CALL FOR PAPERS
THEORETICAL PRACTICE - 5/2012
THE LEGACY OF ROSA LUXEMBURG
EDITORS: WIKTOR MARZEC, KAMIL PISKAŁA
The legacy of Rosa Luxemburg still has much to offer. Although she holds a noble place in the history of economic thought, in many other equally exciting contexts she remains either forgotten or misinterpreted. The major themes of the “automatic decline of capitalism” and the theory of imperialism, though they may be even more striking today, overshadow other aspects of her thought, namely the conceptions of constructing political subjects and that of mass mobilisation. Today, in the face of the economic downturn and current global mobilizations related to the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Spanish Indignados, both lines of Luxemburg's thought could acquire a bright new significance. Global capitalism has embraced nearly the whole world and is subsuming almost every part of human existence under it (from healthcare to creativity and affective labour). Maybe, this capitalist world-system has just now reached the point described and awaited by Luxemburg: a total internalisation, indefensibly leaving no exterior for further valorisation processes. On the other hand, perhaps the shortage of natural resources and the lack of further ecological capacity are the final limits of capitalist growth. If this is the case, even more speculation about the possibilities of arranging a new order is needed. In such situation, broad social change and enormous political mobilisation are unavoidable. Accordingly, interesting remarks on how to merge various democratic demands and how to construct political subjects can still be found in Luxemburg.
In the forthcoming issue of the 'Theoretical Practice' we would like to address these and various other questions. As far as we are concerned, Luxemburg's legacy still has much to offer for contemporary debate, since it is an exciting object of history of ideas. We therefore welcome all contributions on related issues, from the fields of political philosophy, sociology, economics, history of thought or political ecology. Deadline for submitting papers is April 9th, 2012. Planned publication: June 2012
