Reconsideration On World-System: Applying Thermodynamics

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Reconsideration On World-System: Appliying Thermodynamics

There are nexuses causal relationships that cannot be separated.

Introduction

World-system analysis is a wide concept that applies different methodology and perspectives compared to another political theories such as liberalism and realism. On the other hand, its establishment of core and periphery relations, wide conceptualization of Lenin’s theory and its ignition of the theory towards more and more past-descriptive and future-predicting trends still fascinating in the author’s perspective. However, there are still wide grey zones and problematic inside the analysis. On the other hand, world-system analysis has partially deficiencies in terms of the explanation of the why today’s world is existing in that way and how the past shaped it. Its vast categorisation attempt is established structural deficiencies inside the analysis that cannot be avoided in today’s world. In that sense, author will try to re-establish the world-system analysis towards the applying of the different concepts into the world-system analysis. In the phase zero, I will explain the what is laws of thermodynamics and how to apply them into the political science in general terms, in the phase I, I will explain the vertical transformation, which derived from the concepts of the laws of thermodynamics, in second phase, I will introduce the horizontal transformation concept in order to complete the applying thermodynamics in to the world-system analysis. In the phase three, I will re-establish the concept of semi-periphery towards the first of all critical of the Wallersteinian concept of the semi-periphery then re-organise the concept with diversify it in accordance with the vertical transformation and horizontal transformation which I will derive from the laws of thermodynamics.

Phase Zero: Thermodynamics and Political Science

First law of thermodynamics implies the conservation of energy, which means total energy of an isolated system is constant; energy can be transformed from one form to another but can be neither created nor destroyed. In terms of political science, this has two important implications, first of all, humanity and civilization, as well as the world politics, which are strictly subsidised by the humanity and human civilization, is in an isolated system, in terms of energy, because of the simple reason; we are still bounded by the resources of Earth while we evaluate the world around us. Our competition, across the history named in several ways such as Jihad, Reconquista, Imperium Romanum, homo homini lupus etc, done in order to rule the resources of Earth both materially and spiritually. In that sense, human political systems, if their resources are not gathering from the outer space, still be bounded by the resources of world. Second important implication is the notion of, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transform. In political sciences, this can apply in two ways. Firstly, it can be referring as a horizontal way of transformation, a transformation in space, which means, nations will struggle in each time in order to establish their dominance inside the system in a described way. None of the bison’s will want to become “king” of the jungle, nor none of the tigers will want to “leaders” of the predators, however, bison’s wants to be best protectors for their commune, or tigers wants to be best hunters inside their habitat. In that sense, firstly, their position inside the food chain guaranteed, secondly, they will able to assert their dominance inside their zones or communes. This is what I want to say while describing the dominance in system. In that sense, firstly, their position inside the food chain guaranteed, secondly, they will able to assert their dominance inside their zones or communes. This is what I want to say while describing the dominance in system. On the other hand, this conflict occurs in a certain space, by doing so, they will able to change the space for their “optimal” way of life in order to gather enough resources. This horizontal transformation can occur in many ways in the human political systems, such as trade, war, negotiations, exchanges, financial relations, diplomatic missions etc. With such “relations” states establish their horizontal transformations via canalising their energy to another channels in order to maximise their autonomy. Horizontal transformations include population, urbanization level of the given nation, its industrial and agricultural capacity, military power, elite composition, state’s financial status, its trade power, economic power, entrepreneur ability etc. which will be further describe in the framework.  Secondly, vertical transformation, is based on the time, rather than the space. Time affects nations transformation acts in a very specific way; create a burden of “Geist”. Nations cannot be separated from their past, so as their political systems. Every political system, despite it is newly established or continued the old relations, carried characteristics directly influenced by their own history. These characterises have strong influences on nations transformation acts in space, which are horizontal transformation. This historical feature can be described as another level of energy transformation, shaping the nation’s mind, its capabilities and its management systems and give “reasons” for the how to use horizontal transformation. In that sense, vertical transformation includes historical class relations, political philosophies, nation reactions to the turbulence events, their management systems etc. which will be further describe in the framework section, are the main components of the “Geist”. By combining these two, we can now talk about a real system, which have nexuses, causes and effects, even a future probability with dynamic equation methods. Such a concept will eventually outcast the vague class and commerce-based point of current world system analysis, however, still a world system analysis, in a normative way of thinking, because, we have still a centres and peripheries, as well as the grey zones. My main aim for the introduction such a wide framework into the world system analysis based on the eradicate vagueness of the current analysis and establish more firm stand in order to understand our world in a better way.

