Das Kapital de Karl Marx más leído que nunca estos días de crisis en Alemania

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hVPZX9ny7cRBARHi-JuyxSx-_dhQD93SDSEG0

Karl Marx's book sells as Germany economy sinks
By PATRICK McGROARTY – 3 hours ago

BERLIN (AP) — Some Germans seem to be seeking solace in the words of their countryman Karl Marx amid the global financial crisis — to the delight of a small academic publisher.

The Karl-Dietz Verlag has sold 1,500 copies of Marx's "Das Kapital" this year, making the annotated edition of the dense text an unlikely hit for the Berlin publisher. It moved 200 in September, as many as it used to sell in a year.

"It's definitely in vogue right now," Joern Schuetrumpf, the publisher's director, told The Associated Press. "The financial crisis brought us a huge bump."

Schuetrumpf said Karl-Dietz's yearly sales for the work that Marx wrote in 1867 once barely cracked the double digits. But he has noted a steady upward trend since 2005, when 400 copies were sold, to a total of 1,300 sales in 2007.

Schuetrumpf theorized that younger Germans are disenfranchised with the direction that their parents have led the country — and the way their leaders have responded to global financial troubles.

"There's a younger generation of academics tackling hard questions and looking to Marx for answers," Schuetrumpf said.

But newfound fans are not the only sign of Marx's legacy in a country divided for more than four decades into capitalist West Germany and the communist East.

Socialist principals still guide the platform of a resurgent Left Party, and Marx's writings have inspired everyone from peaceful student activists to the radical leftist Red Army Faction.

Karl-Dietz is not the only German-language publisher of "Das Kapital," as the book long ago entered the public domain.

But German media have reported that bookstores across Germany have seen a 300 percent increase in sales of the book in recent months.

Schuetrumpf did not seem eager to fuel the fad, instead offering a prediction about those who may already have turned to Marx for answers to their financial woes.

"I doubt they will read it all the way to the end, because it's really arduous," Schuetrumpf said.