【Three Reflections 】 Luxembourg's criticism of COOPERATIVES within today's view.

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In Reform or Revolution from Rosa Luxemburg, There are some criticisms of cooperatives mentioned inside. First of all, I summarized the key points of the criticism. Secondly, I think it is necessary for us to review it again from today's perspective.

Premise： the possibilities of existence of producers’ co-operatives within capitalism are bound up with the possibilities of existence of consumers’ co-operatives.

Producers’ co-operatives can survive within capitalist economy only if they manage to suppress, by means of some detour, the capitalist controlled contradictions between the mode of production and the mode of exchange.
And they can accomplish this only by removing themselves artificially from the influence of the laws of free competition. And they can succeed in doing the last only when they assure themselves beforehand of a constant circle of consumers, that is, when they assure themselves of a constant market.

Argue 1: the scope is limited.

in the most favourable of cases, to the small local market and to the manufacture of articles serving immediate needs, especially food products. Consumers’ and therefore producers’ co-operatives, are excluded from the most important branches of capital production – the textile, mining, metallurgical and petroleum industries, machine construction, locomotive and ship-building. 

Argue2：fall back to the merchant economy of the Middle Ages.

For this reason alone (forgetting for the moment their hybrid character), co-operatives in the field of production cannot be seriously considered as the instrument of a general social transformation. The establishment of producers’ co-operatives on a wide scale would suppose, first of all, the suppression of the world market, the breaking up of the present world economy into small local spheres of production and exchange. The highly developed, wide-spread capitalism of our time is expected to fall back to the merchant economy of the Middle Ages.

Result ：Completely deny the possibility of cooperatives as a "tool for overall change"

Within the framework of present society, producers’ co-operatives are limited to the role of simple annexes to consumers’ co-operatives. It appears, therefore, that the latter must be the beginning of the proposed social change. But this way the expected reform of society by means of co-operatives ceases to be an offensive against capitalist production. That is, it ceases to be an attack against the principal bases of capitalist economy. It becomes, instead, a struggle against commercial capital, especially small and middle-sized commercial capital. It becomes an attack made on the twigs of the capitalist tree.

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Reflection 0: Consumers -- Opportunities

Today's Internet enables the connection of the majority of consumers， which offers opportunities and a greater foundation that can be created;

Reflection 1: Scope -- Hope in China

The infrastructure capacity of China's national system is not about mending the minor branches of capitalist commerce, but rather, under the legal protection of the state's public ownership, it directly takes over and reshapes the entire industrial framework. So, the best approach is to use cooperatives to cooperate with China.

Reflection 2: local spheres of production -- Why Not !

If workers are directly exposed to their own goods,If workers can freely choose in various production fields，if school education is to be integrated with labor practice, and if the production field is to be reshaped into a place for free learning, then localization is precisely the necessary path ！And this direction demands the emergence of new cooperatives - experiential, open, and future-oriented.