Talk:Karl Marx/Archive 9

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Political propaganda on Wikipedia

While searching on Google for pictures on Karl Marx I found somewhere on top this picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:No_Karl_Marx.JPG . Maybe someone could explain why this picture is in Wikipedia files and why it hasn't been deleted(and its over 4 years old..)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.230.132.58 (talk) 22:18, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The image is used on editors pages where they explain their beliefs by using icons.[1] TFD (talk) 00:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

New sections - are they relevant? Are they OR?

In the last few days, two new sections have been added to the article: 'Failed predictions' and 'Marxism as the ideology of totalitarian states'. I think that these need to be discussed further, as I'm not sure (a) that they are necessary, and (b) that they aren't original research, and/or editorialising. It is self-evident that not everything Marx predicted has occurred, but that is probably true of any political/social theorist, and it is perhaps unnecessary to point out his failures. Likewise, the section on 'totalitarian states' is questionable - perhaps more so, given the time that elapsed between his formulation of his theories, and the events in question. To put it bluntly, this looks like propaganda, not a neutral encyclopaedic article.

I may wait a day or two before acting, but I'm inclined to think that these sections should be deleted, as a breach of NPOV. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:30, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I concur that these could be potentially POV, but the content in them is referenced and has been relatively well put together. Further discussion is needed. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC))

I also have strong reservations about some of the new text, particularly the new 'Failed predictions' section. These are hugely complex, controversial and important issues and need to be dealt with in as even-handed and consensusal a manner as possible. The new 'Failed predictions' section is in my view not even-handed at present and uses sources to push an 'inequality doesn't matter, capitalism is great and poverty no longer exists in the west and wont in the rest of soon due to the wonders of capitalism' point of view. Yes it is sourced and yes I personally agree with some of it but as we all know with issues like this source selection can be used to make whatever argument the writer wishes to and in this case I think careful discussion is needed. Rangoon11 (talk) 21:44, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I was hesitant about adding them, but I was convinced as those arguments are prominent in an important introduction to Marx I am using, (Craig J. Calhoun (2002). Classical sociological theory. Wiley-Blackwell, see article for Google Book direct access). If some of the sources I used to expand it beyond Calhoun are problematic, please replace them, but I think that the language, tone and message are quite neutral. I already went farther than Calhoun does by adding qualifications such as "While many Marxist concepts are still of importance for modern social science," and "While Marx thought has and is used to empower marginalized and dispossessed people". I have much respect for Marx, but he is not beyond critique, and in fact critique of Marx is very extensive; a proper encyclopedic article should has it, as a due balance to the quite pro-Marx "influence" section. I feel that critique of Marx (following Calhoun) can be roughly encapsulated as 1) critique of his theories and predictions and 2) description of how his theories were abused in politics, primarily by the totalitarian communist states. Regarding predictions, if somebody would like to write a section (for the influence, preferably) on "successful predictions", it would be quite helpful. Interested editors are welcome to expand more on those issues. I will finish by noting that I am surprised nobody is complaining about the "Accusations of antisemitism" criticism, which seems rather marginal. Now that's a section I would like to see reduced to a single sentence or eliminated totally. Among many criticism of Marx I've heard, that one is new to me :> PS. I am glad to see a number of interested editors here, I hope we can work together and pull this article towards a GA status. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:31, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Piotrus, firstly let me make clear my thanks for helping bring this page up to a better standard. We need more editors like yourself around here. I concur that the anti-Semitism section should be cut down, and that criticism of Marx is necessary, but I think it notable that these are more criticisms of Marxism rather than Marx himself, and although I believe they should be mentioned here, they should be dealt with in more depth on the Marxism page (which is also in a shambolic state at the moment). (Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:19, 5 March 2011 (UTC))

The use by totalitarian states is certainly more relevant as criticism of Marxism, not Marx, but per Calhoun, some mention here is warranted. I'd expect this article to be expanded, with other sections growing, and I don't think the "abuse by tot. states." needs more expansion. I hope that by the time we are done bringing this article to a better level, the section's size will be less of an issue. Failed predictions, on the other hand, are, I believe, a criticism of Marx, not Marxisim, and thus this section I would hope to see expanded - but as mentioned earlier, I would also like to see a discussion of successful predictions. And I am open to improving the coverage of Marx influence and importance; I've added a little on the importance of his moral ethics in critique of capitalism, more could be done. And dare I say that we seem to miss any discussion of his communist utopia? PS. Doh, we are even missing a redirect for that, and the subject is notable (8k hits on Google Books). Any idea where to redirect it for now? Or perhaps somebody is in the mood for stubbing it, or DYKing it? I could add it to my "to do" list, but it is a bit long (see my user page :D). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, all controversial statements need attribution. I see no problem to mention that some scholars (or writers) argued that Marx's doctrine has been used by tyrants etc. However, that has to be presented as the opinion of concrete individuals, not as mainstream views. In addition, some statements are simply not correct: for instance "Marx expected a wave of communist revolutions to overturn capitalism, and that they would start in the rich countries. Instead, they occurred in poorer places, such as in Russia and China." is simply wrong: revolutions in rich European countries (Germany, Hungary) did start, although they were successfully suppressed. In other rich countries, like Italy and France Communists had become a significant political force. Therefore, I would say, this prediction was rather correct, taking into account that it had been made in XIX century: Marx correctly predicted that Communists would become a prominent political force, but he was unable to predict details. In addition, this prediction per se was so significant that it could affect the course of history: the ruling classes were also aware of that and learned due lessons from it to prevent a course of the events that was not desirable for them. --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:03, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Attribution is given (in the footnote format). In text attribution is usually used only for extraordinary claims or to present notable dissenting opinions; I would think that it is very much a mainstream view that Marx(ist) doctrine was abused by tyrants. You make some valid point, feel free to correct the section and/or start on correct predictions (just please use refs). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:29, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I also agree with Paul. Marx wasn't Nostradamus and as such didn't make predictions in that manner. He explained trends in capitalism, including globalisation and so on. Paul's also right when he mentions the German and Hungarian revolutions, in addition to that was the situation in Britain, France and Northern Italy at the end of the First World War, which can be described as pre-revolutionary (soldiers councils being formed as a result of strikes/mutiny, the police strike of 1919, etc). Also many of the criticisms don't reflect the world as it is.

"Marx predicted that over time, inequality would grow (correctly[155]) but also that this would mean growing impoverishment of the growing worker class, increasingly exploited by the capitalists.[6] The latter has not borne true, as in the rich world, through liberal reform, trade unions won many concessions, improving the situation of the workers (something that Marx considered very unlikely), the working class is growing smaller, as the industrial sector is replaced by the service sector, and worldwide poverty is much smaller than it was in the 19th century."

