Marx

Yesterday had the big unveiling of a Karl Marx statue in Trier.....a gift from China to Germany.  There are a number of observations you can make out of the event.

First, there was a significant amount of push-back from locals in Trier when this offer came up.  In the end....the push-backers...were pushed back themselves.  Politically, I don't think the German national leadership could turn down the statue as a gift from China. 

Second, the crowd that gathered for the big event?  In the range of 4,000.  It was a Saturday....nice weather, and some of the crowd were normal Saturday shoppers who likely funneled into the area.  In fact, the authorities had some perception of trouble and had a couple hundred cops brought in for the event.  More or less....nothing really required the cop's presence in the end.

Third, locals aren't that happy or proud over being the birthplace of Karl Marx.  There is a museum there, and it is routinely visited by Marx-supporters and hyped-up enthusiasts of socialism.  If you asked most Trier folks.....they will give you directions to the museum, but then kinda eyeball you as being a bit odd.  Most kids will tell you that at some point in their school era....they had to go over to the museum. 

Over the years, I've spent some time viewing the Karl Marx era and how things went in this direction.  A good book, which I'd recommend...."Paradise Now" by Chris Jennings.  It goes over a series of socialism experiments which occur in the US in the 1800s.  Most all started with ideas or concepts written up on paper by Europeans.  Almost all of the experiments are conducted in the US....trying to form communities strictly upon socialism.  Virtually all of them...by the late 1800s....had failed miserably. 

Marx died in 1883 (around age 64).  So he really didn't have an opportunity to examine the failures that came....particularly in the 1870-1880 era....and realize that there are vast limits to his platform.

This attraction in 2018 to Marx?  I think some idealists want to believe that Marx socialism exists, and the world is better for it.  I would tend to argue that capitalism and socialism in the 1900s merged into some hybrid system where socialism can only exist if there is a successful amount of capitalism around to fund it, or pay for the free 'gifts'.  If there are no free gifts (like you see in Venezuela today), then society is on the verge of destruction. 

So all this weekend in the German press and news media over Marx?  They see him as the father of socialism, which ultimately....failed, and the only solution that survived was this hybrid idea, which absolutely requires vast amounts of capital....to make it work.