A Research On Rosa Luxemburg’s Theory Of Capital Accumulation And Its Contemporary Implication

"Capital Accumulation" is the most important works of Rosa Luxemburg about political economy in which Rosa systematically expounded her historical dialectics. In this book, Rosa Luxemburg criticized Marx’s capital accumulation mode, built up her own mode of capital accumulation, and reanalyzed the capital accumulation theory of Marxism.In the process of the research, Rosa Luxemburg strongly criticized Bernstein’s revisionism, defended the purity of the Marxism, and analyzed the economic reasons for the new stage of the development of capitalism from the new angle of view. At the same time, she established her own theory of imperialism, inherited and developed the Marxism.According to the development view of materialist dialectics, all the new things experience a process from production, formation to development. Similarly, Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of capital accumulation has also experienced this process. Rosa Luxemburg’s theory, her unique understanding about modern capitalism, is one of the representatives of modern capitalism in second international, which started with the book "Introduction to National Economics", completed in the book "Capital Accumulation".Luxemburg’s theory of capital accumulation based on the social reproduction theory of Marx proposes an idea that the realization of surplus value is the major problem of modern capitalism. Capital accumulation theory includes three aspects: first, analyzes Marx’s theory of simple reproduction of social capital; second, analyzes Marx’s theory of the expanded reproduction of social capital; third, puts forward the existence of "Non capitalist System" is a prerequisite for capital accumulation; fourth, discusses the root problem for imperialism--the new development stage of the of capitalism. Luxemburg once said:"The person who today is counted as socialist and also wants to declare war against Marxism, should first respect it unconsciously, first admit to support it, find out the point to attack it and claim that this attack is to continue the development of Marxism." Comparing Marx’s theory of capital accumulation with Luxemburg’s capital accumulation, we will find that Luxemburg’s research on "how did the believers in Marxism understand the theories of Marx", can give us a profound enlightenment on researching the development of the capitalism.Both Luxemburg’s capital accumulation and Marx’s capital accumulation believe that the core problem of capital accumulation is the realization of surplus value. Both of them study capital accumulation by totality method of Marxism. The creation of all Luxemburg’s theory paves the way to innovation in practice of thorough dialectics of Marx’s historical dialectics. Although Luxemburg and Marx lived in different time, they had the same purpose which is to reveal the natural historical process of capitalism. Luxemburg’s theory has inherited and developed Marxism in the new stage of the development of capitalism. However, the two theories of capital accumulation also exist obvious difference:Marx’s theory of capital accumulation focuses on capitalism in Western Europe, while Luxemburg’s focuses on the global capitalism. Luxemburg introduced the idea of "Non-capitalist System", changed the problem area for the mode of Marx’s capital accumulation, but also innovated the way of thinking how Marx explained the global capitalism."Capital Accumulation" evoked strong repercussions among the second international as soon as it came out, which was criticized by some theorists of her contemporaries, such as Lenin, Bukharin, Powell, etc. So Luxemburg had to justify herself by writing a book "The Capital Accumulation--A Counter Criticism". As an important Marxist at the turn of the late19th and early20th century, although Luxemburg’s study had theoretical defects that she found the source of monopoly capitalism expansion from "consumptive inadequacy" angle, from Marxism angle, her analysis on new phenomena and new problems which appear on the monopoly stage of capitalism development has an important significance on the development history of Marxism.Luxemburg’s theory developed Marx’s capital accumulation from the two aspects: first, Luxemburg put the non-capitalist economic pattern as the essential historical prerequisite of capital accumulation into the process of capital accumulation, which didn’t change the rules of Marx’s capital accumulation, but developed the innate power and the nature of Marx’s theory of capital accumulation, that is,pursuit of commodity value and its realization. Second, Luxemburg’s theory developed the Marx’s historical analysis method on capital accumulation. Luxemburg extended it to non-capitalist system and studied the formation and development of international capital, integrated the time analysis with the spatial analysis of the capital expansion. In this way, the research on oriental countries has becomed a new horizon for contemporary world history, an essential horizon.The reason why Luxemburg put forward the theory of capital accumulation is not for purely academic purpose, but to reveal the economic root of the essence of modern capitalism and imperialism. It has an important theoretical and practical significance on studying the new development and new trend of capitalism of the period of post financial crisis. However, since Luxemburg didn’t carry out the historical method to the end, when she analyzed the relationship between the East and the West at the age of imperialism, Luxemburg was not able to find out the positive significance of the independence of the East which changed the relationship between the East and the West and promoted the world history progress. In general, China’s modernization pattern has an important significance to the history of the world. Therefore, the most significant enlightenment of Luxemburg’s capital accumulation theory is to study the way of Chinese modernization from the aspect of national sovereignty and national countries, to think about the relationship between Eastern and Western countries from the interaction of ethnic conflicts and social contradictions. Once the train of thought of this research is established, the period we examine Chinese is no longer the second half of the19th century, but the whole20th century.