This section in particular is awful and simply untrue in many places. It shows a complete lack of understanding of class, one is working class if one has to sell one's labour, physical or mental, to survive. Unless there is some other system at work in the service sector that I am unaware of, and in fairness some of the service sector jobs I've had in the past did verge on serfdom... There is little evidence that the working class is smaller, other than discredited theories (I mean discredited in terms of not actually fitting with the world; embourgeoisement thesis, post-modernist theories, etc) and pointless remarks made by Peter Mandelson et al about everyone being middle class now. Also if the statement that worldwide poverty is much smaller than it was in the 19th century is true where's the reference? That's a bit moot though seeing as the statement itself is untrue. I'll leave alone whether the USSR post-1927 or China were ever socialist societies in the first place, nevermind failed ones...--193.60.168.65 (talk) 14:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that worldwide poverty isn't smaller now than it was in the 19th century? The median Briton in 1900 was probably as poor than the median Cambodian is today. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:35, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I too have problems with the anti-semitism section, which I think relies on one short piece Marx wrote, then taking elements within it out of context. That said, at least it is based specifically one something Marx wrote, and is trying to use it to say something about marx itself. The question of Marx making predictions or supporting totalitarian states is much more complex - for example, the Manifesto (written with Engels, so not just Marx's view) seems to make a prediction. But is that how Marx saw it? Leszek Kolakowski shows the extent to which it is a variant of Hegel's teleological view of spirit (so in context, what makes it significatn is not so much that it makes a predication but that it provides an alternative to one populare reading of Hegel. Or, one can look at it as pure agit-prop; Marx and Engels were trying to foment a revolution and were writing both to startle the powers that be, and to energize communists ... my point is just that this is not compareable to a social scientist's prediction, and should not be presented that way. Also, in this article I think this material is poblematic - we recently had a discussion on Marx versus Marxism and WP HAS two articles, one on each, and we should strive to keep them different. I think anything involving people using Marx's writings to make predicions, or to justify their politics, belongs in the Marxism article not here. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:00, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the spirit, but please note the primary source used clearly relates to Marx, not Marxism. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems very POV to me. We would not have for Jesus for example, failed predictions, anti-Semitism, Franco and Mussolini, etc. TFD (talk) 21:28, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The section on predictions is specious. For one thing, marx predicted a revolution in Russia. Moreover, many non-Marxists, in 2008, wondered whether capitalism is not destroying itself. Who knows ho9w the world economy will be organized in a hundred years? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:41, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Eh, to start with, Marx did not predict the revolution in Russia, he thought it was much less likely than a revolution in other places. This article needs a criticism section, Marx is a controversial figure and it should be reflected. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:14, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The article already has a criticism section, but it's pretty problematic, since it just rehashes a lot of the strawmen or commonly-held beliefs about Marx that don't accurately reflect the state of Marx scholarship. His position on Russia was actually quite complex and changed over time, so it's not just incorrect, but almost meaningless to imply that the Russian Revolution proved Marx wrong, as if "Marx" were a declarative statement that could be either true or false rather than a prodigious, dynamic, evolving, and, yes, contentious figure. Treating Marx like an oracle, whether one that was right or wrong, is a flawed approach and doesn't really have much basis in the scholarship. That's my two cents; in general, I agree that the criticism section could stand to be improved a good deal. Sindinero (talk) 21:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I am all for including criticisms but they should not just be misinformed if popular ones there are plenty of well-informed and well-thoughtout criticisms. Marx certainly said he thought there would be a communist revolution in Russia. As Sindinero says his positions on most such things are complex. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:19, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we should be careful with the cricism section, especially the Ideology of Totalitarian states part. It is a bit polemical to say that in the Jesus article we would not include the crusade, but it actually has some logic. As Francis Wheen said, blaming Marx for Stalinism etc. is like blaming the tree when its apples are made into a bad apple pie. Between the tree and the pie there is independant human action and input. The same with Marx's ideas. Between his ideas the the Soviet Union etc. are huge inputs of outside and foreign actors; not to mention the quite credible claims that they distorted original theory. Tell me what you guys think about it. I don't have much time here, but maybe the Totalitarian states bit could be cut. ValenShephard (talk) 18:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Karl Marx not Karl Heinrich Marx

In his birth certificate he is named Carl, in his wedding papers his is nameed Karl, in his death certificate Charles. Only in his disseertation and his poems for Jenny he signed Karl Heinrich. Therefore his name should be changed in the article to Karl --Whoiswohme (talk) 07:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Vital statistics are evidence of a person's name but do not determine their name. We rely on what secondary sources say, rather than primary sources. TFD (talk) 14:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

This criticism is incorrect

In the sentence "The working class is also growing smaller, as the industrial sector is replaced by the service sector" under the "predictions" section of criticism it is claimed that the working class is growing smaller. This seems to indicate a biased, developed-world-centric viewpoint as globally the working class has not shrunken at all, but merely the distribution of workers has shifted. Furthermore, in Marxian theory services sector employees are still themselves workers - Marxian class analysis does not utilise a simple wealth bracket or similar criteria. University lecturers, programmers and full time chefs can be considered workers. I would like to move that this sentence be removed. The author of this sentence doesn't seem to have any real understanding of class in Marxian theory. Yazman (talk) 04:25, 7 November 2011 (UTC).

Agreed, you're absolutely right. That sentence and the one following are both pretty problematic, and could use substantial clarification (or deletion). The whole 'Criticism' section could use work. In general it seems like a collection of accusations intending to show how Marx was in fact wrong (which end up having straw men or oversimplifications of Marx's writings as their targets), followed in some cases by counterclaims saying how Marx maybe wasn't that wrong. Ultimately I think we'd want to shift the tone of this section so that, instead of sounding like a polemic back-and-forth ("is not!" "is too!" etc.), it carries a little more encyclopedic weight ("Critic X, arguing Y, has alleged that Z. However, Marx scholar A points out that B.," etc.) I think that would be more useful for readers; we need to include these common criticisms of Marx (they are by now part of the corpus, as it were), but we need to be better at framing them. For me that means the criticisms need to be worded more clearly and, where possible, attributed to specific scholars or sources, and, where possible, they need an appropriate counter or contextualization by Marx scholars. It would be really helpful for readers of this article to be able to see clearly that these arguments are not a simple back-and-forth over prescriptions or prognostications, but a more complex debate in which even the terminology (in this example, what constitutes the 'working class') is contentious. Sindinero (talk) 06:13, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

But also, in this specific case, I think we'd have ample grounds for deleting the sentence entirely, as it looks like original research to me. The sources quoted (one of which is by the World Bank and the other by the Cato Institute...) are not on Marx but about the economy in general. Using an approach that is certainly debatable ("poverty," defined by "standards of living," as the primary measure of economic well-being), they provide a general claim ('poverty has decreased') which an editor has used to suggest that Marx was incorrect about the tendency of the working class to grow. Besides being OR, this also seems like comparing apples and oranges. Sindinero (talk) 06:17, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes - it looks like OR to me too. The entire 'criticism' section needs work though - it should state who is criticising Marx for what (and any relevant responses from other scholars), rather than merely listing vague assertions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:05, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree, and also it is all criticism of Marxism, not criticism of Marx, so it belongs in the article Marxism, with only one or two most important point mentioned in the section Marxism of this article. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The key point is that "Marxian class analysis does not utilise a simple wealth bracket or similar criteria" which is clar from any Marxist text. Class is defined in relation to the means of production. Workers are those who own no means of production but their labor, and therefore must sell their labor-power in return for money. Anyonw who must work for a living which includes accountants, university professors, and anyone in the "service sector" except for those people who are actually buying the labor in order to make money through their control of it, is a member of the working class. We need to make clear what the Marxist approach to class is. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Introduction is really long

So, the introduction to this article is awfully long and detailed. Does it really need to go through all the cities he lived in, and all the different newspapers he wrote for, and all this other stuff? What are the thoughts on this? 76.115.241.169 (talk) 02:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Lead sentence, last ¶ of lede.

It's false. Marx wasn't famous like the Tsar or Pope but he was well enough known, in socialism and fellow traveller circles, which was a large part of learned culture of the time, especially from the time of the first international, and was a towering enough figure in his lifetime to have uttered the famous "if this is Marxism, I myself am no Marxist". Should just be removed, short of that redacted to reflect well known and sourceable historical fact. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 01:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

did do. Lycurgus (talk) 09:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

the whole "relatively unknown" thing was vague, judgmental, and wrong. Marx is still relatively unknown to large swathes of the planetary population. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 10:06, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Commodity fetishism

Does anyone watching this page have access to reliable secondary sources on this phrase? If so, would you pleeeeeeease go to the article and revise it accordingly? It is in desperate need of significant interpretations of this concept, from reliable sources. See also this notification at the NOR noticeboard. Thanks Slrubenstein | Talk 17:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

ideology?

Ideology, used in our everyday ordinary language means a set of ideas or beliefs but for Marx, and for Marxist theorists, the word ideology means something entirely different. For example, Marx begins chapter 19 (entitled The transformation of the value (and respectively the price) of labour-power into wages) of Capital by examining the wage form as ideology and as the obfuscation of the value of labour power. He argues that wages are seen as the price of labour, that is, the price of living labour, of expending energy for the length of the working day; whereas, they are, in fact, the price of labour-power, the value of the means of subsistence necessary to reproduce that labour-power.

Here Marx gives a succinct definition of ideology: “It is an expression as imaginary as the value of the earth. These imaginary expressions arise, nevertheless, from the relations of production themselves. They are categories for the forms of appearance of essential relations. That in their appearance things are often presented in an inverted way is something fairly familiar in every science, apart from political economy.” (Marx, K. (1977). Karl Marx Capital Volume One. Vintage Books: New York. p.677)

In other words, ideology is appearance parading as essence or the idea that the various premises on which bourgeois existence is based – the premise that have allowed for the rise and appropriation of power of a particular class; the idea, for example, of the work ethic; the idea of the family; the idea of certain forms of moral behaviour – all of this is ‘ideological’ insofar as it is supposed and assumed to be valid and equally the case for all in all circumstances at all historical times.

Engels, who sought to clarify this position stated: “Every ideology . . . once it has arisen, develops in connection with the given concept-material, and develops this material further; otherwise it would cease to be ideology, that is, occupation with thoughts as with independent entities, developing independently and subject only to their own laws. That the material life conditions of the persons inside whose heads this thought process goes on, in the last resort determines the course of this process, remains of necessity unknown to these persons, for otherwise there would be an end to all ideology.” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, n.d., p.541.)

