From: Paul Zarembka (zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Wed May 19 2004 - 23:31:05 EDT
Rakesh pointed to the Remarx article in *Rethinking Marxism*, Apr. 04. However, it incorrectly ascribes Luxemburg to being an underconsumptionist, rather than her focus on over-production -- it's not the same thing. More importantly they seem to miss the actual process of proletarianization as creating a market. Actually, unlike Economakis/Milios, I don't believe one can mathematize the point Luxemburg is making (or at least not in the simple manner these authors do, who are following the path for destroying Luxemburg laid out by Bukharin). Consider an historical example: Wage-labor was desired for Rhodesian gold mines. It was supplied, after 1892, by the British instituting extraordinarily high taxation on peasant land in Nyasaland (now Malawi), and so forcing sons off the land to migrate to wage-labor employment in gold mines. Such jobs could provide direct help for paying the land taxes or could provide a market for cash crops used to pay the taxes (van Onselen, 1976). When the process, nevertheless, still led lands into receiverships and a subsequent conversion of family members into wage-labor work on capitalist farms producing subsistence crops, the full result would be the conversion of all subsistence peasant farmers into proletarians producing value. How would one mathematize this? or how could the math in the article in question be interpreted to include this example? Incidentally, Bukharin on Luxemburg is actually quite problematic and I became quite disillusioned with his 'scholarship' -- as I laid out in my "Rosa Luxemburg's *Accumulation of Capital*: Critics Try to Bury the Message", 2002). Basically, Bukharin is using supposed 'scholarship' for nasty politics. Oh well. Paul Z. ************************************************************************* Vol.21-Neoliberalism in Crisis, Accumulation, and Rosa Luxemburg's Legacy RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Zarembka/Soederberg, eds, Elsevier Science ********************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
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