SOURCE: "Rosa Luxemburg's The Accumulation of Capital, "in Science and Society, Vol. XXXI, No. 4, Fall, 1967, pp. 474-85.

Sweezy is an American Marxist economist. In the following essay, he describes how Luxemburg's idea of the accumulation of capital grew from her study of Karl Marx's theories.

[The Accumulation of Capital] was an outgrowth of Rosa Luxemburg's teaching activity at the school of the German Social Democratic Party in the years after 1906. Her main course was a broad survey of political economy, and in connection with it she undertook to write an Introduction to Political Economy. The work proceeded slowly, owing to the pressure of other tasks and duties, and there were long periods during which she was obliged to put it aside altogether. In January, 1912, however, she took it up in earnest, hoping to be able to complete at least a first draft of the whole book. It was...