Combined and Uneven Development of Capitalism - 1

Combined and Uneven Development of
Capitalism

While German Marxism was struggling in theory
and in practice with anomalies brought about
by the extension of democracy and the continued
expansion of the forces of production, the opposite
situation confronted Russian Marxism. There
absolutism based on a semifeudal economy was
fettering the growth of capitalism and at the same
time creating a powerful and radical working
class. As we have seen, Luxemburg saw the 1905
revolution as the forerunner of a new series of
proletarian revolutions in the West. "The most
backward country of all, just because it has been
so unpardonably late with its bourgeois revolution,
shows ways and methods of further class
struggle to the proletariat of Germany and the
This new research program can be identified with
the work of Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, and Seymour
Martin Lipset who all regarded themselves as socialist
because they defended the progressive democratic
trendsof capitalism. Wecanalso seeEduardBemstein's
theory at work in T. H. Marshall's account of the
British welfare state, Walter Korpi's analysis of
Swedish social democracy and Bowles and Gintis's
proposals for democratization of American society.