Economic and social development and underdevelopment are the main determinants of our lives at a global level. Marxism, as a theory of social change, should have an explanation of development and social progress. However, there are many versions of what a Marxist theory of development would be. We have the Marx who saw in the developed countries the future of all the others, but also the Marx who saw the socialist potential of the pre-revolutionary commune in Russia. There is a Lenin who saw capitalism as a promoter of development and, later, another who began to see it as a brake on development. Hence the theories of underdevelopment. Rosa Luxemburg occupies a prominent place as the first Marxist to understand the constant role of primitive accumulation.

In contemporary debates on development, we find in the foreground the contributions of Latin America: from the theories of dependency to those of Good Living. Ronaldo Munck raises the possibility of a new theory and praxis of development from the point of view of a critical Marxism.