Este artigo tem como objetivo mostrar o erro de Rosa Luxemburg em sua crítica aos esquemas de reprodução de Marx em O Capital. Em sua obra, O Capital, Marx demonstrava que a reprodução econômica da sociedade capitalista era um processo exclusivamente endógeno, conduzido inteiramente pela classe trabalhadora e pela classe capitalista. Segundo ele, a sociedade capitalista produzia e reproduzia os seus próprios fundamentos sem a necessidade de uma terceira classe social externa ao sistema. Rosa Luxemburg considerava que essa (...) concepção de Marx era uma abstrata e separada da economia real. De acordo com ela, a acumulação de capital é impossível sem a existência de uma terceira classe de consumidores externa ao sistema, a qual funcionaria como classe compradora da mais-valia destinada à acumulação. Este artigo mostrará que essa concepção tem origem na falta de compreensão sobre a natureza dialética do método de exposição de O Capital por parte de Rosa Luxemburg. (shrink)

Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom. -/- This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The (...) Communist Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today. (shrink)

This article aims at contributing to current debates on the ‘new imperialism’ by presenting the main results of a reading of Marx’sCapitalin light of his writings on colonialism, which were unknown in the early Marxist debate on imperialism. It aims to prove that, in his main work, Marx does not analyse a national economy or – correspondingly – an abstract model of capitalist society, but a world-polarising and ever-expanding system. This abstraction allows the identification of the laws of development (...) of capitalism and its antagonisms, and reflects the tendency of the capital of the dominant states, by making permanent recourse also to methods of so-called ‘primitive accumulation’, to expand and increase the exploitation of workers worldwide, and, at the same time, the cooperation between them. What, for Marx, was later defined as imperialism is the concrete form of the process of ‘globalisation’ of the capital of the dominant states. With the development of his analysis, Marx became increasingly aware of the economic and political consequences of imperialism. In his activity within the First International, with regard to the question of Irish independence, he affirmed the fundamental importance of building a real solidarity between class struggles in imperialist countries and anti-colonial resistance in colonised and dependent countries. His examination of imperialism and internationalist perspective were downplayed, denied, if not completely reversed in the interpretation and systematisation of his thought by reformist leaders within the Second International. In their attempt to react against this tendency and develop an analysis and a political strategy adequate to the new phase of generalised imperialist expansion, increased inter-imperialist rivalries and rising anti-colonial resistance, Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin reaffirmed the centrality of the critique of imperialism at the economic and at the political levels. Even if they were partially unaware of this, they thus developed and expanded on some aspects already present in Marx’s work. (shrink)

La théorie économique marxiste rend compte des rapports entre capitalisme et violence à l’aide notamment du concept d’accumulation primitive. Cet article se propose de montrer comment ce concept s’est construit et étoffé en analysant trois étapes : d’abord son élaboration initiale par Karl Marx (l’accumulation primitive comme préhistoire du capital), ensuite une première extension par Rosa Luxemburg (l’accumulation primitive comme mouvement actuel d’extension géographique de la logique du capital du centre vers la périphérie), et enfin une seconde extension (...) par David Harvey (l’accumulation primitive comme mouvement de recolonisation « intérieure » et d’« accumulation par dépossession »). L’article propose d’articuler ces trois étapes à partir de la dialectique entre droit et violence telle que l’a problématisée le philosophe Walter Benjamin (2018). Codes JEL : B14, B24, B5. (shrink)

