Late Marx, Luxemburg, and the Conception of 'Accumulation of Capital'1

Abstract

Marxist political economy very often refers to the “accumulation of capital” as if it were a transparent concept, one easily understood from Marx’s work. In fact, capital is so often referred to as a means of production that, following the classical economists, Marxist political economists do not seem to have broken from Marx’s predecessors when mentioning the accumulation of capital. Marx centred his theoretical work in capital within a fully capitalist world. He said that in order to examine the object of our investigation in its integrity, free from all disturbing subsidiary circumstance. Marx’s concept of accumulation of capital conflicts with the presumption of a fully capitalist world. His accumulation of capital must be understood to mean an increase in the number of wage labourers and the required means of production. The schemes of reproduction in Marx are a remarkable attempt at posing a new problem for investigation.