Talk:Marxism

Marxist

Why must every article be biased? This was not written by wikipedians as it seems, but by narrow minded marxist who wish to spread their philosophy through an article. How about removing this "marxism is great" style.--207.68.234.177 (talk) 22:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Classical Marxism §

Too much quoting. That whole section seems more like a portion of a persuasive essay than an encyclopedia entry. It needs editing. One option is to leave the first two sentences, which seem objective to me, and then remove the rest and add a "for more information see [link to classical marxism]. --AstoVidatu 18:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

We need citations, so perhaps this material could be simplified and merged with the paragraphs above, which begin "Nevertheless, there have been numerous debates among Marxists over how to interpret Marx's writings and how to apply his concepts to current events and conditions". Make the well known and importnat point that Marx dissociated himself with various interpretations of his writings even in his day, with at least one or two quotes.

But then what about moving the historical materialism material at the top, German Ideology precis down to the classical marxism section, making a subsection - 'overview of Marxist view of history' (See suggestion below) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andysoh (talk • contribs) 12:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

I am in favor of the merge. Probably should be accompanied by some consolidation/restructuring. Archived as page was generating length warnings and this is the outstanding issue that deserves focus. If you had something current, please copy it here or start a new thread. Lycurgus (talk) 17:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Also I would suggest that there be 3 §§: "Classical Marxism", "Marxism after Marx and Engels", and "Modern Marxist Thought and Heterodoxy in the Social Sciences". The bulk of this articles text should concentrate on the first § and the subsections of the others should mostly be summaries of other articles. For the classical section, suggest reoorganization into two top level sections with titles like "I am not a Marxist" (I believe Marx said something to this effect) and "Apostles and Apostates" which would cover developments from the death of Marx (and/or Engels) up to some milestone such as the second international, first world war or the october revolution. Time is the basis of the three sections and up to 1889, 1889-1991, and 1991 to the present are my recommendations for the division.74.78.162.229 (talk) 18:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

"I am not a Marxist". Noting that this thread more than a year old and the merge tag is more than 6 months old. If there's no further response to the tag will remove it. Lycurgus (talk) 14:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Untitled Comment

Marxist Theology shuold definitely include the oft quoted "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" as many first year collegians discover professors will include this quote in multiple choice: Mathadas Ghandi, Jesus Christ, or Karl Marx. The professor's point is that as a philosophical or even theological statement the quote could mistakenly easily be attributed to either Ghandi or Christ by the uninformed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.125.110.250 (talk) 00:39, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not theology, and even the possibility of its being incorrectly attributed to Jesus doesn't make it so. And while I agree that this is a notable quote, I don't agree that the mere possibility that a professor might wish to include something in a test is a sufficient justification for including it in Wikipedia. --RichardVeryard (talk) 11:53, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a line in this article that equates democracy with pluri-partidism. Implies that a one-party government is not democracy. Such is a political view and constitutes political propaganda. Is Not a factual view. Democracy in its simplest is government accountable to its people under electoral scrutiny. A one party goverment is perfectly capable of nurturing diferent candidates for elected offices and holding fair elections under such framework. Stapler80 (talk) 09:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Ordered list of Principles

I don't think

• a belief that capitalism is based on the exploitation of workers by the owners of the means of production
• a belief that people's consciousness of the conditions of their lives reflects the dominant ideology which is in turn shaped by material conditions and relations of production
• an understanding of class in terms of differing relations of production, and as a particular position within such relations
• an understanding of material conditions and social relations as historically malleable
• a view of history according to which class struggle, the evolving conflict between classes with opposing interests, structures each historical period and drives historical change
• a belief that this dialectical historical process will ultimately result in a replacement of the current class structure of society with a system that manages society for the good of all, resulting in the dissolution of the class structure and its support (more often than not including the nation state)

represents the actual correct a pædegogically useful conceptual order. My proposal is:

1. a view of history in which the class struggle structures each historical period and drives historical change in a dialectical process
2. an understanding of material conditions and social relations as historically malleable (rejection of historical determinism)
3. an understanding of class in terms of differing relations of production, and as a particular position within such relations
4. a belief that people's consciousness of the conditions of their lives reflects the dominant ideology which is in turn shaped by material conditions and relations of production
5. a belief that capitalism is based on the exploitation of workers by the owners of the means of production
6. a belief that the historical process in #1 will end in a new social basis, managed for the good of all, resulting in the dissolution of the existing class structure and its support (more often than not including the nation state)

Here, I've replaced the MR article with the 1848 manifesto and italicized the reference to the existing class structure. This is to emphasize the point that the common horror people have of socialist society, based on the failures of the last century² is a uniform flattening of society. The withering away, during which time people continue to reach adulthood in society with radically different preparations, perforce takes time, (though perhaps not as long as might be thought), and during that time people¹ just want to know that the playing field is otherwise as nearly level as possible. It is far from clear that even when that point of perfect equal opportunity is reached there will be equal results from all. So the italics is to emphasize that it is the elimination of structures based on anything other than that ultimate instrinically personal performance and not class structures in general that is the goal.

An alternative that I prefer is to exchange 2 and 6, the list given is theoretical import to praxis and somehow seems more proper from that perspective, but the exchange sounds better when viewing Marxism as praxis. Or maybe just state that the list has that order (in which case #6 would be first in the reversed list).

Also, as the original author of the text of #6 (current 07-06), I have to say, I'd like it to read:

   6. a faith in Man that the historical process in #1 will end in a new social basis, managed for the good of all, resulting in the dissolution of the existing class structure and its support (more often than not including the nation state)

I'd also like to see, if it's not there already, a mention that Marxism has relatively little value after the predicated point is reached and has been caught short more than once so far in closing the gap from the state of affairs at the point of time in which there is a sufficient mass commitment to socialist revolution perhaps for that reason and apparently has only been able to do so in China by abandoning Marxist principle. Some tendencies, Trotskyists in particular are fairly forthright about this so it shouldn't be hard to source.

---

¹ By which I mean most past, current, and prospective members of Marxist tendencies. ² Rather than the successes of this one.

Lycurgus (talk) 10:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not think there is a correct order. I think the use of bullet points instead of number is to signify plurality rather than order. If one wants to present an ordered list, it has to be a direct quottion from Marx as anything else (an editor proposing a "correct" order) would violate NOR. The problem is, even if Marx had a list in 1848 or 1858 one principle of marx was that to look at things in their historical context and to abstract a list from its historical context as if it has transhistorical truth seems itself to be an argument ... the editor's argument ... and another violation of NOR. Why are we concerned with a correct order anyway?

I realize one may feel for pedagogic reasons that newcomers to Marx may find it easier to follow Marx if information is provided in a particular order. This however I feel is a question of how the article as a whole is organized and I for one would welcome renewed discussion on this.

Mut Marx never claimed to be Euclid and never claimed to be providing Euclieian proofs and I just don't see where "order" comes from here. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Would say that the use of an HTML ordered list is beside the point, and particularly so since the ordering isn't by any means exact and is only meant to report the theory to praxis continuum within which these principles are generally held to be placed by Marxists, so that the order could be presented but with bullets, except that reference to specific bullets is more awkward than numbers. Also changed stricken wording above per your advice. And actually I don't think it's unfair to say that Marx did consider himself the founder of scientific socialism and therefore sort of a Euclid of the social sciences. Finally, it should be possible to use any order character set, not just arabic numbers by, e.g., adjusting the list style, to get the indexability. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 15:07, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe more of a Pythagoras. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 15:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Bullet points are no more awkward than numbers. Of course it is unfair to say Marx was a Euclid of the social sciences, since Marx never said that and it reveals a misunderstanding of marx and of Eulid (especially Pythagoras). Finally, you write, "to report the theory to praxis continuum within which these principles are generally held to be placed by Marxists," well, okay, just provide a verifiable and reliable source indicating this is a notable point of view and thus complies with our policies. If it doesn't comply with our policies of course we cannot make the change. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

