ABSTRACT
There have always been historical systems in which some relatively small group exploited the others. The exploited always fought back as best they could. The modern world-system, which came into existence in the long sixteenth century in the form of a capitalist world-economy, has been extremely effective in extracting surplus-value from the large majority of the populations within it. The French Revolution further changed the structure of the modern world-system by unleashing two new concepts, whose impact was to transform the modern world-system. Liberalism arose as an alternative mode of containing the danger. Radicalism was the last ideology to emerge. It began as a small annex to liberalism. The world-revolution of 1848 marked a turning-point in the relations of the three ideologies-rightwing conservatism, centrist liberalism and leftwing radicalism. The short explanation of why historical capitalism has reached its structural crisis is the steady increase over time of the three fundamental costs of production: personnel, inputs and taxation.
