ABSTRACT
Introduction Rosa Luxemburg’s theoretical work raises a number of important issues and, although her theses have not gone unchallenged (for a survey, see, for example, Howard and King, 1992), it is fair to say that even when she did not ‘provide the correct answer . . . she asked the searching questions’ (Desai, 1979: 179). This chapter analyses Luxemburg’s theory of imperialism, focusing in particular on two issues. First, it evaluates Luxemburg’s argument that imperialism is the product of capital’s need to realize surplus value in an accumulating economy. This is due to the
deep and fundamental antagonism between the capacity to consume and the capacity to produce in a capitalist society, a conflict resulting from the very accumulation of capital which periodically bursts out in crises and spurs capital on to a continual extension of the market
(Luxemburg, 1913: 347)
This view has been indirectly questioned by various authors (Robinson, 1951; Kalecki, 1971; Darity Jr., 1979; Desai, 1979; Howard and King, 1992), who have pointed out some flaws in Luxemburg’s thesis of the impossibility of accumulation in a closed capitalist economy. This contribution adopts a different perspective: Luxemburg’s theory of accumulation is not examined, but imperialism is directly analysed in a stationary world. It is argued that capital accumulation is not necessary to capture the essence of imperialism as an exploitative system of international relations: perfectly competitive markets and differences in development and wealth across countries are sufficient to generate imperialistic international relations (IIR). Developed countries have an incentive to exploit underdeveloped ones quite independently of accumulation needs: capital’s incessant quest for profits seems a more convincing explanation.