To whom does "our" and "we" refer in your last 2 sentences above and what is your authority to speak for that group? Lycurgus (talk) 16:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

"All Wikipedia editors" in both cases. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Acknowledged. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 23:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Layout

The current layout highlights the principles above as they were arrived at independently by various editors and also is a superior layout in the sense that there is no broken flow in any browser tested by me. The introduction of an "Overview" section was not discussed. Of course if there's a concensus to return to the broken/unflowed layout, just because it's the norm in a lot of articles where nobody has addressed it, will concede to that opinion Lycurgus (talk) 22:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Also no browser without at least a 0.75% market share can reasonably be a standard for layout/compatability. I will (and believe I am already) accomodate all with at least that. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 22:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The issue isn't with a specific browser, but with certain combinations of font size and browser width. With the TOC floated left, if your font size is small enough (or your browser window wide enough) that the TOC plus the template take up less than the whole width of the page, you get a column of text squeezed in between the two. Unless your browser window is very wide indeed (and/or your font size is very small indeed) this can be hard to read. TBH, even when it works, I don't see what the advantage of the left-floated TOC is. VoluntarySlave (talk) 23:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Accomodating every possible combination of font size (outside normal bounds) is silly¹. I test on a small laptop and a mac with relatively low res. I normally use small fonts on my central desktop. "Squeezed" is your subjective impression. The point of the layout is to highlight the principles next to the TOC overview. What you call "squeezing" is precisely this normal flow of the text over the page, which otherwise would be broken by a TOC control which hasn't been specialized in order to accomdate this article's content, achieve the indicated framing effect, and thus improve the quality of the article. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 00:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
¹Given the current accessibility standards of wiki.

Also I made the TOC slightly narrower and verified that under the circumstances you mention the text between the TOC and the template as large as them combined. 30% is the minimum stated in the guidelines for this (and TOC less than twice the wiki nav, also checked) .74.78.162.229 (talk) 00:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Will wait (at least) the standard day before reverting the last change and if necessary beginning a Rfa. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 01:57, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Both my desktop and my laptop have fairly standard font sizes (12pt here on my desktop) and 1280px horizontal resolution, which is pretty standard, perhaps a touch larger than average (see this, for instance). In both cases, the space for text between the contents and the template is significantly narrower than either the template or the contents, about 20 characters. This is far too narrow to be readable. However, I can see the logic in having the summary next to the table of contents. It turns out we can specify the width of the TOC in the template, so I've done that (setting it to 35% of the body area, which I think should come out as 30% of the width of the page), and also moved the Marxism template down.VoluntarySlave (talk) 02:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, what I see now is fine. Great if you could center in that space (prolly should be done as a CSS class/object per the guideline) , but fine as is too. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Needless to say, I didn't check the new layout in different browsers. Assume the person modifying the layout does that. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 02:40, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

FTR, I think the prior layout looked better and it's doubtful anyone is going to correct this properly with the appropriate CSS fix, however I can't spend any further time on superficial shit like this. Hell really is other wikipedians :) 74.78.162.229 (talk) 12:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Article History Template

Today's FA's talk page has a template "Article History" which may be useful in charting a course for this article. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 01:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Opening

Okay, I don't get having the opening text being next to the table/content. The text should be above the contents like it is for all the other articles. I'm reverting it back and having the Marxism templete put up. Bobisbob (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

"I don't get X" is not an intelligent formulation or rational argument against X. But it, together with completely ignoring the stated reason, is what would be expected from the evinced personality type replete with standard typos and the other tedious signs of low intellectual attainment. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 09:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there a point to what your saying or do you just have ad hominems. Try reading WP:NPA before being an ass. Bobisbob (talk) 05:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes the Ad Hominem response is the right one: when the logical content presented is being ignored. From this point you will get the last word. 74.78.162.229 (talk) 11:29, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Apparently it wasn't logical since you didn't bother to change it. Do what you want with it then, if editing this means having to work with the likes of you then forget it. Bobisbob (talk) 17:05, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

user:Summerwithmorons tries to sell us Dahrendorf as Marx

[1]

