Money, Money, Money!

Giovanni Arrighi’s book, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times, is an economic world history that focuses on capitalism as a cycle of accumulation. Arrighi looks at the last six hundred years or so and breaks down the establishment of capitalism into different phases of systemic cycles of accumulation. Each cycle is characterized by a hegemonic entity that rises to prominence and becomes the center of the capitalistic world economy for commerce and capital consumption. Arrighi conceptualizes the cycles of accumulation as a realization of “Marx’s general formula of capital (MCM’) [which] can therefore be interpreted as depicting not just the logic of individual capitalist investments, but also a recurrent pattern of historical capitalism as world system.” Arrighi credits “Braudel’s notion of financial expansions as closing phases of major capitalist developments” as an effective way to break up and recognize the rise and ebb of different systemic cycles of accumulation and their hegemonic leaders. The first capitalist hegemon is the Genoese in the fifteenth century followed by the Dutch, British and finally United States.
Each systemic cycle of accumulation takes place on a wider and enlarged scale. The rise of a new economic hegemonic world power necessarily entails a certain degree of restructuring and change in the capitalistic system but also maintains certain elements of the past. Arrighi points out this trend of going forward and backwards throughout the narrative when talking about each new cycle of accumulation. In addition, going backwards does not necessarily mean keeping an aspect of the past cycle but sometimes resurrecting aspects from systems farther in the past.
An important aspect of Arrighi’s book is its teleological nature. Arrighi admits as much at the very beginning of the book in his preface, “this book began almost fifteen years ago as a study of the world economic crisis of the 1970s. The crisis was conceptualized as the third and concluding moment of a single historical process…of the US system of capital accumulation on a world scale.” Arrighi gives further insight into contemporary economics and the United States’ place as world economic hegemon by looking to the past. Arrighi admits that “the only purpose of reconstructing the financial expansions of earlier centuries has been to deepen our understanding of the current financial expansion.”
As you can see, Arrighi’s book, although incredibly fascinating, is quite complex. Thus, how could you hope to teach its concepts and ideas to a class of undergraduate students? Thankfully, Arrighi’s teleological historical approach gives us an opening. In general, students are much more receptive to learning concepts and ideas that have a direct and obvious relevance to their own lives. Therefore, we can use Arrighi to understand our country’s place in the world economy and its role as world hegemon. Further, the country’s current financial crises can be evaluated from a historical standpoint. By analyzing the current crises certain terms and ideas, like signal and terminal crises, can be understood more clearly. The fact that Arrighi ends the book with more questions than answers, regarding the latest, and possibly last, systemic cycle of accumulation is an ideal jumping off point for discussion and rare personalization of historical processes and concepts.
However, other than simply reiterating Arrighi’s point that past cycle of accumulation have led to the United States’ current status as world economic hegemon, how can we further interest and engage students with the rest of Arrighi’s book and past cycles? An activity that seems ideally suited for teaching The Long Twentieth Century is the historical simulation. With complex subjects and ideas simulations can help build student understanding. Although students will need to have read Arrighi or at least excerpts in order to productively participate in a simulation, “the purpose of the activity is to enhance their understanding of a specific historical situation, so it is actually a good thing if they have not yet mastered the ideas or perspectives under discussion.”
The benefits of historical simulations are well documented. Other than providing an appreciated break from the bombardment of texts that typify undergraduate history classes, they encourage enthusiasm, focus attention and “provide a sense of power and competence that too often is lacking in adolescents’ daily lives.” Simulations encourage active participation instead of passive reception of historical concepts while allowing students to understand the past from the perspective of those who lived through the experiences. Interestingly, a historical simulation of the Genoese, Dutch or British cycle of accumulation could actually increase the importance of those past cycles in a teleological text. By simulating these past cycles of accumulation the class can supersede Arrighi’s modest role for them, to explain the current US cycle of accumulation, and show students that the past is not a “pale anticipation of the present, but a full-blooded reality as vivid and bright as the present.”
Each simulation also provides an ample opportunity to contrast Arrighi with different texts that can supplement their understanding. Arrighi’s book has a very broad perspective that allows readers to understand the large systems and structures at play with the rise and fall of different cycles of accumulation. However, due to this distant focus people rarely appear in the book and the human consequences of capitalistic exploitation and surplus accumulation are not addressed. These stories and events are obviously just as vital for a holistic understanding of world history. Thus, books like Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocausts, which document the horrors of British surplus exploitation as world economic hegemon, would be a great companion text to a historical simulation of the British led systemic cycle of accumulation. The reading of supplementary texts will only aid the simulations and deepen the “moral complexities of struggles over ideology and power,” while also gaining a deeper understanding for “the ambiguities of real historical decisions.”
Ideally, an upper level undergraduate class of around 30 students could run simulations concerning each systemic cycle of accumulation and have another class period to discuss their findings. However, time constraints obviously factor in and one simulation focusing on either the Genoese, Dutch or British cycles of accumulation should be sufficient. The US cycle of accumulation can be simulated but will be different than the rest because of the uncertain conclusion and termination crises phase. However, that can make the US cycle the most interesting because the teacher can really let student spontaneity flourish with no historical precedent to abide.
Contemporary articles can assist teaching the last section of Arrighi’s book about the current US dominated cycle of accumulation. For instance, Forbes magazine recently released an article detailing the financial losses that billionaires all over the world have suffered. They included a map that showed the percentage of billionaires lost by country but most interestingly, show the number of billionaires by country. Not surprisingly, especially after reading Arrigi, the United States still has 359 billionaires. No other country comes close. Here we get an incredibly powerful visual aid that supplements Arrighi’s text and in many ways validates his conclusions. The maps also bring up interesting questions concerning the possibility of China being the next world economic hegemon or if any nation-state is the most likely successor to the US. By looking at the map, China’s number of billionaires, 28 but another 19 in Hong Kong, suggest that they are still a decent distance away from eclipsing United States individual wealth and perhaps a conglomerate of multi-national organizations or some type of world government might be the ultimate successors to the US cycle of accumulation. No individual state might be able to construct a more complex and bigger foundation for a future cycle of accumulation.
Another example is a recent New York Times article points out connections between job desirability and the economy. With financial industries in trouble many college undergraduates are switching their majors from business and instead are looking forward to careers in public service or teaching. While potential job prospects obviously play a part in this trend an underlying factor is the associated prestige and feeling of worth associated in choices or a future profession. It is through articles like these that students can tighten the broad focus of Arrighi’s book and look how these large systemic cycles of accumulation impact the lives of people on the ground and most importantly, their own.