Talk:Marxism/Archive 1

message: "No other idea so enchanted the 20th century as Marxism. To this day, one often comes across assertions that Marxism retains value as an 'analytic tool' — the use of which does not necessarily make one a Marxist. The first person to make this distinction was, of course, Karl Marx himself, who famously forswore 'Marxism,' an appellation coined by his detractors. Marx's collaborator, Friedrich Engels, however, embraced the term, building a powerful cult around it, in which he was the high priest and Marx the oracle."
"[Engels] and Marx, a pair of 20-something children of privilege, believed they had discovered a pattern to history that would produce socialism regardless of human will or ingenuity. In short, they substituted prophecy for experimentation and thereby claimed to have elevated socialism from the plane of utopia to that of science."
"But after a century of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, surely we have learned that far from constituting a leap 'from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom,' as Marx put it, revolution has more often been a leap into a bottomless abyss of human suffering."
:—Joshua Muravchik, writing on "Marxism," in the November/December issue of Foreign Policy 
Modern conflict theory does not rely on just economic and brute force explanations. Particularly since the Chicago School's emphasis on interpersonal   communication in the 1930s, conflict theory has become more and more aware of non-force, non-economic strategies used to further advantage. Actually, my "old school" correction is an over-simplification. The key concept in understanding most conflict theory explanations is idealogy - and this was something that Marx himself wrote on at great length in the mid-18th Century. Tannin
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Jus' goes to show - if you're not offending somebody, you're not in politics. Marxism as a method is not vulnerable to empirical disproofs (in fact, this is the main claim of one of the most serious objections to it - see Karl Popper and Falsifiability). While I'm here, has anyone noticed that the Duke University link is a dud? I've found a Google cache for that page, but the nested address confuses the hell out of the wiki linking protocols ( ). Any suggestions? Adhib
On second thoughts, I've now read the article. It appears to be ill-informed and confused, and the cache misses-out on the one potentially interesting element - the equations. Perhaps best to drop the whole thing? --Adhib
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The article mentions several times that various revolutionary movements (e.g. the Russian Revolution) were inspired by Marxism. This is of course broadly true, but it might be good to contrast Marxism with Marxism-Leninism, which is a more accurate description of the ideology of a lot of Communist states. For example the idea that the working classes could not bring about a revolution by themselves, but had to be directed by an intellectual elite is clearly a possible explanation for the authoritarian and generally repulsive nature of many Communist states, and it is not one of the docterines of Marx's Marxism. In addition, Marx believed (I think) that a successful revolution required as a prerequisite an advanced industrial society, which Russia had not yet become at the time of the revolution; Lenin believed that it was not necessary to wait for advanced industrialization. Hence there are important differences between pure Marxism and the ideologies of many Communist states. I don't want to wade in and start editing, because I expect there'll be a lot of different opinions on this... —Cadr
: No comments on this? Cadr
::What you right seems very reasonable. Slrubenstein
:::Not only very reasonable but very accurate! Marx did in fact say that communism would come about by the majority of the (working-class) people being invovled in a revolution, and although some of his writings on socialism (yes this is very different to communism in Marx's writing) do talk about a smaller group of people making the change on behalf of and representative of the mass population, the way that most socialist/communist revolutions occurred had no direct link to Marx's work. Furthermore Marx definitely beleived that   'successful revolution required as a prerequisite an advanced industrial society'  because he mentions it quite a number of times throughout his work. So yes - very good point! JenLouise 04:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Marxist abyss 

