Capital Accumulation and Debt Colonialism After Rosa Luxemburg

2018 ◽  
Vol 94 (94) ◽  
pp. 82-99
Author(s):  
Stephen Morton
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Surplus Value ◽  
The World ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Blind Spots ◽  
Rosa Luxemburg

In The Accumulation of Capital (1913), Rosa Luxemburg offers a sophisticated account of the foundational role of colonialism in the development and expansion of the capitalist world system. By interrogating the blind spots in Marx's account of capitalist political economy, Luxemburg emphasises the importance of 'non-capitalist strata and countries' in the production of surplus value. Crucial to Luxemburg's re-thinking of capitalist political economy, in other words, was the accumulation and dispossession of non-capitalist societies on the periphery of the world economy. Beginning with an assessment of Luxemburg's central thesis in The Accumulation of Capital , this article proceeds to suggest that Luxemburg's analysis of imperialism has important and far-reaching consequences for understanding contemporary formations of capital accumulation and debt colonialism in the postcolonial world. What's more, Luxemburg's reflections on primitive communism and the challenge this posed to the universalising historical narrative of bourgeois political economy offer an important counterpoint to the predominant conceptualisation of the world as an abstract space for the uneven and unequal circulation of capital and commodities. By reading Luxemburg's writings on primitive communism against the grain of her writings on imperialism and debt colonialism in The Accumulation of Capital, I suggest in conclusion that Luxemburg's writing offers a valuable contribution to contemporary accounts of the commons.

Development Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung-Uk Huh ◽  
Matthew S. Winters
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Review Literature ◽  
Wealthy Country ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
The World

A variety of policies implemented by the wealthy countries of the world can have an impact on economic development in poor countries. We argue that the field of international political economy has underinvested in studying the determinants of non-foreign-aid policies that affect development. We review literature from a set of eight policy areas where there are identifiable development consequences and discuss the findings of the International Political Economy (IPE) literature with regard to policy origins, changes, and consequences. We find a consistent role of non-governmental organization (NGO) pressure on wealthy-country governments in bringing about pro-development policies, although we also identify instances where pro-development policies originate in domestic and strategic interests. Overall, we argue that there is significant space for additional exploration through a development lens of how policies come into being in the wealthy countries of the world.

scholarly journals The Role of Kuzbass in the New Strategy of Socio-Economic Development of Russia in the Fourth System Cycle of Capitalist Accumulation: the World-System Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 04032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalya Osokina
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
System Integration ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
World System ◽  
The World ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

The aim of the research is to develop the conceptual foundations of the strategy of socio-economic development for mining region (on the example of Kuzbass) under the conditions of the fourth systemic cycle of capitalist accumulation. The relevance of the issue is determined by the need to eliminate the growing lag of Russia behind the world economy leaders, which is impossible without a new vision of the role of resourceproducing regions in the national economic system. Integration of Russia into the capitalist world-system on the basis of the Washington Consensus has formed in it a raw-materials export model in which its natural resources serve the accelerated economic growth of the competing countries. The accumulation of individual capitals dominates the social capital accumulation, which leads to a reduction in Russia's share in world GDP and population. This article presents the conceptual foundations of the Kuzbass development strategy in accordance with the new conditions for the Russian economy performance in the fourth systemic cycle of capitalist accumulation.

Journey to the centre of the world: Google Maps and the abstraction of cybernetic capitalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-579
Author(s):  
Timothy Erik Ström
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human History ◽  
Levels Of Abstraction ◽  
Google Maps ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Representation ◽  
Capitalist World

Across human history, many cultures have produced different ‘centres of the world’, with cartography often being bound up in the construction and representations of this axis mundi. A contemporary manifestation of these ancient phenomena can be seen in Google Maps, the most popular world-map ever made. Google use surveillance to present various types of customized centres-of-the-world, with their global representation being automatically tailored for specific subjects. This study uses engaged theory to analytically separate the levels of abstraction inherent in these processes, connecting empiric observations with large-scale historic transformations, with a focus on subjective and material changes in relation to the capitalist world-system. It is argued that the automated, atomizing processes bound up in Google Maps serve to projects intensifying abstractions into everyday social practice, thus reconstituting how space and time are experienced, as well as being intimately bound up with intensifying processes of capital accumulation and social control.

