The Militant - November 24, 2008 -- Sales of Marx’s ‘Capital’ jump in Germany

Vol. 72/No. 46 November 24, 2008

Sales of Marx’s ‘Capital’ jump in Germany

BY SAM MANUEL
Sales of Capital by Karl Marx are on the rise in Germany, according to a German academic publisher that produces an annotated version of the work.

In Capital, first printed in 1867, Marx explains the workings of the capitalist system and how it produces the insoluble contradictions that breed class struggle. He demonstrates the inevitability of the revolutionary transformation of society into one ruled for the first time by the producing majority, the working class. Marx was the cofounder, along with Frederick Engels, of the modern communist movement.

The publisher Karl-Dietz Verlag said it had sold 1,500 copies of Capital this year. Of those, 200 were sold in September, as many as the company used to sell in a year.

The publisher’s director, Joern Schuetrumpf, said that Capital “is in vogue right now” and that the financial crisis may be the cause of the sharp rise in sales. “There’s a younger generation of academics tackling hard questions and looking to Marx for answers,” Schuetrumpf added.

Actual sales of the work may be even higher. Karl-Dietz Verlag is not the only German-language publisher of Capital. Bookstores across Germany report a 300 percent increase in sales of the work.

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