Books on Marxism Become Bestsellers Amid Economic Slump
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
When Window of Times printed a book in December that parcels ``Das Kapital,'' the arduous Communist bible written by Karl Marx, in an easily understandable format, the domestic publishing house was concerned about whether it would reach the break-even point.
A month later, the publishing firm was surprised to find that the book, titled ``Das Kapital That Even a Monkey Can Learn,'' sold up to 3,000 copies in less than a month, reaching best-seller lists at Seoul's major bookstores.
This is a notable accomplishment as books on social science rarely sell 2,000 copies here even years after initial publication. Its author, Lim Seung-soo, attributes the unexpected success to the global financial crisis, which he contends shakes the very foundation of capitalism.
``Initially, my target audience was university students and workers struggling to understand the difficult Das Kapital. However, I was amazed to learn that ordinary people have been buying my book for some reason,'' Lim said.
``In my view, they buy my book since they have serious doubts about the fundamentals of capitalism given the current financial storm. They seem to cast doubt on the sustainability of capitalism, as it does not work properly,'' Lim said.
Lim, an engineer-turned-Marxist, said the popularity of Das Kapital, a textbook for communist economists published in 1867, and related books, is a worldwide phenomenon, as is the credit crunch and subsequent financial distress.
Indeed, sales of Das Kapital rocketed in many European countries last year when the Wall Street-originated financial turmoil hit the world.
In Japan, a comic book edition of Das Kapital sold approximately 6,000 copies in its first few days after its debut late last month and is reportedly being translated into Korean.
Prof. Kim Soo-haeng of SungKongHoe University expected the trend to continue. As the first economist to translate Das Kapital into Korean, Kim is arguably the most authoritative expert here on the masterpiece.
``As the economy dips into an unprecedented downturn, people are attempting to find answers to the problems of capitalism and such a tendency will linger until the economy recovers,'' Kim said.
While calling the world financial crisis a catastrophe, Lim and Kim seem to believe that capitalism will eventually collapse due to the inherent contradictions of the centuries-old system.
Mainstream economists flatly rebuke the idea of an anachronism replacing today's capitalistic society with a socialistic one.
``Over the past century, the central planning system of Communist economies has failed in many countries. Accordingly, communism cannot be our alternative,'' Prof. Jun Sung-in at Hongik University said.
``Capitalism has a host of problems but socialism has many more. In my opinion, the former is the second-worst but the latter is the worst. Which is better, then?'' he asked.