Wallerstein argues that Europe moved towards the establishment of a capitalist world economy in order to ensure continued economic growth. However, this entailed the expansion of the geographical size of the world in question, the development of different modes of labor control and the creation of relatively strong state machineries in the states of Western Europe.In response to the feudal crisis, by the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the world economic system emerged. This was the first time that an economic system encompassed much of the world with links that superseded national or other political boundaries. The new world economy differed from earlier empire systems because it was not a single political unit. Empires depended upon a system of government which, through commercial monopolies combined with the use of force, directed the flow of economic goods from the periphery to the center. Empires maintained specific political boundaries, within which they maintained control through an extensive bureaucracy and a standing army. Only the techniques of modern capitalism enabled the modern world economy, unlike earlier attempts, to extend beyond the political boundaries of any one empire.