Rosa Luxemburg était économiste de formation. Sa plus grande ambition était d’être à la pointe de la recherche en économie politique marxiste. Dans cet article, nous montrons comment Rosa Luxemburg a lu le chef d’œuvre de Marx, Le Capital inachevé, comment elle a critiqué Marx et comment elle a essayé de mettre à jour sa théorie afin de mieux comprendre les changements récents dans l’économie mondiale capitaliste. Pour elle, les marxistes contemporains étaient beaucoup trop timides, hésitant à critiquer (...) et dépasser Marx – comme elle essayait de le faire dans son livre sur l’accumulation du capital. Sa façon d’aborder la question de l’accumulation du capital a ouvert de nouvelles perspectives. Elle n’a pas réussi à présenter une explication consistante de l’économie capitaliste à l’âge de l’impérialisme, mais elle a clairement perçu les difficultés inhérentes de tous les projets coloniaux et impérialistes des grandes puissances de son temps. Car pour coloniser des pays et peuples non-capitalistes, et pour les rendre exploitables pour le capital, il leur fallait d’abord transformer ces économies et sociétés non-capitalistes. (shrink)

This essay will first present a vignette of Luxemburg’s life and work, referring to classic and recent biographies. Following that, section 3 examines concepts of the state and nation in Hegel, Marx, Engels, and Lenin. The subject of section 4 is Luxemburg’s substantial work of political economy, The Accumulation of Capital. It is a most significant achievement, analyzing the contradictions of the capitalist state and its role in driving imperialist expansion and colonialism. Section 5 traces how Luxemburg’s political economy (...) in Accumulation underwrites her interventions in the heated debates over Polish independence. And section 6 concludes with remarks on Luxemburg’s significance for philosophy and political thought. (shrink)

During the last few decades, the concept of primitive accumulation (ursprüngliche Akkumulation) introduced by Karl Marx and expanded by Rosa Luxemburg has been revived and improved. Accordingly, scholars have used this framework not to characterize a past moment in the history of capitalism, but to grasp the continuous process of coupling and uncoupling geographical and social spheres in the capital accumulation in different fields: financialization, the care economy, green grabbing, the sharing economy, real estate bubbles, data mining, etc. (...) Despite the quality and productivity of these debates, they are still focused on authors and phenomena observed in the Global North, ignoring a long tradition of similar discussions developed especially in Latin America. The article seeks to decentre these debates by taking seriously into account approaches which address primitive accumulation from the perspective of (post)colonial and (post)slave societies. It coins the concept entangled accumulation to emphasize the interdependencies between practices of exploitation and expropriation, wage and slave labour, state power and illegal violence, and capitalist and non-capitalist economies, which have shaped capital accumulation throughout history. (shrink)

This is one of the most respected books on Marx's philosophical thought. Wood explains Marx's views from a philosophical standpoint and defends Marx against common misunderstandings and criticisms of his views. All the major philosophical topics in Marx's work are considered: the central concept of alienation; historical materialism and Marx's account of social classes; the nature and social function of morality; philosophical materialism and Marx's atheism; and Marx's use of the Hegelian dialectical method and the Marxian theory of value. (...) The second edition has been revised to include a new chapter on capitalist exploitation and new suggestions for further reading. Wood has also added a substantial new preface which looks at Marx's thought in light of the fall of the Soviet Union and our continued ambivalence towards capitalism, exploring Marx's continuing relevance in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This book examines what we can gain from a critical reading of Marx's final manuscript and his conclusion of the "systematic presentation" of his critique, which was the basis for Engels's construction of the third volume of his infamous 'Capital'. The text introduces the reader to a key problem ́of Marx's largely implicit epistemology, by exploring the systematic character of his exposition and the difference of this kind of 'systematicity' from Hegelian philosophical system construction. The volume contributes to establishing a (...) new understanding of the critique of political economy, as it has been articulated in various debates since the 1960s - especially in France, Germany, and Italy - and as it had already been initiated by Marx and some of his followers, with Rosa Luxemburg in a key role. All the chapters are transdisciplinary in nature, and explore the modern day relevance of Marx's and Luxemburg's theoretical analysis of the dominance of the capitalist mode of production. (shrink)

