Giovanni Arrighi
Giovanni Arrighi (1937–2009) was an Italian sociologist and political economist whose historically grounded analyses of capitalism reshaped critical social and political philosophy. Trained as an economist in Milan, he became disillusioned with mainstream theory while teaching in Africa during the era of decolonization. There he encountered dependency theory and Marxism, turning toward a global, historical understanding of capitalist development and imperialism. Arrighi later became a central figure in world-systems analysis, alongside Immanuel Wallerstein and Terence Hopkins, at Johns Hopkins University. Arrighi’s major works—especially "The Long Twentieth Century" and "Adam Smith in Beijing"—reconceptualize capitalism as a succession of systemic cycles of accumulation, in which financial expansions signal both the apogee and crisis of hegemonic powers. This long-historical perspective has been pivotal for philosophers and critical theorists seeking non-Eurocentric accounts of modernity, globalization, and political power. His analyses of financialization, hegemony, and East Asian development inform debates on global justice, imperialism, and the future of world order. Although not a philosopher in the narrow sense, Arrighi’s work provides indispensable conceptual tools and historical narratives for contemporary social philosophy, critical theory, and global political thought.
At a Glance
- Field
- Thinker
- Born
- 1937-07-07 — Milan, Kingdom of Italy
- Died
- 2009-06-18 — Baltimore, Maryland, United StatesCause: Cancer (reported as pulmonary cancer)
- Active In
- Italy, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, United States
- Interests
- World-systems analysisCapitalism and imperialismFinancializationHegemony and world orderGlobal inequalityEast Asian developmentMarxist theory and its revisions
Giovanni Arrighi’s central thesis is that historical capitalism is best understood as a series of long systemic cycles of accumulation, in which successive hegemonic centers organize world-scale networks of trade, production, and finance, and that each cycle culminates in a financial expansion signaling both the zenith and impending decline of the incumbent hegemon; by embedding capitalism within a multi-century world system and juxtaposing Western and East Asian trajectories, he challenges Eurocentric, linear, and state-centered accounts of modernity, development, and global order.
La geometria dell'imperialismo. L'economia politica dell'imperialismo da Hobson a Lenin
Composed: mid-1970s
The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times
Composed: late 1980s–1993
Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System
Composed: mid-1990s
Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century
Composed: early 2000s–2007
Antisystemic Movements
Composed: late 1970s–1980s
In the history of the capitalist world-economy, financial expansions have signaled not just the maturity of a regime of accumulation but also its impending demise.— Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (1994), Introduction.
Arrighi summarizes his thesis that recurring waves of financialization are symptoms of hegemonic overreach and systemic crisis, a key idea for philosophers analyzing capitalism's temporal dynamics.
Capitalism has no homeland: it has always been a world system whose centers of power have moved in space and time.— Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century (1994), Chapter 1 (paraphrased close translation from discussion of systemic cycles).
Here Arrighi rejects nation-centered accounts of capitalism, emphasizing its inherently global character and shifting hegemonic cores, central to his world-systems perspective.
What distinguishes hegemonic powers is not simply greater force, but the capacity to lead—economically, politically, and ideologically—the reorganization of the world system.— Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly J. Silver, Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (1999), Conclusion.
Arrighi refines the concept of hegemony as complex leadership rather than mere domination, a notion that has influenced debates in political philosophy and international political theory.
The rise of East Asia invites us to reconsider Adam Smith’s vision of market-led development freed from the constraints of European imperialism.— Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century (2007), Introduction.
Arrighi uses East Asian development to challenge Eurocentric readings of Smith and to suggest alternative, potentially less violent routes to modernity.
Antisystemic movements emerge from within the structural contradictions of the world system; they are both its products and the forces that threaten its reproduction.— Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, and Immanuel Wallerstein, Antisystemic Movements (1989), Chapter 1.
This statement encapsulates Arrighi’s dialectical view of social movements, informing philosophical discussions of resistance, revolution, and systemic change.
Early Economic Training and Disillusionment (1950s–mid-1960s)
Educated in neoclassical and Keynesian economics at Bocconi University, Arrighi initially worked within mainstream economic frameworks. His early career in business and Italian academia, however, raised doubts about abstract models that ignored imperialism, class struggle, and the realities of the Global South, planting the seeds of his later critical turn.
