Karl Coming to Trier

I spent a year living around the Trier region back in the early 1990s.  One of the historical things you learn about Trier....is that Karl Marx grew up there.  The base had a little three-hour tour of Trier and they took you down to the street where there's a small sign to note his presence in town, but almost no one in Trier would talk much over the history of Karl, and the effect on society.

This week, I noticed it mentioned in Deutsche Welle.....Trier was going ahead to accept a statue from the nation of China....of Karl Marx.  There had been a lot of debate, and a number of folks wanted to down the statue if you go back two years ago when this topic came up.  But folks eventually reached a point where they figured they'd accept the statue and erect it near the town-square.

It's not a short statue.....almost 5.5 meters tall (18 foot).

The ceremony is supposed to be for 5 May.....his birthday, but folks are busy with the placement and arranging things.

In 1848....Karl published the Communist Manifesto....at the remarkable age of thirty.  For most of the first 30 years of his life....what you'd say is that Karl was mostly living the life of a well-to-do family and mostly involved in university or higher-learning.  It's hard to say that Karl did any real work except for some journalistic efforts with a newspaper.  At some stage toward the second half of the 1840s.....Karl got into world economic discussions, and figured he'd mastered economics.  In essence, without any real effort at working....he felt he understood the big picture.  So came the 'manifesto'.

Roughly 19 years later, came Das Kapital....which was to lay out his great understanding of the Communist ideals, with the situation of materialist philosophy, economics and politics. 

I sat at some point....trying to read Das Kapital: Volume One, which was to discuss the capitalist idea of production.  I stopped about an hour into the reading, mostly because you could see that this was written by a guy who'd never spent a single hour working for a real company, or producing anything to be sold.  Karl wanted to suggest to you that he was an expert, but you just couldn't see where he got his expert status.  In his world, the workers who made the product are ones who should share in the profits. 

The rest of this is mostly history.  Lots of folks want to quote Karl....over the evils of capitalism.  These are the same people who wear $150 high-end tennis shoes.....with the $90 jeans, and take trips to Thailand. 

The folks in Trier?  I think they got down to two factors on the statue.  First, they didn't want to insult their Chinese friends (there's probably going to be thirty VIP Chinese guests at the ceremony).  Second, they probably suspect that tens of thousands of anti-capitalists will want to come to Trier to see the statue.....buy some cheap souvenirs....and chat with fake anti-capitalist pretenders....which means more money for tourism.