Well, this article is on marxism, which is a much broader subject than Marx's thought.--User:SummerWithMorons (talk) 13:55, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Please excuse your handles exposation in the revision comment. Marxist thought always refers back to the work of Marx and Engels in one way or the other. Marxism is about a synonym for historical materialism, to which Ralf Dahrendorf clearly is not commited in his work. I don't think you would find a reliable source calling D. a Marxist, who himself says that he isn't one. --Schwalker (talk) 15:06, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

question

I know it is an importnt facet of Marxian theory of capitlism that capital is mobile, and that it is way more mobile today than in Marx's time. Can anyone suggest a few short, well-respected, and accessible sources that goes over this, both in theory and in today's economy? thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 00:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

deleted from intro

I removed this material from the intro for what I thought were obvious reasons. Summerwithmorons put it back in. So I am removing it to talk and spelling out my reasons:

Any political practice or theory that is based on an interpretation of the works of Marx and Engels may be called Marxism. The distinctive Marxist approach originates from Marx's critique of political economy, in his works Das Kapital and Grundrisse. His earlier writings, The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto, are instead the roots of Communism, and are those that Friedrich Engels co-authored.

• The fact tag for the first sentence is silly. The introduction to the article should introduce the article as a whole; it should summarize what follows. What the introduction says is developed in detail in the body of the article, and it is there where we should put citations to support various points of view.
• The notion that the distinctive marxist approach originates from Kapital and that earlier works such as the Manifesto and the German ideology are instead the roots of communism would be rejected by virtually every Marxist scholar. Summerwithmorons provides one citation. But thisa is a disingenuous move.

• first of all, the citation does not say that the German Ideology and the manifesto are the "roots of communism"
• second of all, the citation does say that the German Ideology and the Manifesto are sources of Marxist ideas.
• third, the claim that only some works are sources of Marxism and others, not - a claim not supported by the cited text - is highly contentious. Highly contentious claims should not be presented as facts at all, this violates NPOV
• fourth, highly contentious claims should not be forwarded in the introduction, which should introduce the entire article. If there are some people who make a contentious claim, it should be discussed in the body of the article
• Finally, many people have written on changes in marx's views throughout his career and writings. This discussion belongs in the article on Karl Marx, not on Marxism.

To put this material in the introduction does immediate damage to the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The lead needs inline citations as any other part of the article. Arguments like "this citation request is silly" are no escape to this wikipedia policy. Almost all the article is unreferenced and his current value from a scholar/academic point of view is close to zero.--Sum (talk) 23:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The Evolution article has no citations in its first paragraph, for obvious reasons. If the body of this article needs work, including more citaations, I am all for that. Be that as it may, the first paragraph should introduce the article as a whole; it should summarize claims made in detail (and cited) in the body. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps in dire need of a complete re-write

One mention of the term "dialectical materialism" in the entire piece? And it's in a section way down near the end of the article, and its used in a manner that acts like it's already been introduced before and explained sufficiently.

Unfortunately this is one issue with Wikipedia, articles are chopped up and put in at different sections, so there is no continuity. But for Marx's sake, we can do better than tossing in the most fundamental term in all of Marxism halfway through and then assume the reader knows what it is. PyroGamer (talk) 03:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

You'll find that sort of thing in most of the articles on religions.86.42.213.201 (talk) 14:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the way to help an article in an early development stage, as this one, is to add academic sources and add material citing them. There is too much stuff on wikipedia that has no scholar/academic value.--Sum (talk) 15:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly enough this article went through an entire (and I mean entire) rewrite a year or two ago. Lots and lots of discussions went on about how you could possible represent all that marxism is and means to many people in one article. The current structure was based upon the reasoning that it needed to be able to sufficiently summarise every important point with links to more specific articles that could go on in much more detail into the different interpretations and important concepts of Marxism.

That 'dialectical materialism' is one of marx's famous concepts is in no doubt. But how do you give it due weight along side every other important concept espoused by Marx and all of the spin offs that came from him? I'm not sure there is a satisfactory answer to that by my suggestion would be to add 'dialectical materialism' to the 'Main ideas' sections which would allows it to feature prominently, early in the piece, with a clear definition (that is, if one can come up with a clear definition).