message: The material about the "Hegelian roots" of Marx was in need of some serious beefing up. I've done a little bit of it today. The earlier draft said only that Hegel was an idealist who studied history and Marx was a materialist who also studied history! One might as well use the same line to describe the "Platonic roots of Aristotle", and one would be as superficial as a television sitcom in either case. 
I'd tried to do better, at least introducing the word "dialectic" and the notion of world-historical figures such as Napoleon as symptoms rather than causes. 
I also tried to draw some NPOV connections between the Hegelian roots of Marx and some of the havoc that has been wrought in Marx's name. This is not a matter of "blaming" Marx -- or even Hegel -- for that havoc, or otherwise making a POV judgment, but it is a matter of providing some of the accurate historical materials which an encyclopedia is supposed to incorporate. Mihnea has deleted that part of my effort twice today (leaving the stuff about Napoleon untouched) so I'm going to leave it be for now.
But here, for those who may wish to comment on the matter and help me with the beefing-up of this section, is the now-deleted passage: 
The adoption of Marxist slogans by certain mass murderers has been something other than an unfortunate accident -- it has likely been facilitated by certain features of Marx's original statements. Insofar as Marx was, and always remained, a Hegelian, he retained the Hegelian notion that certain historical forces are on the right side of history, and that opposition to those progressive forces is objectively and scientifically regressive. This is a point of view that can well lead to ruthlessness toward those who represent a now-disgarded thesis or antithesis, in the forward dialectical march. The losers of a political struggle don't pass into a tolerated opposition status, when they are regarded as having been consigned by history itself to a dustbin. Leon Trotsky employed the "dustbin" image, and in time was himself consigned thereto.
::Would be nice if you had signed your contribution. In any case, I think your comment is correct. It might be necessary to refer to the criticism of Arendt and Popper in this regard, who consider the very essence of Marxism to be a main cause of the totalitarian nature of those governments and regimes who took their inspiration from Marx. The last paragprah of your comment pretty much sums this up, and i suspect you have read Arendt and Popper:) Dietwald 17:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoever wrote this hasn't read much of the literature about Marxian economics, which recognizes wide differences between the exchange value incorporated in products and the price of commodities on the market.  And he/she is confusing subjective value and objective value, and not realizing that in the begining of Capital Marx is operating at a very high level of abstraction, as most economic theory does, which is different from the level at which the prices of specific commodities are determined.  An excellent introduction to understanding this fully is the beginning of Paul Sweezy's Theory of Capitalist Development.  Without understanding this point about abstraction, it's hard to understand much about Marxian economics, regardless of whether the latter is valid or invalid.  Jeremy J. Shapiro 21:13, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  A)  What are your consumers consuming if not commodities?  In a capitalist economy, that is what consumption consists of:  consuming commodities (which of course include services produced by labor for the market).  B) The fact that a science or intellectual discipline uses abstractions does not mean that it's "further removed from reality".  We use abstractions to understand reality.  For example, we use the abstraction of objects falling or moving in a vacuum, which we never see, to understand how objects fall in the non-vacua around us.  In economics we use the abstraction of a pure market situation to understand certain aspects of economic transactions and behavior, even though there is rarely such a thing as a pure market situation, and so on. Jeremy J. Shapiro 15:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't understand this paragraph.  Even capitalist economists consider labor a commodity that is bought and sold on the labor "market".  Max Weber and Karl Polanyi, both anti-Marxists, consider the labor market and the commodification of labor to be the principal attribute of capitalism.  What does the author of the paragraph mean by "by its very nature" and by "a laborer being able to differentiate his/her labor."  I don't think that many of the food runners and supermarket employees in the city where I live have any noticeable ability to "differentiate" their labor.  Jeremy J. Shapiro 21:13, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that labor is diffentiated through skill and training is a core part of Marx's point:  that labor is a commodity that is produced like any other commodity and whose value, like other commodities, is determined largely by the amount of labor that goes into producing it (training, education, etc.).  The differentiation of labor and the different value attached to different aspects of the commodity called labor is treated in a number of places in Marx's Capital (see, for example, vol. 1 chapter 14).  To go to college and get a degree COST MONEY.  A labor cannot "differentiate" him/herself if he can't afford it, as most people in our society can't or don't, and even if he/she does, this will produce a difference in their value only if they can SELL their labor on the labor market, i.e. if they function as a commodity.  And if their jobs are outsourced to other countries, as they may be because capitalists KNOW that labor as a commodity and therefore rationally try to buy it where it is cheaper, their self-differentiation will have no impact on their value or income, as many people in American society are experiencing. Jeremy J. Shapiro 15:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Hegelian Roots

message: I changed the part that read "revolutionary movements" which is not an article or even a stub yet, to, "revolutionary social movements" because social movements covers revolutionary movements in that article.  Any objections, please notify. Capone 05:12, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slight Change 

