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The Ottoman Empire and the Capitalist World-Economy: Some Questions for Research
Author(s): Immanuel Wallerstein
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Review (Fernand Braudel Center), Vol. 2, No. 3 (Winter, 1979), pp. 389-398
Published by: Research Foundation of SUNY for and on behalf of the Fernand Braudel Center
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Review,II, 3, Winter1979 , 389-98.

The OttomanEmpireand
the CapitalistWorld-Economy:
Some Questionsfor Research*

Immanuel Wallerstein

My problem is a simple one. At one point in time, the

OttomanEmpirewas outsidethe capitalistworld-economy. At
a later point in time,the Ottoman Empirewas incorporated
into thecapitalistworld-economy. How do we knowwhatthese
points in time were? And by what process did the transition
fromTi to Tn take place? I say immediatelythat I do not
know the answersto thesequestions.I wishmerelyto suggest
wayswe mightproceedin orderto answerthem.
sets of questionspresume
All answersto historically-specific
a paradigmof social structureand social change.Allow me to
makemineexplicit,albeitverybriefly.1
1. A world-empire and a world-economy are two verydiffer-
ent kinds of social systemsin termsof theireconomics,their

♦Prepared for First InternationalCongress on the Social and Economic History

of Turkey (1071-1920), Ankara,July 11-14, 1977.
*I
have elaborated my paradigmat great lengthelsewhere.See The Modern
World-System(New York and London: Academic Press,1974), and The Capitalist
World-Economy (New York: CambridgeUniversityPress,1979).
390 ImmanuelWallerstein

politics,and theirculturalexpressions.A world-empire is de-

fined as a single social economy (division of labor) with an
overarching politicalstructure. A world-economy is definedas a
single social economy containingmultiple state-structures.
These two systemshave differentmodes of production.A
world-empireuses a redistributive/tributary mode, in which
capital accumulation is not maximized, and in whichthe basic
redistribution is a functionof political decisions. A world-
economyuses a capitalistmode, in whichcapitalaccumulation
per se is the controllingconsiderationof social action,and this
objectiveis pursuedthroughthe market,which is howeverat
most onlypartially"free" frompoliticaland social constraint.
2. The dynamicsof thesetwo social systemsare quite differ-
ent. A world-empireexpands to the socio-technicallimitsof
effective politicalcontrolof theredistributive process,and then
eithershrinksor disintegrates. Its historytendsto be one long
cycle of expansion and contraction.The capitalist world-
economy operatesvia repeatedcyclicalrhythmsof expansion
and contraction,but it also has secularlinear trendsof "de-
velopment".Crucial for our discussionis one of thesetrends,
that of the unlimitedgeographicalexpansion of the world-
market.The differences here mentionedby no meansexhaust
thelist.
3. World-systems have an internaleconomicand politicallife
which determinesthe largestpart of social reality.They also
howevercome into contactwitheach otherexternally.World-
empiresmeet each otheras theyexpand and usuallyset limits
therebyto theirmutualexpansion.Whena world-empire and a
world-economy "meet" however,one tendsto absorbtheother.
Historically, it has almostalwaysbeen thecase thatan expand-
ing world-empire has absorbed a surrounding world-economy
into its imperium.It is only withthe adventof the European
world-economy in the sixteenthcenturythat we have a clear
case of the opposite: the incorporationof surrounding world-
empiresintothe ambitof thecapitalistworld-economy.
4. Trade betweenworld-systems is fundamentally different
fromtradewithinworld-systems: in the natureof thetrade;in
its impacton thepoliticalstructures; in itslong-term durability.
Specifically, trade between systems tends to be tradein luxur-
ies, that is, non-essentials. In value terms,it tendsto be equal
trade,remembering however thateach side tendsto havediffer-
ent culturaldefinitionsof value (whereastradewithinsystems
OttomanEmpireand CapitalistWorld-Economy 391

