1. NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS.
- Author
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Thorner, Daniel
- Subjects
CONFERENCES & conventions ,COMMUNISM ,ECONOMIC development ,CAPITALISM ,SOCIOLOGICAL research ,SOCIOECONOMICS - Abstract
The Warsaw Conference on the Marxian theory of Development centered on two related questions; (1) is there in Marxism a distinctively Marxian theory of development? (2) if there is, what guidance can it give today to countries at varying levels or stages of development? In his paper "The Marxian Theory of Development and Socialist Economic Policy," professor J.S. Berliner, held that the sociologist Karl Marx was primarily concerned with the process of capitalistic development. The Marxian doctrine, Berliner contended, applied primarily to fully developed capitalistic economies, their fundamental internal contradictions being supposed to lead inevitably to their bursting asunder and to their supersession by socialism. The title of the paper which professor W. Brus presented jointly with professor K. Laski was "Essentials of the Marxian Approach to Problems of Economic Development." For them the fundamental category of the Marxian theory of economic development was perhaps one which is both social and economic and is summed up in the expression mode of production. It would appear that Marxism does not furnish a set of formulae for development, from which practitioners can easily find out what to do in specific cases. Marxism does seem, however, to offer a box of tools, a set of canons, a method indicating how one might go about formulating what one wants to do by way of development.
- Published
- 1962