message: Since Marx's death in 1883, various groups around the world have appealed to Marxism as the intellectual basis for their politics and policies, which can be dramatically different and conflicting. One of the first major splits occurred between the advocates of social democracy, who argued that the transition to socialism could occur within a democratic framework, and communists, who argued that the transition to a socialist society required a revolution. 
The way the split is dealt with here is misleading. It indicates that the 'communist' faction at the time of this split did not believe in democracy. More precisely the dispute was over reform or revolution.
:I do not think these two views are mutually exclusive. Slrubenstein 18:41, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good content.  Can you just add it to the article, in a succinct and NPOV way? Slrubenstein 18:41, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical Inaccuracy 

message: This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view.  In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  announcing a policy proposal of general interest to the community 

message: If this were the "Communism" page, I would have no objection to Trey's cuts since communism refers to something larger (more inclusive) than Marxism.  But since this is the "Marxism" page, I think Trey's cuts are wrong.  Perhaps what 172 wrote can be edited or rephrased, but in a page called "Marxism" — with "Marx" right in the title — it is relevant, appropriate, and necessary, to discuss ways in which communist countries diverge from Marxism.  One caution to 172: please do not insert your own analysis.  Finde sources you can cite.  You know they are out there. Slrubenstein   |  Talk  00:20, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to note, I did not write any of the content in this article. I was merely reverting Trey Stone's additions. But I do agree with Trey Stone in that a great deal of the content that he removed was "original research." 172 01:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I'll have to take another look at it, but I recall Trey Stone removing the content stating that Marx called for 'democratic control of production,' which differed from what was seen in the Soviet Union. As it stands right now, it should be removed, and restated with the citations. That argument, of course, is quite widely accepted among Western Marxist academics, but some stand out for driving that point home. In relatively recent literature, an interesting exponent of that thesis is Sydney Hook. Another is Michael Harrington. Both will probably be the best known among well read non-Marx specialists. They've never had to much to draw on, given the very limited amount of attention Marx paid to the state in Capital, but Marx's early work and articles like the Eighteenth Brumaire and the Civil War in France have stood out in their work. IMO I see some evidence for their argument, though with not much understanding on how he envisaged democratic control, particularly in "The Civil War in France." An excerpt that stands, e.g., is: From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment. 172 09:45, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, if you're interested in salvaging this point, let me know, and I'll post a footnote. 172 09:48, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  172 vs. Trey 

message: From the article:
"The death of "Marxism" in China has been prematurely announced but since the Hong Kong handover in 1997, the Beijing leadership has clearly retained final, Leninist, say over both commercial and political affairs. A sort of tacit consent, and a desire in China's case to escape the chaos of pre-1949 memory, probably plays a role."
Can anybody really stand up and say that today's Chinese government practices Marxist policies? That they exercise complete control over all political affairs is unquestioned but they have deviated from Marx's teachings to the degree that the party can no longer even be considered socialist. What's more it is widely accepted internationally, even amongst selfproclaimed Maoists, that China no longer subscribes to these policies.
Of course the term Leninist here could well be used to describe the party structure which is all well and good but leaves one question - what is it doing in an article on Marxism? I'll remove the paragraph if no one has any objections.
GreatGodOm 15:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not up for us to decide this matter. The CPC declares itself a Marxist party and has its own stated reasons as to why this is the case, which we have to recognize in this article, but not necessarily buy into personally. 172 | Talk 15:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And if they claim to have resurrected Marx and used him to invade Taiwan? I have no problem with references to Maoism, China's Marxist past or its legacy but describing the Party's policies as Marxist is a falsity. GreatGodOm 16:03, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One could make that argument, but it is not false to state that the CPC declares its policies Marxist and state how it makes this argument. 172 | Talk 16:09, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  China is Marxist? 

message: Shouldn't something be said about Marx drawing on Lewis H. Morgan and his social evolution theory? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps.  It did influence some of what he wrote in the Grundrisse.  I believe it had a greater inpact on Engels, as is evident in Origins of Family Private Property and the State. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 16:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Omission of Lewis Morgan 

message: Maybe I am simply not seeing it, but should not Historical Materialism be discussed as probably the main idea of Marxism? It's the unifying concept of Marxist ideas, and it is this that differentiates it from socialist conceptions in general. 
This article makes Marxism seem too much like simply another version of socialist thought, and i think this is both an injustice to Marx, as well as misleading. It is probably impossible to understand why Marxism is so special as an idea without a detailed discussion of Historical Materialism. What are your thoughts? Dietwald 17:41, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Historcial Materialism