tendsto be unequal trade).The tradebetweensystemstendsto

utilize ongoingproductivesystemsratherthan to transform
them.If tradebetweentwo pointsseemsto changein character,
this is both caused by the consequenceof an evolvingshiftin
the systemicboundariesthemselves,and correlativelyof the
modeof production.
How does all this apply to the Ottoman Empireand the
European world-economy? In my terms,the OttomanEmpire,
at least at the beginning, was a classiccase of a world-empire.It
"came into contact" with a capitalistworld-economy, that of
Europe. There was trade betweenthe two systems.There was
warfare.At some point in time,the Europeanworld-economy
absorbed the Ottoman Empire into its ambit. At this latter
point,the Ottoman Empirewas no longera world-empire but
simply one more state located within the boundaries of the
capitalistworld-economy. At this latter point of time, the
production within the Ottoman Empire was "peripheralized".
Thatis, it came to play a particularrolewithina capitalistmode
of production,and be governedby the pressuresfor capital
accumulationper se, as mediatedby the supply-demandcurves
of the world market,and by the capital-laborrelationsthat
were reflectedin the political compromisesof the Ottoman
state. The economic links (includingthe trade) betweenlocal
regionsof the Ottoman Empireand variousparts of Europe
came to be fundamentally different at the laterpoint in time
fromthelinksat theearlierpointin time.
I know somethingof the historyof the European world-
economy.I know farless about Ottomaneconomicand social
history.I can therefore outlinethe formerhistorybut onlyraise
questionsabout thelatter.
Whenthe Europeanworld-economy developeditsboundaries
in the sixteenthcentury,its singlecapitalistdivisionof labor
extendedover Europeeast to Polandand Hungary,southto the
Mediterranean, and westto IberianAmerica.EasternEurope (to
be precise,northeastern Europe), the Americas,and southern
Italy were its primaryperipheralareas, specializingin low-
labor-costbulk essentialsproduced for the world marketand
utilizinglargely coerced forms of labor. At this time, the
Russianand Ottoman Empireswere economicallyexternalto
this system,as was the Indian Ocean world-economy and the
coastal zones of Africa.These latter areas were all in trade
relationswith the European world-economy,but it was es-
392 ImmanuelWallerstetn

sentiallythe so-called "rich trades".Each of theselatterareas

formedits own divisionof labor and had an importantand
complexeconomiclifeof its own.
The European yvorld-economy went througha long ex-
pansionistphase roughly from 1450 to 1650, followedby a
long (overlapping)period of relativecontraction or stagnation
from1600-1750. I suspect that the relationshipof the Euro-
pean world-economy to the varioussystemsexternalto it did
not change fundamentally duringthis contractingphase, al-
though there was continuous evolutionof the socio-economic
structuresduringthis time.2 Beginningabout 1750, the Euro-
pean world-economy again expandedits economicactivityand
its outer boundaries. It is clear to me that in the period
1750-1873, the capitalistworld-economy includedin its ambit
Russia, the Ottoman Empire, India, West Africa,and perhaps
otherareas as peripheralzones (or a semiperipheral zone in the
case of Russia).
My own largestarea of uncertainty in relationto the Otto-
man Empire is whetherits peripheralization should be dated
fromthe nineteenth(or late eighteenthcentury)or fromthe
earlyseventeenthcentury.The standardliteratureoffersboth
kinds of periodization.On the one hand, Halil Inalcik argues
that "the 1590's mark the main dividingline in Ottoman
history."3On the otherhand,M. A. Cook says: "Therewas no
radical discontinuityin the historyof the Ottomanstate be-
tween the early fifteenth century. . . and the earlynineteenth
century.. . ."4
I believethatthechoicehas to be made primarily in termsof
the real economics of the situation,and only secondarilyin
terms of the continuityof political formsor of ideological
belief-systems. I would thereforeput forwardas the questions
forresearchthe following:
(1) If the OttomanEmpirecan be demonstrated not to be a
peripheralzone of the European world-economyin the six-