African Engagement and Turn to Dependency Theory (mid-1960s–early 1970s)
Teaching in Rhodesia and Tanzania during decolonization, Arrighi confronted the structural legacies of colonialism and underdevelopment. Influenced by African liberation movements, dependency theorists, and Marxist debates, he rejected linear development paradigms and began to think of capitalism as an uneven, hierarchical world system structured by core–periphery relations.
World-Systems Synthesis and Historical Sociology (1970s–1980s)
Arrighi became closely involved with Immanuel Wallerstein and the world-systems research group. He combined Marxian value theory, Braudelian historical depth, and detailed empirical work on labor, trade, and finance. During this period he refined concepts such as systemic cycles of accumulation, hegemony, and the role of finance in transitions between global orders.
Mature Theory: Systemic Cycles and Hegemonic Transitions (1990s)
With "The Long Twentieth Century" and collaborative work like "Chaos and Governance," Arrighi articulated his full theory of capitalist world-historical development. He traced successive hegemonies (Genoese–Iberian, Dutch, British, U.S.) and argued that financial expansions are both peaks of power and harbingers of systemic crisis, reshaping philosophical discussions of modernity and decline.
East Asia, Alternative Modernities, and the Twenty-First Century (2000s)
In his final phase, typified by "Adam Smith in Beijing," Arrighi turned to the rise of China and East Asia. He reinterpreted Adam Smith and classical political economy to argue for possible non-Western, less militarized paths of development. This work intensified debates on Eurocentrism, global justice, and the normative horizons of a post-U.S.-hegemonic world order.
1. Introduction
Giovanni Arrighi (1937–2009) was an Italian sociologist and political economist whose work reshaped understandings of capitalism as a long-term, world-scale historical system. Working at the intersection of historical sociology, political economy, and world-systems analysis, he developed the influential notion of systemic cycles of accumulation, arguing that capitalism has unfolded through successive hegemonic centers that organize global trade, production, and finance.
Arrighi is often associated with the world-systems research cluster at Johns Hopkins University, alongside Immanuel Wallerstein and Terence K. Hopkins, but his trajectory diverged in important ways. Drawing heavily on Fernand Braudel’s longue durée history and on Marxist debates about imperialism and finance, he offered a distinctive account of how financial expansions repeatedly mark the apex and crisis of hegemonic powers.
His major books—The Long Twentieth Century (1994), Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (with Beverly J. Silver, 1999), and Adam Smith in Beijing (2007)—provide a continuous narrative from early modern European commercial capitalism to contemporary U.S. decline and the rise of East Asia. These works have been widely discussed not only in sociology and international political economy but also in social and political philosophy, especially in debates on globalization, empire, Eurocentrism, and multiple modernities.
While Arrighi did not present himself as a philosopher, his reconceptualization of hegemony, development, and financialization has provided key conceptual tools for critical theory and global political thought. His analyses are frequently used to situate normative discussions of justice, war, and global order within a long-run, structurally uneven capitalist world-system.
2. Life and Historical Context
Arrighi’s life spanned major transformations in global capitalism, from postwar reconstruction to decolonization and the end of the Cold War, which formed the backdrop to his evolving concerns.
Born in 1937 in Milan, he grew up amid wartime and postwar upheaval in Italy. His formal training in economics at Bocconi University (degree completed in 1960) took place during the “Golden Age” of Western capitalism, when Keynesianism and modernization theory were dominant. Proponents of biographical interpretations suggest that his disillusionment with these paradigms was sharpened by his early experiences in Italian academia and business, which appeared to him increasingly disconnected from global inequalities.
A decisive shift occurred when he moved to teach in colonial Rhodesia and then in newly independent Tanzania (1966–1969). This was the era of African decolonization, liberation struggles, and debates over dependency and underdevelopment. The contrast between mainstream development narratives and the structural obstacles facing postcolonial states oriented Arrighi toward a global, historical view of capitalism.