message: .... is not mentioned anywhere on the page.  I just followed the link curious to see what the diffrence between the term Unreconstructed Marxism and Marxism was.  The redirect and subsequent lack of mention on the page implies that they are equvilent.  Is this the case? Dalf | Talk 07:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It should not redirect here. An unrecontructed Marxist is in fact a Marxist, but there's a very key difference: To be unreconstructed means that you don't accomodate yourself to social and economic changes. When applied to Marxism, it generally refers to a Marxist who doesn't believe the Cold War was lost. 70.48.111.76 14:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreconstructed Marxism redirects here and is linked to form a featured article but .... 

message: The criticism of Popper is presented a little simplistically. Bascially, Popper has shown that Marxism once was a scientific idea until historical events contradicted it. Since then, holding on to Marxism has become unscientific. I'll include this into the discussion soon with appropriate references to Popper's writings.
Dietwald 13:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Popper

message: It depends on how you define communism. If you mean Marxis-Leninist communism, then I can name two countries that, while they haven't  reached full on communism yet, are well on their way. Venezuela and Cuba. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but as far as the US goes, all we're ever told is how terrible Castro and Chavez are. Well, have youever been to Cuba? To Venezuela? If you had, you'd see that it is very hard to find people who do not emphatically support their country's leader. And why wouldn't they? Do you ever hear about the heath care system in Cuba, or how when the US wanted to examine Venezuela's prison sytem, Chavez said that would be fine provided the US allowed an investigation of US prisons such as Abu Ghraib, the US immediately backed off.
If you mean any type of communistic living, then I can point to many times in history where man has experienced peaceful, communal living.
And, of course, Capitalism is completely free of corruption, right?
:Oh come now do you really want to defend Venezuela? According to the British magazine The Economist the murder rate in Caracas has tripled since Chavez has taken office and Transparency International ranks Venezuela high on their list of countries where government corruption has greatly increased. Trying to defend communism is one thing but using examples like the ones you brought forward are not helping your case. --Jayson Virissimo 08:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RE: The Perversion of Marxism 

message: Regarding the questions about the elimination of personal property, I is important to point out (and is absolutely NPOV) that Marx did not advocate the abolition of personal property, as has often been suggested when critiquing Marxism. Marx saw the accumulation of personal property to be inevitable. What Marxism certainly does advocate is the abolition of independent control of the means of production, the factories, farms and tools and facilities used for the production of goods by the labor force. Freddie deBoer 21:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marx and personal property 

message: I think you are the one that is confused. Marx clearly states "that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation." BOURGEOIS property. Does your house exploit your fellow man? Your clothes? 
Where did you get your information?
Socialism (though some socialists may disagree) is a stepping stone between capitalism and communism, a time in which the proletariat  must rise to power. A time of "from each according to his ability to each according to his DEEDS" before "from each according to his ability to each according to his NEEDS."
:How is capitalism "according to his DEEDS"? You think investors do anything?? -- infinity0 17:50, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, yes. Investors research companies and supply money for chosen companies to grow and/or get off the ground. If it wasn't real work I would have already made millions of dollars doing it believe you me! --Jayson Virissimo 07:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He didn't say that capitalism was like that. Cadr 18:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re: Re: Marx and personal property 

message: the post-marxism article was pointing to neo-communism, i split it out, but it will need much work to get it up to a basic level.   if people are interested, please contribute what you know, edit my starter drivel :), and help build that article too. --Buridan 13:03, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: post-marxism

message: I've been looking through the history and have noticed that there were a lot of vandalisms that weren't fixed.  Could someone fix them??!! Starhood` 21:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since what date? -- infinity0 21:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  vandalism 

message: Note to User:Vision_Thing. Here is some text from Wikipedia:Spam#How_not_to_be_a_spammer:
*Adding many links to (or mentions of) the same site or product. Going through an article and adding the name of your product to every paragraph where it seems relevant is just going to attract the revert button. 
*Adding the same link to many articles. The first person who notices you doing this will go through all your recent contributions with an itchy trigger finger on the revert button. And that's not very much fun.
Please show some sense of proportion and please stop spamming this and other pages with multiple links to mises.org material.--Cberlet 12:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Five is hardly "many". Also, all links are relevant to the article, are form different authors and they can be found only on mises.org. -- Vision Thing -- 16:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are thousands of articles about Marxism on the web. One link from Mises.org is plenty, and some would say it is one link too many. --Cberlet 19:42, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Link spamming mises.org