Second Law of Thermodynamics implies that the irreversibility of natural processes, and, in many cases, the tendency of natural processes to lead towards spatial homogeneity of matter and energy. In the perspective of the political science, Second Law of Thermodynamics applies in different way. Ludwig Boltzmann evaluated the Second Law of Thermodynamics as a Law of Disorder, which simply explains that the entropy can be sum of the total disorder in a particular system, on the other hand, reader should note that entropy is not defined or fixed element, it is dynamic, rather than static and increase or decrease as the system disordered or ordered. In political science, this can be referred as a “turbulence”, as Arrighi put it correctly in his famous book Long Twentieth Century (2009). However, in this article, term of turbulence differed from Arrighi’ s concept in a two ways; first of all, Arrighi defined turbulence as a consequence of the erosion of a particular hegemonic state, however, as we see on the historical data, like Britain’s power in 19th century or US power in 20th century, we cannot simply see one eroded hegemonic power, contrary, increased rates of entropy inside the given political system through increase in horizontal transformation of the nations in general, such as the ever-increased financial booms, young population, more elites across the political systems, developed technologies etc. In that sense, my use of turbulence will not include the hegemonic erosion inside the system but increase of power and autonomy of the political systems, which make global system’s resources scarcer than ever. On the other hand, Arrighi used term of turbulence with limitation of war and financial crisis, however, turbulence is much more than that. As the entropy concept stated, change is done only through total movement towards the disorder or order. So, my thesis also believes that the, term of turbulence should be use in bolder concept which includes population increase, rise of radical ideologies, financial and productivity crisis, conflicts and re-composition of elite groups across the political systems. Entropy emerged inside of this political view through the political system’s demands for re-position themselves, due to very simple reason again; everything on the universe wants to transform themselves into the maximum disorder and minimum energy. Maximum disorder, as the physics applied, also about the transformation of the system’s into the minimal energy, so in that sense, political system’s demands to transformation into best position for themselves inside the world system even it means total war, or underdevelopment, interestingly, this might be the main reason of why some states, despite their potentials, still underdeveloped or developing. In this point, terms of core and periphery occurs. However, this term is not enough for author’s thesis. Because, Germany was neither a core power, despite its might, it was still far away from the ideal power, as author will describe later sections, nor a periphery power, clearly German industry was built on high technology materials with strong working class, and organised bourgeois, with relatively middle-aged urbanised population, none of these features made the Germany a periphery. The term of semi-periphery may be argued by the readers, however, term of semi-periphery, developed by Wallerstein, still a vague and misinterpreted concept, because, nearly every system did not fall into the scope of core or periphery fall into the this section according the mis interpreters, on the other hand, Wallerstein’s notion on  semi-peripheral competitiveness against the core and becoming a guard to the periphery in favour of the core is very reductionist understanding of this concept. First, historical semi-peripheral examples given by the Wallerstein, such as France, might have the competitiveness against the core, but never became a guardian of the core’s interests against the periphery, France was already a core nation, rather than a guard for the core. Moreover, another historical examples such as Russian Empire, Argentina may fall into the scope, however such a divergent feature of these systems needs to be re-evaluated. In this point, I will coin the term of semi-core and semi-periphery, which both are in the same level with different features. I will deepen these terms in the next section. In that sense, my thesis will establish a new dimension for the world system analysis concept and re-organise the what has been know inside the field.

Phase I: Laws of Nations

Phase I.a. Vertical Transformation

In this section, I will examine the current core-periphery understanding and evaluate their weaknesses, after that period, I will include my concepts into the core-periphery relations with the approach of the vertical and horizontal transformations.