From the 1970s, amid oil shocks, stagflation, and crisis in the Bretton Woods system, Arrighi became involved with emerging world-systems analysis, which sought to interpret these disruptions as symptoms of long-run systemic change. His later move to Johns Hopkins University in 1989 placed him at a key institutional center for this research during the end of the Cold War and the acceleration of neoliberal globalization.
These historical contexts—postwar boom, decolonization, global crisis, and U.S. unipolar dominance—inform his successive analyses of hegemony, financialization, and the possible reconfiguration of world order in the twenty-first century.
| Period | Global context most relevant to Arrighi’s work |
|---|---|
| 1950s–60s | Postwar boom, European reconstruction, rise of development economics |
| 1960s–70s | Decolonization, African liberation, Vietnam War, crisis of modernization theory |
| 1970s–80s | Oil shocks, stagflation, financial deregulation, crisis of U.S. hegemony debates |
| 1990s–2000s | Post–Cold War unipolarity, neoliberal globalization, rise of China and East Asia |
3. Intellectual Development
Arrighi’s intellectual trajectory is often described in phases, each marked by shifts in empirical focus and theoretical reference points, while retaining a consistent interest in capitalism as a global, historical system.
From Mainstream Economics to Dependency
Trained in neoclassical and Keynesian economics at Bocconi, his early work remained within conventional frameworks. Teaching and research in Rhodesia and Tanzania exposed him to the everyday realities of colonial legacies and postcolonial state-building. Influenced by dependency theorists such as André Gunder Frank and debates in African Marxism, he moved away from linear modernization models toward explanations emphasizing core–periphery hierarchies and unequal exchange.
World-Systems Synthesis
In the 1970s–1980s, Arrighi joined the world-systems research community centered around Immanuel Wallerstein. He began integrating Marxist value theory, Braudel’s macro-history of capitalism, and empirical studies of trade, labor, and finance. This period saw the early formulation of systemic cycles of accumulation and a deepening interest in finance and hegemony as central to transitions in world order.
Mature Theory of Hegemony and Finance
By the 1990s, with The Long Twentieth Century and, later, Chaos and Governance, Arrighi elaborated a full-scale theoretical model linking long-run financial expansions to hegemonic rise and decline. Critics note that this phase involved a certain formalization of his earlier insights into a cyclical pattern (Genoese–Iberian, Dutch, British, U.S. cycles), while supporters emphasize its explanatory power for understanding contemporary financialization.
Turn to East Asia and Multiple Modernities
In the 2000s, Arrighi’s focus shifted to the historical trajectories of East Asia and China. Building on his previous cycle theory, he explored the possibility of non-Western, less militarized developmental paths, as articulated in Adam Smith in Beijing. This final phase connected his long-standing concerns with hegemony and finance to debates on multiple modernities and post-U.S. world order.
4. Major Works
Arrighi’s main books and collaborative volumes synthesize his evolving views on capitalism, imperialism, and world order.
The Geometry of Imperialism (1979; rev. ed. 1983)
This work critically reassesses classic theories of imperialism, especially those of J. A. Hobson and V. I. Lenin. Arrighi argues that earlier paradigms overemphasized national territorial expansion and underplayed the role of systemic, world-scale processes. He begins to move from a focus on state-centered imperialism to a world-economy perspective, anticipating later world-systems work.
Antisystemic Movements (with Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, 1989)
Here Arrighi and co-authors analyze labor, socialist, and national liberation movements as antisystemic forces arising within, yet challenging, the capitalist world-system. They examine cycles of mobilization and co-optation, arguing that such movements both reproduce and threaten the system’s structures.
The Long Twentieth Century (1994)
Often seen as his magnum opus, this book introduces the concept of systemic cycles of accumulation, tracing successive hegemonies from Genoese–Iberian capitalism to the U.S. “long twentieth century.” Arrighi foregrounds financial expansions as recurrent signals of hegemonic maturity and crisis, drawing extensively on Braudelian history.
Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (with Beverly J. Silver, 1999)
This volume extends the analysis of hegemonic transitions, comparing Dutch–British and British–U.S. handovers to assess the possible future of U.S. hegemony. It emphasizes the interplay of military competition, organizational innovation, and social conflict in moments of systemic “chaos” and reorganization.