And elsewhere, Engels remarks: “Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker, consciously indeed but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him remain unknown to him, otherwise it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence he imagines false or apparent motives. Because it is a process of thought he derives both its form and its content from pure thought, either his own or that of his predecessors.” (Letter to Franz Mehring, 14 July 1893 (Marx and Engels: Selected Correspondence, New York, 1935).

This is the general characterization of ideology for Marx and Engels and therefore it should not be consistently used throughout wiki articles on Marx and Marxism because it possesses a very special meaning. I mean if ideology simply means a mode of belief or a set of ideas, why even use the word ideology? Does it just sound more profound than saying beliefs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 05:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments - but Wikipedia tries to base articles on cited sources, rather than original research from contributors. You seem not to have provided one. As for the Marxist understanding of the term 'ideology' (if your arguments are correct) being different from the normal understanding of the term, we write for a general readership, and have to assume little prior knowledge, and try to use words in the sense they are normally understood - or failing that, to explain their special meaning in a particular context. Again, this needs sources. For what its worth, I see your point, but see no way to resolve this without sources - and suspect that the difference would probably be lost on most readers anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:06, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Marx and Engels popularized the term ideology which they used to refer to the belief system of the ruling class. Today we use the term to refer to their belief system as well. TFD (talk) 06:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Er, I think it's a little more complex than that, TFD. Actually, it's a lot more complex. Read some Gramsci for a starting point on the subject... AndyTheGrump (talk)

Lichtman has a great article on ideology in Marxian thought, which alas I do not have but maybe it was in the New Left Review? Also Pietz' articles on commodity fetishism may be relevant here. Althusser, Bell and Habermas are probably the best sources on what Marx meant or the applicability of Marx's argument (along with Lichtman). So these would all be good sources. I am sure that there are good sources that assert that in the Soviet Union and China "Marxism" functioned as an ideology in the sense Mannheim means, than Marx. But I do not know of any notable sources that claim that Marx's own writings are "ideology." Marx's principal works purport to be "scientific" (in the 19th century Germans sense i.e. wisenschaft), Althusser's view too, and later swcholars (Bell, Habermas, also Marshall Berman) identify it as "critique." Any scientific or critical argument can of course be wrong and plenty of people have argued that marx is wrong (perhaps Sidney Hook is the most notable) — but "wrong" does not mean the same thing as "ideology." I do not know of any major theorist of ideology (even Mannheim who was critical of Marx) who defines "ideology" as meaning "wrong." Slrubenstein | Talk 08:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Another good place to find more sources on "ideology" in Marx might be the entry for "ideology" in Bottomore's A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. I don't have access to my copy, though, and won't for some time, so I can't be much more help than that. Sindinero (talk) 09:46, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

German Jewish?

Is it proper to start the lead with "German-Jewish" philosopher. Leon Trotsky, Noam Chomsky, and Bernie Sanders are/were Jewish socialists, yet none of the articles begin with an ethnic/religious qualifier. So can we get rid of it? Wikifan^{Be nice} 00:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Good point. TFD (talk) 03:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Marxism as the ideology of totalitarian states

I just read archive 9, which does not support the existence of this section. Editors repeatedly refer to the central argument that this article is Marx, not Marxism. Moreover, the secondary sources used to weight the section are sources, again, on Marxism not Marx. What are the suasive arguments to retain this section? Fifelfoo (talk) 23:16, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Criticism of Marxism, which many confuse with Marx's thought, is of relevance here. Walicki's argument cited there is crucial in showing the distinction. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Excepting, again Walicki's subject is Marxism. Does this appear in any of the structure or weighting of the history of Marx or the major philosophical critiques of Marx per Marx's works? If so, we ought to dump that cite, and the connection, at the head of the section on criticism. Currently that section of criticism has a poor connection to the topic. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:33, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

I think such criticism is relevant, as most people when they think of Marx they think of Marxism and modern communism, but I think we need at least a WP:3O. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

"German"?

Following on from the discussion above and considering that Marx is one of the most infamous characters in modern history (whose ideology killed tens of millions), perhaps this aspect needs to be looked at also; especially its application in the introduction. Marx by ancestry was 100% Jewish, by ideology he was an internationalist and became a stateless person. To claim he is "German" just because he was born there, seems to be a great slander against the German people. Did the Germans of the time consider him one of their own? Did Marx himself consider himself German, rather than an internationalist of Jewish ancestry? To give an analogy; some people during the 17th-19th century were born in Ireland, yet by ancestry and identity were Englishmen and Scotsmen rather than Irish (Ascendancy). Rí Lughaid (talk) 04:51, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I disagree with this just as strongly as I disagree with attempts to say he wasn't Jewish. Firstly, Marx didn't kill anybody, nor did his ideology. A bunch of people claiming to be inspired by his ideas killed millions of people. And given that the German people managed to produce some unquestionably German people who unquestionably actually did murder millions of people, I'm not going to weep for the fact that the Germans are also saddled with responsibility for one of the greatest political philosophers of the nineteenth century. Beyond that, Marx was born and grew up in Germany with a very limited connection to his Jewish ancestry. His primary language was German, and this is the language in which he wrote most of his works. Although he spent most of his later life in England, I've never really heard that he didn't always consider himself to be a German - I'd think, in fact, that living in England would have accentuated that. While I do think that his Jewish background is important, and make it perfectly reasonable to describe him as a Jew, his German background was substantially more important than his Jewish one. His own works emerged out of post-Hegelian debates within the German philosophical community, and his greatest influence throughout his life (and for several decades afterwards) was in Germany, where Marxists were far more dominant within the socialist community than they were in most other parts of Europe (Britain, France, and Russia, in particular, had their own, non-Marxist, socialist traditions that were not assimilated into Marxism for a long time, if ever). Marx was German of Jewish descent. Being an "internationalist" is a statement of intentions for the future of the world, not of present day identity. john k (talk) 23:02, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

To pick an example at random (and because it is a more entertaining read than many a 'Marxist' tract), I'll quote Wilhelm Liebknecht on his shared German heritage with Marx, as he describes a pub-crawl they took down the Tottenham Court Road: "There loud singing issued from a public house; we entered and learned that a club of Odd Fellows were celebrating a festival. We met some of the men belonging to the “party,” and they at once invited us “foreigners” with truly English hospitality to go with them into one of the rooms. We followed them in the best of spirits, and the conversation naturally turned to politics – we had been easily recognised as Germany fugitives; and the Englishmen, good old-fashioned people, who wanted to amuse us a little, considered it their duty to revile thoroughly the German princes and the Russian nobles. By “Russian” they meant Prussian nobles. Russia and Prussia are frequently confounded in England, and not alone of account of their similarity of name. For a while, everything went smoothly. We had to drink many healths and to bring out and listen to many a toast..." [2]. As you read further, it becomes evident that Marx saw himself as a German, and went a little too far in describing the merits of Germans - which led to the pair having to make a sharpish exit from the pub... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Use of liberal

(Sorry if I do this the wrong way, everyone - it's my first time in the talk page!) I'm confused and a bit concerned with modern-day understanding of terms inserted in this article, specifically the term "liberal". It seems that at various times the word is used to mean Liberalism in the political philosophy kind of way (i.e., autonomous individualism, egalitarianism, etc.), or the way radio talk show hosts in the US conflate "liberalism" with leftist politics (contrasted with conservatism). I don't want to go in and just change them all out because it's used quite ambiguously at times.

It's concerning, however, not just because of its ambiguity, but also because if it means leftist politics, I think the term might be casting a contemporary usage into a time period where it likely meant quite different things. Not least, the term was much more strongly associated with the political philosophy usage during Marx's time period, and if "progressive" or "open-minded" are what's meant, they might be better terms.

Any thoughts on how best to proceed? Thanks! Burnsr77 (talk) 06:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any ambiguity in the use of the term in the article. Can you provide an example? TFD (talk) 06:10, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure (and sorry for my own ambiguity!). It's pretty much every occurrence of the term, actually. Here are some examples:

1)"Such issues were lessened by Marx's friendship with Jenny's father, Baron Ludwig von Westphalen, a liberal thinking aristocrat."

2)"Marx decided to submit it instead to the more liberal University of Jena..."

3)"He criticised the governments of Europe and their policies, but also liberals and other members of the socialist movement whose ideas he thought were ineffective or outright anti-socialist."

4)"...the Manifesto presents the argument for why the Communist League, as opposed to other socialist and liberal political parties and groups at the time..."