To start with, what is the relationship’s context? In simple words, division of labour establishes relationships between the core, periphery, and semi-core/periphery depending on their positions in the international political environment. To begin with, we’re talking about the most economically diverse, centrally structured bureaucratic governance with an overabundance of military force, as well as complicated institutions (Wallerstein, 2011). As a result, core states benefited from entrepreneurial innovation as well as a high level of control over global financial networks (Arrighi and Drangel, 1986, 20). Core state activities can coalesce around capital-intensive items, which necessitate high-skilled labour on the one hand and a sophisticated stratification of managerial abilities on the other (Chase-Dunn, 1998, 207).  However, despite their core characteristics in the global international system, core states also divide internally as core-periphery based on their bureaucratic-managerial importance, production power, or market capability, as in the case of the United States, where, while the United States is a core state in international politics, New York and Washington constitute core characteristics against other cities through their “inside” power. As a result, core states nested through their major cities, joining their national urban networks to form complex global networks. On the other hand, periphery draws contracting picture for us. It is based on the labour-intensive production process, obtain lesser technological availability compared to the core states, contains inefficient entrepreneurial activity, have weak political structures and these political structure exclusive for the small group of elites against the middle-classes, depending on the urbanization rates and large unskilled workers and precariat as well as the peasants (Wallerstein, 1974, 349). Moreover, it’s also worth noting that economic and political activity on the periphery is often dominated by tiny circles of elites who control most of the wealth and are primarily supported by core investments in order to maintain raw material exports to core nations. However, this kind of understanding may have lack of adequacy. It is worth to mention that, periphery or core position of a given state have both dynamic and deterministic factors. To speak about the deterministic notion of achieving this position, vertical transformation is crucial, long-lasting wars which are shaping the nation’s minds or state’s bureaucratic management method, which can be either repressive or democratic, however, please note that, with the word of “democratic” author refers to inclusive political regimes which enables the direct share of political thoughts across the system without any hesitation, and also with the term of repressive author refers to exclusive political regimes which minimise or disables the direct share of political thoughts across the system. In historical perspective, while Anglo-Saxon or Indian political system can be called as a democratic system, German or French or Latin American political systems can be called as a repressive system, not only because of the 20th century events, but also their development throughout the history. On the one hand, German political system derived from the acts of Stamm culture, extreme notion of tribalism and conqueror inclusiveness, as John Armstrong put it correctly in his book Nations Before Nationalism (2018). On the other hand, Anglo-Saxon political systems, long-lasting civil wars, unending political conflicts between the elites leads to more inclusive political system, due to very need to rally different groups into the same cause or achieve dominance inside the Anglo-Saxon political system, reader may criticise such a view due to American experiment, however, reader also note that the American way of conflict also existed from the start, which was the escape from the oppression of the continental Europe or Britain, and continued in frontiers of the new continent, both against the nature, local tribes and against themselves such as infamous Civil War (Moore, 1973; Turner, 2008). On the other hand, such a divergent way occurred with a huge contribution of the historical class dynamics. As Moore correctly showed in his book,   Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, transformation of the societies into the more inclusive or repressive political systems heavily derived from their own class relations. In our case study, Nazi Germany’s repressive political regime heavily derived from its aristocratic repressive methods against the peasants and the small bourgeois groups, as author will explain later. On the other hand, political philosophies of the German nation, which includes universalistic one-rule in Kant, which asserts actually not democratic rule but the majoritarian oppression of the “democracy” against rest of the world, or nationalistic ideas such as List’s economic thoughts or Ratzel’s “Lebensraum”, showed important aspects in the Third Reich, reader also note that, Hitler and his crew did not want to rule the entire world, but wanted to “supreme commander” of the world where full of similar state machineries established by “Law”, which was similar idea compared with the political thought of Kant. Vertical transformation’s importance for the state’s position in a world system derived from its impulses in a given nation. In the late 1970s, underdevelopment studies pointed that, Latin America states temporary position was an effect of the dominance of European sub-system, and rather than examination of the innenpolitik, they choose to blame the West again for the underdevelopment (Vemengo 2004; So, 1990; Amin, 1976). With the re-establishment of the Lenin’s imperialism thesis, that was a partially an adequate approach, however, for the understand full scope of the topic, why periphery is periphery, still not efficient. For example, why most of the peripheries are still peripheries, despite the decolonisation process, de-imperialism process? Or a peripheral state can be able to live without the patronage of a core state? In the examples of the Turkey and Algeria, despite the bloodshed of the freedom from the colonial rule or colonial attempts, they both were directly establish close relations with their former colonial enemies; Great Britain and