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

THE COFFEE COMMODITY CHAIN 86
Once again, it is important to distinguish between core and periphery. While the top layer
of capitalism may dominate material life in the core, the process lags behind in the periphery.
Large segments of the populations there have still not been completely incorporated into the
market economy. This means that the layer of material life in the periphery may still retain some
capacity to influence the unfolding of the systemic cycles at the top layer of the system. In fact, a
major impetus behind the fair trade movement in coffee, and behind the movement for
globalization from below more generally, is the struggle by the poor and marginalized peoples of
the periphery to prevent their material lives from being colonized and reshaped by the forces of
capitalism.
This study of the coffee commodity chain has focused on one small segment of the
world-economy. Many more studies of this nature will be needed before we can begin to get a
complete picture of the interactions among all three (or four) of Braudel’s layers and the ways in
which they have shaped the evolution of the systemic cycles of accumulation. The commodity
chain as unit of analysis and the method of incorporated comparison seem to be useful tools for
this type of investigation. The breadth of the research program that flows from Arrighi’s The
Long Twentieth Century is one measure of its enduring importance.
REFERENCES
Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our
Times London: Verso.
_____ . “Braudel, Capitalism, and the New Economic Sociology” Review 24(1): 107-23.
Braudel, Fernand. 1981. The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization & Capitalism 15 th -18 th
Century, Volume 1 New York: Harper and Row. Translated from the French by S.
Reynolds.
_____ . 1982. The Wheels of Commerce: Civilization & Capitalism 15 th -18 th Century, Volume 2
New York: Harper and Row. Translated from the French by S. Reynolds.
_____ . 1984. The Perspective of the World: Civilization & Capitalism 15 th -18 th Century, Volume
3 New York: Harper and Row. Translated from the French by S. Reynolds.
Campbell, Guryn. 2003. “The Origins and Development of Coffee Production in Réunion and
Madagascar, 1711-1972” in Steven Topik and William Gervase Clarence-Smith (eds.)
The Global Coffee Economy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 1500-1989 Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Chalmin, Philippe. 1987. Traders and Merchants: Panorama of International Commodity
Trading Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Clarence-Smith, William Gervase. 2003. “The Coffee Crisis in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific,
1870-1914” in Steven Topik and William Gervase Clarence-Smith (eds.) The Global
Coffee Economy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 1500-1989 Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dean, Warren. 1969. The Industrialization of Sao Paulo 1880-1945 Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Delle, James A. 1998. An Archeology of Social Space: Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamaica’s
Blue Mountains New York: Plenum Press.