Letters from Tomis

It has often been the crude sport of reactionaries to suggest that socialists, by virtue of opposing the ruthless logic of capital, dream nostalgically of an idyllic, pre-industrial past—a utopian fantasy drawn in soft pastels and rosy nostalgia. But nothing could be further from the truth, and indeed, no thinker exposes the absurdity of this caricature more sharply than Rosa Luxemburg, whose “Reform or Revolution” remains one of socialism’s most lucid and ferocious defenses of progress through revolutionary dialectics, not romantic regression.

Luxemburg did not mince words: socialism, she argued, is born of capitalism’s own dynamic tensions and contradictions, not from any sentimental longing for simplicity or pastoral innocence. To quote her directly, “The socialist system of production does not represent a return to pre-capitalist forms… but, on the contrary, it constitutes a new and higher form of social life.” Luxemburg saw clearly that capitalism, brutal and exploitative though it may be, had already dragged humanity irreversibly forward. “Only precise knowledge of the laws of capitalist development,” she insisted, “can help us grasp the historical necessity of socialism.”

It is precisely this historical awareness that contemporary socialists echo today. Consider the immense technological advancements of our age—artificial intelligence, biotechnology, automation. A socialist does not look upon these developments with wistful dread, hoping to retreat to a mythical Eden, but rather sees them as platforms of liberation. The socialist project, therefore, embraces technological and productive progress while fiercely rejecting its exploitative organization under capitalism.

Take, for example, the discussions surrounding automation. Under capitalism, automation frequently results in unemployment, increased inequality, and insecurity. Yet, from Luxemburg’s revolutionary vantage point, automation is not itself the enemy but rather the organization and ownership of automation’s fruits. Socialists today echo Luxemburg’s insight, seeking not to halt progress but to democratize it. Proposals like universal basic income, worker cooperatives, and collective ownership of advanced technologies are contemporary echoes of Luxemburg’s revolutionary logic: transforming capitalism’s advances into benefits for all humanity, rather than preserving them as the exclusive province of the privileged few.

Luxemburg’s disdain for backward-looking idealism resonates powerfully when she argues: “The proletariat is interested precisely in preserving all the positive achievements of capitalism.” This statement dismantles the facile misrepresentation of socialists as luddites or ascetics yearning for a bygone era. Luxemburg insists that capitalism’s productive capacity, its technological prowess, and its global interconnectedness represent gains that socialism must inherit, not destroy. The revolutionary’s duty is not to abolish these gains but to emancipate them from the exploitative relations that currently stifle their potential.

Today, when global challenges—from climate catastrophe to economic inequality—demand comprehensive solutions, Luxemburg’s clarity is invigoratingly relevant. Socialists engaging with the Green New Deal or envisioning ecosocialism do not retreat into pre-industrial asceticism but ambitiously propose harnessing capitalism’s technological heritage for ecological restoration and human flourishing.

Thus, Luxemburg reminds us firmly and succinctly that socialism’s gaze is fixed not on the past but resolutely on a better future. As she powerfully concludes, socialism “will preserve and take over all that is valuable in the technological and economic structure of capitalism, free from its exploitative distortions.” For Luxemburg—and for contemporary socialists who remain faithful to her revolutionary realism—socialism is not nostalgia; it is, unequivocally, the politics of tomorrow.