Reviews Of Rosa Luxemburg’s Economic Theory

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) is the international workers’ movementrevolutionary, Marxist theoretician, leader of the leftist Social Democratic Party ofGermany, one of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany. In1919, theperiod of German counter-revolutionary, she was arrested along with KarlLiebknecht and brutally murdered. As a Marxist theorist, she proposed the theory ofcapital accumulation and imperialism, developed the Marxist theory of reproductionof social capital, revealing the basic features and the economic roots of imperialism,pointing out the way of the international proletarian’s struggle for emancipation. Asshe criticized some of the practices of the Russian Bolsheviks, and her disagreed withtheories of Lenin and Bukharin odds, Rosa Luxemburg herself and her work havebeen controversial.In different countries, in different historical periods, differentscholars have different reviews on her theory. Whether in the history of theinternational communist movement, or the history of Marxist economics, RosaLuxemburg cann’t be neglected, she should not get such treat. She is the epic hero inthe international communist movement, and her thoery has practical significance asinterpretation of economic globalization.This paper from the perspective of economic thought’s history describes andevaluates Luxemburg’s economic thought, with a more detailed description of hermethodology, capital accumulation theory and the theory of imperialism, andobjective and realistic evaluation.In addition to the introduction, the paper is divided into three parts: First of all, inorder to allow people to have an overall understanding of Luxemburg, I introduceLuxemburg’s life experience, background of history, source of economic theory.Luxemburg’s theory inherited and developed the predecessors’ reproduction theory, sothis part focuses on the theory of Cantillon, Quesnay, Adam Smith, Marx.The second part is the most important,introducing the main contents, ideas and method of Rosa Luxemburg’s theory. At first, I describe the method of totalityadopted in Luxembourg’s study, which has five perspectives, the holistic, historic,practicality, subjectivity, criticism. Then, according to the Luxemburg’s Accumulationof Capital, I describe the formation, development and the main point of theLuxemburg’s capital accumulation theory and the theory of imperialism, which areconcluded from criticism on contradiction of Marx’s reproduction theory. She pointedout that in Marx’s icon, capital accumulation can not be achieved in the capitalistsociety. Therefore, Luxemburg put eyes into outside capitalist countries,“the thirdmarket”, which refers to groups or classes except the existing capitalist class and theworking class in capitalist society. Capitalism will sell their commodity to “the thirdmarket” for money, while “the third market” provides production goods and labor forcapitalism, thus the internal contradictions of capitalism get resolved.On the basis of capital accumulation, Luxemburg put forward the theory ofimperialism. She thought that capitalism need “the third market”. When the wholeworld becomes capitalist, capital accumulation can not continue, the contradictionsof capitalism will break out, and capitalism will perish. Imperialism is the higheststage of capitalism. There are three stages in the process of capitalism occupying theheterogeneous economies: the struggle against natural economy, the invasion of thecommodity economy, the fight against the peasant economy. Capitalism generellyuses colonial policy to damage the natural economy’s independence, gettingproduction goods and labor, then “peacefully” sales their commodity tonon-capitalism through massive construction of modern means of transport, finallythrogh development of new technologies and the application of new machine, makesfarmer become worker. In the imperialist stage, capitalism uses international loans,protective tariffs and militarism.Finally, I summarize Luxemburg’s theory, explaining meaning of the theoryfrom both theoretical and practical point of view, and also point out the shortcomingsand deficiencies exist in the theory. Luxemburg’s theory improve Marx’s Capital as asupplement and development. We get perspective transformation and horizonexpansion. We can use her theory to take a correct view of the status and influence of china in the process of globalization. At the same time, Luxemburg ignored the abilityof self-regulation of capitalism, and the particularity of eastern non-capitalist society.