McNeill et al. Massachusetts: Great Barrington 2005, pp. 1188–1195.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 87 29.01.2015 01:05:13


historical examples of printing, the cotton industry, the rotary kiln, ‘railroadi-zation’, and electrification, which managed to unify scattered populations and bridge gaps in development. The solution to the current threat of unequal development, visible from Greece to Africa, the Middle East, Russia, and Asia, is possible only through an “integration to the extent of combining mining, rail-roads, docks, and fleets,” with an information revolution and international, transatlantic cooperation.41

41 Joseph A. Schumpeter: Business Cycles. A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process. New York: McGraw-Hill 1939.

GH-01-2015_a.indd 88 29.01.2015 01:05:13

Date post:	21-Apr-2023
Category:	Documents
Upload:	fernuniversitaet
View:	0 times
Download:	0 times

Centers, Peripheries and Technical Progress

Documents