Entire Volume 17 issue 1 - Journal of World-Systems Research ...

THE COFFEE COMMODITY CHAIN 82
protests against the World Bank/IMF, the protests that have dogged the WTO and slowed
progress of the millennium round of negotiations since Seattle in 1999, and the World Social
Forum. In coffee, the most visible sign is the fair trade movement. It is no longer simply a
movement of coffee growers organizing for protection against the penetration of market forces,
but a movement combining coffee growers, consumers, NGOs, and small coffee trading and
roasting companies. Their analysis is that the “free” trading system that has been established by
governments, primarily the U.S., in alliance with the TNCs, is inherently unfair. That is, instead
of focusing their attacks on market forces, they are going after the top layer of the system. And
although coffee is the main fair trade commodity, the movement is expanding to other tropical
products such as chocolate and bananas. These movements, as well as the growing political
instability, may be part of the increasing systemic chaos that signals the coming end of the U.S.
cycle, if Arrighi’s analysis is correct.
CONCLUSION
I conclude by drawing out some of the implications of this analysis for Arrighi’s systemic cycles
and their articulation with Braudel’s layers of analysis. This excursion into the lower layers of
Braudel’s schema suggests some additional mechanisms underlying the systemic cycles, and it
also suggests some additional factors that merit consideration. Similarly, viewing Braudel’s three
layers in the context of Arrighi’s systemic cycles also suggests new forms of connection between
the layers.
Coffee consumption, and therefore the demand for coffee, seems to increase cyclically. It
grows more rapidly during material expansions, and then slows or stagnates during financial
expansions. This makes sense at two different levels. During material expansions, the production
and trade of most commodities grows. More people are drawn into the market economy, and so
more people purchase commodities, such as coffee. More generally, the material expansion is a
period when commodity production is reorganized on a new and expanded basis. New classes
emerge, some classes that previously existed grow in size, while still others wither or disappear.
These new or growing classes are a major source of new demand. The cultural meanings of
coffee to these classes in the particular historical periods play an important role in
stimulating demand. During the Genoese cycle, coffee consumption was confined to small
groups of elites in Europe. With the beginning of the Dutch cycle, the huge expansion in the
volume and distance of trade brought an increase in the number of merchants and businessmen, as
well as professionals to serve them, such as lawyers and accountants. These were precisely the
classes that frequented the early European coffee houses. The British cycle brought the industrial
revolution and the rise of the working class, and the expansion of coffee consumption during this
period was among this class (although in the U.S. and not Britain). This generalization may not fit
the U.S. cycle as well. The U.S. cycle did not really bring a new class into existence in the same
way as the Dutch and British cycles. Part of the expansion in coffee consumption during the U.S.
cycle resulted from the rise of professional and middle classes in new countries, outside the core
of the world-economy. But another part was also created by the advertising efforts of the
transnational corporations. The massive nature of this demand-creation may be a defining feature
of the U.S. cycle.