Marxist Theory Of Development Essay

The multifaceted concept of development, is one which is elusive and almost unattainable. This is because there is not one way to view the ideal as such development has no set definition. One thing that is certain for development is that it is a move forward. For the sake of this essay a layman’s view will be applied to the term and development will be discussed as the process in which someone or something grows and becomes more advanced. It has been posited that to be characterized as developed another concept, that is of utmost importance to this paper, must be obtained, that is modernization. In a mutable world of the post war era of 1945, the modernization approach emerged as a macro theory outlining the way to development. This essay will

One orientation of the term outlines modernization through the Marxist outlook. This view is inspired by the Marxist paradigm, popularized by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Marxist approach believes that society is characterized by an economic imbalance which divides society into different classes. Marx believes capitalism further deepens this gap and society becomes defined by two groups the Bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or simply put the “haves and the have nots”. In his approach to modernization Marx does not deviate from the notion that the economic gap in a society two groups generates an inequality from which a nation must escape. He contends that as nations develop embracing a communist approach to governing such as eradicating private property, would end conflict, poverty, exploitation and inequality. This Marxist approach to modernization believes in a proletariat revolution where the lower class will rise up and take charge. Marx (1973), constituted that the economically developed societies show the “future” to the lesser developed ones. Marx prophecy of a proletariat revolution marked the action needed in lesser developed countries for them to attain modernization and ultimately be deemed

Rostow assumes that every society will be able to pass through these five stages, not considering the differences in the societies. Because of this the theory is considered flawed as it sports too many limitations the main one being that the theory was based on a Western principle that cannot be applied to all societies. In an attempt to transcend the limitations of Rostow’s theory dependency theorist Andre Gunderfrank constituted that Rostows theory is too Eurocentric. The dependency theory emerged as one of the strongest criticism to the modernization theory. Gunderfrank theorized that resources flow from a periphery of poor and underdeveloped states to a core of wealthy states. Gunderfrank believes that the core states develop at the expense of the periphery. He constitutes that Rostow failed to outline that the ‘developed’ who have attained the modernization he spoke of only did so by oppressing the states that are still developing. He wrote “historical research demonstrates that contemporary underdevelopment is in large part the historical product of past and continuing economic and other relations between the satellite underdeveloped and the now developed metropolitan countries. Furthermore, these relations are an essential part of