Re: [OPE] Another MarxMyth Exposed in the Bud: Marx on the financial crisis of 1857

for the full story see the chapters by Kraetke in the Musto ed.
collection recently mentioned here
CA
christopher j. arthur
arthurcj@waitrose.com
http://www.chrisarthur.net/

On 16 Oct 2008, at 11:09, Gerald Levy wrote:

>> Booklovers turn to Karl Marx as financial crisis bites in Germany
>> Kate Connolly in Berlin
>> Wednesday October 15 2008
>> guardian.co.uk
>> But for those not quite ready to immerse themselves in Marxist
>> theory,
>> Marx's correspondence to Friedrich Engels at the time of an
>> earlier US
>> economic crisis makes more entertaining reading. "The American
>> Crash is a
>> delight to behold and it's far from over," he wrote in 1857,
>> confidently
>> predicting the imminent and complete collapse of Wall Street.
>> Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
>
>
> Does anyone check sources at "The Guardian"?
>
> To begin with, the quotation is: "The *American crash* is superb
> and not yet
> over by a long chalk". It was written by ENGELS, not Marx (Engels
> to Marx, October 29, 1857).
>
> And Engels did NOT predict the "imminent and complete collapse of
> Wall Street": his prediction was FAR more limited. He wrote:
>
> "We still have to see the collapse of the better part of the import
> houses;
> so far only one here or there would appear to have crashed. The
> repercussion in England would seem to have begun with the Liverpool
> Borough Bank. *Tant mieux* that means that for the next 3 or 4
> years, commerce will be again in a bad way. *Nous avons maintenant
> de la chance*".
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/letters/57_10_29.htm
>
> If Connolly's claim was correct then Marx's prediction about the 1857
> crisis would have been manifestly proven by history to be laughably
> false.
> Instead, we see that the reference was to a letter by Engels in
> which he
> did NOT make this prediction. I guess this is on par for the
> standard which
> we have come to expect from journalists when referring to Marx.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
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Received on Tue Oct 21 12:19:47 2008