Again, if "left-wing", "progressive", "open-minded", etc. are better terms, might it be best to substitute them? Burnsr77 (talk) 07:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I think in all those cases, "liberal" means liberal in the political philosophy sense. Could you say more about why you think "liberal" might be meant in some other way? The third example could be read as saying that liberals are part of the socialist movement, which is wrong and isn't what is intended; I think it would be clearer if rephrased to "...also liberals and socialists whose..." or perhaps "...also liberals, as well as those socialists whose...." VoluntarySlave (talk) 10:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

If it's clear this means the political philosophy sense of the word, then the usages are fine and should not be changed. In the US, "liberal" in colloquial everyday language is increasingly being used as a surrogate for the Democratic Party, and leftist politics more generally; this usage is almost entirely divorced from the political philosophy sense. Depending on who uses it and why, it can also be derogatory, as a way of dismissing ideas out-of-hand. In my reading of this page, it seems the word will be interpreted correctly by those familiar with the political philosophy but could be misinterpreted by laypeople who've never read Locke, Smith, et al. It's fine if that's standard procedure and a risk this community is willing to take. I'll make the suggested edit. Burnsr77 (talk) 17:51, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

All the references are to political liberalism in the 19th century. No need to change the words because it might confuse people who are unfamiliar with the topic. TFD (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Removal of critical material from the lead

User:JTBX recently removed all mention of the fact that Marx's theories have been criticized from the lead. The relevant edit is here. I find this to be completely unacceptable. The edit summary JTBX used was, "debatable, can be used later, there has also been a resurgence of marxists thought following the financial crisis (which incidentally he had something to predict about)". In response to those points: A) The fact that you find something to be "debatable" is not a valid reason for removing it from an article. Per WP:NPOV and other basic content policies, we just don't do that. B) The fact that something can be "used later" is also not an excuse for removing something from the lead. Per WP:LEAD, the lead is meant to be a summary of the article, and therefore it should contain material that is also in other parts of the article. C) You provide no proof that there has been "a resurgence of marxists thought", and, even if there has been, this does not contradict the sourced material that you wrongly removed. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 06:42, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

"Marxism as the ideology of totalitarian states"

The term "totalitarian" is itself quite a controversial and at least politically loaded term and I feel that this whole section fails to meet the NPOV criterion of Wiki sections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KurtFF8 (talk • contribs) 15:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I've added a NPOV to the section as it's full of politically loaded adjectives to describe a part of history that is contestedKurtFF8 (talk) 01:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 March 2012

I wish to add cites to the appropriate material in this article. I wish to be recognised as an "established user" so that I can add citatiions from my huge library of books to the semi-protected page of Karl Marx.

WellsSouth (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Your request is too vague for anyone to act upon. Also, judging from how long you have been active and the number of edits you have made, you should be perfectly able to edit the article even though it is semi-protected. You're completely free to do so. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 19:16, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

"Atheist"?

"But since for the socialist man the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labour, nothing but the emergence of nature for man, so he has the visible, irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his genesis. Since the real existence of man and nature has become evident in practice, through sense experience, because man has thus become evident for man as the being of nature, and nature for man as the being of man, the question about an alien being, about a being above nature and man – a question which implies the admission of the unreality of nature and of man – has become impossible in practice. Atheism, as the denial of this unreality, has no longer any meaning, for atheism is a negation of God, and postulates the existence of man through this negation; but socialism as socialism no longer stands in any need of such a mediation. It proceeds from the theoretically and practically sensuous consciousness of man and of nature as the essence. Socialism is man’s positive self-consciousness, no longer mediated through the abolition of religion, just as real life is man’s positive reality, no longer mediated through the abolition of private property, through communism. Communism is the position as the negation of the negation, and is hence the actual phase necessary for the next stage of historical development in the process of human emancipation and rehabilitation. Communism is the necessary form and the dynamic principle of the immediate future, but communism as such is not the goal of human development, the form of human society.|XI||[34]"-Private Property and Communism

Sounds more apatheistic to me than atheism.

"Communism as the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore as the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being – a return accomplished consciously and embracing the entire wealth of previous development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution."-Private Property And Communism

Here he is stating that communism is naturalist.

174.54.135.108 (talk) 05:09, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

'Atheism' is a notoriously difficult term to define (as the endless debates on our article talk page will confirm), but I think that it is easy enough to find reliable sources that state that Marx was an atheist - and we go by what the sources say, rather than our own opinions. In any case, it is unclear what you are trying to argue here: what is it about Marx's beliefs that could be seen as indicating that he wasn't an atheist? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:19, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Marx was a Jew, and this can be supported with reliable sources

Slrubenstein removed categories identifying Marx as Jewish with the bizarre edit summary, "he was not Jewish - he did not identify as Jewish and he was not Jewish according to Jews." The summary was bizarre for several reasons. Firstly, what "Jews" may think about this issue is irrelevant (there is no Wikipedia policy that says that the content of an article should be based on what "Jews" allegedly believe about something). Secondly, it was factually wrong. Some Jews, including a fairly distinguished historian of ideas named Isaiah Berlin, do indeed consider Marx to have been a Jew. Berlin calls Marx a Jew on several pages of his well-known book Karl Marx. I presume Slrubenstein to be well-educated enough to know this perfectly well, so I cannot understand why he would remove those categories.

In reply to RolandR, who reverted my reversion of Slrubenstein with the comment, "Berlin's ethnicity is absolutely irrelevant here; Marx did not identify as a Jew, whatever his origin", I would like to ask A) why you did not inform Slrubenstein that the alleged beliefs of "Jews" about Marx are irrelevant under Wikipedia policy, and B) why you ignored my mention of a reliable source indicating that Marx was indeed a Jew, regardless of how he identified himself? It was Slrubenstein who first raised the irrelevant issue of what "Jews" think, not me, so your comment that the ethnicity of authors who discuss Marx is irrelevant should have been directed to him, not to me. I fully agree that it is irrelevant that Berlin was a Jew, but it is not irrelevant that he was a distinguished historian of ideas. Berlin calls Marx a Jew on page 3 of Karl Marx (where he refers to Marx being "born a Jew") and again on page 198, where he refers to "the fact that he was a Jew". It doesn't matter that Marx didn't consider himself a Jew if reliable sources call him a Jew. Removing categories calling Marx a Jew is therefore a serious violation of NPOV. By doing this, you and Slrubenstein are placing your personal opinions about Marx and about the meaning of being a Jew over reliable sources. I will be raising this issue at the neutral point of view noticeboard if it cannot be resolved here. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 22:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Berlin is a noted political philosopher but he is not an authority on Judaism or on Marx's biography. That Berlin may have been Jewish does not make him an authority on who is Jewish. Reliable sources all agree that Marx was baptized a Christian in 1824. Whether or not Marx considered homself a Jew is relevant, and he clearly did not. Whether or not he is considered a Jew according to Jewish law is relevant, and clearly his baptism cancelled out his being Jewish. Polisher of Cobwebs is plainly either hyppocritical or confused when aqying it is irrelevant what Jews think, when she was the one who made an issue of Berlin's race. Be that as it may, Berlin's opinion is a fringe view and cannot be given any weight. When it comes to ethnic identity, self-identification and the identification by others are clearly relevant. This is not my own opinion, these are the criteria of Jewish historians and of biographers of Marx. McLellan, the author of the standard biography on Marx, says Marx was not a Jew. Kaminka who edited The Portble Marx also writes of his baptism into the Lutheran Church. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:43, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I never said that Berlin's being Jewish made him an authority on who is Jewish and who is not. I only mentioned that he was Jewish in reply to your irrelevant (and wrong) suggestion that "Jews" think that Marx was not a Jew. The relevant point is that Berlin's book, which calls Marx a Jew, is a reliable source. I simply do not agree that Berlin's view, in his eminently respectable and widely quoted book, is "fringe". That Marx may have been baptized as a Christian does not mean that he was not a Jew, since one can be ethnically Jewish even if one does not believe in Judaism (and it's quite bizarre to mention Marx's baptism as an argument against his being a Jew, as obviously Marx did not remain a Christian believer - unless you have evidence to the contrary, of course, in which case you really should share it with the world). I suppose I will have to take this to the neutral point of view noticeboard. Oh, and by the way, I am in fact a man, not a woman, as I explain on my user page. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 23:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