Adam Smith in Beijing (2007)
Arrighi reinterprets Adam Smith and examines the historical lineage of East Asian development, arguing that China’s rise may signal a partial shift toward an East Asia–centered world order. The book introduces a controversial distinction between a potentially non-imperial, market-centered path and the militarized Western trajectory of capitalism.
| Work | Main focus | Key contribution to his system |
|---|---|---|
| Geometry of Imperialism | Re-reading imperialism theory | Shift from state-imperialism to world-systemic view |
| Antisystemic Movements | Social movements and world-system | Theory of movements as products and critics of the system |
| The Long Twentieth Century | Long-run capitalist development | Systemic cycles of accumulation and financial expansions |
| Chaos and Governance | Hegemonic transitions | Comparative analysis of systemic crises and reorganization |
| Adam Smith in Beijing | East Asia and Smith | Multiple modernities, China’s rise, alternative trajectories |
5. Core Ideas and Theoretical Framework
Arrighi’s theoretical framework centers on capitalism as a historical world system characterized by recurrent cycles of organization and crisis.
Systemic Cycles of Accumulation
His signature concept, the systemic cycle of accumulation, denotes a long phase in which a hegemonic center coordinates global capital accumulation through distinctive combinations of trade, production, and finance. Proponents of this interpretation emphasize that Arrighi identifies four main cycles—Genoese–Iberian, Dutch, British, and U.S.—each culminating in a financial expansion when capital shifts from productive investment to financial speculation.
“In the history of the capitalist world-economy, financial expansions have signaled not just the maturity of a regime of accumulation but also its impending demise.”
— Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century
World-Systemic Hegemony
Arrighi develops a nuanced concept of hegemony as more than military dominance. A hegemonic power, in his terms, possesses the organizational and ideological capacity to lead the restructuring of the world system—setting rules, institutions, and norms of accumulation. This builds on but also modifies Wallerstein’s world-systems approach by emphasizing leadership and organizational innovation.
Finance, Crisis, and Transition
In Arrighi’s model, recurrent financialization is not a wholly new phase but the late stage of each cycle, when competition and overaccumulation push capital toward financial channels. Such expansions, he argues, mark the apex of hegemonic power while simultaneously exposing systemic vulnerabilities and catalyzing transitions to new centers of accumulation.
Core–Periphery and Antisystemic Movements
Retaining the core–periphery structure from world-systems analysis, Arrighi also gives systematic attention to antisystemic movements, which emerge from systemic contradictions and may, depending on historical conditions, be absorbed, defeated, or contribute to systemic transformation.
Overall, his framework offers a meso-level, cyclical alternative to both linear modernization narratives and purely conjunctural crisis theories.
6. Methodology and Approach
Arrighi’s methodology combines macro-historical inquiry with theoretically informed comparative analysis.
Braudelian Longue Durée and Archival Synthesis
He draws heavily on Fernand Braudel’s longue durée approach, privileging slow-moving structural trends over short-term events. Rather than conducting primary archival research on a narrow topic, Arrighi synthesizes extensive secondary historical scholarship to reconstruct multi-century patterns in trade, finance, and state formation. Supporters see this as enabling broad, integrative insights; critics argue that it risks over-generalization and selective citation.
World-Systems and Comparative-Historical Sociology
Arrighi’s work operates within world-systems analysis, treating capitalism as a single, hierarchically structured world economy. He employs comparative-historical methods to analyze successive hegemonic centers and transitions, juxtaposing, for example, Dutch with British, and British with U.S. hegemonic paths. His comparisons are typically structural and relational rather than case-study-based micro-comparisons.
Interweaving Theory and History
Methodologically, Arrighi seeks to link abstract concepts—such as systemic cycles of accumulation, hegemony, and financial expansion—to concrete historical sequences. He frequently builds his theoretical claims inductively from observed patterns, while also using theory to organize empirical narratives. Some commentators describe his approach as “historical sociological reconstruction,” midway between economic history and grand theory.
