Testing Marx: Capital Accumulation, Income Inequality, and Socialism in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany
利用普鲁士地区的新面板数据，重新审视马克思主义者与修正主义者关于资本积累、收入不平等和社会主义投票的经典辩论，发现资本积累提高了资本份额和收入不平等，但并未导致资本集中或社会主义选票增加，而工会和罢工活动反而限制了不平等并促进了社会主义支持。
Abstract We study the dynamics of capital accumulation, income inequality, capital concentration, and voting up to 1914. Based on new panel data for Prussian regions, we reevaluate the famous revisionism debate between orthodox Marxists and their critics. We show that changes in capital accumulation led to a rise in the capital share and income inequality, as predicted by orthodox Marxists. But against their predictions, this neither led to further capital concentration nor more votes for the socialists. Instead, trade unions and strike activity limited income inequality and fostered political support for socialism, as argued by the revisionists.