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In terms of sociological analysis, there appear to be at least four implications of the world-systems analysis:
i. Unlike earlier empires, which had limits to expansion prescribed by the ability to politically govern a wide area, there appears to be little limit to the capitalist world system, especially today. It has expanded over the last five hundred years and shows no signs of ending the domination of the world economy. Wallerstein argues that this is one difference of the current world system from earlier ones – there was a decisive break around the period 1500, whereby capitalism, technology, and science combined to create an expansive and global system.
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ii. Social structure has an international basis. Any analysis of the social structure must consider the international aspect of this. That is, the particular place any group occupies in an international division of labour may be more important than the seeming place within the national economy and society.
iii. In contrast to theories of modernisation or globalisation that argue that there may be a single, more uniform world in the future, the thrust of world-systems analysis is that continued inequalities and backwardness are furthered at the same time that wealth and progress occur in the core. This world system does not require similar culture, politics, or even modes of production in different regions.
Rather, the capitalist world system can accommodate many different political forms (democracy, totalitarianism, monarchies, military rule) and different forms of production (slavery, semi- feudal forms of large estates and impoverished peasants, market-oriented agriculture). While the economic power of capitalism makes its effects felt on a worldwide scale, this system creates wealth in some places and takes wealth away from others. As a result, poverty and inequality are essential aspects of such a system. This creates strains and can lead to redistribution of power and wealth on a worldwide scale.
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iv. The world-systems analysis provides a useful way of examining changes that- have occurred and continue to occur across the globe. For example, the migration of large numbers of people from poor to richer countries is a result of the developments on the world system – destroying traditional ways of life and livelihood in the sending countries and filling labour supply needs in receiving countries.
At the same time, this approach may be overly economist in much the same manner as much Marxian analysis. That is, the world-systems analysis does not pay much attention to culture and does not appear to consider it as an independent aspect. Further, the assumption of dominance of European and North American capitalist forces may be somewhat ethnocentric.