Imre Lakatos, a student of the famous philosopher of science Karl Popper, proposed a persuasive framework that can guide our evaluation of the scientific status and progress of particular theoretical traditions or paradigms such as Marxism and Darwinism. Every scientific tradition consists of two broad parts: a hard core and a protective... See more

economic inequality between countries is lower now than at any time in the 20th century.

This theoretical heart of Marxism is intellectually attractive because it offers a simple schema or template for producing a compact explanation for any interesting social phenomenon. “It’s the economy, stupid!” At the same time, the principle of economic determination gives Marxism very clear theoretical

As Marx puts it in the third volume of Capital :

The specific economic form in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers determines the relationship of rulers and ruled ... Upon this ... is founded ... the economic community which grows out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political

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For a change in the protective belt to lead to scientific progress, it must (1) be clearly analytically connected to the theory’s hard core; (2) be at least partly empirically tested and confirmed; and (3) improve the theory’s explanatory scope or predictive power. Otherwise this is merely ad hoc patching of gaping holes in the theory in order to... See more