The paper functions as a contribution to feminist analyses that are methodologically based on Rosa Luxemburg’s critique of political economy and her understanding of capital accumulation, but also as a contribution to contemporary social-reproduction theory which aims to integrate Luxemburg’s legacy alongside that of Marx. The essay offers a sketch for a ‘Luxemburgian feminism’ consisting of an overview of Luxemburg’s critique of bourgeois feminism and a preliminary application of Luxemburg’s ‘dialectics of spatiality’ to contemporary social-reproduction theory. With Luxemburg’sThe Accumulation (...) of Capitalin mind and her several essays on the so-called ‘women’s question’, we shall attempt to relate Luxemburg’s explanation of the dynamic link between capitalist and non-capitalist spatialities with the commodification of women’s reproductive labour. (shrink)

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to save the (...) good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to save the (...) good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)

Capitalism and Catastrophe questions whether there are processes in advanced capitalism that lead inevitably to systemic collapse. The author challenges those Marxian theories based on a set of historically evolving 'internal contradictions' derived from a purely dialectical analysis of capitalism. In Part I he focuses on the controversy surrounding Rosa Luxemburg's theories of imperialism and capital accumulation, and on Marx's treatment of science and technology in the Grundrisse. In Part I I he critically examines neo- and non-Marxian theories (...) of advanced capitalism, in particular the work of Jurgen Habermas regarding the problem of political legitimation in advanced capitalism. Professor Rousseas argues that Marxists have severely underestimated the resilience of the capitalist system, which must be taken into account by any theory of political economy relevant to the twentieth century. (shrink)

An advocate of radical democracy and individual responsibility, Rosa Luxemburg remains the most eminent representative of the libertarian socialist tradition. A reevaluation and renewal within the Left has allowed the ideas of Luxemburg to assume greater vitality and relevance today than ever before. This volume provides an essential representative sampling of Luxemburg's writings that have generally not been among those commonly anthologized. That she had a powerful impact on every generation of the 20th century is documented in the accompanying (...) essays, which include scholarly reflections, comradely arguments, and even a loving reminiscence. Paul Le Blanc, who has been active in labor and social movements for many years, explains that the socialism that animated Luxemburg as a thinker and revolutionary activist involved a vision of society in which our economic resources would be socially owned, democratically controlled, and utilized for the benefit of all people. Luxemburg was convinced this goal could only be realized through the struggles of the working-class majority. The goals Luxemburg sought-popular sovereignty, rule by the people, democracy-were lost in the decades following her 1919 martyrdom. Among the selections from Luxemburg are "Martinique," "The Problem of the Nationality Question and Autonomy," "Rebuilding the International," "The Accumulation of Capital," "Letters from Prison," and "What Are the Leaders Doing?" Included are essays by Lelio Basso, Claire Cohen, Raya Dunayevskaya, Luise Kautsky, and Andrea Nye. (shrink)

Creolizing Rosa Luxemburg brings together a global community of writers to revisit key aspects of Luxemburg’s thought, from the accumulation of capital, to the mass strike, to her debate with Vladimir Lenin on the meaning of socialism, and her searing critiques of colonialism as inherent to capitalist accumulation.

In Karl Marx’s “Preface” to the second edition of Capital, Volume 1, he famously wrote that with Hegel dialectical thinking is “standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.” Unfortunately, across a wide spectrum of interpretations of Marxism, there continues to be a great deal of confusion about what Marx means by the “rational kernel” that he discerns within the Hegelian “mystical shell.” But (...) not just a great deal of confusion, but real mystification and distortion of what Marx himself means by dialectical thinking, and especially what a dialectical mode of explanation involves. The concern of this brief paper is to offer some considerations that might open up a clearer conceptual horizon for understanding Marx’s method of dialectical explanation, and the fundamental canons of interpretation that are associated with it. (shrink)

