Rosa Luxemburg's Political Economy: Contributions to Contemporary Political Theory and Practice

Since her assassination, Rosa Luxemburg has been treated as an icon while her political and theoretical work is largely forgotten, neglected, or rejected. Recently, though, David Harvey used her ideas on capitalist expansion to explain the new imperialism. Other elements of her work are promising for socialist studies and the left, today. Her analysis of mass strikes in Russia in 1905, for example, may cast new light on workers’ struggles in China. Luxemburg’s critical discussion of nations’ right to selfdetermination inform, or ought to inform, contemporary Latin American struggles against imperialist domination. Her writings on mass strikes, parties and trade unions, like her better-known writings on ‘social reform or revolution’, offer insights into the role of (weakly) organized labour in political change. Although Luxemburg didn’t engage much with women’s issues directly, her work and its reception nonetheless have an important gender dimension. In particular, feminist women scholars have been quicker to recognize Luxemburg’s contributions to socialist political economy than their male colleagues.