Hierarchies of Global Capitalism – Periphery vs. Centre

by Jakob Drews
The global capitalist system is characterized by inequality through exploitation and dependency. These attributes were fostered by European colonization. Different parameters of dependency were institutionalized since the “independence” of the formally colonized. They characterize the structure of the international system. Some economies are profiting from the global capitalist system, some are doomed to depend on those who profit. This structure is binary and consists of the profiting centre and the exploited periphery. Both substructures were not “born” into their respective position. They were constructed. In this work, I am stressing the relationship between centre and periphery from a historical perspective. What constituted the centre in the centre and why is the periphery dependent on the centre?