Tadeusz Kowalik’s Interpretation of Accumulation

This chapter reviews the work of Tadeusz Kowalik (1925–2012) in challenging the accepted interpretation among Marxists and others of Rosa Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of Capital . Luxemburg, like Karl Marx, has been widely interpreted as advancing an underconsumptionist view of capitalist crisis, arising out of low wages. Kowalik showed, however, that Luxemburg recognised the role played by capital accumulation (investment), as well as foreign trade and exports, in the realisation of surplus. This makes her work an important link between the analysis of Marx, in his schemes of reproduction in Volume II of Capital , and the theories of Michał Kalecki (and the Keynesian Revolution in general). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.