France. This leads me another spot of the issue: a periphery is peripheral not because the core forcing it to do so, but it found it more efficient because peripheral country will not able to carry one more turbulence for the sake of changing its position in world system, which means disorder in the entropy. In most of the cases, Argentina, Mexico, Turkey or Algeria, becoming a periphery gradually done with choice of the particular state not only about the monopolistic capitalist drive of maximising the profits by Western Imperialists, but also includes the maximising the lower energy requirements by peripheral states. Such as in the Turkish example, after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, newly founded republic choose the way of funding the new elites, as British and French powers did the same for the non-Muslim minorities fifty years ago in Ottoman Empire, a very dangerous concept for the further “linear” development of the state (Keyder, 1987). For the first sight, this might see as a retaliation and the catch-up policy for the achieve Western modernization process, however, with lack of creative destruction as Schumpeter pointed out very correctly, which means capitalist development and capital accumulation itself strictly related with the destruction of the old and establishment of the new through innovation and new enterprises, such a catch-up was not possible and the state sponsored new bourgeois was not enough for the emergence of the such a creative destruction as a whole (Schumpeter; 1994). So, why the Turkish state did not leave the organic evolution of the Muslim bourgeois class, which they had, and tried to establish their own’s? Reason was simple; every organic evolution of the bourgeois class comes with a high level of political turbulence and conflict against the state, which was not desirable for the newly established republic. In order to avoid this conflict, republic choose the slow down the growth of bourgeois class through establishing a rival against it. In international level of analysis, this founded bourgeois was not able to compete against the international alike, but also enjoyed from the full scope of state power in home, as a result, they choose the became compradors, like the non-Muslim minorities in Ottoman period, they became the middle-men between the Europe and Turkey for the supply of goods and services, exported raw materials and agricultural products and imported middle and high technology products. With such an act, in favour of minimise its energy for the sake of order of the republic, Turkey choose to become a periphery, in the perspective of the historical class dynamics.  Nazi Germany, on the other hand, choose contrary path as author will examine in next phase. From the side of the core state, however, this perspective alters. In the core states, disorder establish dominance due to a fact; whoever able to organise chaos, can also able to control others. In that sense, core states are able to organise entropically disorder-prone positions where their engines able to run. One of the most obvious examples of this fact is the stock markets in the core states. For example, during the 19th and early 20th century,  London Stock Market was the centre of the foreign and regional exchanges of the world, so crowded that, it needs to be expanded in all directions in order to fit the people, and even the Second World War bombings, it was not removed to the another place, as for the example of the New York Stock Exchange, its development through the 19th century, and even as a crisis-starter position in global markets, showed how disorganised entropy organised by the these state systems. On the other hand, these states were not becoming core as a result of world-systemic impulses, but due to their innenpolitik, same rule also applies here. Their own bourgeois classes were organically developed, through civil wars, economic crisis, constant conflict with the state and of course, high level of creative destruction of the given countries made them core nations as well. Apart from their historical class relations, which was denounced from the aristocratic tendencies through civil wars, capitalised agricultural mode of production with the partial alliance between the workers, peasants and organic bourgeois leads to inclusive political system that needs to “more” in order to continue their maximised energy, in other words, disorder-prone entropy to be organised. On the other hand, more liberal way of thought occurred in these nations not for the coincidence, but for a reason. Adam Smith was the direct opposite of the Friedrich List in that sense. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations written for the Nations which are core, or entropically maximised energy nations which are the very active and needs to “eat” adequate resources for the continue organise the disorganised. This is also why hegemonic positions of the states are so small compared to their long road to the top of the hill. Hegemonic period is so disorganised, and entropically so disordered that the even the most qualified state in its given period cannot hold here more than 25 years at maximum, due to reason that, its innenpolitik is not able to control such a turbulence through establishing adequate creative destruction and maintaining its historical class dynamics. On the other hand, with every cycle, this level of entropy increased ever and ever, such as the Arrighi formulated correctly; every cycle keeps previous cycle inside, however, also shows complete contradiction against the previous cycle (Arrighi, 2009). Such a perspective arises due to ever-increasing entropy of the system required altered methods for the control the disorder, at the one cycle it might be state-led territorialism, in the next cycle, it might be enterprise multi-regionalism. On the level of political thoughts, it was not surprising that these nations choose the most liberal waves of thoughts, more and more inclusion into their systems in order to feed the maximising their energy in order to control the disorganised entropy. In conclusion, the vertical transformational level of analysis contributing to the whether a state core or periphery through their historical class dynamics and political thoughts regarding their influence on the management of the entropy in each system.

