ABSTRACT
Modernization theory, Schumpeterian "lags," and diagnoses of stalemate cum crisis are all variant modes of explanation that express the great liberal theoretical constructs, which since the seventeenth century have separated those sub-political associations and enterprises men operate from interest from those they endow with coercive power. The three models of instability and breakdown, namely, conservative, liberal, and Marxist, rely upon different key processes: individual corruption for the first; differential rates of modernization for the second; a crisis of those legal relationships which precludes satisfying the totality of social claims, according to the third. Liberal and Marxist theories attributed instability to a discrepancy between state and social forces, between political institutions and contending interests. The major source of radicalism, Marxist doctrines, have from their origin stressed the class divisions of the world of work more than those in the world of consumption.
