This chapter argues for connecting models of several kinds of macro- and microprocesses as they affect structure and dynamics in the globalization of networks of trade. The purpose is to explore multiple levels of structure, process, and adaptation and to loosen assumptions about determinacy in models of networks and globalization. As do many models of emergence, it questions the notions of inevitability that too often surround studies of globalization. Particularly useful for comparison of cases are the models of “world system” developed by Modelski and Thompson (1996, see Devezas and Modelski, 2008). These focus on national policy-driven innovation and processes of European “evolutionary learning” that began in the 1400s. They put into context the models that focus on core-periphery structure as developed by Braudel (1973), or the “world-system” core-periphery model that for Wallerstein (1974) begins in the 1600s. Study of structures of core-periphery in world systems can benefit from added dimensions, improved measurement of network structure, and understanding the effects of periodic crises in terms of historical dynamics.

An unexpected outcome of this survey for issues of policy is that it develops a deeper historical understanding of how certain kinds of exchange systems develop several kinds of inequalities that are inimical to the concept of fair pricing in the operation of market equilibria, even in the absence of economic oligopolies (monopoly, duopoly) and oligopsonies (monopsony, duopsony). These include longstanding militaristic state-policy domination of international exchange, resultant structural inequality in international trade networks, and cyclical events within polities, that in periods of resource scarcity relative to population, create periods of extreme deflation of wages relative to extremes in elite dominance over wealth-generating property ownership.