Meltdown makes Karl Marx hot again Roger Boyes, Berlin | October 21, 2008 The prophet of revolutionaries everywhere, the scourge of capitalism, is enjoying a comeback.
In Germany, Das Kapital is flying off the shelves as the newly disenfranchised business class tries to work out the root of the present crisis. "Marx is fashionable again," said Joern Schuetrumpf, head of the Berlin publishing house Dietz, which brings out the works of Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels. Sales had trebled since 2005 and had soared since the summer. "We have a new generation of readers who are rattled by the financial crisis and have to recognise that neoliberalism has turned out to be a false dream," Mr Schuetrumpf said. Visitors to Marx's birthplace in Trier have soared - there have been 40,000 so far this year - with many coming from China, east Germany, Cuba and Bolivia. "I can't tell you how many times I have heard people say: 'The man was right!'," said Beatrix Bouvier, chief curator of Trier's Marx museum. Film director Alexander Kluge is preparing to make a blockbuster out of Das Kapital. Little wonder, as Marx comes highly recommended. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been seen flicking through the book, while German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck recently admitted: "Certain parts of Marx's thinking are really not so bad." The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gave him a decent review last month: "Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves." And even the Pope has put in a good word for the old atheist, praising his "great analytical skill". Marx's new relevance relates mainly to his warning about the creation of an exploitative capitalism that ends up destroying itself. Since these debts could not be automatically paid through expanded output and income, capitalism was destined for a "Krach" - Marx's word for a crash. Marx set out his thoughts not only in Das Kapital, but in articles such as The Financial Crisis in Europe, which was written for the New York Daily Tribune in 1857, and in the Communist Manifesto, written with Friedrich Engels. The Times --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