According to Allen Wood's recent book, Karl Marx, Marx was not brought up as a Jew. My point is that most books on Marx agree he was not a Jew. The point about Marx's baptism is not that he was a Christian, it is that he was removed from the Jewish nation. Jewishness is a matter of both nationality and religion, but just as becoming a naturalized citizen in some cases signifies a renunciation of one's previous citizenship, baptism signifies a renunciation of one's Jewishness. You point out that he was not a believer in Christianity ... are you now agreeing that his own views matter? Well, he rejected both religion and nationality, so by either standard he was not a Jew. As to Berlin's view not being fringe, first of all you are misrepresenting Berlin whose interpretation of Marx is that he was both Jew and gentile. Second, you are misrepresenting Berlin in that his essays constitute an interpretation, not a factual report. Berlin was a philosopher and like all philosophers made arguments. His arguments that he is best known for, and which are without any doubt significant and notable, are his views of "freedom" and liberalism. He simply is not notable as a biographer of Marx. Given that most reliable sources on marx say he was not a Jew, we should go with the mainstream view. I do not understand why you are so committed to this fringe POV. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Berlin says that it is a fact that Marx was a Jew on page 198 of Karl Marx. That does sound like a factual report to me. not an "interpretation". I am not persuaded at all that most reliable sources on Marx claim him not to have been a Jew in some relevant sense of the term; that seems to be an unsupported assertion on your point. This issue clearly needs wider discussion, and I will be raising it elsewhere. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 23:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a conundrum, and I'd like to butt in with one question. If Marx were still alive, this article would be a BLP. Would we say Marx was Jewish, or not say it? Moriori (talk) 23:35, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

People present opinions as if they are facts all the time! My point about Berlin is that he is a reliable source on areas of his expertise, which is political theory. His views on Marx's place in European political philosophy, or on mar's view of alienation, or bourgeois democracy, are without a doubt significant, because these are areas in which Berlin has well-established expertise. But Berlin is not notable for his research on Marx's life, or for his research on Jewish identity. I agree of course that we have to follow reliable sources. My point is that on the question of Marx's ethnic identity, the reliable sources will be established experts on Marx's life (rather than thought per se, e.g. biographers), and experts on Judaism and Jewish identity. Those experts - whatever they say - are the ones to whom we should give weight on this question. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

In the past, it was common to refer to people of Jewish ancestry as Jewish even if they had renounced their religion. Berlin's book was published in 1939. Terminology and beliefs about ethnicity from that time may no longer be considered to be valid/politically correct. We should use current descriptions. TFD (talk) 17:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

This is what the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Karl Marx says about Marx's background:

"Both parents were Jewish and were descended from a long line of rabbis, but, a year or so before Karl was born, his father—probably because his professional career required it—was baptized in the Evangelical Established Church. Karl was baptized when he was six years old. Although as a youth Karl was influenced less by religion than by the critical, sometimes radical social policies of the Enlightenment, his Jewish background exposed him to prejudice and discrimination that may have led him to question the role of religion in society and contributed to his desire for social change."

    ←   ZScarpia   17:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Restore categories. Marx was not an orthodox Jew, but Jewish culture played a role in his life (even if as something he rejected, to significant degrees), and he was, of course, a Jew (ethnicity). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 18:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

All Christians are influenced by Judaism - that is not the issue. The issue is the consequences of his being baptized (and the fact that until today the article had no reliable sources on this matter). Anyway, I restored the categories a couple of hours ago - and added an edit on the topic. But I really think we need to add more of those reliable sources we hear about - from biographers of Marx, and from historians or sociologists of the Jews i.e. relevant experts. Can people who know, add appropriate sources here? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

A relevant and serious source is The Marxists and the Jewish Question, by Enzo Traverso (Humasnities Press, 1994). Traverso writes: "Born into a Jewish family that had converted to Lutheranism, Marz received no religious education and grew up, under the influence of his father, in a liberal and aufklärerisch environment. He considered himself a German, an atheist and a Communist and recognized himself as neither a Jew nor a converted Jew" (p14) RolandR (talk) 19:26, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, you seem to think this is a question about Marx's Judaism (which, of course, did not exist), but Judaism and Jewishness are two different things (I'm sure you know this, and I hope I am not seeming at all patronizing), and note that Piotrus said 'Jewish culture,' not 'Jewish religion.' The fact that he had to be made un-Jewish so that his father could practice law in a country that forbade Jews to do so is one way in which his Jewishness is made, in some ways, perhaps more relevant.Gold1618 (talk) 09:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The correct phrasing is that Marx had Jewish parents but was baptized as a child and lived as an atheist. Or something like that. He certainly should not be described as Jewish. It might be worth checking if his parents were baptized as well. BTW both Marx and his children are buried in christian cemeteries (there are several of them in a church yard off Tottenham Court Rd., one day I want to go and have a look for them. One might add that he is frequently described as Jewish, often by his detractors, but that such a description is not accurate. Telaviv1 (talk) 08:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If you come here, I advise you not to look in Tottenham Court Road, since Marx and his family are not buried there, but in Highgate Cemetery. I would be happy to accompany you there if the occasion arises. His younger children were originally buried in Whitefield's Tabernacle in Tottenham Court Road, but the coffins have been moved; possibly to Chingford Mount cemetery, where the notorious Kray twins are the most notable inhabitants.RolandR (talk) 09:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

So you are saying he was not buried in a Jewish cemeteray? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It's a small world - I must have walked past Whitefield's Tabernacle many times. If I'd known that, I might have gone inside. Actually, the thought of Marx being buried on the Tottenham Court Road rather appeals, given that it has to represent the seedy side of capitalism at its worse - umpteen shops stacked high with computers and the like, imported from the newly-emerging Chinese capitalist giant, each shop desperate to sell its stock quickly before the new cheaper or better model comes out. ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

No, Marx himself was not buried in Whitefield's Tabernacle (now the American Church). He was buried in Highgate Cemetery, where he remains. But he used to live near Tottenham Court Road, and his three children who died in infancy were buried there, but later re-interred elsewhere. And he apparently drank regularly in all of the pubs in the area. RolandR (talk) 19:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Er, yes, I know where Marx is buried ;-) What I meant was that it would have perhaps been appropriate (in an ironic sort of way) for him to have been buried on the Tottenham Court Road. As for the pubs, I wasn't aware of that, and wonder if I've ever drunk in any of the same ones. Quite possible I suppose. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it is silly to not include the man's Jewishness in his biographical information, but we do anyway, so I do not see this as a big deal. I would like to point out that the conversion to Lutheranism, as far as I see it, affirms his Jewishness because of the reasons he was converted: his being a Jew. His father was a lawyer, but a law was made making it illegal for Jews to practice law, so Karl's father baptized himself, Karl, and I think the entire rest of the family. It is important to also note that Marxism, in a more inclusive sense, is not just the work of Karl Marx, but also that of his daughter, Eleanor Marx, who, unlike her father, did consider herself to be Jewish. What's more, in Germany at the time, 'Jew' was a social construction, and in that sense of the word, Karl Marx most certainly was Jewish. Yes, TelAviv1 is correct in stating that calling him a Jew is used in an anti-semitic sense by some of those who hate his ideas. Yes, there is a stupid, but somewhat popular, anti-semitic conspiracy theory stating that the Jewish people as one entity invented and are still behind world communism. I do not see how his Jewishness being overstated by anti-semites is relevant to a discussion about our desire to state things with the proper weight they deserve.Gold1618 (talk) 09:03, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

What is your source that Eleanor considered herself to be Jewish? Slrubenstein | Talk 17:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Good source here, including discussion of Eleanor. Medding is a retired professor on the history of Zionism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, so I would consider him a quite reputable source with regard to compiled materials. The material here is a review by Julius Carlebach of Fischman's "Political Discourse in Exile: Karl Marx and the Jewish Question." One has to consider that historically, Jews (particularly at the time of Marx's birth) often had themselves baptized or baptized their children to escape prejudice and open up life and professional opportunities. One would not consider such baptism a true "conversion." We should be judicious to not to inappropriately conflate public and private personas. Whatever choices Marx made were (IMO) largely his own. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 02:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Link to Fischman's book at Google books here. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 02:17, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Vecrumba, I am confused: the pargraph concerning Marx's Jewish identity already contains a reference to Rischman - are you proposing adding the link, or a specific page range? I am not clear how you think the referencing is insufficient. As to the Medding book, would you mind adding the citation in whatever way you consider most appropriate? Slrubenstein | Talk 06:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you think that Marx hid his religious beliefs in order to broaden the appeal of communism? TFD (talk) 04:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not think Marx ever hid his religious beliefs - he is pretty clear about his views of religion (his general sympathy for the social function of religion; his atheism; his view that Jews should be given full equal rights in Prussia ... I see no evidence that he had any other religious beliefs that were relevant to religion, unless you mean his secularized millinarianism - but this faith in "progress" is a well-documented element of post-Enlightenment 19th century European thought and is as much a transformation of Chritian belief as it is of Jewish belief). Qlso, communism was not original to Marx - he and Engels were appealing to a set of views espoused by a great many European thinkers at the time who advocated reorganizing society around socialist lines 9and some of whom linked their faih in socialisnm to the teachings of Jesus). What makes Marx distinctive among this crowd was his theory of history (his historical dialectical) which he claimed came from Hegel - do you have any reason to think that this dialctical view of history actually derived from his religious beliefs rather than from his youthful study of hegel and interactions with the young Hegelians? Do you think our article gives inadequate coverage to all this? What sources claim Marx had any hidden religious beliefs? Slrubenstein | Talk 06:52, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Marx was obviously not religiously Jewish. But he was ethnically a Jew, and both the ethnic and religious dimensions of Jewishness are real things. Benjamin Disraeli had a family background very similar to Marx's and he is constantly referred to as a Jew. john k (talk) 20:51, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It is worth observing here that Isaiah Berlin's book Karl Marx, which as I noted calls Marx a Jew, is a proper biography rather than simply an analysis of Marx's ideas. McLellan describes it as "A very readable short biography" in his own biography of Marx. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 07:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I mentioned that it was written before the war. Since the Second World War views on race and ethnicity have changed. TFD (talk) 07:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

