A systems perspective on world-systems theory

This article presents a conceptual framework that embeds ideas from world-systems theory within the larger systemic context known as the theory of dissipative structures. This article creates a theoretical perspective on global capitalism, both geographic and historical, that offers a sufficiently general and flexible model for this particular complex system in human geography. The goal is to provide a perspective that reflects the interconnectedness of individual and separate places into a larger global system that is a single functioning spatial entity. In this view, the modern world-system becomes a culmination of its past and a prologue to its future.