tigmeister, you're right to be concerned and angry about the outrageous divergence in development and wealth in the world. However, Marxism and its orthodox followers remain stuck in the 19th Century, where sociology had already moved on. Marx analyzed the process of capital formation in society, and is still an important member of the tradition of liberal economics (many will protest at this, but it's a fact that he stands in a line going back to Smith and Ricardo, from where he received most of his economic ideas). What's obviously missing here is a concept of the process of technological development, social and cultural development, political development, ideological development, and above those, a theory of rationalization in history. Sociology has worked on these ever since.
These various social processes do not work in perfect harmony, nor are they subordinate to economics. There are important economists, ignored by marxists and classical liberals alike, beginning from the start of the 20th C, who examine the unhappy marriage of capital and technology (institutional economics). Add to this science and the involvement of the state (universities, research institutes etc.), and you get a complex picture indeed. Add to this layers of politics and ideologies and it becomes more complex still. Add to this human traits: egoism, vainglory, cunning, selfishness, stubbornness, acquiescence, altruism, compassion, charity, etc. and it becomes wondrous anything functions at all.
Vulgar marxism assumes that it can cut across the morass of agonistic human society with a magical master key to its assemblage: the "base" of economics determines the type of society that exists, therefore changing the base changes the "superstructure". That is inevitably true, but means terrible violence to everything that is, by those who lay claim to the throne of state sovereignty. Monetarism is no better in its abstract moralism that reduces culture to disciplining the human creature via market forces. Both are ideological radicalism, and are programs for transformation, not understanding, but masquerade in the public sphere as competing types of "truth". Both are impoverished science fiction advocated by aggressive nerds with no feeling for human beings as they actually exist.