What is the basis for this claim? Marx was a Halakhic Jew and would qualify as a Jew under the Law of Return. Are you claiming that Jewishness has ceased to be an ethnicity as well as a religion? That's absurd. Again, Marx's position with respect to Jewish religion and ethnicity was nearly identical to that of his near contemporaries Disraeli and Felix Mendelssohn, who are always described as Jews. john k (talk) 14:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide a reliable reference for that (dubious) assertion? RolandR (talk) 16:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

What do you want exactly? Can TFD provide a reference for his (dubious) assertion that "Since the Second World War view on race and ethnicity have changed [to the point where Berlin's description of Marx as a Jew is no longer operative]"? Marx, Disraeli, and Mendelssohn were baptized as Christians, but all of them were also Jews, a term which can describe both a religion and an ethnicity. Here's an essay by Eric Hobsbawm in the LRB that describes Mendelssohn, Disraeli, and Marx as being Jews (along with Heine and Ricardo, both of whom converted to Christianity as adults). The phenomenon of the assimilated (or would-be assimilated) western European Jew who converts to Protestantism in the late 18th/early 19th century is a pretty common one. In none of these cases that I'm aware of were the converts ever noted for any particularly genuine religious commitment to Christianity. Their conversion itself was a phenomenon of anti-Semitism, and almost always had to do with a desire to be more assimilated into the mainstream, not with any genuine religious conversion. A few generations later, Jews in similar circumstances would have simply become Reform Jews and assimilated without totally abandoning Judaism, but that option wasn't open to Jews of earlier generations. The experience of people like Marx and Disraeli was a distinctly Jewish one, and to pretend as though that context doesn't exist distorts history. john k (talk) 16:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 21:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

See Antisemitism: "Both antisemtism and its target, the Jews, elude convenient definition. Furthermore, antisemites do not accord Jews the right to define themselves. ...Trotsky...ceased describing himself as in any way Jewish. Even so, his character and his deeds were subjected to repeated antisemitic attacks. On the strength of his participation and that of several others who did not acknowledge themselves as Jews, the politics and ideology of the entire Communist movement came to be considered by many as a sinister Jewish invention." (p. xxix)[3] TFD (talk) 22:29, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, the oblique accusations of anti-Semitism. So the eminent Jewish Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm is now an anti-Marxist anti-Semite, I guess? john k (talk) 02:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Let me add - of course it's true that anti-Semites do what your quote says. But it does not follow from that that any time somebody is calling a non-religious or nominally Christian person of Jewish descent a "Jew" that they are necessarily an anti-Semite or are saying so for anti-Semitic reasons. john k (talk) 02:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

If anyone is accusing anyone else of anti-Semitism, that would be a serious violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. But perhaps we shouldn't leap to assumptions. The Four Deuces can explain how he considers his comments relevant. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 02:29, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You asked for a source and now object to it. We should use unambiguous neutral language. Your source (Hobsbawm) btw does not refer to Mendelssohn et al as "being Jews", nor does the author refer to himself as a "Jewish Marxist", which would not be relevant in any case. TFD (talk) 05:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

1) Nothing in your source has anything to do with your claim that since 1945 people no longer define Jews by ethnic criteria, or that such a thing is unacceptable. Your source says that anti-Semites define people as Jews even if they do not identify themselves as such. That's true, but not actually germane. 2) Whether Hobsbawm calls himself a Jew or a Marxist, he is certainly well known for being both. My bringing this up may not have been germane either, since I thought you were saying that anyone who calls Marx a Jew was an anti-Semite who was trying to blame Communism on the Jews. Since you were not doing so, neither Hobsbawm's ethnic background nor his politics is relevant. 3) Any fair-minded reading of Hobsbawm's article would acknowledge that he is quite clearly describing Marx, Disraeli, Mendelssohn, Ricardo, and Heine as Jews:

Yet the prominence of certain names – Heine, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Ricardo, Marx, Disraeli – and the flourishing milieu of wealthy educated Jews in a few favoured cities, notably Berlin, should not mislead us. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars the great bulk of Ashkenazi Jews remained unintegrated in gentile society, in Germany as much as in Holland or the Habsburg Empire, except – a very recent development – administratively, as subjects with civil surnames. Even top families had some way to go: Marx’s mother never felt entirely at home in High German, and the first two generations of Rothschilds corresponded with one another in Judendeutsch in the Hebrew script.

Are you seriously trying to claim that Hobsbawm is not referring to Marx and the rest as being Jews? If he's not, then what on earth does this passage mean? Why is he putting those names out there? Who are the "top families" he's referring to? Why is Marx's family juxtaposed with the Rothschilds? john k (talk) 06:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

The real question here, at any rate, is one of interpretation, not fact. (We all agree, I assume, that Marx was an atheist who had been baptized as a Lutheran, but whose family background was Jewish, right?) The question is: "Is it appropriate to categorize someone as a Jew who was not of the Jewish faith, but was ethnically Jewish?" So far as I can tell, Wikipedia's answer to this question has generally been to include these people in categories for Jews - not only Marx, but also Hobsbawm's examples of Benjamin Disraeli, Felix Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, and David Ricardo all have Jewish categories. So also the many atheistic Jewish socialists of the early twentieth century - Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Julius Martov, Eduard Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg, Maxim Litvinov, etc. And that's basically just whoever I could think of off the top of my head. Including Marx in a category as a Jew because of his family ancestry is entirely in line with what we do for other articles. john k (talk) 06:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You said that Hobsbawn called Marx a Jew, which he did not. I suppose one could infer that that was what Hobsbawn meant, if one assumes that Hobsbawn believes that people with Jewish ancestry are Jews. The Myth of the Jewish Race is one example explaining the view that modern people do not consider the Jews a race.[4] TFD (talk) 06:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

A race and an ethnicity are not the same thing. Denying that the Jews are an ethnicity would be and is absurd. And I still don't understand your problem with Hobsbawm. His mention of "the prominence of certain names" obviously means "the prominence of certain names of famous Jews." His mention of "top families" obviously, in context, means "top Jewish families." He doesn't say explicitly "Marx was a Jew," but that's a ridiculous standard to demand. john k (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

In the article of another figure as subversive and controversial to his times, Baruch Spinoza, he is described as "Dutch Jewish" and in the introduction his name is even given in Hebrew. Understandably, some Jews today, especially those who are more to the right, want nothing to do with Marx, or his legacy and would prefer to erase the association from history, but to fob him off on the Germans and claim Jewishness is not also ethnic is dishonest and bad-faith. Rí Lughaid (talk) 05:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

A useful source on Karl Marx's family background is Saul K. Padover, Karl Marx: An intimate biography. (I have only the abridged version of it handy here). Marx's father Heinrich (Heschel) Marx, a lawyer, was Jewish, and descended from a line of Rabbi's. One or two years before Karl was born, his father had himself baptized as a christian. It came about, because on 4 May 1816, the Prussian Minister of Justice had issued a ruling which excluded Jews from the practice of law. Heschel was then faced with the choice of either abandoning his profession, or giving up Judaism as his faith, and he opted for the latter (you have to remember here, that Jews were more or less pariahs in Germany up to that time; they were mostly barred from owning land, from many professions, and from merchant's guilds, although they could lend and advance money). His wife, Karl's mother Henriette Presburg, was Dutch-Jewish (her father was a businessman), and in fact Heinrich and Henriette were married in a civil ceremony on 22 November 1814 in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. Neither of Karl's parents seem to have been particularly devout believers, or regularly attended the synagogue; they were liberals, and in fact Heinrich/Heschel took his inspiration from Voltaire and Rousseau. So the long and the short of it is that Karl Marx was very definitely of Jewish origin, although the family weren't "practising Judaists". Marx never denied this, but after he had written his piece on the Jewish Question, he put the matter behind him, and rarely commented on it again. If Jews rejected Marx, that was more because Marx advocated universal human emancipation, not specifically Jewish emancipation - the obsession with Jewish identity was alien to Marx's thinking, as he made quite clear User:Jurriaan 9 March 2012 0:11 (UTC)

