Who said this: “Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credit, until their debt becomes unbearable…
…The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of the banks, which will have to be nationalized. The State will then have to step in to save the banks which will eventually lead to communism.”
I thought I was being clever basing a quick blog on this quote attributed to Karl Marx in 1867.
” Have you said where it comes from? “ says Ray peering over my shoulder. At first I think he’s afraid I will name the unlikely source who sent the quote in an email. But no, he’s being historically accurate. Which is a pity because now I find a Google-load of bloggers have used it already and my quick joke becomes a long trawl through all sorts of left, right and plain cranky websites who quote it without question (as indeed, I was going to). Das Kapital is claimed to be the context.
Some sceptics, however, pasted it into Snopes, the hoax busting website, whose contributors cast convincing doubt on the authenticity of the source. Uncle Karl would not have used a word like technology, they suggest. And some of these sages have even read Das Kapital.
Authentic or not. The interesting thing is how eagerly this quote is being circulated with undisguised glee by business suits and folk who generally like (as they put it) to trouser a bonus or two. What do you suppose that means?
Pictures from Szorbopark, resting ground for rusting Soviet heros. Set for a come back?
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