Engagement with Quantitative and Qualitative Evidence
Arrighi relies primarily on qualitative historical narratives, but he also uses quantitative indicators—such as trade shares, financial flows, and military expenditures—when available, often drawn from existing historical studies. His critics note that the limited econometric formalization makes his cycles difficult to test statistically; proponents counter that his goal is interpretive explanation rather than predictive modeling.
In sum, Arrighi’s methodology is characterized by large-scale historical synthesis, structural comparison, and a deliberate integration of empirical history with critical social theory.
7. Key Contributions to Social and Political Thought
Arrighi’s work is widely cited in social and political theory for providing conceptual tools to interpret globalization, empire, and systemic change.
Reframing Capitalism as a World-Historical System
By conceptualizing capitalism as a world system with shifting centers, Arrighi contributes to rethinking social theory beyond nation-state frameworks. His notion that “capitalism has no homeland” has been used to challenge methodological nationalism and to ground analyses of transnational class formation, global value chains, and imperialism.
Systemic Cycles and Historical Time
The concept of systemic cycles of accumulation offers a new temporal scale for social and political thought. Rather than focusing solely on short crises or long, linear stages (feudalism–capitalism–socialism), Arrighi proposes meso-historical cycles of a few centuries, each with internal phases. Political theorists have drawn on this to reconsider questions of rise and decline, empire, and the temporality of capitalism.
Rethinking Hegemony and World Order
Arrighi’s understanding of hegemony as leadership in organizing global accumulation has influenced debates about U.S. power, globalization, and “empire.” He distinguishes between dominance through coercion and leadership via organizational and ideological innovation, a distinction used by international political theorists to analyze legitimacy and consent in world politics.
“What distinguishes hegemonic powers is not simply greater force, but the capacity to lead—economically, politically, and ideologically—the reorganization of the world system.”
— Giovanni Arrighi & Beverly J. Silver, Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System
Financialization and Crisis
By interpreting financialization as a recurrent late phase of hegemonic cycles, Arrighi contributes to critical understandings of global finance. Social theorists use his framework to place contemporary financial crises within a longer history of systemic transitions, rather than viewing them as unprecedented anomalies.
Antisystemic Movements and Transformation
Arrighi’s joint work on antisystemic movements offers a structural lens on social struggles, seeing them as products of systemic contradictions that may both stabilize and destabilize the world system. This has informed discussions of revolution, reform, and the limits of emancipatory politics under global capitalism.
8. Engagement with Marxism and Classical Political Economy
Arrighi’s relationship to Marxism and classical political economy is both critical and reconstructive.
Selective Appropriation of Marx
Arrighi adopts core Marxian concerns with exploitation, accumulation, and crisis, but revises several elements. He is skeptical of purely national or class-reductionist readings of imperialism and emphasizes world-systemic relations instead. He retains aspects of Marx’s value theory—especially the focus on capital accumulation and competition—yet places greater emphasis on spatial and organizational dynamics than on the labor process per se.
Marxist commentators differ in their assessments. Some praise Arrighi for extending Marx’s analysis to the world scale and historical longue durée; others argue that his focus on finance and hegemony underplays class struggle and the centrality of production.
Dialogue with Theories of Imperialism
In The Geometry of Imperialism, Arrighi critically engages J. A. Hobson, Lenin, and later Marxist debates. He contends that traditional theories often equate imperialism with territorial expansion, neglecting systemic mechanisms of capital mobility, trade, and finance. His alternative is to analyze imperialism as a configuration within a capitalist world-economy, where political-military power and capital accumulation are intertwined but not reducible to each other.
Reinterpretation of Adam Smith
In Adam Smith in Beijing, Arrighi turns to Adam Smith to argue that Smith envisioned a market-centered, relatively non-imperial path of development distinct from later capitalist imperialism. He contrasts Smith’s emphasis on peaceful trade and the spread of opulence with what he sees as the militarized, state-driven trajectory of British and later Western capitalism.
“The rise of East Asia invites us to reconsider Adam Smith’s vision of market-led development freed from the constraints of European imperialism.”
— Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing
This reading has provoked debate. Some scholars welcome the recovery of a non-imperial Smith as a resource for thinking about alternative modernities; others question whether Arrighi underestimates the imperial and colonial dimensions already present in classical political economy.
