4 ms·

I agree with you that borrowing when needed is good, but excessive borrowing can create crisis. Karl Marx did foresee this: Owners of capital will stimulate th

by mitko 16y ago

I agree with you that borrowing when needed is good, but excessive borrowing can create crisis. Karl Marx did foresee this: 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. Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867 Another citation here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/01/faux-marx/4565/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/01/faux-mar... Edit: markup

alnayyir 16y ago
He never said that. From your link: " Laura of 11D says this quote is making the rounds of Wall Street. ... And indeed, searching all three volumes for "houses" and "homes", which are a pretty straight one-to-one translation, yields nothing that sounds remotely like this. Every time I see one of these things, I wonder. Who the hell makes them up? And why? What do you get from passing your mediocre musings off as the work of a long-dead revolutionary?"
- hughw 16y ago
  Good for you alnayyir. I also doubt in 1867 "buy[ing] more...technology" was a concern. Sign of a good Snopes target.
  - brazzy 16y ago
    Yeah, because technology did not exist before the internet... The word may not have been used that way back then, but the 1867 equivalent of an expensive smartphone bought as a status symbol rather than for its actual utility would have been a pocket watch.
    - alnayyir 16y ago
      They didn't speak like that back then, and mass consumption of technology wasn't a concept yet. Pocket watches weren't a mass consumption item at the time, nor would they have been considered technology.
- brazzy 16y ago
  The motivation behind that particular faux quote is probably to support the "Obama = Evil Communist" notion.
- kahirsch 16y ago
  This quote apparently came from this satire: http://www.newsmutiny.com/pages/Communist_Reeducation.html http://www.newsmutiny.com/pages/Communist_Reeducation.html
panarky 16y ago
Mitko, the title of your linked article is 'Faux Marx'. 'Faux' means 'fake'.

by mitko 16y ago

alnayyir 16y ago

He never said that. From your link: " Laura of 11D says this quote is making the rounds of Wall Street. ... And indeed, searching all three volumes for "houses" and "homes", which are a pretty straight one-to-one translation, yields nothing that sounds remotely like this. Every time I see one of these things, I wonder. Who the hell makes them up? And why? What do you get from passing your mediocre musings off as the work of a long-dead revolutionary?"

hughw 16y ago
Good for you alnayyir. I also doubt in 1867 "buy[ing] more...technology" was a concern. Sign of a good Snopes target.
- brazzy 16y ago
  Yeah, because technology did not exist before the internet... The word may not have been used that way back then, but the 1867 equivalent of an expensive smartphone bought as a status symbol rather than for its actual utility would have been a pocket watch.
  - alnayyir 16y ago
    They didn't speak like that back then, and mass consumption of technology wasn't a concept yet. Pocket watches weren't a mass consumption item at the time, nor would they have been considered technology.
brazzy 16y ago
The motivation behind that particular faux quote is probably to support the "Obama = Evil Communist" notion.
kahirsch 16y ago
This quote apparently came from this satire: http://www.newsmutiny.com/pages/Communist_Reeducation.html http://www.newsmutiny.com/pages/Communist_Reeducation.html

panarky 16y ago

Mitko, the title of your linked article is 'Faux Marx'. 'Faux' means 'fake'.