[lbo-talk] bankers quoting Marx!

[HMFJ]

Haha, somebody at my very commercialistic workplace (in London) sent this
round too, and it was met with a pregnant silence. The version I got seemed
to originate with someone at UBS, and someone who had forwarded it, again a
bank worker, had said something like "Uncanny"; it came with a bunch of
graphs showing how small various leading banks' market capitalisations are
now compared to a few months ago, often kind of moon-sized little blobs
against a background of an enormous sun.

I took it to be intended to say "this is how bad things are now, that we're
contemplating nationalisations, akin to communism". But Marxist ideas in the
workplace, never a bad thing. If only more people knew how well Capital, the
Communist Manifesto, etc, describe many aspects of our society and
predicament. I restrained myself from replying-all with relevant links.

On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 10:43 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> A friend who works at a hedge fund forwarded me this "quote of the day"
> from a friend of his who works at a bank.
>
>  Amazing how some people have great long range forecasts that are on the
>> ball !!
>>
>> "Owners of capital will stimulate 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
>> nationalized, and State will have to take the road which will eventually
>> lead to communism."
>>
>> -- Karl Marx, 1867
>>
>
> I don't think Marx actually said this, but still...
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>