Update: Many readers and other people who have seen this quote making the rounds on Wall Street believe it is a hoax.
Hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson sends out wonderful e-mails about every day. I just got a new one today, and he included this incredible quote from Karl Marx:
"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism. (Das Kapital, 1867)
What does it all mean? I'm not really sure. But Karl Marx's theory that capitalism would inevitably lead to communism has mostly been dismissed -- proven wrong by the survival of capitalism and the fall of communism.
And while it is true that there was a fat lady singing at Obama's inauguration (she was great by the way -- just sayin'), Karl Marx may still have the last word yet.
Of course some Republicans will point to Obama as a step toward socialism. So does that mean Marx was right?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-24-2009 @ 7:36PM
Robert Prince said...
Neat, a possible emergence of a Hegelian loop: Capitalism struggles and fails giving birth to Communism which struggles and fails giving birth to Capitalism which struggles and fails giving birth to Communism ...
1-24-2009 @ 7:44PM
Rob, Esq. said...
Marx made numerous statements that had no basis in fact or reality. Of course, the modern day socialists, including the new president, are engaging in Keynesian (socialist) programs at all levels, including but not limited to the banks. We must maintain capitalism at all costs since economic and political freedoms are inseparable.
Quoting Jefferson, the "government that governs least, governs best". Socialism / communism has NEVER worked and has cost killed millions of
innocent citizens. Remember, if the state has all power - you have NO power!
1-24-2009 @ 7:58PM
bluemouse said...
This quote is completely spurious.
http://bespokebrands.blogspot.com/2009/01/karl-marx-quote-1867.html
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/faux_marx.php
About 2 seconds on Google. Please check more.
1-24-2009 @ 8:19PM
Super Marxio said...
Lies.
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/faux_marx.php
That took all of 2 seconds on Google to find.
1-24-2009 @ 9:07PM
Yon said...
We already have socialism and a mild form of communism where non working leaches take governement money coming from the richs' taxation. If only the rich continued creating jobs for the poor, but they are too busy taking their money out to safe havens. And this economy is making the money flight even faster.
1-24-2009 @ 9:57PM
lincolncar1 said...
Karl Marx predicted nothing and to suggest that he did proves you don't have a clue as to what really happened in the first place. This was orchestrated by the privately owned Federal Reserve world banks. They caused the housing bubble with their man made interest rates. Interest rates that didn't reflect the market, caused the bubble and a spending rate that could never have been maintained, by any stretch of the imagination. We need to bring back the gold backed dollar and the Govt. stay out running the economy like a bunch of Bolsheviks.
2-13-2009 @ 7:16AM
Hugh Coe said...
An old (age 85) Marxist friend said people were asking whether he felt vindicated. He replied that every day's news vindicates him. You can't doubt that Marx is right about the inherent tendencies of unregulated capitalism. Would pure socialism work? No, but each system veers toward the other in bad times, and a mix emerges. Hence the mixed economies of every developed nation on Earth.
1-24-2009 @ 10:30PM
Dan Barnett said...
Well Zac,
You certainly bring them out of the woodwork.
"We need to bring back the gold backed dollar and the Govt. stay out running the economy like a bunch of Bolsheviks."
I thought the Gold backed dollar went out 75 years ago. GNP divided by amount of gold in the world equals how much an ounce?
And we've had eight years of the Govt. staying out of the economy. Guess where that's got us?
1-24-2009 @ 11:41PM
Iridium said...
It wasn't capitalism that failed it was the socializing of the economy that put us in this mess. The creation of a few very powerfull banks and the wholesale destruction of competition.
Corporate socialism creates mega corporations and a small group of people that control the vast majority of wealth. Exactly the way the communist government of the USSR destroyed the Russian economy.
You can even see how Corporate Socialism creates the same type of "bread lines" and common worker that the communist society brings about.
After the removal of skilled manufacturing jobs we replaced them with low skill service jobs that a trained monkey can do. You need to create a system where people depend on the government.
