Original scientific paper

Theory of Accumulation and the Contemporary Luxemburgian Critical Political Economy

Ankica Čakardić ; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

While writing the “Anticritique” Rosa Luxemburg very concisely outlines her thesis on capital accumulation where she argues that the economic roots of imperialism can be derived from the accumulation of capital and that imperialism in general represents the specific mode of accumulation. From that point onwards Luxemburg will develop her theory of expanded reproduction, but also a critique of Marx, especially when it comes to the third section of the second volume of Capital where Marx analyses the question of reproduction and accumulation. The text is divided in two parts. In the first we systematise Luxemburg’s critique of Marx in three points: (1) foreign trade, (2) the equation of total value of a commodity = c + v + s, and (3) the problem of demand in social reproduction. After we outline those critical issues we continue by underlining several dispute points of Luxemburg’s theory. In the second part we propose two possible elements of contemporary Luxemburgian critique of political economy, one that could serve us as a tool for analysis of current crises and other (completely ignored in feminist theory) as an application of Luxemburg’s spatial dialectics on the feminist analysis of reproductive labour in the capitalist mode of production.

Keywords

Rosa Luxemburg; Karl Marx; accumulation; expanded reproduction; demand problem; spatial dialectics; crisis; reproductive labour

Hrčak ID:

158771

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/158771

Publication date:

22.9.2015.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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