Rosa Luxemburg - Accumulation of Capital

[Brosip Tito]

I've recently started reading her work, and find her both fascinating and quite agreeable. My concern here is her economic theories. It's argued that they deviate from Marx and are wrong, however, Paul Frolich mentions in his biography of Rosa, that the critiques were mistaken because those who made them did not understand what Rosa was getting at. I can't find my book, so I can't give his exact phrasing or argument.

So, I was wondering if anyone here is familiar with her economic theories, and if they could help me out, and explain them!

[Grenzer]

Luxemburg is pretty interesting, but I've only read small portions of her works unfortunately. What specifically is said to be wrong?

[Ostrinski]

She's verbose as fuck.

[Brosip Tito]

Luxemburg is pretty interesting, but I've only read small portions of her works unfortunately. What specifically is said to be wrong?
I believe Bukharin's critique is the one Frolich talked about. Specifically, I am unsure. As I said, I can't find my book! :(

[Brosip Tito]

She's verbose as fuck.
Is this a critique of her entire works, or just Accumulation?

How's it relevant to my question?

[ernie2]

The fundamental point that Luxemburg seeks to make is that that part of Surplus Value used to reinvest in increasing produced cannot be sold within capitalism, and has to be sold to countries, strata etc outside of capitalism. Thus the process of accumulation is integrally linked to imperialism because in order to accumulate capitalism has had to sell to and at the same time destroy those means of production other than capitalism.
It is essential to remember the context of your economic analysis. For Rosa it was a vital part of the struggle against revisionism. The revisionists argued that Marx's analysis could be used to show that capitalism can accumulate more or less problem free with the necessary policies. They also argued that capitalism was not a transitory historical system and thus there was no need for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Rosa's aim was to prove that capitalism was an historically limited system which would throw the whole of humanity into a barbaric cycle of wars, destruction, chaos etc.
The International Communist Current is the main organisation that defends Luxemburg's analysis. If you look at our site you will find plenty of material seeking to explain and develop her work.

[Tim Cornelis]

Anton Pannekoek wrote a critique of her work (or was it Paul Cardan?). I'll try to find it.

EDIT: Here it is: Theory of the collapse of capitalism (http://libcom.org/library/theory-of-the-collapse-of-capitalism-pannekoek).

[Alf]

The most recent articles we have written in defence of Luxemburg's economic theory are:

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/142/luxemburg

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/145/decadence-09-luxemburgism-1924

[Blake's Baby]

The Communist Workers' Organisation (part of the Internationalist Communist Tendency) also has critiqued Accumulation of Capital. Their critique can be found at http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2007-08-13/the-accumulation-of-contradictions-or-the-economic-consequences-of-rosa-luxembur - perhaps: I tried, but it was quite messed up (may just a browser problem at my end).


There's a whole thread about Rosa here - http://www.revleft.com/vb/luxemburgs-accumulation-capital-t165989/index.html?t=165989&highlight=luxemburg - from about 2 months ago...