message: This article needs a much better opening in my opinion. The opening paragraph should have a clean-cut definition of Marxism. It currently does not. If one wants just a general answer to "What is Marxism?", they have to do a lot of reading. --JOK3R 22:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs a better opening 

message: Dear friends!
I'm your colleague from Russian part of Wikipedia. I have a question but I can't find an answer :-). As for me, the base of history development explanation is formed by the statement that each socio-economic system has inherent contradictions that can't be solved within this system. And these contradictions are the main force that moves systems (you see that this statement coincides with Marx's conception of development). With capitalism everything is o'kay. If I'm right, these contradictions are the contradiction between social production and privat ownership, the contradiction between labour and capipital etc. But what about contadictions that move pre-economic society and modes of production within the economic epoch (slave-owning system, feudalism)? Asiatic mode of production? I can suppose, that they are surpluses of products (pre-economic epoch), contradiction across classes, but I'm not sure… Could you help me? Катерина Альт (Katerina Alt)
:I guess (no times to look for references just now to prove my claim) that for Marx, class contradictions only became central in capitalism. It seems to me that Marx, whom concentrated in particular on capitalism (and on some specific types of capitalism; he always payed attention to various, national, types - see comments at end of article on Russia's community property system end of 19th century), didn't have much time for analyzing other systems; but it does seems that the main contradiction remains, in all type of societies, between means of production and productive forces, doesn't it? This conception would follow from his materialism, and he had no time to complete it by closer analysis of feudal, Asian or "primitive" social formations. Santa Sangre 12:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Help

message: I suggest a new title to this section, as it makes it seem marxists and liberals are enemies. This isnt the case, just a simple re naming will do just fine. Zhukov 04:43, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Liberal Challenge"

message: This article is well thought out and well written, you must have used more then one source in writing it. Did you even read the communist manfesto or das kapital? Those are both sutible sources. Just more then one is needed. Zhukov 04:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More Sources

message: The introduction says  'He as a communist believed that a violent revolution would be the catalyst in the transformation from capitalism to socialism.'  Two points, firstly "as a communist" !!! what the hell! that's terribly POV for the introduction of this article. Secondly, violent is contraversial, and without any sources from Marx whatsoever definitely seems to be POV. I would like to delete both these bits from the sentence, leaving it as He believed that a revolution would be the catalyst in the transformation from capitalism to socialism, and if people want to talk about either they can add it in a section somewhere where it is accompanied by evidence. JenLouise 04:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing a sentence in the intro