Part I.b. Horizontal Transformation

On the horizontal level of analysis, it simply means the transformation of space through what’s given to the particular nations. Horizontal transformation occurs in the space, through very material reality, compared to the vertical transformation. In that sense, tangible elements such as population, urbanisation, industrial and agricultural productivity, military power, state’s financial position, elite composition plays significant role for the horizontal transformation. Its relationship with the Law of Disorder is unique and closely related with the vertical transformation. Despite the vertical transformation’s impulses to the given sample societies, realization of the vertical transformation strongly depends on the availability of the horizontal level of transformation. In that sense, there is three important sub-levels for analysis; mass mobilisation potential, elite mobilisation potential and state financial distress. In order to apply these concepts to the core and the periphery, to start with the periphery, peripheral systems can be considered as a young populated, less urbanised compared to the core nations, wages were lower than core nations in international level, on the other hand, in the level of elite composition, in terms of elite mobilisation potential, there are wide range of elites in different political thoughts, however, there are relatively small group compared to the core nations.[1]  These are the already what we know, however, if we link it to the Law of Disorder, we will find out that, nation’s given at a certain time is the main indicator for the evaluation of a certain time’s entropy, whether it is organised or disorganised. In that sense, we can say that, despite the vertical transformation’s impulses into the given system, main decision-maker for the increasing entropy is the horizontal transformation through shape by the vertical transformation’s outputs into the given system. In more simple way, we can say that, horizontal transformation can be call as a “act” however, vertical transformation can be call as a “will”. Nations disorganisation of the temporary entropy only achieved through the “will to act” in that sense. For example, in Turkish example, from 1876 to 1923, despite the international colonisation attempts, ruling class were silent, or pursued inefficient policies for the salvation, such as use of balance of power in foreign affairs, using core powers struggle for their own political gains. In the long run, such policies were not able to save the Ottoman Empire from the collapse, but, why the ruling class pursued such policies despite its weakness? Answer is clear; Ottoman Empire did not have adequate urbanisation rates, compared to the core powers, not enough fiscal mechanisms for compete against its political rivals, or even did not have adequate population in order to compete against the its rivals. In terms of population, Ottoman population suffered from the long lasting wars against the Russia, inner political conflicts and Balkan states, as the Kemal Karpat put it correctly, massacres done in Balkans during the Turco-Russian Wars, and forced migration to the Anatolia, other Muslim minorities flows to the Anatolia, and demarcation of the population through civil wars created massive problem for the Ottoman state, through skilled manpower for trade, war and bureaucracy and tried to re-organise state through Ottomanization of the rest of the society which was failed later (Karpat, 2003; Karpat, 2006). Ottoman State also bounded by the Duyun-u Umumiye, core power’s organisation that use Ottoman state revenues for the pay the debt of Ottoman Empires to European Powers, notably Britain and France and in its peak, 1900, had 9000 employees more than Ottoman Empire’s Ministry of Finance (Economist, 7 February 2014). Another examples can be derived from the today’s Africa, for example Nigeria, lack of trade balance, increasing population pressure, or conflictual elite composition, ranging from military dictators to regional separatists, heavily influencing for the world-system position of the given state, contrary to enormous revenues from the oil and other natural resources, country is still facing with a peripheralization of the nation as a whole, in simple words, became a subsidiary for the core nation’s energy supply (For the elite composition, please look at: Kifordu, 2011, 23).

