ABSTRACT
"Civilization gave rise to barbarism," said Owen Lattimore. And hegemonic forces gave birth to social science. In a capitalist world-economy, the surplus generated by the direct producers is preempted in the form of profit distributed among the bourgeoisie via the market, as modulated by multiple state-structures which seek to affect market distribution. Since world-empires operated structurally in a cycle of expansion and contraction, they were continuously abolishing mini-systems by absorbing them and later "releasing" zones within which new mini-systems could be created. In the sixteenth century, a new phenomenon occurred which was to change the rules of the game. A mode of production is a characteristic of an economy, and an economy is defined by an effective, division of productive labor. In reciprocal mini-systems, all able persons are direct producers, but the process of reciprocal exchange results in an unequal distribution of real surplus--which, given the technology, is always limited--in favor of a subgroup of direct producers, usually older males.
