Two decades after the Berlin Wall fell, Karl Marx is back in fashion in Eastern Germany. Thanks to the global crisis of capitalism, Das Kapital, has become a best-seller for the academic publisher, Karl-Dietz-Verlag. This indicates a big change in attitude as a result of the experience of the joys of "market economics".
Unemployment in the former Communist East is 14 per cent, double Western levels, and wages are significantly lower. Millions of jobs were lost after reunification. A recent survey found 52 per cent of Estern Germans believe the free market economy is "unsuitable" and 43 per cent said they wanted socialism rather than capitalism.
"Everyone thought there would never again be any demand for Das Kapital," the managing director of Karl-Dietz-Verlag, Joern Schue-trumpf said. He has sold 1,500 copies so far this year, triple the number sold in all of 2007 and a 100-fold increase since 1990. "Even bankers and managers are now reading Das Kapital to try to understand what they've been doing to us," he added.
