ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Immanuel Wallerstein

Immanuel Wallerstein was a really smart man who lived a long time ago and talked about how the world works. He liked to imagine the world as a big puzzle where all the different pieces are connected to each other.

One of the things he noticed about the puzzle was that some pieces were more important than others. For example, the countries in charge - the rich, powerful ones - had more important pieces than the countries that weren't in charge - the poorer, less powerful ones. He called this system of how the world is organized "capitalism" and said that it has been around for a long time.

He also noticed that things change over time, and the puzzle pieces can move around. So, a country that wasn't in charge before might become more powerful and move closer to the important puzzle pieces. This is called "globalization."

Overall, Immanuel Wallerstein wanted people to think about how the world is organized and why some individuals and countries have more power and resources than others.