Volume I is one of the most influential documents of modern times, looking at the relationship between labor and value, the role of money, and the conflict between the classes. The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital discussion of commodity, the cornerstone to Marx's theories. The third volume was unfinished at the time of Marx's death in 1883 and first published with a preface by Frederick Engels in 1894, strove to (...) combine the theories and concepts of the two previous volumes in order to prove conclusively that capitalism is inherently unworkable as a permanent system for society. Here, Marx asserts controversially that - regardless of the efforts of individual capitalists, public authorities or even generous philanthropists - any market economy is inevitably doomed to endure a series of worsening, explosive crises leading finally to complete collapse. But he also offers an inspirational and compelling prediction: that the end of capitalism will culminate, ultimately, in the birth of a far greater form of society. (shrink)

This book is neither a biography of Rosa Luxemburg, nor a detached, objective study of her thought. The reader unfamiliar with Luxemburg’s life or writings will vainly look for the missing pieces or the balanced evaluation. As we know from her previous works, Raya Dunayevskaya does not believe in critical detachment. She writes in the kind of polemical style, introduced by Marx and since Lenin carried to ever higher pitch, which features invective as its principal figure. As for the (...) form, her book, in spite of continuously numbered chapters, consists of three different essays of which the first is connected with the other two only by occasional statements of the main subject’s position on women’s liberation and on the significance of Marx’s dialectic. (shrink)

The readings collected here—of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Antonio Gramsci— reflect the experience of the labor, socialist, and communist movements that did so much to shape modern history. A dedication to working-class revolution gives coherence to the influential philosophical, economic, sociological, and historical works of these writers. Paul Le Blanc's introductory essay probes the structure and dynamics of Marxism as a political orientation, tracing connections among components that can be found (...) in the readings: the theory of capitalist development, the theory of the labor movement, the strategy of revolution, the conception of the transition to socialism. Others identified with the Marxist tradition—such as Plekhanov, Kautsky, Stalin, Mao—are also discussed, and attention is given to perspectives of such varied critics of Marxism as Sidney Hook, Bertram D. Wolfe, James Burnham, Daniel Bell, Robert Heilbroner, and C. Wright Mills. Historical reflections are blended with discussion of the durability of capitalism, the disappointment of hopes for workers' revolution, the "collapse of communism," issues of race and gender, the environment, and challenges of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

A new 2023 translation into American English of Marx's influential 1845 "Die heilige Familie oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik" from the original manuscript. This edition includes a new introduction by the translator and reference materials including a Glossary of Philosophic and Economic Marxist Terminology, an Index of Personalities Associated with Marx and a Timeline of Marx’s Life and Works. This is Volume IV in The Complete Works of Karl Marx by NL Press. The Holy Family is Marx's first foray (...) into building his dialectical materialism, while still attacking the modern Hegelians.The main title itself is mocking Bruno Bauer's "Pure Criticism", which Marx parodies with the nonsense "Critical Criticism". This is the first publication Engels and Marx published together, only one year after meeting in person in 1844. Here he is attacking other Hegelians and Critical Philosophy writ large, arguing against Hegel's idealistic dialectic for his own dialectal Epicurean Materialism which he began to outline in his Ph.D. Thesis "Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie" in 1841. Marx believed that Critical Philosophy in general (kritische Philosophie), which sees the most fundamental task of Philosophy as primarily judging the possibility of knowledge before asserting any claim of knowledge itself, as misguided in its Platonic Ontology. The entire work is a polemic against "The Holy Family" of young Hegelians, mocking and insulting them on every page. He uses sarcastic parody, nearly Horatian satire, specifically towards Christianity- "Criticism so loved the masses that it sent its only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life". Ultimately, he declared these dilettante philosophers "false prophets" and himself the true prophet of Atheistic, Skeptical and Materialistic Humanism. Here he also argues that the only way to deal with "the Jewish problem" is by eradicating Christianity and all metaphysical beliefs because the "bourgeois morality" gets in the way of implementing a true, final solution to the muddying of pure European nationality by the existence of the Jews. Here we see the foundations of the National-Socialist movement which declared "there is no God but the German people" and started eradicating millions in the name of Humanism and Progress. (shrink)

How did Rosa Luxemburg, in herThe Accumulation of Capitaland other writings, analyse the development of the working class and other subordinate classes under capitalism, and how did she view the relationship between these classes and those living in ‘natural economic societies’? Following primary sources closely, the present essay reconstructs and evaluates Luxemburg’s class analysis of global society. It is shown that Luxemburg pioneered a truly global concept of solidarity from below, including the most oppressed – women and colonised peoples.