In that sense, horizontal transformation of the temporary entropy strictly bounded by the three domain of analysis; country’s demographics, its elite composition, whether elites derived from military or civilian educational structures or business enterprises, and finally state’s financial positions, their fiscal status in the given time through examination of their treasuries, their trade balances in order evaluate their position in the world economy, their exports and imports. However, examination of the imports and exports did not come with the strict numbers only, but also including the examination of the what they sold or buy. Examination of the trade only in numbers is problematic due to it will not lead us to whether nation have the ability to engine adequate creative destruction, capitalist growth through competitive technological inputs. In the Nigerian example, we know that the main revenue of the trade and exports come from the natural resources and the low and middle technological sales to the core economies. In conclusion, peripheral political systems faced with the increasing population pressure, problematic non-well diversified economies as well as the wide exclusive background of the political elites, and as a result, they are unable to channel their transformational energy to the their position in the world-system, but rather continue to struggle in the given political system, through separatism, military dictatorships, or non-state organisation’s terrorism, which all are the part of a “salvation” project, which is a part of the emergence of an radical ideologies in a given pressurised systems (Goldstone, 1988, 129). From the contrary position in the world-system, core nations are quite opposite of the peripheral nations. Rather than a unstable population growth, their median ages are quite high compared to the peripheral nations, their elites are much more higher than the peripheral nations, but, their composition are more inclusionary and their background is more similar than the peripheral nations, and on the state financial level, their treasuries are more stable, through circulation of money, and relatively stable currency compared to the peripheral nations, and their trade mostly consist on the exportation of the high-technology-related products to the other economic zones. on the other hand, their ability to such a “dream” position in the world system, derived from their horizontal transformational power they had in a given time, with its critical combination of the vertical transformation. With the ability of the horizontal transformational givens, they were able to maximise their energy and minimise the disorder in the home, and through maximisation of the energy, they started to search for new levels of infiltration in the world system, in order to distribute this energy for the minimise the energy in home and spread it to the other parts of the world system, please remember the Second Rule of Thermodynamics, Law of Disorder, every system move towards to minimum energy, maximum disorganisation. This act, actually said by the Lenin, with different words. In his famous book on imperialism, he analysed the imperial states capitalists as a group of monopolies which are based on search for more profits, due to lack of profit in home while doing business (Lenin, 1968). My thesis reverts this idea in the perspective of the laws of energy. Profits for the entrepreneurs are the one way of flow of energy, on the other hand, syndicate movements, lack of ease of doing business in imperialist states in a given period due to heavy monopolies and their corrupt relation with the state bureaucracies, or even the slight inflation moves establish another forms of the energy. From the perspective of the laws of the energy, none of the domestic inputs can be separated from each other and should be treated as equal contributing factors, not just the search of more profits. In that sense, we can say that the, imperialist states reached their peak entropy, in other words, maximum disorganisation levels and through colonialism, they spill over this peak disorganisation to the lesser disorganisation, and minimum energy, please remember the first law of thermodynamics, energy cannot be destroyed or created, it can only transform from one form to another. In the 19th century example of the world-system, imperialist core nations transformed their horizontal powers to the “colder” regions of the world; less developed and peripheral zones, through direct foreign investment or direct military colonial establishment into the region.