Marxism is alive and well and is practiced in the high rise offices of every Fortune 500 company. All the signs are there and if you look at what the USSR did towards the end, Peristroika and the other economic programs, they sped up the downfall.
Obama's stimulus plan has an eerie similarity to Glasnost and Peristroika. He promises a more transparent government and regulations that will open business. Instead these programs will lift the veil concealing the massive fraud that has stolen trillions of dollars form working Americans. The system has already failed, it is only that the majority of the people have no clue.
Our rigged socialist economic system, controlled by the massively wealty is in its last days. The fallout will be a 20% drop in GDP when real numbers are used. The next depression will follow.
It is funny that the rise of capitalism in China, what we exported from our country, looks to destroy communism in that country while we adopt the system we all know leads to failure.
1-25-2009 @ 11:33PM
igor said...
I was forced to learn Marx, he never said this. There are many copies of Das Kapital online, hope you can prove me wrong and point me to it in original...
1-25-2009 @ 1:36AM
fake said...
The quote is fake. You should keep this up, but put up an update stating how you got hoodwinked, and how you can't trust anything on the internet these days
But I guess picking up a copy of his book would have been too much work
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/made-up-marx/
1-25-2009 @ 4:39AM
David said...
At least it's convincing. hehhe
1-25-2009 @ 8:39AM
ORIONE said...
I have seen over the years, those who write the ideology for which they are paid, those who repeat it because they lack knowledge (just idiots who follow the party), those who pay to have the ideology written and those who can see the work of them all and say nothing.
What is there to steal from the poor and give to the rich, do not the rich own it all and the poor have just their labor?
It becomes obvious quickly when I see the so called educated arguing the merits of democracy and capitalism that they wasted thousands of dollars on that college education.
The capitalist is the person with the capital and not the worker. the worker is just another disposable machine as will soon be proven to all of you who made this capitalism your religion. A capitalist is greedy by nature and the law protects him or her. The worker who has capitalism as his religion is even more greedy because he will do anything to gain that capital that someone else has.
This is why you send your children to die and kill other peoples children in wars. You think that if you take what the have, you will become wealthy too. You argue in the name of capitalism, but are a thief, liar and murderer who wants to take from others what is rightfully theirs. Or do I ere?
You a good Christian, Muslim or other religious tyrant.
1-25-2009 @ 9:50AM
thaddeus alemao said...
Privately owned Federal Reserve banks ARE the citadels of Captalism and we are a part of it. Give the Devil his dues. The bottom line is, nothing is permanent, what goes up must come down, life is a circle, it has an up and a down. Name anything is permanent. Everything in due time will fail and those who survive will go on to build newer and successful things and in due time they too will fail and thus life will go on and this we should be able to accept and move on without being too critical and create world panic like some on RADIO DO.
1-25-2009 @ 1:30PM
Bob said...
China is not a communist economy. China is a national socialist economy. Most of the pacific rim, and other successful economies are national socialist. Like it, or not, Mein Kamph is one of the most popular economic books in the world. All of you communism/ capitalism types need to take an objective look at an alternative system.
1-25-2009 @ 4:24PM
Jsquared said...
I find it rather upsetting that despite multiple notices in the
comment section, you still have failed to note the falsehood of the
quote in the actual article. Most people rarely read commentary fail
to fact check or notify people of its mistakes makes me question
if the information presented on this site is worth my time.
1-26-2009 @ 7:17PM
Haggie said...
Updated: ""Owners of capital will use political contributions to elect government officials who will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, in the name of "fair lending". Pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism. (Das Kapital, 1867)
1-28-2009 @ 5:24PM
davidob1 said...
This is my own quote: Raw capitalism is a form of fundamentalism, communism is enforced, so maybe the early christians had the right answer afterall.
Dave O'Brien
2-02-2009 @ 9:48PM
drktranquillity said...
You call this the "success" of capitalism? The common man struggles to make ends meet and are ultimately expendable so that the wealthy can have all the more money to flaunt around?
This recession is bringing to light just how truly flawed the Capitalist system is.