Position within Marxist and Post-Marxist Thought
Arrighi is often classified as a neo-Marxist or world-systems theorist rather than an orthodox Marxist. His work participates in broader postwar attempts to reconcile Marx with historical sociology, dependency theory, and global history, contributing to ongoing discussions on how far classical categories can be stretched to capture contemporary capitalism.
9. Arrighi on East Asia, Development, and Multiple Modernities
Arrighi’s late work, particularly Adam Smith in Beijing, focuses on East Asia—above all China—as a site for rethinking development and modernity.
East Asian Developmental Trajectories
Arrighi argues that East Asia, and China in particular, followed a non-Western developmental path rooted in historical patterns of agrarian commercialization, bureaucratic governance, and regional trade. Drawing on historical scholarship, he contrasts this with Europe’s more war-driven, territorial, and capitalist route. Supporters see this as a major contribution to decentering Eurocentric narratives; critics suggest that the contrasts can be overstated.
China and the Prospects of a New Hegemony
In Adam Smith in Beijing, Arrighi interprets China’s post-1978 reforms and rapid growth as evidence of a potential East Asia–centered reconfiguration of the world system. He cautiously entertains the possibility that China could become a leading node in a new systemic cycle of accumulation, albeit one that might be less militarized and more market- and development-oriented than previous Western hegemonies. Skeptical commentators contend that China’s trajectory may be more continuous with Western capitalist practices than Arrighi allows.
Multiple Modernities
Arrighi’s East Asia work reinforces the notion of multiple modernities, challenging the idea of a single Western script for modernization. He suggests that China’s rise invites reconsideration of long-term patterns in which East Asia had already been an economic center before Western ascendancy. This argument has been welcomed by scholars seeking non-Eurocentric frameworks but has also raised debates about how distinct “civilizational” or regional paths really are.
Re-engagement with Adam Smith
By rereading Adam Smith through the lens of East Asian history, Arrighi juxtaposes Smith’s putative vision of peaceful market-led development with both Western imperialism and contemporary Chinese policy. Some readers interpret this as opening space for imagining less violent forms of global integration; others argue that Smith and current Chinese development are more ambivalent or contradictory than Arrighi suggests.
Overall, his analysis of East Asia situates China’s rise within systemic cycles of accumulation while contesting linear, West-centered models of development.
10. Reception, Critiques, and Debates
Arrighi’s work has elicited extensive debate across sociology, international political economy, and critical theory.
Reception within World-Systems and Marxist Traditions
Within world-systems analysis, Arrighi is widely regarded as a leading theorist. His concept of systemic cycles of accumulation has been influential in discussions of hegemonic rise and decline. Marxist scholars sympathetic to world-systems thinking praise his integration of finance and hegemony into analyses of capitalism. More orthodox Marxists, however, sometimes argue that his focus on hegemonic states and finance underplays class struggle and the centrality of production relations.
Debates on Cycles, Periodization, and Predictive Claims
One set of critiques targets Arrighi’s cyclical model. Some historians and political economists question whether the four cycles he identifies are sufficiently homogeneous to be treated as a single pattern, or whether this imposes an artificial regularity on complex history. Others raise concerns about predictive implications, especially regarding the supposed decline of U.S. hegemony and potential Chinese ascendancy; skeptics argue that such forecasts underestimate institutional resilience or overstate China’s systemic autonomy.
Critiques of Eurocentrism and Non-Eurocentrism
Arrighi is often praised for efforts to decenter Europe and highlight East Asia’s historical significance. Nonetheless, some postcolonial and decolonial scholars suggest that his framework remains Eurocentric in its focus on world-scale capitalist accumulation as the primary axis of history, potentially marginalizing other forms of power, culture, and subjectivity. Conversely, critics of his East Asia work contend that he may romanticize Chinese development or overlook internal inequalities and authoritarian governance.
Methodological and Empirical Concerns
Methodological critics note that Arrighi’s reliance on secondary sources and macro-historical synthesis makes his claims difficult to falsify, and that quantitative evidence for cycles and financial expansions is sometimes selective. Others defend his approach as appropriate for theorizing longue durée patterns, arguing that it complements rather than replaces more micro-level or econometric studies.