1. Jugendschriften 1835-1841. Mit einem Essay "Zum Verständnis der Texte," Erläuterungen und Bibliographie hrsg. von G. Hillmann. DM 3.80 (GDB 66-A49-92)--2. Pariser Manuskripte 1844.--3. Der Mensch in Arbeit und Kooperation (Aus den Grundrissen der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, 1857/58).

T. 1. Die Herausbildung der materialistischen Welt-und Geschichtsauffassung, in den Schriften von 1842-1846. 2. Aufl.--T. 2. Die materialistische Geschictsauffassung in den Schriften seit 1846.

In this inquiry into Marx’s method of theorising, originally published in 1979, the author analyses theory in the same way that Marx analyses the production of capital, and provides a set of rules for reproducing Marx’s method. The rules are developed through an examination of the _Grundrisse_, the recently translated text by Marx that combines his technical critique of political economy with his humanistic, philosophical concerns and his historical perspective. Dr Bologh concludes that Marx’s method, as dialectical phenomenology, offers (...) a way of analysing language, knowledge and the social relations and practices of everyday life, as well as the more obvious phenomena of capitalism. (shrink)

Rosa Luxemburg and Communism. There are four topics in Rosa Luxemburg’s writings which are of particular importance from the perspective of a refoundation of communism in the 21th century : internationalism, an “open” conception of history, the importance of democracy in the revolutionary process, and the interest in the “pre-modern” communist traditions. This last aspect of Luxemburg’s thinking is less well known. By confronting the industrial capitalist civilization with the communitarian past of humanity, Rosa Luxemburg broke (...) with linear evolutionism, positivism, social-darwinism and with all the interpretations of Marxism which tend to reduce it to an advanced version of the philosophy of inevitable progress. The issue, in these texts, is, in the last analysis, the very meaning of the Marxist conception of history. (shrink)

A CAREFUL STUDY OF MARX'S METHOD IN THE "GRUNDRISSE" WILL SHOW THAT MARX OPERATES WITH A DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND APPEARANCE AND ALSO THAT, FOR MARX, CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS JUST, BUT, CONTRARY TO THE VIEWS OF ALLEN WOOD, ONLY AT THE LEVEL OF SURFACE APPEARANCE. CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS ALSO UNJUST, BUT, UNLIKE THE VIEWS OF Z I HUSAMI, ONLY AT THE LEVEL OF ESSENCE--SOMETHING DISCOVERED BY SCIENCE WHICH GOES BEHIND SURFACE.

This is one of the most respected books on Marx's philosophical thought. Wood explains Marx's views from a philosophical standpoint and defends him against common misunderstandings and criticisms. All the major philosophical topics in Marx's work are considered: the central concept of alienation; historical materialism and Marx's account of social classes; the nature and social function of morality; philosophical materialism and Marx's atheism; and Marx's use of the Hegelian dialectical method and the Marxian theory of value.

This article presents a new interpretation of Marx's dialectical method. Marx conceived dialectics as a method for constructing a model of society. The way this model is developed is analogous to the way organisms develop according to the German embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer, and, indeed, Marx's theory of capitalism hinges on the same concept of Organisation that is found in teleomechanical biology. The strong analogy between pre-Darwinian biology and Marx's structure of argument shows that the analogy often (...) supposed to exist between Darwin and Marx is not relevant to Marx's theory of capitalism. (shrink)