Phase II: Reconsideration of Semi-zones

What about the grey zones? Semi-peripheries, according to the Wallerstein, By adding another step in the world system hierarchy, the semi periphery helps to stabilize the world system by facilitating interaction and providing a connection between low-income peripheral states and high-income core states, furthermore, semi-peripheral countries, being the intermediate ground, have traits of both the core and the periphery, thus, they also act as a political buffer zone, because they are both exploited and exploiters, moreover, previously, these locations were either core regions or formerly-peripheral territories that had advanced in the global economy (Wallerstein, 1976, 229-233). However, throughout the history, such as the France, Germany, or Safavid Empire, as well as the Portuguese Empire or Russian Empire, despite their semi peripheral definitions, they did not have a semi-peripheral feature as Wallerstein thought. Rather than a stabiliser of the world-system through maintaining relations with the periphery and the core, they were the main destabilizators of the world-system, it is also worth the mention that, example states such as France, Germany, Russian Empire, Soviet Union were the main contributors of the global conflicts, such as the France’s position in Spanish Succession Wars, or Germany’s role in the First and Second World Wars, Russian Empire’s position in Turco-Russian Wars, which occurred “Eastern Question”, another global conflict, or Soviet Empire’s role in the Cold War in 20th century. On the other hand, these states were not based on the agricultural and mineral exportation economies but based on heavy industries on high-technological products, such as Krupp Industry in Germany, or Soviet Aerospace Industry, in that sense, they are still quite contradictory for the Wallersteinian thought on the semi-periphery. Main problem of the Wallersteinian understanding of the semi-periphery derived from the its role reduced in the world-system as a messenger, and watch-dog status, however, that is not true at all. In that sense, author aims to re-establish of the concept of semi-zones of the world system, through use of transformational concepts. To start with, semi-zones are the not the zone of static messenger role, but a dynamic zone of take-off to the core power or fall again to the peripheral zones, energy is a not a static concept, it is true that the energy cannot be created or destroyed but it does not imply that it cannot transform, in that sense, semi-zones are the zone of dynamic transformation. Secondly, one must understand that semi-zones are the zones which has a unique character and separated from the core and peripheries in certain ways, such as, semi-zones are can be both exporters and importers of the high-technology equipment’s, they generally have a young population structure compared to the core nations, however, they may have state financial stress, their elites have different backgrounds but despite the exclusionary backgrounds, elite composition is relatively restricted into the certain groups, such as the example of the Soviets on the foreign policy, across the decades, they only combine two thoughts over and over again; whether Western hostility is conditional or eternal, and defence or the offense gave the best advantage to the Soviet security paradigm (Snyder, 1991, 230). In terms of horizontal transformation of the energy, they reached their peaks in terms of disorganisation, maximisation of the energy inside the given political system, that leads to search for other “colder” zones in order to spread this energy and establish less disorganised home. However, spill of energy given by horizontal transformation, heavily depended on the nation’s vertical transformation givens. In that sense, this spill done either thorough soft colonialism as done by the Great Britain or United States or the France, or can be done through the hard colonialism, over-aggression politics, as done by the Soviet Empire, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, France in early 18th century, or Wilhemine Germany in 20th century. Furthermore, as I mentioned above, nation’s vertical transformation were depended on the concept of historical class concepts and their flowed political thoughts across the time, in that sense, not all of the semi-zone nations are able to do such a spill in less-energy driven regions for the world-system. In that sense, author divides semi-zones into the two distinct categorisations; semi-core and semi-periphery. As you probably are aware from the astronomy, when large stars detonate, which is called as cosmic explosion, has two results; initial, a neutron star which quickly affects the existence, and besides, more alarmingly, dark opening, which swallows even light, quickest thing on universe in our agreement. In ordinary or under compelled worldwide political frameworks, semi-centre countries, red super-monsters in our Earth, at last procure what they need, power amassing, and this wound up with common fulfilment between semi-centre country and centre countries and protection of the political design of world-framework which is really exceptionally uncommon. Uncommonness of this issue not come from the worldwide tensions yet from homegrown tensions. Semi-centre country, our red super-monster’s inner tension components, expanding interests of cartelized elites and their log roll alliances, underlying segment changes which prompted Malthusian snare and youth swells that speed up the course of the political pressure inside the state, changing perspectives and social practices that shown itself with radicalized belief systems and mass developments by individuals and economy which tracked down its pinnacle and not sufficient for the country’s industrialist financial requests that prompts extension of the business sectors across the district and globe all in all colonialism, and furthermore mechanical advancements which Schumpeter admired as “innovative obliteration” which prompted new pioneering soul and administrative apparatuses just as new military arrangements, constrained overseeing elites to take more cruel rulings against the worldwide climate and principle motivations behind why semi-centre countries across the set of experiences didn’t accomplish such a shared fulfilment with the centre states for the accomplishing the job of centre (Korotayev, Zinkina and Kobzeva et al., 2011) (Schumpeter, 1994) (Snyder, 1991) (Goldstone, 1988) (Lenin, 1968) (Hobson, 2005). These factors resulted in semi-core nations, as evidenced by a paucity of historical evidence, and another outcome: a black hole. As in the case of Wilhemine Germany, a state with high semi-core characteristics and expansionist revisionist claims, the First World War became a black hole from which even non-participating countries suffered economic recessions and political repressions, or in the case of the Spanish Succession Wars, France’s revisionist attitudes over the Spanish throne were another example, extending the war from Austria to the Americas. However, as you are aware, the term “black hole” does not refer to the entire destruction of the exampled state, nor to the destruction of the world-system, nor to the removal of the state system itself. In this study, the concept of a black hole refers to the construction of vast destruction across state geographies and people’s histories by revisionist elements. As a result, not all semi-core states failed in the black hole environment. On the other hand, because of the extraordinary rewards and hyper-establishment of their political influence for winners, black hole circumstances for semi-core nations are likewise very attractive and tempting. As with the Roman Republic, Macedonian Kingdom, and Mongol Tribes, Turkish Nomads were relatively powerful in their own region, and revisionist claims, combined with internal pressures, resulted in the Roman Empire, Mongol Empire, First Turkic Khaganate, and Macedonian Empire stretching from the Indus to Greece, and the realization of Hyper-Empires that nearly dominate every important part of the their-eras known world. Semi-peripheral countries, facing high populations with relatively weak age structures, such as China from the 1970s to 2000s or present-day India, allow for more favourable labour-intensive products Capital-intensive products have a comparative advantage over other countries’ trading positions (Ricardo, 2004). On the other hand, the increasing impact of labour-intensive manufacturing is also a consequence of a country’s lack of investment in technological development, making it more dependent on central states to finance maintain its current status while developing its strength relative to the region. and global threats to maintain its autonomy. The most obvious way to understand the impact of technological developments is military relations. Technological backwardness, in order words, limiting the state`s options on security and foreign policy, and create the policy of band wagoning, which implies the taking side with the core power, in that article, for the “profit” or rip off the benefits came from the international system and also profit notion band wagoning emphasize the why weak states despite the risk of swallowed by Great Power, align with stronger states rather than balance them through the coalition of weaker states (Mearsheimer, 2001, pp. 162-163). However, it is worth to mention that the semi peripheral states were not completely bandwagoning with core states, because of a simple reason; they are also competitors in the international system, but on the other hand, most of the times they continue their bonds with core states in order to benefit from their power, and also again it is worth to mention that the these limitations on the semi peripheral states were not derived from the international pressure but from internal pressure, which is simply lack of technological advance. In the terms of the laws of energy, main differentiation from the semi-core nations and the semi-peripheral nations derived from the concept of the vertical transformation, historical dependency politics of the given nations into the world-system’s core powers. Snyder’s famous book of Myths of Empire showed us three important examples of the semi-core nations across the late 19th century and the 20th century; Soviet Union, Germany and the Imperial Japan. As seen in the book, all the states have same common features; relatively young age structure compared to the corer nations, high-technological advantage compared to the semi-peripheral nations, which gave them autonomy against the core nations, capital-intensive production which increases the autonomy, alongside with the increasing entropy of the system towards a more and more disorganisation, a repressive historical class structure, as Barrington Moore describes very accurately; constant repression on the peasants by aristocratic groups and their collaboration with the emerged bourgeois classes, enabled the establishment of the vast state machinery for the rule of such a increased entropy into the system and channel it to the abroad, in Germany’s scenario, it established as a Welt-Politik derived by the Emperor Wilhelm and later resurged with the concept of “Lebensraum” by Hitler, in Imperial Japan it was the military invasion of the Manchuria and assertion of dominance in Pacific, in Soviet Empire, it was the expansion towards Europe and spreading communism into Third World countries. You may find the ideal template for the evaluation of the re-considered world system based on laws of thermodynamics above;

