The World Economic System in Asia before European Hegemony

Abstract

The recent demise of the “Socialist System,” its “incorporation” into the “capitalist system,” and the increasing wealth of many Asian countries provide a new perspective on the origins and development of a world economic system that spanned the globe. It is an appropriate moment to critically reexamine the work of Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein, both of whom have advanced the view that a world-economy emerged in Western Europe by at least 1450, then spread outward from Europe to encompass the rest of the world. Shelves of historical literature have argued that the origin and development of that world economy were due to European “exceptionalism.” Other scholars, however, envision a multicentric Eurasian system by the thirteenth century and question European exceptionalism, pointing out, for example, that the conquest of the Americas, rather than European capitalism, permitted Europeans to take over Asian markets.¹