Further, given the angst that went on in developing this article to its current level, and the number of people who have put in lots of effort to discussing and getting consensus on all the changes in this article since, I am going to remove the tag about a re-write from the article itself - I don't think it is appropriate to tag an article of this length/complexity that is in fact very clearly structured as 'poorly organised'. Further, I think that given the complexity/sensitivity, this is one particular article that doesn't need people happening along and "being bold" in reorganising the information. That doesn't mean that a discussion can't take place here on the talk page about what might and might not need to be reorganised, and that changes can't be agreed to and made, but that it should be done in a considered fashion by people familiar with the content and the article. I think the tag is just asking for trouble. An alternative would be to place the tag on this talk page (even though it is not designed for that). This would highlight someone's opinion that the article's structure might need to be reconsidered without inviting people to just jump in and make changes. Personally I think issues can be addressed without this tag. JenLouise (talk) 11:22, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, this article is chaotic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.175.93.54 (talk) 15:14, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Marxism is a controversial issue, that saying, the beginning of the article should have something like this "Marxism has been a complicated philosophy as in any conclusions of Marxism will always leads to disagreements among Marxists, non-Marxists, and scholars alike." That way the readers would keep in mind that 'Marxism' can be a blurry topic with many interpretation being derived from this philosophy

Value, Price, and profit

is the name of a very important essay by marx, along with Wage Labor and Capital. As with the first chapter of Capital, it make sclear that Marx understood that value and price are two different things. Wages are the price of labor. Marx is indeed concerned with the relationship between price and value, no doubt about it. But it is a mistake to collapse value and price. My edits provide an expanded explanation because the preivious explation was misleading. If my edits are still flawed, I suggest it is because I did not expand enough. perhaps this "concept" should be broken into two (or three) or maybe it just needs further explanation. But what was there before was just a misrepresentation of Marx's arguments. By th way, can you provide the quote where marx says that capitalists do not cheat workers? Slrubenstein | Talk 02:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I do agree with you that the section on exploitation isn't very clear, and could be improved (perhaps we could have separate sections on the labor theory of value and the idea of surplus value?) I also agree with you that it's a mistake to collapse price and value; but I think that's precisely what you are doing when you cast Marx's theory of exploitation as being about price. The point of Marx's theory of exploitation is that workers are paid according to the value of their labor-power, while the commodities they produce are sold according to their value as commodities, hence the generation of surplus value; it's a relationship between values, with prices only relevant to the extent that they are related to values. From Capital v. 1, ch. 6:

“ Suppose that in this mass of commodities requisite for the average day there are embodied 6 hours of social labour, then there is incorporated daily in labour-power half a day’s average social labour, in other words, half a day’s labour is requisite for the daily production of labour-power. This quantity of labour forms the value of a day’s labour-power or the value of the labour-power daily reproduced. If half a day’s average social labour is incorporated in three shillings, then three shillings is the price corresponding to the value of a day’s labour-power. If its owner therefore offers it for sale at three shillings a day, its selling price is equal to its value, and according to our supposition, our friend Moneybags, who is intent upon converting his three shillings into capital, pays this value. (my emphasis) ”

It seems clear to me in this section that Marx is concerned with the relationship between what the workers are paid, and the value of their labor-power; further, Marx views value as being at least semi objective, not something simply determined by the market. So I think your revision at least makes the explanation less clear, by focussing on the issues of price and labor markets, which are irrelevant to exploitation; further, at least one sentence very much misrepresents Marx, when you write that "Marx argued that the wage - the price of the labor-power - should reflect the price of the commodity produced when sold on the market." This is the opposite of what Marx thought. He argues that wages in a capitalist system will, quite legitimately, reflect the value of the labor-power sold to the capitalist, not the value of the product of that labor. Marx says repeatedly throughout chapter 6 of Capital (as well as elsewhere) that the sale of labor-power, in which exploitation takes place, is an exchange of equivalents. For instance:

“ This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man.... Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. ”

So, although I do think that the section on exploitation (and, indeed, the other "main ideas") could be better explained, but I'm not sure your changes actually do make the explanation better. I'm also a bit concerned that the section has very few citations; perhaps we should look at how introductory texts on Marxism explain these ideas; I'll see what I can find.VoluntarySlave (talk) 03:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I do not think we are far from a compromise. I definitely agree value is objective and not determined by the market - it is only wages which are objective and determined by the market. Marx is always in the early part of capital seeking to find equivalences between very different things. Labor power has a value. Labor has a price. How much labor value is woth what price? This is his question. He is not conflating value and price. I feel the earlier version of this section did conflate the two. I think you do this when you write, "workers are paid according to the value of their labor-power, while the commodities they produce are sold according to their value as commodities." Marx knew that the price of commodities is determined by supply and demand. Value is a quality, price a quantity. He is interested in the relationship between the two but you write as if they are the same, as if the value of a commodity is its price. Not so. Marx also understands that the wage, the price of labor, is determined by the law of syupply and demand, that is what he means when he says it is a commodity, bought and sold on the market. I do not disagree with your main points but I do observe that Marx himself does not conflate price and value when he says that the wages (PRICE) of labor should correspond to the "price" of the commodities produced. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Marxist Economics

I just arrived at this article redirected from 'Marxist Economics'. Surely that should redirect here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian_economics

Odd formulation

In section Main ideas, "Base and superstructure":

• The relationship between superstructure and base is considered to be a dialectical one, not a distinction between actual entities "in the world".

Couldn't be true. Marxism is neither dualist nor idealist. Everything should be derived from matter and "reality" as per materialism. The author of the sentence certainly meant something else, such as "two intertwined structures affect each other in a dialectic development, and in real life it is hard to distinguish the working of the two structures". Or the author haven't understood correctly. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 17:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Marxist schools of thought to List of communist ideologies?

The "Marxist schools of thought" section should probably be changed to remove Marxism-Leninism, Anti-Revisionism, Trotskyism, and others. They're basically an alternative version of the ideologies that used to be on the Communist page. A new page called List of communist ideologies was created, so shouldn't we redirect curious users to that page instead of explaining Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, etc. on the Marxist page? Neo-Marxism and such can stay though. The difference I see is that M-L and such are ideologies which have Marxism as their base, whereas Marxism is about economics, sociology, psychology, etc. --Mrdie (talk) 09:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Lead section

I think this rewrite to the lead section needs to be discussed. It seems far worse than the previous material to me, as it represents a single version of "the original Marxian vision" -- a subject of intense controversy, which this text doesn't acknowledge at all. This new text narrates (somebody's personal version of) "what Marx thought" in Wikipedia's own voice, with no sourcing and no acknowledgement of the complexity and plurality of views. Further, "the original" (what Marx himself thought) is not the sole or primary subject of this article; the old and more carefully discussed and revised material made it much clearer that the article's work is to describe the various things called Marxism. And there's some really terrible weasel-wording -- who are "most modern observers" and why are they vaguely disagreeing here? I think we need to go back to the older version and work from there. -- Rbellin|Talk 17:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I am torn. I contributed heavily to the previous version and of course have a bias for it. That said, I think Jdevine's rewrite is pretty good. I appreciate Rbellin's concerns, and hope that we are able to have a meaningful discussion about this, with many people participating. One basic principle I press on others: the introduction should introduce the body, and represent the body. The main reason to change the intro is to make it represent the body more usefully and accurately. If there are substantive problems with the article, the place to work them out is the body, first, and only then the intro. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think, but might be mistaken, this three-part introduction comes from Lenin's The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism. I don't know of sources since which have used this as a means of description (but I am not much of a Marxist scholar, so I may be the wrong person to ask). I'm also not certain that the description does not predate Lenin. If anyone can clarify... I'm perhaps more in favor of the original version, all things being equal, but am not terribly opposed to the new. --TeaDrinker (talk)