^* There was however

expansion of the European world-economyin the
1600-1750 period to include NorthAmericaand the Caribbean.
3- Halil
inalcik, The OttomanEmpire: The ClassicalAge, 1300-1600 (New York:
Praeger,1973), 4.
4#M A.
Cook, "Introduction" to M. A. Cook, éd., A Historyof the Ottoman
Empireto 1730 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1976), 9.
OttomanEmpireand CapitalistWorld-Economy 393

teenthcentury,why was it not incorporatedinto theemerging

divisionof labor fromthe outset,like Poland or Sicily?This is
not an implausiblequery, given the long previouseconomic
linksof the OttomanEmpirewithVeniceat least.
(2) When does the Ottoman Empirebecome incorporated
into the world-economy?This question involves three sub-
questions:
(a) What were the processes,both withinthe Ottoman
Empireand withinthe Europeanworld-economy, thataccount
forthisincorporation?
(b) Is the "incorporation"a singleevent,or can different
-
regionsof the Empire- Rumelia,Anatolia,Syria,Egypt,etc.
be said to be incorporatedat differentmomentsin time?
(c) What were the political consequences of incorpo-
ration?
(3) Wheneverthe Ottoman Empirewas thus incorporated,
why was it not incorporatedas a semiperipheral regionrather
thanas a peripheralregion?Once again,thisis not an implausi-
ble query,as it mightbe arguedthat Russia (and perhapsalso
Japan),whentheywereincorporated, came in as semiperipheral
regions.
The way I would go about answeringthese queries,had I
sufficientknowledge,would be to look at actual production
processesand thenat tradepatterns.
In the periodup to theend of thesixteenthcentury,it seems
clear thatlong-distance tradeof theOttomanEmpirewas trade
in luxuries.One descriptionof (fifteenth-century) trade from
the east to Bursawill suffice:"The merchandise carriedon this
caravanroute consistedusuallyof lightweight, expensivegoods,
such as spices, dyestuffs,drugsand textiles."5 Compare this
with this descriptionof intra-systemic trade (forthe sixteenth
century):
Egypt and Syria were vital to the economy of Istanbul and the
empire.Provisionsforthe sultan's Palace, such as rice,wheat,barley,
spices or sugar, came by galleon from Egypt,and in the sixteenth
century Syria annually sent 50,000 kg. of soap to the Palace.
Sudanese gold came to IstanbulthroughEgypt.. . .

*
inalcik, op. cit., 125. See .also p. 162: "Luxury goods, such as jewels,
expensivetextiles,spices, dyes and perfumes,made up most of the overseastrade."
394 ImmanuelWallerstein

Since the Ottomans controlled the Dardanelles they were easily

able to exclude the Italians fromthe Black Sea trade [wheat, fish,
oil, salt, ships' masts] and develop the region as an integralpart of
the empire'seconomy,like Egyptor Syria.

Trade withVenicein the sixteenthcenturywas moreambigu-

ous in nature.To some extent,it seems to have been tradein
which Ottoman primarygoods went outward in returnfor
Venetian manufactures.But how did this trade compare in
value and importanceto the trade derivingfromthe role of
Istanbulas a food importerfromthe restof the empireand a
manufacturing and re-exportcenter of manufacturedgoods
fromtherestof theempire?7Furthermore, as we know,Venice
was a decliningpole of Europe as the locus of activitywas
shiftingto the Atlantic.
Whywas the Ottomanempirenot incorporated(fully)in the
sixteenthcenturyinto the emergingcapitalistworld-economy?
Would not the simplestexplanationbe the combinationof
Europe's needs, distance, and Ottoman resistance?Could
westernEuropehave absorbedpotentialOttomanproductionof
peripheralproductsin additionto those of easternEuropeand
the Americas?Was the OttomanEmpirenot further away from
the emerging industrialzones of northwest
Europe? Was not the
to a of
Ottomanstate strongenough prevent process peripheral-
ization?Afterall, the sixteenthcenturyis generallyconsidered

6'
Ibid., 128-29.
'•
See ibid.., 145:

The need to provide food for Istanbul linked the empire's various areas of
productionto a singlecentreand was a major factorin creatingan integrated
economy. The fact that in the mid-seventeenthcentury the city's ovens
consumed 250 tons of wheat daily in an indicationof the city'sneeds. Bulky
foodstuffs,such as grain,oil, salt or sheep, could easily come to Istanbul by
sea, and by the second half of the seventeenthcentury the number of
food-carryingshipsarriving each yearin the docks of Istanbulhad reachedtwo
thousand. Wheat, rice, sugarand spices fromEgypt; livestock,cereals,edible
fats,honey, fishand hides fromThessaly and Macedonia; and wine and other
Mediterraneanproducts from the Morea and the Aegean islands,continually
poured into istanbul. Districtsclose to the capital werealso dependenton the
Istanbul market.From Tekirdagicame the wheat of Thrace, fromConstanta
and Mangalia the wheat of the Dobrudja. Timber was importedfromIzmit.
The Dobrudja, a no-man's land in the Middle Ages, became the granaryof
Istanbul, with the establishmentthere of hundredsof villages and the con-
OttomanEmpireand CapitalistWorld-Economy 395

