Alone amid the Manchester 19th-century
"cottonocracy", Friedrich Engels hoped for the
British economy's collapse and was carefree about
losing his fortune forever. That alone would have
made him the most extraordinary capitalist. But
of course we have a further reason to remember
him: Engels and his friend Karl Marx were
communists. Together they developed a theory
proclaiming the inevitable fall of capitalism;
and neither of them would have been as surprised
as most of our financial commentators have been
by the world economy's vulnerability to the
rapacity and irresponsibility of bankers.
As Tristram Hunt's excellent book emphasises,
Engels was nearly 50 before he left the offices
of Ermen & Engels in the north of England and
dedicated himself full-time to the revolutionary
cause. Born into an industrialist's family in the
Rhineland in 1820, he horrified his parents with
his radical beliefs. He took a break from his
capitalist functions in the mid-1840s and wrote
The Communist Manifesto with Marx. Returning to
Germany in 1848 when revolutions broke out in
Europe, he saw armed action before their suppression.
He had always been an involuntary factory owner.
Without agreeing to tend his German father's
business interests in Manchester he would have
lacked the income for himself and Marx to live in
the comfort they took as their right. The
profligate Marx was constantly on the edge of
penury. Engels counted his pennies (or rather his
tens of thousands of pounds) more carefully but
did not stint in his pleasures. He rode out
regularly with the prestigious and costly
Cheshire Hounds. He drank wine of quality and
ÂPilsner beer in quantity. He treated himself to
bevies of young women, including prostitutes. He dressed in fashion.
<http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article6154072.ece>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/04/frock-coated-communist-revolutionary.htm>monochrom
at 4/28/2009 10:06:00 AM
