Marx quote that I have seen used by Capitalists

[OUTOFTHENIGHT]

Did he say 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

[Lech]

I believe he did say that but it confuses me that the capitalists would use that quote since it basically blames capitalists for recessions and depressions. If they did use it, they probably misquoted it.

[Pie]

OUTOFTHENIGHT,

I have not read Capital so I'm not completely sure, but I have heard several times it was flase and I have never seen from where exactly this quote is found merely that it is somewhere in the book.
This website claims it is false.
http://clockbackward.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/did-karl-marx-predict-financial-collapse/

I believe he did say that but it confuses me that the capitalists would use that quote since it basically blames capitalists for recessions and depressions.

I have heard this quote used to "prove" that democrats/Obama and such are commies in disguise.

[Fran B.]

That quote is certainly not by Marx. You can try different combinations of the quote (there are different ways to translate from German to English) and search for it in http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/index.htm. I tried myself. You will be lucky if you can find a match for a combination of two words of that quote.

The quote actually looks fully "modern". For example, workers buying technology and expensive goods, particularly in the 1800s? On the other hand, I doubt that Marx could ever explained the road to socialism in such a simplistic and credit based way, not even in the 1840s when his economic thinking wasn't fully developed. Someone made it up in Wall Street. But that quote at least manifests that Marx is getting popular even if in distorted ways.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I have to agree, this not only does not sound like Marx, it makes him look like an idiot -- as if he believed that communism would come about through nationalisation!

[P.O.U.M]

I agree with Rosa. This sentence is just to simple to have been Marx. Though I haven't read much Marx, I can't recall him ever using the word "nationalization." I could be wrong on that account though.

But yeah, conservative news pundits are actively rewriting history right now with anything pertaining to the Great Depression, FDR, and the New Deal. Not surprising that they would be tampering with Marx as well.

[Fran B.]

That fake quote of Marx (a highly distorted use of Marx) describes the bourgeois interpretation of the current crisis in a few words, but it could also reveal plain fear. It is like a warning. Bankruptcies are actually leading to the nationalisation of some credit institutions. When it has happened, the purpose has been to save the skin of capitalists. But they must be fearing whether a left alternative with a programme of nationalisations could "resurrect" and pose a threat to their interests. They also probably fear that the current crisis could be the end of capitalism, a catastrophe. From their point of view, the end of the world.

[Lech]

I  have heard this quote used to "prove" that democrats/Obama and such are commies in disguise.

If that's what their trying to do with that quote, their even stupider than I thought.

The lack of intellegence of the bougeoise makes them even less deserving of their ill gotten fortunes.

[Christopher Hill]

It seems to have some contradictions with common Marxist thought and seems fake.. the wording doesn't seem like Marx and it speaks of concepts far too surreal for the time..

edit: Here is a verification that it is fake
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/consumerdebt.asp

[Paula Marx]

I'm not a Marxist (I'm what Marx called Critical-Utopian Communist, today known as Menshevik), but I've read Capital and Manifest of Communist Party. Contradictions in capitalism and plutocratism may be the most important facts about that "Western democracy".

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok, Paula, but what has this got to do with the theme of this thread?

[Christopher Hill]

I'm not a Marxist (I'm what Marx called Critical-Utopian Communist, today known as Menshevik), but I've read Capital and Manifest of Communist Party. Contradictions in capitalism and plutocratism may be the most important facts about that "Western democracy".

Most Mensheviks are Marxists... Trotsky for example was a Menshevik...

[Paula Marx]

I'm not a Marxist (I'm what Marx called Critical-Utopian Communist, today known as Menshevik), but I've read Capital and Manifest of Communist Party. Contradictions in capitalism and plutocratism may be the most important facts about that "Western democracy".

Most Mensheviks are Marxists... Trotsky for example was a Menshevik...

Well, not all of them. Most of Mensheviks are idealists and that's main difference between them and other communists.

I was wondering... what do you think Marx would say about Bolshevism and USSR?

[Christopher Hill]

I'm not a Marxist (I'm what Marx called Critical-Utopian Communist, today known as Menshevik), but I've read Capital and Manifest of Communist Party. Contradictions in capitalism and plutocratism may be the most important facts about that "Western democracy".

Most Mensheviks are Marxists... Trotsky for example was a Menshevik...

Well, not all of them. Most of Mensheviks are idealists and that's main difference between them and other communists.

I was wondering... what do you think Marx would say about Bolshevism and USSR?

It depends on what you mean, I believe he would be supportive of actual Bolsheviks and would realize the potential of the USSR, but I do think he would be critical of every shortcoming he saw, he would realize that every shortcoming was a setback to the revolution that could not be risked, as for Stalin, I think we can both agree he would be disgusted with him and his ideological successors.