On Alienation. Baby Marx at the Walker Art Center
Posted: November 8, 2011 |Karl Marx discovers there are unknown forces he doesn’t understand.
Synopsis
The story takes place in a library that was founded in the 1950’s by a philanthropist who left two children. One of them, Miss Lena, is the librarian, and the other, Philippe, is a pampered kid who invested his father’s inheritance in the stock market just before the crash, and lost it all. Philippe is trying to persuade his sister to sell the library, and in order to soften up their relationship, he sends her an expensive gift - the “intelligent” microwave oven, Smart-O-Wave. Three kids spend their afternoons at the library; one day, helping the librarian, one of them finds the book Capital by Karl Marx. Miss Lena explains that capital means money. In a moment of boredom, the kids put their homework in the Smart-O-Wave, and miraculously the oven completes the homework. So they decide to put Marx’s Capital in the oven, expecting money to come out, but instead Karl Marx comes out. He tells the children that he never really made any money, and that if they want money, they should call Adam Smith. Thus, Adam Smith comes along, and he and Marx start to debate, and later to fight. The two philosophers call in reinforcements, developing into what an “ideological screwball comedy”.