message: This page is on Marxism, but if someone came to this page I don't think they would have any idea what marxism (as a theoretical framework or sociological/political persepctive or a way of analysing capitalism) actually is. 
*All the stuff on the Hegelian roots of Marxism is interesting but it doens't really tell us about Marxism. I think it would be better off on the Marxist philosophy page, does anyone else have thoughts on this?
*The section on the liberal challenge also does not belong here. I think it should be moved to Criticisms of Marxism.
*To me this article should look something like:
**Marx's marxism: Which basically details what Marx had to say about the mode of production, class and the relationship between the base and superstructure, etc. I have read the above thing about moving this stuff to Marx's page, but it should definitely feature in this article as the starting point for everything the came aftewrards. Even if its just a description of his key concepts rather than an analysis of his works. You can't understand marxism without knowing about the above stuff as well as class consciousness, ideology, transformation of labour to value, etc. etc. It should probably mention historical materialism, as a basic theoretical framework but then link to the historical materialism page for detail, and it shouldn't really need to go into political economy (especially as this is treated on the Karl Marx page) and but we can debate this.
**Marxism since Marx: Looking at how academics have used/stretched/distorted/expanded marxism while Marx was alive, after marx's death and in its revival, which could probably be just a summary of Western Marxism with a link to the Western Marxism page. This could include the revisionist marxism where academics tried to expand marxism to be able to counter some of the criticisms. It should probably look at humanist marxism strains, strucutral marxist strains and possibly touch on how the marxist roots of feminism.
**Neo-Marxism:  This doesn't need to be too indepth but should summarise and it could link to Neo-Marxism.
**Post-Marxism: The body of knowledge that has arisen recently which began with the basic tenets of Marxism but has moved away from the Mode of Production as the starting point for analysis and includes factors other than class, such as gender, ethnicity etc, and a reflexive relationship between the base and superstructure. This doesn't need to be too indepth but should summarise and then link to Post-Marxism.
*It could then go into the relationship between Marxism and socialism/communism, talking about marxism-leninism, how socialist/communist parties/governments proclaimed themselves as Marxist and look at what they took from marxism, but then analyse how they really aren't marxist in any sense because they don't actually follow any of Marx's ideas and precepts.
What do people think? If there's not much discussion about the first two points I'll probably move those bits early next week. I won't start a major rewrite of the article unless/until we can discuss the best way of doing it. JenLouise 23:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have moved the two sections, Hegelian roots of marxism and the Liberal Challenge as specified above. JenLouise 01:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello JenLouise! Please proceed cautiously on such obviously controversial pages. Not that your move is entirely unjustifiable, but you can't just delete whole sections of a page (I know you moved them, but each article is supposed to be autonomous per Wikipedia guiderules, so in effect, you deleted them from here). If you think they should be shortened and contents moved, all right, please see Wikipedia:Article size (and special part on long pages) and Wikipedia:Summary style. In other words, you removed content here that seems, IMO, necessary to the comprehension of Marxism, at least as much as the sections you decided to keep. If you consider repeating this edit, please either find time here on talk page to justify why these sections would be unappropriate, and why they should be at worse deleted, at best kept after a small copy-edit. Santa Sangre 12:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Santa Sangre, I did very quickly offer my reasons for a move and left it on the page for almost a week with no response, so went ahead and did it. (I said: All the stuff on the Hegelian roots of Marxism is interesting but it doens't really tell us about Marxism. I think it would be better off on the Marxist philosophy page, does anyone else have thoughts on this?) However since someone now does have an opinion on this I am more than happy to discuss it first, which is what I was trying to acheive originally. Basically I don't think these sections contribute anything to an understanding of Marxism. These sections are the Hegelian roots of Marx's works - and therefore perhaps should be on the Karl Marx page but Marxism as a body of knowledge and a framework for analysing society (particularly capitalist societies) has nothing to do with Hegel really at all, except in understanding what motivated Marx to begin writing. Therefore I think it has very little relevance at all. I have read both the links you provided but I don't think that this move falls under the category because I don't think the information should be here at all - it's not really about article length or anything. If you can explain to me why understanding the very long and convoluted Hegelian roots of Marx's work is important in understanding Marx, then I am more than happy to leave it here. But if it is the case that it is relevant then I definitely think that it is way out of proportion to the the relevant information in the article. I would think it should just be very short and sweet, such as Much of Marx's work developed in response to Hegel, blah blah, see Marxist Philosophy#Hegelian Roots. (Though at this stage I still don't beleive it should be here at all.) JenLouise 04:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Concerning your actual proposal for the article, if you're up for a rewrite along these lines, you are encouraged to do so. Good luck! However, please consider doing such a massive rewrite on a draft page (sandbox; see also Wikipedia:Subpages. We can then discuss the contents together, and eventually decide to substitute your new and more coherent version with the ancient one, or at least make some modification to the current one according to your proposals. If you're up for it, that may be very interesting and useful, as Wikipedia pages tend to lose coherence over time, and probably need some global rewrite from time to time — all of this respecting Wikipedia consensual procedures makes it a difficult move to do. Using summer times (in the North hemisphere at least!) to do this might be a good idea, as we have to cope with less overstressed students looking for distraction from the essay they should really be writing (instead of "losing time" on Wikipedia...) Cheers! Santa Sangre 12:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Trust me I had absolutley no intention of changing anything without massive consultation. My idea was to go away and write it completely in word so that I know it's coherent and makes sense, and then present it for discussion. (The sandbox is a good idea!) However I won't even begin to rewrite it until I have some feedback on what people think would be a good structure because I am not going to waste my time and effort if people then largely disagree with it once its done. With regards to timing, I'm from Australia and have my own uni work to concentrate on so I will just do bits and pieces as the time arises.JenLouise 04:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think any reference to Hegel should be removed from here. The young Marx's break with the Young Hegelians and German Idealism is fundamental, beside being famous. You may think about summing it up if you feel it's given undue space, but globally, it is important to know where Marx's philosophical background comes from and with what he brokes with. One is always born somewhere, and this applies even (more) to Marx (than to anybody else). The XIth thesis on Feuerbach on the necessity to transform the world, and not only to interpret it as had done previous (Idealist) philosophers, is one of Marx's most famous statement, and certainly is relevant. And how would you understand it if not as a break from previous Idealism? And, first of all, with the German Idealists and Hegel's phenomenology of the Spirit? Etc. etc. Santa Sangre 18:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I understand what both of you are saying but I guess I conceive of Marxism in a different way to you. I definitely agree with you that the influence on Marx's work, such as Hegel and Feuerbach etc, is very important in understanding Marx's work. However I believe that this information should therefore be on the page about Marx's work, which to me logically, would be Marx's page, ie. Karl Marx. This being a page on Marxism and not Marx, I strongly believe it shouldn't be here, and if it is, only in a very summarised form. In term's of "Marx's marxism", that was very poor phrasing, and it would not be the heading used, I was just trying to conceptualise the flow of the article, but it would be a section which examines those bits of Marx's work which had a large influence on the body of theory/practice which grew up and is now known as Marxism. I conceive of Marxism as being (but not limited too) all of the stuff I mentioned above, such as western marxism, marxism-leninism, etc - but of course the article would trace the development and divergence of all these areas from their original basis in Marx's work. That said alot of Marx's work would not appear on this page, for precisely the reason that Slrubenstein has said. Inconsistency can be found in much of Marx's work, especially between the Young Marx and later work, and so only that part of Marx which has obviously and directly contributed to Marxist theory would be on this page. All other work would be on Marx's page. JenLouise 23:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I've never come across very much reference to Hegel in marxist writing, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist! Do you know any specific references I can look up? It would help in writing a summarised version that can link to an expanded version in Karl Marx or Marxist philosophy Influences on Karl Marx. JenLouise 22:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree, I've just not had much to do with some of the people you mention, so perhaps we can work to expand the new article Influences on Karl Marx to explore the numerous ways that Marx was influenced by Hegel, Feuerbach, and the many others, and then summarise the salient points for the marixsm article. JenLouise 23:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major re-work needed of this page 