scholarly journals SOBRE A MOBILIDADE NO SISTEMA MUNDIAL: A RELEVÂNCIA DO CONCEITO DE SEMIPERIFERIA PARA OS PROJETOS DE DESENVOLVIMENTO NO SÉC. XXI

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Freitas
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
System Approach ◽  
World Economy ◽  
World System ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

The objective of this article is to discuss the relevance of the concept of semiperiphery to analyze the world system in the 21st century. First, the main concepts of the world-system approach will be analyzed. In the second part, a more in-depth examination of the question of the semi-periphery will be made through its political and economic characteristics. Later, we will examine the empirical attempts to define the semiperiphery, its role in the reproduction of the capitalist world-economy and the question of mobility in the world-system hierarchy. In conclusion, the role of government apparatus in the issue of development and overcoming the status of semi-periphery in the capitalist world-system will be highlighted.

scholarly journals Nonwestern Periphery and its Paradoxes: Reflections for Struggles in the 21st Century

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Saggioro Garcia
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
World System ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Economic Mechanisms

What has historically been the role of the nonwestern semiperiphery (what was it expected to do and what did it really do) and how has this role changed in recent years? In their article “Moving toward Theory for the 21st Century: The Centrality of Nonwestern Semiperiphery to World Ethnic/Racial Inequality”, Wilma Dunaway and Donald Clelland provide important contributions to the efforts to rethink global inequalities and the potential to transform the capitalist world-system. Presenting a wealth of data compiled in graphs and tables, the article aims to decenter analysis of global ethnic/racial inequality by bringing the nonwestern semiperiphery to the foreground. In their examination of the rise of the nonwestern semiperiphery, the authors question the popular “global apartheid model”, which identifies “white supremacy” as the sole cause of global ethnic/racial inequality. Their goal is to demonstrate that the nonwestern semiperiphery intensifies and exacerbates ethnic and racial inequalities in the world further by adopting political and economic mechanisms to exploit territories and workers both within and beyond their borders.

scholarly journals Africa: A Political Economy of Continued Crisis

Afrika Focus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Ray Bush
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Added Value ◽  
The World ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Extractive Economies ◽  
Africa Rising

This article deepens critique of the Africa rising trope and the policies promoted by neo liberals to promote development on the continent. It revisits the economic growth literature and it shows how the weakly formulated views about African growth are merely self serving of limited, mostly western, investment interests that remain centred on extractive economies rather than helping to promote sustainable structural transformation with added value that can be retained in Africa. There have always been periods of economic growth in Africa but opportunities for this to be sustained do not lie with greater integration with the world economy. Instead they lie with, among other things, local political and economic struggles in Africa for greater democratic control of capital accumulation.

scholarly journals Google Capitalism

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Capital Accumulation

This paper analyzes Google’s political economy. In section 2, Google’s cycle of capital accumulation is explained and the role of surveillance in Google’s form of capital accumulation is explained. In section 3, the discussion if Google is “evil” is taken up. Based on Dallas Smythe’s concept of the audience commodity, the role of the notion of Internet prosumer commodification is stressed.

Victory

2019 ◽  
pp. 221-242
Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Social Democracy ◽  
The West ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Democratic Capitalism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Do So

This chapter argues that the West “won” the Cold War because statesmen made systems of democratic capitalism and social democracy work effectively. The challenge for democratic leaders throughout the world was to thwart the appeal of communism and co-opt revolutionary nationalist movements. To do so, they had to reinvent the role of government—not to supplant markets, but to make markets work more effectively and equitably. They avoided intracapitalist conflict, won the support of their own peoples, and created a culture of consumption that engendered the envy of peoples everywhere. In this contest over rival systems of political economy, the role of government was not the problem; it was part of the solution. But it had to be calibrated carefully.

Economic Inequality and News Media

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
News Media ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Mainstream Economics ◽  
Journalism Studies ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Blind Spots

Despite the rediscovery of the inequality topic by economists and other social scientists in recent times, relatively little is known about how economic inequality is mediated to the wider public. That is precisely where this book steps in: it examines how mainstream news media discuss, respond to, and engage with such important trends. The book addresses significant ‘blind spots’ in the two disciplinary areas most related to this book—political economy and media/journalism studies. Firstly, key issues related to economic inequalities tend to be neglected in media and journalism studies field. Secondly, mainstream economics have paid relatively little attention to the evolving scope and role of mediated communication.

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