Global crisis sends east Germans flocking to Marx - Reuters

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

People are beginning to notice that the "free" market has a few drawbacks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081016/wl_nm/us_financial_germany_capitalism_1

BERLIN (Reuters) - Two decades after the Berlin Wall fell, communism's founding father Karl Marx is back in vogue in eastern Germany -- thanks to the global financial crisis.

His 1867 critical analysis of capitalism, "Das Kapital," has risen from the publishing graveyard to become an improbable best-seller for academic publisher Karl-Dietz-Verlag.

"Everyone thought there would never ever again be any demand for 'Das Kapital'," managing director Joern Schuetrumpf told Reuters after selling 1,500 copies so far this year, triple the number sold in all of 2007 and a 100-fold increase since 1990. Even bankers and managers are now reading 'Das Kapital' to try to understand what they've been doing to us. Marx is definitely 'in' right now," Schuetrumpf said.

Like many other east Germans, Ralf Wulff said he was delighted about the fall of the Berlin Wall and to see capitalism replace communism. But the euphoria was ephemeral.

"It took just a few weeks to realize what the free market economy was all about," said Wulff. "It's rampant materialism and exploitation. Human beings get lost. We didn't have the material comforts but communism still had a lot going for it."

[Renew Deal]

1. The US Communist party is #13 on Google today

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X

When I read the headline of your article, I thought it was an Onion joke.

[lovuian]

2. Karl Marx said it the Workers will revolt

the revolution is coming

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. That's what my socialist father used to say back in the '30s.

But, who knows, it may happen this time around. But, I doubt it will be in America.

[Greyhound]

5. They did, several times.

Each time they were beaten and killed for their efforts.

Veterans, auto workers, textile workers, truckers, farmers, miners, and more have all been violently suppressed in our history.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. My father carried around the tip of a kniife in his head contributed by a goon strikebreaker.

Things got a bit rough on the docks in San Francisco when the ILWU struck back in the '30s.

[Greyhound]

9. It's just sickening to me. We have been in this war since at least the 1840s,

each time we make some progress we have been beaten down and our progress taken, usually with the approval of the people not directly effected.

I really hope it doesn't go the way it's headed, but I don't see anybody that can change it even suggesting anything that would change it.

Reading through letters from various incidents it quickly becomes apparent that little has really changed. Coming from Colorado, the Ludlow Massacre has always been of particular interest to me, especially since it is just one of the many times Rockefeller got away with murder.

Honoré de Balzac nailed it, "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime".
:kick:

[malaise]

7. Democracy for the Few

That's capitalism. Marx never went anywhere. Ideas never die.

[pork medley]

4. die (the) linke (left) party is gaining ground all over

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/09/left-party-breathing-down-spds-neck.html

http://www.die-linke.de/

it's definitely encouraging

[skooooo]

6. When Republicans are nationalizing the banks..

...in America, I'm not surprised stock in Marxism is going UP! (to make a pun)