American Liberalism, One Worldism & World-Systems Analysis

Authors

  • Orlando Lentini

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2000.212

Abstract

Liberalism is a system of norms and values elaborated by the European world-economy in the course of its constitutive process. It is a matter of organizational principles determining the acting subject, economic action, the state and, the entire picture of social imaginary, starting from the prescriptive nucleus of ?freedom? rights. The history of liberalism is the story of a methodical structuring of norms and values,which postulates a possessive and acquisitive subject in a system of ceaseless pursuit of endless accumulation. This methodical structuring had already begun in the XIII century with the formation of the Mediterranean world-economy, centered on the free city states of the Ital-ian peninsula.1 Initially, the above elaboration utilized elements of ancient both Graeco-Roman and Judaic-Christian organizational experience, but the identi?cation of a new nucleus adequate to the new system was not realized until the XVII century, with the establishment of Dutch hegemony in the world-system and the emerging English organizational power.

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Published

2000-11-26

How to Cite

Lentini, O. (2000). American Liberalism, One Worldism & World-Systems Analysis. Journal of World-Systems Research, 6(3), 812–826. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2000.212

Issue

Section

Structures of Knowledge