The Accumulation of Capital, an Anti-Critique: Imperialism & the Accumulation of Capital

by Rosa Luxemburg, Nikolai Bukharin

The two works combined in this book represent the ideas of two of the best minds produced by Marxism in the twentieth century on imperialism and its place in the structure of capitalism. The publication of Rosa Luxemburg's The Accumulation of Capital in 1913 raised a storm in German Social Democracy, and indeed in international Marxist circles. Taking Marx as her starting point, she offers an independent and fiercely critical explanation of the economic and political consequences of capitalism in the context of the turbulent times in which she lived, reinterpreting events in the United States, Europe, China, Russia and the British Empire.

Some Marxist critics felt that in trying to prove that capitalism could not function without imperialism, Rosa Luxemburg had erroneously constructed a model which proved the impossibility of capitalism itself. The most extensive discussion of Luxemburg's thesis was undertaken by Bukharin in 1924; his short book is included here.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Rosa Luxemburg (Rosalia Luxemburg, Polish: Róża Luksemburg) was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen. She was successively a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Social Democratic Party of Germany(SPD), the Independent Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party of Germany.

In 1915, after the SPD supported German involvement in World War I, she co-founded, with Karl Liebknecht, the anti-war Spartakusbund (Spartacist League). On 1 January 1919 the Spartacist League became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In November 1918, during the German Revolution she founded the Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag), the central organ of the Spartacist movement.

She regarded the Spartacist uprising of January 1919 in Berlin as a blunder, but supported it after Liebknecht ordered it without her knowledge. When the revolt was crushed by the social democrat government and the Freikorps (WWI veterans defending the Weimar Republic), Luxemburg, Liebknecht and some of their supporters were captured and murdered. Luxemburg was drowned in the Landwehr Canal in Berlin. After their deaths, Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht became martyrs for Marxists. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, commemoration of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht continues to play an important role among the German far-left.

Reviews

[giovi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imperialism is as much a historical method for prolonging capital's existence as it is the surest way of setting an objective limit to its existence as fast as possible. This is not to say that the final point need actually be attained. The very tendency of capitalist development towards this end is expressed in forms which make the concluding phase of capitalism a period of catastrophes.
The more ruthlessly capital uses militarism to put an end to non-capitalist strata in the outside world and at home, the more it depresses the conditions of existence of all working strata, the more the day-to-day history of capital accumulation on the world stage changes into an endless chain of political and social catastrophes and convulsions; these latter, together with the periodic economic catastrophes in the shape of crises, make continued accumulation impossible and the rebellion of the international working class against the rule of capital necessary, even before it has economically reached the limits it set for itself.