Wealth Sharing
In vogue, and not just with Obama. German publisher reports “Das Kapital” has been flying off the shelves. AFP:
FRANKFURT (AFP) — Whether it is simply a fashion cycle or a sign of the times, books by communist icon Karl Marx are selling well, German publisher Joern Schuetrumpf said Friday.
“My sales have been increasing since 2005,” said Schuetrumpf on his stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair that was decorated with posters of Marx and Rosa Luxembourg, a German socialist figure.
Schuetrumpf is head of Karl Dietz Verlag, which specialises in communist literature, and spoke in front of his bestseller, a sober edition of “Capital,” the landmark work written by Marx and Friedrich Engels and first published in 1867.
“In 2005 I sold 500 copies, then 800 in 2006 and 1,300 in 2007. In the first nine months of 2008 I am already at 1,500. The absolute numbers are not impressive but the progression is,” noted the militant editor who offers small Russian cakes to visitors.
“Of course fashion has an effect, since there are many young readers who buy it but who will never finish it because it is extremely tough and demanding reading,” Schuetrumpf said.
Militant? I thought “militants” are people who set off car bombs in crowded marketplaces. Standards must be dropping if all you have to do is sell dusty old commie tomes to turtleneck-wearing Dieters. Anyway, that guy might want to start marketing over here, given the rampant Obamism.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:28 pm on Friday, October 17, 2008
3 Responses to “Wealth Sharing”
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October 17th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Communism is a virus in humanity. We can tamp it down, go into remission, and think we’re cured, but it will always be there, festering in the dark.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Communism is the great eualiser. It makes everybody equally poor.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Right on, Nicholas. I read the communist manifesto when I was in my early teens. Even at such a young age, it struck me forcefully as unworkable and entirely against human nature. It was obvious to me that if you removed almost every incentive to work, then people would stop working, and would spend most of their time trying to get their hands on whatever limited goods were available.
At the time, communism was considered ascendant and the US was considered to be in an inevitable decline. Reading the manifesto made me realize that this was not true. After that, I stopped seeing communism as the overnight success so many people tried to make it into, and realized that a lot of the “progress” in countries like the USSR was fake.
I still find myself amazed that anybody could read Marxist theory and see something worthwhile there. I know it shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.