World Systems Theory & Career/Business Opportunities
Have you ever wondered why the resources, money and talent in the world heads toward certain economic hubs? Why the rich get richer? Why our children move overseas to cities like London and New York to further their careers? In the 1970s and 1980s an American named Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein spent a lot of time thinking about it.
Spoiler Alert: the reason you need to think about it is because it both governs your own career potential and your ability to attract and compete in the globalised marketplace. It rejects a Third World in favour of a One World social construct.
Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory (don’t be scared by the boring sound of the name) is easily explained through the diagram. There is a Core, a Semi-Periphery and a Periphery. The arrows depict the movement of resources, talent and wealth from the periphery towards the Core – think of the Core as economic hubs like New York and London. The Australian city of Sydney is in the Core too, so it’s not entirely geographic. The Core are the world hubs of business and successful enterprise.
The Core is the pool where talent heads and masses. It’s the place where resources and wealth masses. The Core has high technological development and it creates complex technological products
At the other extreme is the Periphery – the source of cheap labour, raw minerals and agricultural products that service the Core. The Periphery gets cheap prices and the Core gets high prices so there’s an economic imbalance between the two. The Periphery involves the exploitation of people at low wages in crap working conditions to support those countries in the Semi-Periphery and Core.
In the middle is an area called the Semi-Periphery which acts as a Core to the Periphery and as a Periphery to the Core.
Enough of the theory (yawn)… here’s an example of the migration of talent.
My partner’s son Ross moved from Tasmania to Sydney (to the Core) about 10 years ago to attend the University of Sydney as a young undergraduate architect. Ross won the Sydney University Medal for Architecture in 2004 and was a winner of Realise Your Dream in 2005 – an initiative of the British Council of Australia. Ross moved to London and works as an architect in several European countries and has a special eco-project within Africa (he’s wearing the blue jacket).
Naturally, his architectural business and career are at the Core.
Ross is a talented and interesting guy. But why do Rhodes Scholarships and Realise Your Dream initiatives exist? To suck talent to the Core… it’s a socio-economic pressure that sucks our talent inward… it’s neither whimsy or flippancy… it’s the world of opportunity. It’s the same reason Tasmania’s Roaring 40s are leaking talent at the moment.
As business people… and I’m particularly thinking of web professionals… we need to understand the migration of talent, wealth and resources. It affects how we operate, where we set up our shop… and the opportunities that will be open to us. It’s a primary influence on our ability to attract and retain highly talented individuals.
Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory is as boring as any other economic theory about real world business. But it’s well worth keeping in mind if you want to be a smarter business person.
By the way, Australia is in the Semi-Periphery… in Australia, arguably, only Sydney (and maybe Melbourne) are in the Core.