the high point of Ottomanpolitical cohesiveness;the empire

was certainlymostextensivethen.8
What then happened afterthe sixteenthcentury?For one
thing, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire was halted.
BernardLewis talks of the "closing of the frontier"and "its
shatteringimpact."9 Cyclical decline had set in, and as tra-
ditionally happens: "The shrinkingeconomy of the Em-
pire. . . had to supportan increasinglycostlyand cumbersome
superstructure."10 This led to an acute increasein the rate of
surplus extractionfrom the directproducers:
[W]hat could no longer be picked up along the frontiersof the
empire could, in part at least, be made good by extractingmore
from subject populations at home. Landholders could and did
demand extra paymentsfromthe peasants on theirestates. Officials
of the sultan's slave household could and did demand extra pay-
ments,eitherfor the performanceof the duties of the office,or for
non-performance of such duties, i.e., for grantingexceptions to the
rule. Such devices allowed the Turkishcavalrymenand the officials
of the sultan's slave family to live more luxuriously than their

structionof state grain-storehousesat the ports. Rice fromthe Maritsavalley

and westernThrace was an essentialcommodityforthe Palace army;fromthe
plains of Bulgaria,Macedonia and easternThrace, dealersregularlysentsheep
and cattle to the slaughterhouses
of Istanbul.
As a transitand re-exportcentre, and as an exporterof manufactured
goods, Istanbul provided an economic link between regions.The export of
cottons fromMerzifon,Tosya, Tire, Bergama,Denizli, Larende,Bor and Nigde
in Anatolia, in returnforfoodstuffsforIstanbulfromRumelia and the north,
appears to have stimulatedthe manufactureof cotton textilesin theseplaces.
At the same time,clothing,woolen and silk industriesdeveloped in istanbuL
In the trade trianglebetween the northernBlack Sea region,Istanbul and
Anatolia,a greatdeal of moneycame into and again leftthe capital. The state
spent much of its revenueon the Palace and armyin Istanbul,a largepartof
thismoneygoingto Anatolia and the Balkans.

Donald Edgar Pitcher'scalculationsshow a highpoint of area directlyunder

the central governmentof 974,500 square miles in 1595. In addition there were
tributarystates, yielding approximate figuresof 350,000 sq. miles in 1566 and
220,000 in 1606. See An Historical Geographyof the Ottoman Empire (Leiden:
E. J. Brill,1972), 134-35. See also Map XXIV.
Q *
Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford Uni-
versityPress,2nd éd., 1968), 26.
10-
Ibid., 31.
396 ImmanuelWallerstein

expansion and
predecessorshad done in the days of rapid territorial
abundantbooty income.11

If we look at what happened internallyas a consequence,

StanfordShaw argues that the price rises of Europe - he is
speakingof a period dated 1566-1683 - led to a demandfor
wheat,wool, copper,and preciousmetalssuchthatthey"were
sucked out of the Ottoman Empire, where the prices had
remainedrelativelylow."12 Eventuallytheconsequentimports
would "destroythe traditionalOttomancraftindustry"13but
Shaw dates this as of the late eighteenthand earlynineteenth
centuries.
This sounds like incorporation,and certainlyit has been
interpretedas such. Ilkay Sunar describesthe seventeenthand
eighteenthcenturiesthus:
[T]he Ottoman economy underwentsimultaneouslyincorporation
into the world market system and the commercializationof its
agriculture.. . . Ottoman trade with the outside . . . ceased to be
transittrade and became increasinglyless administeredand increas-
ingly more an economic process of exchange of Ottoman primary
goods formanufacturedEuropean products.1'*

