Rudjak’s Weblog

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Gagasan-gagasan Karl Marax kembali menarik perhatian di tengah krisis keuangan setelah beberapa dekade. Karl Marx kembali menjadi mode lagi! Begitu pandangan yang setidaknya diyakini oleh salah satu penerbitan berhaluan kiri terbesar di Jerman, Dietz. Dietz mengatakan, karya-karya terkenal Marx laku keras sejak permulaan krisis ekonomi dunia saat ini. Berikut laporan wartawan BBC David Bamford:

Bankers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your bonuses, big houses and Caribbean holidays; and now that so many are unemployed, you’ve finally got time to read Karl Marx’s dire warnings about capitalism.

That’s how today’s London Times newspaper puts it, parodying the workers’ rallying call that opens Marx’s ‘Communist Manifesto’.

And there may be something in it, because according to German booksellers, Marx’s seminal works are suddenly in demand again after a lull of many decades.

Visitors to Marx’s German birthplace of Trier have soared this year to forty thousand; the curator of the town’s museum of Marxism is quoted as saying he’s lost count how many visitors he’s heard mutter that Marx was right all along.

Free market critics of Marxism, of course, have long argued that socialism leads to poor quality goods, authoritarianism, the gulags and the rest; but for now, certainly as long as the credit crunch lasts, the pro-lending expansionists are likely to stay under as dark a cloud as their Marxist rivals.

David Bamford, BBC World Affairs Reporter

dire
gawat, sangat serius,

parodying
menirukan dengan gaya yang lucu

workers’ rallying call
kata-kata yang mengajak kaum buruh bersatu menentang kapitalisme

seminal
asli dan berpengaruh

lull
masa tenang atau masa tanpa kegiatan

curator
kurator, orang yang merawat museum atau pameran

authoritarianism
sistem yang mengharuskan warga mematuhi pemerintah

gulags
kamp penjara, khususnya bagi pembangkang atau orang-orang yang tidak sependapat dengan pemerintah

pro-lending expansionists
orang yang berpandangan bahwa orang bisa mengembangkan ekonomi dengan utang

to stay under as dark a cloud as
menjadi kurang populer, tersisih