Even Karl Marx bet in stock market against professional traders

The trend of "using Capitalism to battle Capitalism" was as early as Karl Marx.

Photo: BL Media ~ English Desk

A few days ago, some Redditors took over the stock market by short-selling the stocks. Video Game company GameStop saw a huge surge in its shares which forced the free-trading app Robinhood to do an "unRobinhoodistic act", banning the common investors.

This trend of using capitalism to destroy capitalists is not new, however, even the Fathers of Communism Marx and Engels, themselves were interested in the stock market.

Marx once spent his £820 bequest, which he got after a death of his old friend, in betting against the professional traders.

In his letter to his uncle Lion Philips in summer of 1864, he wrote:

I have, which will surprise you not a little, been speculating … in English stocks, which are springing up like mushrooms this year … and are forced up to quite an unreasonable level and then, for the most part, collapse. In this way, I have made over £400 and, now that the complexity of the political situation affords greater scope, I shall begin all over again.

It's a type of operation that makes small demands on one's time, and it's worthwhile running some risk in order to relieve the enemy of his money.

He had wrote to his friend Friedrich Engels,"Had I had the money during the past 10 days, I'd have made a killing on the Stock Exchange here. The time has come again when, with wit and very little money, it's possible to make money in London."

Not only Marx his friend and co-founder of Communism, Engels was too a savvy stock market investor. 

 

Publish : 2021-02-04 18:14:00

Give Your Comments