In Umfragen des Instituts TNS Infratest für den SPIEGEL stimmten 56 Prozent der Westdeutschen und 66 Prozent der Ostdeutschen der Aussage zu: "Der Sozialismus ist eine gute Idee, die bislang nur schlecht ausgeführt worden ist." Dass die Kritik von Karl Marx am Kapitalismus "noch heute ihren Sinn" habe, glauben 50 Prozent im Westen und 73 Prozent im Osten.

“Any serious study will demonstrate that Marx based his theories on industrial conditions that either were already obsolete at the time or had never existed in the first place. That is no wonder, for Marx never saw the inside of a factory, farm or manufactory. [...] Whatever else he was, Marx was not a scientist. […] Marx ideals are unachievable precisely because they are so monstrous that even Bolsheviks never quite managed to realize them fully, and not for any lack of trying. For example, the [Communist] Manifesto (along with other writings by both Marx and Engels) prescribes the nationalization of all private property without exception. Even Stalin’s Russia of the 1930s fell short of that ideal. In fact, a good chunk of the Soviet economy was then in private hands [...] Really, compared with Marx, Stalin begins to look like a humanitarian. Marx also insisted that family should be done away with, with women becoming communal property. Again, for all their efforts, Lenin and Stalin never quite managed to achieve this ideal either. So where the Bolsheviks and Nazis perverted Marxism, they generally did so in the direction of softening it.”