STATE POSITIONHORIZONTAL TRANSFORMATIONVERTICAL TRASNFORMATIONMETHOD OF TRANSFORMATION
COREMIDDLE AGED/OLD AGE STRUCTURE

CAPITAL-INTENSIVE PRODUCTION METHOD

HIGH LEVEL OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

RELATIVELY SMALL ELITE COMPOSITION WITH HIGH NUMBERS

STATE’S FISCAL STATUS IS STRONG

INCLUSIVE CLASS DYNAMICS

ALIENATION BETWEEN ARISTICRACY AND BOURGEOIS/ABSENCE OF ARISTOCRACY

WORKER SUPPORT CRUCIAL

LIBERAL SENTIMENTS

HEGEMONIC
SEMI-COREMIDDLE AGED AGE STRUCTURE

CAPITAL INTENSIVE PRODUCTION

MIDDLE/HIGH LEVEL OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

RELATIVELY SMALL ELITE COMPOSTION WITH LOW NUMBERS

STATE’S FISCAL STATUS IS STRONG

REPRESSIVE CLASS DYNAMICS

ALLIENCE BETWEEN ARISTOCRACY AND BOURGEOIS AGAINST WORKERS

NATIONALIST SENTIMENTS

OVERAGGRESSION
SEMI-PERIPHERYYOUNG AGE STRUCTURE

LABOUR-INTENSIVE PRODUCTION

MIDDLE LEVEL OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

RELATIVELY HIGH ELITE COMPOSITION WITH HIGH NUMBERS

STATE’S FISCAL STATUS IS WEAK

INCLUSIVE CLASS DYNAMICS

ALIENATION BETWEEN ARISTOCRACY AND BOURGEOIS

WORKER’S SUPPORT CRUCIAL

LIBERAL SENTIMENTS

BANDWAGONING
PERIPHERYYOUNG AGE STRUCTURE

LABOUR-INTENSIVE PRODUCTION

LOW LEVEL OF CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

RELATIVELY LOW ELITE COMPOSITION WITH LOW NUMBERS

STATE’S FISCAL STATUS IS WEAK

DEPENDENT

ARISTOCRACY AND BOURGEOIS COOPERATION AGAINST WORKERS

DEPENDENT SENTIMENTS

DEPENDENT

Conclusion

A system cannot be thought without the Laws of Thermodynamics. Laws of Nature can also be applied to the societies, due to very simple reason; they are also product of the nature and bounded by it. In that sense, any world-system thought cannot be separated from the Laws of Thermodynamics because societies acts can be defined as the energy transformation. By doing so, author’s aim was the re-establishment of the world-system through re-examination of its faults and considerations. First and most important fault was the current world-system analysis constructed with a static understanding despite the scholar’s contrary implies for their study. This static notion does not derive from the movement of the nations, but the solid thinking of the positions in the world system, such as the semi-periphery definition done by Wallerstein. In order to break this idea, author applied the thermodynamically laws in three separate ways in current world system; establishment of horizontal transformation and vertical transformation, applying entropy dynamics into the state’s acts and policy preferences. By doing that, author also diversified the world-system categorisations into four levels; core, semi-core, semi-periphery and periphery which are the features explained and summarised above. However, author also aware that the rules that he applies were elements of the today’s natural sciences. With the evolution of the technology towards quantum dynamics, and re-establishment of the world-energy structure through colonisation of other planets, this classification also will expire, from the perspective of the author. What needs to be done, from author’s eyes, constant update of the thesis in accordance with the technological evolution of the world itself, so there are three important phases for the update; first phase is the dawn of the Fusion Age, use of fusion reactors for the main energy resource for the humanity, at least 50% of the global energy production, second phase is the Cybernetic Revolution, increasing use of AI and development of the robotics industry across the world, which will change the vertical transformation, and finally third phase, colonisation of the outer space, Mars and Moon especially, which will break the barriers of the isolated system of the world, and open it to the new playgrounds, which will alter the entire thermodynamically concept of this thesis.

KAYNAK

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York City: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-785920-9, 1976.

Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Time, Verso Books, 2009.

Immanuel Wallerstein, Dünya Sistemleri Analizi: Bir Giriş, bgst Yayınları, 2011.

Giovanni Arrighi and Jessica Drangel, The Stratification of the World-Economy: An Exploration of the Semi-Peripheral Zone, Review, Summer 1986, 9-74

Christopher Chase-Dunn, Global Formation: Structures of the World Economy, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.

Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, Academic Press, 1974.

Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, Penguin Books, 1973.

Matias Vernengo, “Technology, Finance, and Dependency: Latin American Radical Political Economy in Retrospect”. Review of Radical Political Economics38 (4): 551–568, 2006.

Alvin So, Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-Systems Theory. Newbury Park, London, 1990.

Samir Amin, Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976.

Çağlar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey, Verso Books, 1987.

Peter Turchin, Ages of Discord; A Structural-demographic Analysis of American History, Beresta Books, ISBN 978-0996139540, 2016.

Henry Ani Kifordu, Political Elite Composition and Democracy in Nigeria, The Open Area Studies Journal, 2011, 4, 16-31, 2011.

Jack A. Goldstone, East and West in the Seventeenth Century: Political Crises in Stuart England, OttomanTurkey, and Ming China, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Jan., 1988), pp. 103-142, Cambridge University Press.

I. Lenin, Collected Works Volume 39: Notebooks on Imperialism, Lawrance & Wishart London, 1968.

Jack L. Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition, Cornell University Press, 1991.

Andrey Korotayev, Julia Zinkina, Svetlana Kobzeva, Justislav Bozhevolnov, Daria Khaltourina, Artemy Malkov, Sergey Malkov, A Trap at The Escape from the Trap? Demographic-Structural Factors of Political Instability in Modern Africa and West Asia, Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History 2(2), 2012.

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Routledge, 1994.

John Atkinson Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, Cosimo Classics, 2005.

David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Dover Publications, 2004.

Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, Penguin Books Ltd., 2008.

John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

[1] For detailed analysis of elite mobilisation potential, mass mobilisation potential and state’s financial distress, please look at Peter Turchin, Ages of Discord; A Structural-demographic Analysis of American History, Beresta Books, ISBN 978-0996139540, 2016.

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