Sunar talks of the "transitionfromhouseholdproductionto

coerced cash production,as the estates encroachedupon the
domestic economy;"15 he includes in these large estates the
iltizam (tax-farms),the malikâne(life-
farms),and çiftlik,and
even the waqf lands, and argues that "the organizationof
economic life became increasinglysubject to the dynamicsof
theworldmarket.. . ."16 Finally,forSunar,the

11#William H.
McNeill, Europe's Steppe Frontier,1500-1800 (Chicago: Uni-
versityof Chicago Press,1964), 60.
12
StanfordShaw, Historyof the OttomanEmpire and Modern Turkey,(Cam-
bridge:CambridgeUniversity Press,1976), I, 172.
13%
Ibid., I, 173.
'
Ilkay Sunar, "The Political Rationalityof Ottoman Economics: Formation
and Transformation,"in S. Mardin and W. I. Zartman,eds., Polity,Economy and
Society in Ottoman Turkeyand NorthAfrica(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,
forthcoming), p. 14 of mimeographedversion.
15#
Ibid., 16.
16'
Ibid., 19,
OttomanEmpireand CapitalistWorld-Economy 397

emergingnetwork of market-basedrelations, and the relative au-

tonomy which it engendered for the estate holders,. . . cul-
minated... in the rise of the ayan in contraventionof state power
at thebeginningof the 19th century. '

Islamogluand Keyderdescribethe processin a similarway:

Commercializationof productionand, more importantly,change in
the status of the peasantry,both of which the çiftlikentailed, are
°
necessarycomponentsin a process of peripheralization.

But theysee the late sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies"as a

transitionalstage in the articulationof the Ottomansystem
with the world-economy."19Afterthat,they see a staggered
integration:
The Balkans became integratedinto the European economy begin-
ning in the eighteenthcentury. For Egypt and the Levant, the
process gained momentumduringthe firstquarterof the nineteenth
century. In Anatolia, the volume of trade increased significantly
beginningin the 1830's.20

In the end, it is perhapsa quantitativequestion.How much

quantitativechangein the productionsystemsof the Ottoman
Empire adds up to a definitivequalitativeshift?Need the
politicaland ideologicaltransformations, laggingbehind,have
occurredin order for us to state that incorporationhad oc-
curred?Seen fromthe otherside of the process,that of the
existentEuropean world-economy, was thereenough impetus
during thislongperiod of stagnation- impetusin terms
relative
of what actually maximizedcapital accumulation- trulyto
"incorporate" an outlyingregionlike the Ottoman Empire,
beforetheexpansiveupswingin thelatterhalfof theeighteenth
century?
In anycase, thereare fewwho disagreethatin thenineteenth
centurythe Ottoman Empirewas in no way a self-contained

17'
Ibid., 20.

Huri islamogluand Çaglar Keyder,"Agenda for Ottoman History,"Review,

I, 1, Summer1977, 53.
19#
Ibid., 43.
20*
Ibid., 53.
398 ImmanuelWallerstein

social economy. It had clearlybecome a peripheralarea. Why

could it not howeverhave at least had semiperipheralstatus,as
did nineteenth-century Russia?
The answermay residelargelyin a politico-militarycompari-
son of the Russianand Ottomanempiresin theseventeenth and
eighteenthcenturies.Russia was still expanding.Its armywas
farstrongerthan thatof theOttomanEmpire.Its own outlying
areas were more difficultfor westernEuropean capitaliststo
penetratedirectly,for both geographicaland politico-social
reasons.Therewas no phenomenonin Russiacomparableto the
janissaries. Thus, the Ottoman Empire was relegatedto the
common fate of the politicallyweak areas - of China and of
southeastAsia, and indeed of Africa.Is thisnot preciselywhat
was caughtup in theepithet:"sick man of Europe?"
We have wide knowledgetoday of what it means to be a
peripheralzone in the capitalistworld-economy. Wherewe are
weak is in understandingtheactualprocessof peripheral/zaft'on,
the actual displacementof a redistributive-tributarymode of
productionby absorptioninto a capitalistmode. To studythis
process, the economic and social historyof the Ottoman
Empirefromsay 1550-1850 offersprospectsforconsiderable
progressin understanding themodalitiesof transformation.