The facts themselves are not in dispute here. I don't think anyone disagrees on Marx's family background; the question at issue is whether we describe him as a Jew in the text and categories. The relevant criteria here are how reliable sources describe him, and what Wikipedia policy says. RolandR (talk) 00:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Is "surplus value" or "organic composition of capital" a Jewish category? This seems rather implausible. Marx's scientific concerns were, well, scientific, not Jewish, surely. It may be that particular characteristics of his style were Jewish, or influenced by things Jewish, but that is just to say that everyone has his own personal ideosyncrasies. I fail to see what the exact bone of contention is here. As an adult, Marx never identified or presented himself as a Jew, but simply as a man, a researcher, a revolutionist. It is certainly true that Jewish thinkers often exhibit a distinctive approach to problems of human liberation, but Marx himself never regarded his approach as specifically or uniquely Jewish. If his approach is regarded as quintessentially Jewish, that is an interpretation by latter-day scholars, but probably not one that Marx himself as a humanist would have accepted. I think it would therefore be wrong to simply define Marx as a specifically Jewish philosopher or some such thing, but if there are such interpretations they could be stated and sourced. Even so, I fail to see so far what hinges on this issue. User:Jurriaan 9 March 2012 2:28 (UTC)

The Ref. 12 was directly stating he was an atheist. nothing to be discussed.HasperHunter (talk) 15:27, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

You can't simply steamroll over a complex question like this; other sources describe him as a Jew, or a German Jew. Being an atheist and being Jewish are not mutually exclusive. I'm restoring the deletion of the categories; categories don't constitute arguments in and of themselves, but they do put the article in various relevant places where people can find it, and it's not controversial to say that Marx is often considered German-Jewish, whatever exactly that may mean. Sindinero (talk) 15:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The point is that Marx was ethnically Jewish, not that he was religiously Jewish or that he was influenced by Jewish thought. john k (talk) 16:43, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not super-interested in this discussion as such, but it does seem that we need to differentiate between how we treat the categories and how we treat the article text proper. In my opinion, the categories can be a little more capacious and flexible, since they are just a way of usefully sorting articles for others to find. If any RSs describe Marx as Jewish, that's enough for category inclusion as far as I'm concerned. He'd obviously still be in all the "German" categories as well. (Look at Emma Goldman for example, which is a featured article. She'd in several of the Jewish categories although she was also explicitly an atheist). The article text (and especially the lead) is different, and should IMO be held to a more rigorous standard. The point is that, for category inclusion, we simply don't need to get to the bottom of Marx's purported jewishness or relationship to Judaism; they're heuristic devises. I would fully support reincluding Marx in the Jewish categories. Sindinero (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Removal of critical material from the lead, again

The following sentence ("However, some specific predictions made by Marx have been shown to be unlikely, and he has lost some influence following the revolutions of 1989.") was removed from the lead by HasperHunter. The excuse for its removal this time was, "citation information mismatch & info related to communist countries not marx himself". The first half of that edit summary "citation information mismatch" is unintelligible to me. I suppose it might mean that the information contradicts other information in the article. I see no such problem. The other half ("information related to communist countries not marx himself") is also unclear in meaning. I can understand why some editors might not want a single sentence mentioning the fact that Marx has been criticized in any way or lost influence since 1989 in the lead, but I cannot understand how that position can be justified in terms of WP:NPOV. This is Wikipedia, not Marxipedia. If HasperHunter or other editors see a problem with the criticism in the lead at the moment, the appropriate thing for them to do would be to improve it, not to remove it. Removing it completely, without replacement, is just pro-Marxist POV pushing. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 22:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I am far, far, far from being a pro-Marxist pusher, but do have a query re "some specific predictions made by Marx have been shown to be unlikely". How do we know? WP:CRYSTAL? Moriori (talk) 22:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

PoC, given your personal attack here, and given the fact that you seem to be edit-warring rather than discussing the matter properly, I have nothing to say beyond suggesting you read WP:WEASEL, WP:LEDE and WP:SYNTHESIS. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:48, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the personal attack issues, I'd simply like to point out that any editor who removes all criticism of Marx from the lead of the article about Karl Marx - one of the most criticized men in history - should be aware that their behavior is likely to be seen as POV-pushing. Why deny this? It looks like a pro-Marxist political act, so why be surprised if someone suggests that that could be the motive? I honestly wasn't trying to make a personal attack. As for the edit warring, yeah, you're right about that. I shouldn't have reverted you so quickly, should have given time for discussion, etc. But the reason you gave for reverting me was frankly ridiculous, so there is a temptation to revert, and I gave in. I am not moved by your suggestion that, somehow, the content you removed violates WP:WEASEL, WP:LEDE and WP:SYNTHESIS. That just looks like an excuse for getting rid of something you don't like. If you think the content in question violates those policies, it's your responsibility to explain how. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 23:00, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

So your response to me complaining about a personal attack is to deny making one, and then carry on doing it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I apologize if you took my comments for a personal attack. They were not meant that way. Could we now discuss content issues, please? HasperHunter has removed the material yet again, with the comment, "Never lost influence when he was alive, influence of socialism is lost not his. illogical sentence." But obviously the material did not suggest that Marx lost influence when he was alive - rather, it points out that Marx has lost influence subsequently. It's just meaningless and preposterous to say that the "influence of socialism is lost, not his" - socialism's influence is connected deeply with that of Marx, since he was one of the main influences on socialism. Marx never had any influence that wasn't related to socialism, and wouldn't have wanted any. I'm sorry, but the material that was removed is not "illogical" in any way, and all I'm seeing here is a series of ridiculous excuses for getting rid of it. Again, I have to ask why users are removing all mention of the fact that Marx has been criticized from the lead, without any replacement. I could understand if someone wanted to replace the criticism with something better, but removing it without replacement is simple POV pushing. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 23:25, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Apology accepted. Back on topic, the lede previously ended "Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history". This was cited, is easliy verifiable, and is a statement of fact. You added "However, some specific predictions made by Marx have been shown to be unlikely, and he has lost some influence following the revolutions of 1989". As Moriori has already pointed out this seems to be crystal-ball gazing, though I'm not sure it makes sense anyway: Marx predicted lots of things, that he got some wrong (or at least not right yet) may or may not be significant (and it isn't exactly obvious what is 'unlikely' - the wording is poor). It is basically a non-sequitur, as the strange 'however' seems to suggest. the remaining half of the sentence then heads vaguely back on point, but seems to be sourced to an article solely concerning the influence of Maxism on Polish sociology and as such it is clearly synthesis (at best) to take this as a general assertion of fact. Maybe the fact that Marx has been heavily criticised needs to be made clear in the lede, but this isn't the way to do it: the lede should summarise the article, not introduce new material that is never discussed again. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:29, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I certainly support the POV tag for now. I'll take a look at this and come up with a view over the next few days. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:33, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I didn't criticize or disagree with the statement that "Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history." The complaint that the statement that "some specific predictions made by Marx have been shown to be unlikely" is crystal-ball gazing is an irrelevance. It's there in the reliable sources the article is based upon, and is in accord with WP:VERIFY. If there were really a problem with that sentence, then it would have to be removed from the "Debate over predictions and theories" section as well as from the lead, but no one has done so. I fail to see how that part of the sentence is either a "non-sequitur" or off the point, as you claim. Your suggestion that the fact that some of Marx's predictions were wrong may not be "significant" is preposterous. You say that "Maybe the fact that Marx has been heavily criticised needs to be made clear in the lede". There is no "maybe" about it. Of course it should, and it's outrageous to suggest otherwise. There is vast criticism of Marx in reliable sources, and the article and lead should reflect that, per WP:NPOV. I have to ask, regarding your point that "the lede should summarise the article, not introduce new material that is never discussed again", whether you have even read the article carefully. The part about some predictions of Marx's being shown to be unlikely does summarize material in the article, specifically the "Debate over predictions and theories" section. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 00:11, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, if you or other users have a problem with the vagueness of the suggestion that "some specific predictions made by Marx have been shown to be unlikely", then may I suggest that the appropriate solution is to add more material to explain the issues in slightly greater detail? A single sentence mentioning criticism of Marx is only the absolute bare minimum that WP:NPOV and WP:LEAD would demand; there should probably be slightly more than that. Working towards that goal is what you should have done, not removing all criticism from the lead, as if to suggest that no one ever criticized Marx, that he is universally held to be perfect, represents the current mainstream of thinking about economic and political issues, or whatever. You do have a point that it's problematic that the second half of the removed sentence was sourced to an article solely concerning the influence of Maxism on Polish sociology, but that does not in any way justify removing the first half. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 00:25, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• comment, I think it would make sense to mention that Marxism has been controversial since its beginnings and that with the fall of the communist regimes in Asia and Europe Marxism as an ideology has lost political influence. It makes no sense to taslk about "predictions" as if he were either a prophet or a sicentist - he wasn't he was a politician, and political theories are not disproven they just fall out of favor.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:54, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• • If reliable sources say Marx made predictions, so should the article and the lead, per WP:VERIFY and WP:NPOV. Likewise, if they say that some of those predictions have been shown to be unlikely, the article and the lead should say that too. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 01:06, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