Despite disagreements, his work remains a central reference point in debates on global capitalism, hegemony, and world order.
11. Impact on Critical Theory and Global Political Philosophy
Arrighi’s influence extends into critical theory and global political philosophy, where his historical analyses provide a backdrop for normative debates about justice, empire, and world order.
Providing a Historical Scaffold for Normative Theory
Critical theorists and political philosophers frequently use Arrighi’s account of systemic cycles and hegemonic transitions as a diagnostic framework. His reconstruction of capitalist history offers an empirically informed context for discussions of global distributive justice, structural domination, and the ethics of war and intervention. Rather than prescribing normative principles himself, Arrighi supplies a structural narrative against which such principles are assessed.
Rethinking Empire, Hegemony, and Global Governance
Arrighi’s concept of hegemony as leadership in organizing global accumulation has influenced debates on “empire” and global governance. Authors analyzing U.S. power, supranational institutions, and global regulation draw on his distinctions between dominance, leadership, and systemic reorganization to evaluate legitimacy and coercion in contemporary world politics.
Financialization and Critique of Neoliberalism
His interpretation of financialization as a recurrent late phase of hegemonic cycles informs critical analyses of neoliberalism and global finance. Philosophers concerned with whether current crises mark a transformation of capitalism or a reconfiguration within it often use Arrighi’s framework to argue that contemporary financial turmoil belongs to a longer pattern of systemic restructuring.
Eurocentrism, Postcolonialism, and Multiple Modernities
Arrighi’s work on East Asia and multiple modernities has been taken up in postcolonial and decolonial theory as a resource for challenging Eurocentric narratives of progress. At the same time, some theorists use his framework critically, querying whether framing history primarily in terms of capitalist accumulation adequately captures colonial violence, race, and cultural hierarchies.
Overall, Arrighi’s impact lies less in articulating explicit normative positions and more in reshaping the historical imagination within which critical and political theory situate their reflections on capitalism, domination, and possible futures.
12. Legacy and Historical Significance
Arrighi’s legacy is closely tied to the consolidation and transformation of world-systems analysis and to broader debates on global capitalism.
Position within World-Systems and Historical Sociology
Within world-systems analysis, Arrighi is frequently regarded—together with Immanuel Wallerstein and Terence K. Hopkins—as one of the principal system-builders. His emphasis on systemic cycles of accumulation and financial expansions has become a standard reference for scholars analyzing hegemonic transitions and the long-term dynamics of capitalism.
Influence across Disciplines
Arrighi’s ideas have been adopted in sociology, international relations, geography, history, and political economy, as well as in critical theory and global studies. His work helps bridge disciplinary divides by offering a shared macro-historical framework for discussions of globalization, development, and empire. Some view his synthesis of Braudelian history, Marxist themes, and world-systems analysis as a model for interdisciplinary research on global structures.
Continuing Relevance in Debates on U.S. Decline and China’s Rise
Since his death in 2009, Arrighi’s analyses of U.S. hegemony and China’s rise have remained central to discussions of twenty-first-century world order. Supporters see subsequent developments—financial crises, geopolitical tensions, and China’s expanding global role—as broadly consistent with his expectation of a turbulent hegemonic transition. Critics, however, point to unexpected continuities in U.S. power or to internal contradictions in China’s development as challenges to his projections.
Contribution to Non-Eurocentric Global Histories
Arrighi’s sustained attention to East Asia and his insistence on viewing Western capitalism as one historical trajectory among others have contributed to the growing field of global history and to efforts to provincialize Europe in social theory. His work is cited alongside that of other scholars who seek to reconstruct world history in a less Eurocentric, more relational manner.
Taken together, these elements underpin assessments of Arrighi as a major late-twentieth-century theorist of global capitalism whose concepts continue to shape scholarly and theoretical discussions of systemic change, hegemony, and alternative futures.
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title = {Giovanni Arrighi},
author = {Philopedia},
year = {2025},
url = {https://philopedia.com/thinkers/giovanni-arrighi/},
urldate = {December 11, 2025}
}Note: This entry was last updated on 2025-12-10. For the most current version, always check the online entry.