by Salaar Maghazeh
Abstract
The topics of trade and globalization have been avenues of some of the most robust debates between economists. These debates have often translated into serious policy influence, as demonstrated by the rise of the Washington Consensus (and its subsequent wane in popularity.) The purpose of this paper is to trace the intellectual history of theories on free trade and global capitalism. I specifically focus on Rosa Luxemburg’s critique of free market globalization made in The Accumulation of Capital that highlights how globalization through free market capitalism perpetuated a structural inequality between industrial core economies and industrialized peripheral economies. With the aid of her thesis, I conclude that rather than bridging the gap between the core and peripheral economies, free market globalization (and particularly financial liberalization) has historically exacerbated said gap.