Politics & Government · Political Theory
A topic within Political Theory, itself one of 14 topics in that field and part of Politics & Government.
No prior grounding assumed.
Critique of the Gotha Programme
Karl Marx · 1891
Attacks the draft programme of German social democracy for compromising on the labour theory of value and for imagining a distributive formula, 'to…
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Evolutionary Socialism
Eduard Bernstein · 1899
Capitalism is not collapsing the way Marx predicted and is instead adapting, so socialists should pursue gradual, democratic reform through unions…
+1 more at this level
3 works
Karl Marx
Attacks the draft programme of German social democracy for compromising on the labour theory of value and for imagining a distributive formula, 'to each according to his needs,' that only becomes possible once scarcity itself is abolished.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Eduard Bernstein
Capitalism is not collapsing the way Marx predicted and is instead adapting, so socialists should pursue gradual, democratic reform through unions and parliaments rather than wait for a revolutionary breakdown that keeps failing to arrive.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Rosa Luxemburg
Answers Bernstein directly: trade-union and parliamentary reform can improve conditions inside capitalism but cannot abolish it, so trading revolution for reform abandons socialism's actual goal rather than achieving it by other means.
link checked 17 Sept 2026