Incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the Capitalist World-Economy, 1750-1839 :: History Economics Ottoman Empire Essays

Incorporation of the poof empire into the Capitalist World-Economy, 1750-1839In 1977, Immanuel Wallerstein proposed a research agenda to answer the question When and by what surgical process did the Ottoman Empire become incorporated into the capitalist world-economy? He withal asked whether incorporation was a single event or a series of events for the different regions of the Empire--Rumelia, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt. He suggested the answer be sought in Ottoman production processes and trade patterns between 1550 and 1850.By 1980, Wallerstein had answered his own question. When the European nates of the capitalist world-economy began to develop its boundaries in the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire remained remote the system. Between 1750 and 1839, the process of incorporation into the capitalist world-economy was complete and the Ottoman Empire had been peripheralized. Wallerstein did not comment whether incorporation was a single event or a series of events.In this pape r, I argue that current lore fails to support Wallersteins version of incorporation of the Ottoman Empire into the capitalist world-economy. I examine Wallersteins arguments and critique his discussion based on my own interpreting of recent work by Ottoman and Balkan historians pertaining to Rumelia (Southeastern Europe).According to Wallerstein, a world-economy is a single social economy containing multiple state or semipolitical structures that operates on the basis of a capitalist mode of production and in which ceaseless accumulation of capital guides the system. Wallerstein recently added the word ceaseless (his italics) to his exposition in order to distinguish his paradigm of the capitalist world-economy with its origins in the sixteenth century from some other paradigms that trace the origins to earlier points in history.The capitalist world-economy comprises a core, a periphery, and a semiperiphery. Nation-states reach the core by successfully exploiting other geograph ic argonas in the periphery. The semiperiphery forms a buffer zone, where geographic areas can break up into the core or down into the periphery. Geographic areas outside the world-economy are relegated to the external arena. They are eventually and inevitably incorporated into the system, however.