"I warned you that this would happen" Karl Marx

Of course the above quote can't be attributed directly to Marx himself speaking on the current state of capitalism, mainly because he died in 1883.

Likewise the following quote widely attributed to Marx on the Internet is also not taken from his exact words

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism"

The above was actually said by a guy called Pat Caulfield speaking to an American audience and citing Marx's work in Das Kapital from the late 1860's. It's a very good precis of Das Kapital volumes 1 and 3 where Marx explores the plight of the working class (volume 1) and the dangers of credit (volume 3)

For those of you interested enough to read for yourself Marx actually said

"A larger part of their own surplus product, always increasing and continually transformed into additional capital, comes back to them in the shape of means of payment, so that they can extend the circle of their enjoyments; can make some additions to their consumption funds of clothes, furniture, &c., and can lay by a small reserve-funds of money. But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the worker. A rise in the price of labour, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of the tension of it." Volume 1, Chapter 25

He went on in Volume 3 to comment extensively on the role of credit and roughly translated saying that the falling rate of profit from non-performing loans, in this case, leads to a seizure in the credit market between banks, which leads to companies no longer financing their operations, which leads to layoffs - in turn generating the social tension that leads to some form of crisis conflict and alters the mode of production. It may not alter it into communism, but it does need to reduce the concentration of capital, to re-inflate the rate of profit.

A fuller explanation of Marx's theory on crisis can be found here 
http://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/yaffed/1972/mtccs/mtccs3.htm#ref3b
But it is hardly easy reading.

So having celebrated the foresight and cerebral brilliance of the great thinker himself let me unclutter your mind with three fairly recent quotes from two people not fit to tie Marx's shoelaces (not that his spirit of equality would allow him to let them)

The first from our greater leader himself, just call me "Dave" PM in April 2011 telling parliament and the wider world that:

"The British economy is growing once again, manufacturing is up, exports are up, and we are seeing a re balancing of the economy so we are not over-reliant on private consumption.That is good news." 

Also from "Dave" was his brilliant analysis of UK PLCs economic recovery back in October 2010 when he told parliament

"You have got to take Britain, as I think we have out of the danger zone of economies in Europe, I think George Osborne's Budget did that."

Of course despite all of the above "good news on the economy" stories from the PM himself the governor of the Bank of England last week felt it neccasary to announce a further dose of "quantitative easing" announcing the creation of £75 billion of new money to be fed to the every hungry speculators and banks. £75 Billion! £4000 for every household in the UK! £1250 each! For god sake give it to us spend not the banks! that will boost the economy! How about giving us all vouchers? £4000 for every household to have solar panels fitted on our roofs to cut energy bills and our carbon footprint in one fell swoop!

And for our next quote lets just remind ourselves what that the chancellor himself George Osbourne said back in  Sept 2009 about quantitative easing

"quantitative easing is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed".

I couldn't have put it better myself! but then earlier this year on this blog http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-many-black-swans-does-greek-urn.html I did say:

"Cameron and Co have gambled heavily, and with growth still flatter than a Lincolnshire mountain range his numbers just haven't come up, we now face heavier borrowing to pay for waste, not jobs and we face for the first time in a long while the prospect of unnecessary unrest on our streets bought about by political stupidity of the highest order."

"Bankers of the world unite. you have nothing to lose but your bonuses" would seem a more apt quote for the times we live in and of the current state of the world economy. Karl Marx must be turning in his Highgate grave.