One of the most critical evaluations of Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems perspective comes from Marxists who dislike the dominant role played by trade as opposed to class interaction in his analysis. At the forefront of this critique is Robert Brenner, whose article in New Left Review, "The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism," has elicited far less of a debate than is warranted. In the first part of this article we carefully outline the various parts of this important critique, briefly drawing attention to some of the much more fundamental issues each addresses. In the second part we consider one of the most important of these issues, that of the most appropriate level of analysis for understanding political phenomena. The debate over this point revolves largely around events in Poland in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Thus this rather arcane topic takes center stage in an argument with far broader implications. We conclude that while one should maintain a wider system level of analysis, more attention must be paid to the concrete determinants of power within political units as well.