iMarx iManifesto

Apple dishes out millions of free copies of the Communist Manifesto

New Left Project

The factory workers of Foxconn in China being forced to the edge of suicide will take little comfort from this, and it's certainly not what Karl Marx had in mind when he said the bourgeoisie creates its own gravediggers.

However, Apple's decision to free distribute free copies of The Communist Manifesto to millions of iPhone owners seems a curious twist as the firm now makes $5.7 billion in profits on annual turnover of $36.5 billion by exploiting cheap, ununionised workers in China.

Owners of the iPhone with the latest iOS4 can download iBooks without charge - allowing them to download the Communist Manifesto for free. The world's best selling political publication can be copied, pasted, highlighted and annotated.

The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 by Friedrich Engels, Marx's sponsor, editor and closest associate - is also available for free. Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and Selected Essays are also free, along with selected extracts of Das Capital.

Lenin's State and Revolution has also gone on sale at £9.49 while the only Trotsky publication is An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted People's of Europe - a timely launch of the ebook - at £4.49. It would be interesting to know if this edition is available in China.