message: I am currently attempting a rewrite of the Marxism page, and am doing so through a sub-page of my user page User:JenLouise. I have created three pages, to help with this:
*The Marxism old page is simply to show what I propose to do with the current information in the article. (Whether it will go in the new article or be moved somewhere else.) 
*The Marxism proposed will be a prototype of the new article. This is for anyone to edit (but please leave detailed comments on the Marxism discussion page). 
*The Talk:Marxism proposed page is where everyone can discuss the proposed article. (Possibly some people will think that the content of this page should be here on Talk:Marxism but I imagine (and hope) that it is going to be very lengthy, and it would be troublesome to have to keep going back and forth between two separate pages. Perhaps once its done (or as sections get too long), it can be copied and archived onto this page? 
I really want to see the Marxism page be great, but I can't do that all on my own, so please come and check out the proposed article and add your thoughts and suggestions! JenLouise 00:01, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Created prototype of proposed new article 

message: I have created a new page Influences on Karl Marx, synthesising some of the material from the Karl Marx page and this one. Alot of it (expecially the french socialist influences, and the direct influences by Adam Smith and David Riccardo - as opposed to political eonomy in general) is still quite bare. Would be great for people to flesh it out a bit. JenLouise 06:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New page: [[Influences on Karl Marx]] 

message: From the entry:
:Instead, Marx would have described such self-proclaimed "socialist" states as the Soviet 
:Union or China as workers' states, a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism.
This seems to border on the clairvoyant. Who says he would have described the USSR and China that way, anyway? Besides my own personal disagreement, this speculation just seems extraneous; if the point is to analyze the USSR, etc. in the Marxism entry, we could include Marxist analyses, and not attribute things to Marx that don't belong to him. --Dialecticas 03:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely.  We should eliminate anything like this, and if possible replace it with verifiable sources.  Slrubenstein   |  Talk 18:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV Mind-reading?