That is not the case, no. Reliable sources say lots of stupid things it is up to editors to make a decision about what to include.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Where, exactly, does policy say that? Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 01:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• sigh*. Where exactly does policy say that any statement in any reliable source cannot be removed if there is a consensus to do so?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:15, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

If you read what I wrote carefully, you'll see that nowhere did I say that something in a reliable source cannot be removed from an article. Rather, I said that articles should reflect what is in reliable sources. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 01:19, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

If that is your argument then you should present evidence that a majority of reliable source say that the reason "Marx lost influence" was because his predictions failed.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:24, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

The article says, in the section on "Totalitarianism", that "...the undue focus on the Marxist thought in the former Eastern Bloc, often forbidding social science arguments from outside the Marxist perspective, led to a backlash against Marxism after the revolutions of 1989. In one example, references to Marx drastically decreased in Polish sociology after the fall of the revolutionary socialist governments, and two major research institutions which advocated the Marxist approach to sociology were closed." If that information is reliably sourced, then per WP:LEAD, there's no problem summarizing it in the lead, indeed, that's exactly what should be done, since the lead should be a summary of the article. If the information is not reliably sourced, then that's a problem for the main body of the article. Have you any thoughts on that? Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 01:31, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Notice how beautifully that passage keeps "Marxist thought" and "references to Marx" apart? That is one source about the particular Polish context - it is obviiously undue weight to cite that in the lead. For something to be included in the view it should be a most general statement, not about how he wasn't cited nearly as much in Poland as he used to be. That source also says nothing about predictions, or about the general trend in the post-1989 world. It can't be that difficult to find a tertiary source that reviews the secondary literature and states this as a general fact. It is obviously true that Maxist thought lost influence all over the world around 1989 and that references to Marx therefore declined. Now lets find it in a good tertiary source.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:44, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I've already agreed that a better source should be found for Marx's loss of influence after 1989. I wouldn't restore the material until a better source is available. In my view, however, there is no justification for removing mention of the fact that some of Marx's predictions have been shown to be unlikely from the lead. On the contrary, the material should be expanded. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 01:47, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Well what is the source saying that it has been shown that some of his predictions were unlikely? What is the source that he made predictions?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem with the sentence is that it contains several propositions: 1. Marx made predictions. 2. they were shown to be unlikely. 3. therefore he lost influence. I think we can all agree that he lost influence - I don't agree that this is commonly attributed to propositions 1 and 2.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:52, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

You can easily determine what the source is by looking carefully at the revision history of the article - or indeed the article itself. See the "Debate over predictions and theories" section. Also, the sentence wasn't really trying to draw the inference you describe. The predictions part and the loss of influence part were separate statements, and sourced to different sources. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 01:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok, done. For the record I also do agree that he did make predictions - about what would happen if his politics were implemented in particular ways. The source says that his theories can be tested as if they were scientific theories. I don't see where the source say they were falisified. And it particularly doesn't source make the inference between the falsification of his predictions to the decline in their popularity (that you also didn't mean to make but actually did in that sentence). I think it is much more relevant to look at the place where it says that for much of the twentieth century his thought was used to promote dogmatism, inteolerance and a dangerous strain of utopianism in which radical ends were thought to justify any ghastly means to achieve them. That in my humble opinion is why Marxist thought lost influence.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to be absolutely clear about it, again, the point of the sentence "However, some specific predictions made by Marx have been shown to be unlikely, and he has lost some influence following the revolutions of 1989" was not to suggest that Marx has lost influence following the revolutions of 1989 because some specific predictions he made have been shown to be unlikely. It was to make two separate statements, A) that some of his specific predictions have been shown to be unlikely and B) that he has lost influence following the revolutions of 1989. I was not trying to base B) on A). Whatever problems there may be with B), such as the need for a better source, A) still belongs in the lead. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 02:14, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "some specific predictions made by Marx have been shown to be unlikely" I can't fathom why this should be included. We may have ref/s for someone saying that, but the crux of the statement is unknowable unless someone has a powereful crystal ball. Look, Isaac Newton was the god of science, but Einstein overturned his theory of gravity. Not only do we not say that in the lede of the Newton article, but also we don't include that anywhere at all in the Newton article.Moriori (talk) 03:13, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment. I'd support removing the POV template. Not every figure needs "criticism" included in the lead to uphold an abstract notion of balance. Look at Ronald Reagan, for example. It's a featured article, there's no criticism in the lead. And if anyone deserves it... Also, from what I've seen, critical interest in Marx has actually surged in the last decade or so, rather than waned. And finally, the muddling of Marx's writings and the policies of Eastern European states is just bad scholarship. There wasn't very much about the way those states operated that can be attributed to Marx's body of work, rather than to Marxist-Leninism and Stalinism as more general traditions. Sindinero (talk) 07:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• • Thank you for at least having the courage to state openly that you do not think that the lead of the article should mention criticism of Marx in any way. Your comment is, of course, utterly preposterous. WP:NPOV obviously demands that an article about someone who has been criticized as much as Marx has been should reflect that criticism in its lead. Mentioning random biographical articles that do not include criticism proves absolutely nothing, of course - perhaps the Reagan article has changed since it was granted featured article status? Remarks such as "critical interest in Marx has actually surged in the last decade or so, rather than waned" and "muddling of Marx's writings and the policies of Eastern European states is just bad scholarship" are POV nonsense. That there is "interest" in Marx does not negate the criticisms that have been made of his work, and the idea that Marx shares no responsibility for totalitarianism in eastern Europe is pure political fantasy. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 07:40, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Crikey, you're a charming one. I didn't say that I think that the lead should categorically be free of criticism; what I said was that there is no mandate to include token criticism in the lead to uphold an abstract notion of balance. The sentence you want to introduce is weak for all the reasons others have mentioned above. "lost some influence" is terribly vague; that's what I was addressing when I mentioned the critical interest.

The attempt to burden Marx with the legacy of state socialism is an old kneejerk anticommunist tactic, and is not good scholarship, period. Where in Kapital, or anywhere else in the works, does he lay out the guidelines for future authoritarian states? His work is mostly about capitalism. Besides this, holding thinkers of political economy responsible for any implications of their work is certainly not an original move on your part, but it's still sloppy. Is Adam Smith to "share in the responsibility" for the failings of western states?

I'm all for criticizing Marx - I think the article could use more discussion of contemporary criticisms of him by anarchist figures like Bakunin and Kropotkin, for example. But the same old hackneyed McCarthyite anticommunist standards don't cut it, least of all for the lead. Questions of the modifications, adaptations, critiques, influence, interest, and responsibility of a given thinker are really difficult ones, and to lump them all together under a vague amorphous idea of "influence" (which entails guilt) evinces a naive view of the way that political theory, not to mention discourse more generally, actually functions. Many critical intellectuals in the east actually used Marx against Marx, taking up the tradition of critical Marxism (represented by the late publication of the 1844 manuscripts and by unorthodox thinkers like Bloch) against the state's orthodox Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism. See David Bathrick's excellent study on East Germany, The Powers of Speech, if you're interested in learning more about this.

Sindinero (talk) 08:12, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I've stated several times that I'm happy to consider alternative proposals for how the lead should discuss criticism of Marx. Nobody appears to particularly like the sentence that was removed, so we will have to use something else instead - that's fine. But I can't take the suggestion that the lead simply shouldn't mention criticism of Marx at all seriously. WP:NPOV and WP:LEAD obviously require that it do so, and your comments don't appear to address this. You apparently want to keep certain criticisms of Marx out of the lead because you don't agree with them. That's simply not how Wikipedia is supposed to work, so forgive my grumpy response. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 20:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

• I think it makes sense to include criticism, especially because even those who see themselves in the Marxist tradition usually are critical of different aspects of Marx' original thought. I think Marx is such a polarizing figure that including criticism in the lead is really necessary. I do agree that is is a tough job to decide how to word it, and which elements of criticism to include - but I think this would have to depend on looking in tertiary sources and see how they handle it.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:15, 15 March 2012 (UTC)