ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the unsatisfactory way in which development geographers have adopted and derived ideological concepts and models from neighbouring social sciences. It presents the poverty of the geographical and related literature on underdevelopment. The chapter discusses the vitally important theoretical field of imperialism and underdeveloped capitalism. It explains why so much of the geographical writing on the Third World, and also of the associated regional economics literature, continues to remain theoretically limited. The chapter deals with the distinction between growth and development and describes the Marxist theory of imperialism. For Rosa Luxemburg, imperialism was the political expression of the accumulation of capital in its competitive struggle for what still remained open of the non-capitalist environment. Historically, within this process of accumulation, Luxemburg distinguished three phases: the struggle against natural economy; the struggle against commodity economy; and the competitive struggle of capital on the international stage for the remaining conditions of accumulation.
