Talk:Karl Marx/Archive1

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More authoritarian than stalin?

-10, +10? You've put him more authoritarian than Stalin when he himself was anti-Authoritarian? Was this page created by Objectivist wackos? ^{— Unsigned, by: 92.26.103.253 / talk}

It is a joke, get over it. - π 10:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of jokes; I read some Marx (and I liked it) ^{d hominem} 07:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

That video rulzors! Nice. ħuman 07:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, in the mid-19th century the Belgian ambassador to the UK told the Foreign Office that there were some people in the UK, who were Communists and wished to abolish the monarchy. 'Then,' the FO is supposed to have replied, 'they should perhaps go to America, where there is no monarch.'

Imagine Marx, Engels and associates as the first Californian hippies. 212.85.6.26 (talk) 19:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat biased. It's implying Marxism is bad and it causes deaths. The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital were not written to be sacred tetxs like some people wanted it to be, but more of a philosophical work made to be viewed critically and be changable. Communism in and of itself is not bad, but one thing is to claim to be communist and another is to actually be one. Actions speak louder than words and few of those countries actually tried to implement a communist regime. Most were actually populist governments or fascist-esque ones (Pol Pot). One thing is joking Marx is Satan, another one is claiming he is responsible for 100 million deaths.

What is the purpose of this?

I came looking for a "Rational Wiki"; instead I found another Encyclopedia Dramatica -- which has its place, but why reinvent the wheel? --96.44.189.102 (talk) 02:37, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

OMG, 96###, so sorry we let you down. I fixed it up some for you though. ħuman 03:18, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Why isn't this article bronze?

Carl Sagan has a bronze article with only 6 references, Che Guvera has one with 9. This is Karl Marx we are talking about, it's hard to get more rational than him, yet there's only 3 references. Would another 3 make it long enough for a bronze? Amateur Encyclopedist (talk) 00:10, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

This page may not be ranked because, as one asshole recently said, it's "pathetic." Father Vivian O'Blivion talk 00:16, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Also because nobody cares about article ratings. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:36, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

What actually effects how likely the article is to be displayed on the front page of google search, is it just page views than? Amateur Encyclopedist (talk) 17:33, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Do you think RW should be in the business of search engine optimization? I don't. I favor letting RW content stand or fall on its own merits, without regard to whatever tags or spangles get tacked onto articles. Also, that should be "affects" up there. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:00, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Disappointing

I expected more from Rational Wiki. As someone stated above, we already have Encyclopedia Dramatica and its likes for nonsense. M. 153.1.13.172 (talk) 12:52, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Dude, someone already said that. Rand0 (talk) 08:40, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Factual inaccuracy, methinks

This article claims that pointing out that the people who committed mass murder to fight communism are as evil as those who committed mass murderer in the name of Communism is not rational because:

(1) a much lower proportion of anti-communists racked up a skull count, and (2) of those who did, only one reached the one-million mark.

As far as point 1: Did a much lower proportion of anti-communists rack up a skull count?

• Allende was a communist, and killed and tortured no one; Pinochet, who overthrew him, was an anti-communist, and killed and tortured a whole bunch of people he believed to be communists.
• Before and during the Vietnam War, the Bhuddhist communist regime of North Vietnam, the Viet Cong, killed a lot of people; they were met with the fanatical Catholic fascist regime of South Vietnam, who killed everyone who wouldn't convert to Catholicism or whoever they wanted to accuse of being a communist.
• Jacobo Arbenz was not a communist but a New Deal progressive; that he had two communists in his cabinet was enough for the Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers to pretend that Arbenz was too, so they overthrew him, and the anti-communist they replaced him with, Carlos Castillo set up a death squad that would, for decades after Castillo's assassination, slaughter suspected communists.
• The anti-communist Contras, in sharp contrast with the communist Sandinistas they were fighting, killed lots and lots of civilians, many of them children, in order to advance their anti-communist cause. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to like Daniel Ortega.
• The CIA, which, for all we know, might still be staffed with many people obsessed with fighting communism, was partly responsible for some of the things I mention here.
• Need I go on?

As for point 2: Only Hitler surpassed the one million mark, you say?

• Pol Pot, despite naming his regime Khmer Rouge, which literally means Red Cambodia, was an avowed anti-Communist who killed 2 million people in a quest to rid his country of communism and all other Western things. The total population of Cambodia prior to the genocide? 7 million
• Just prior to the rise of Pol Pot, Nixon and Kissinger treated that country to a bombing campaign larger than the one carried out in the entire Pacific theater during WWII, thereby killing 40,000 Cambodian civilians in the name of fighting communism. This was an extension of the aforementioned Vietnam War. Between Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the American regime probably killed at least 2 million people.

So, I count three anti-communist parties who reached the one-million mark. That said, I'm not sure what the value of one million is, not only because one murder would be and injustice, but also because there are plenty of countries whose entire population is below, even far below, one million. Needless to say, I'm deleting the text I quoted above. Rand0 (talk) 08:39, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I neglected to explain that the Arbenz government didn't kill anyone, unlike the junta that followed. I mean, maybe the death penalty was in place in Guatemala, and if so, perhaps there were murderers who were sentenced to death; I don't know. But they didn't kill anyone for political crimes or for having a marginalized identity. Rand0 (talk) 03:26, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, in what way was Pol Pot not a Communist? CorruptUser (talk) 03:40, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

He carried out his purges under the guise of ridding Cambodia from all Western influences and ideologies, particularly Liberal Democracy and Communism. At the same time, he claimed to be a socialist, but obviously, he meant it the same way Ghaddafi did (i. e: as a buzzword and nothing more). Rand0 (talk) 17:02, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

You know what though, I'm going off of something ONE history teacher told me. For all intents and purposes let's assume he might have been a communist. That brings the surpassed-one-million count down from three to two. It also means I have to remove him from the anti-communists in the article. I will do so now. Rand0 (talk) 13:30, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Democratic states are not always ended with elections

Sorte Slyngel added text indicating that democratic states always end when they are voted out. This is not true. See, e.g. Mohammad Mosaddegh. The sentences should either be deleted or modified to be accurate.---Mona- (talk) 22:17, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I was hasty in writing that. I sincerely apologize. But, in the overall view, it's a minor one, and the Shah actually took real power after Mossadeq. And yes, I looked it up. :-) Cheerio Sorte Slyngel (talk) 00:15, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Marx and Sociology

We haven't put in the fact that Marx is one of the founding fathers of sociology.Legomania105 (talk) 08:16, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

List of potential reworks to this page.

Hey, person who has actually read Das Capital here. While a lot of the pages on rationalwiki are well written, this one is almost absurd by comparison, and is way below the established standards. Instead of being snarky, it comes off as more surrealist than anything. Here is a list of changes I believe will be necessary to bring this page up to standards. I will act upon these suggestions when I get time. Feel free to add points or dispute the ones listed.

• A proper introduction to who Marx was and what he did.
• Less speculation, more facts. Lincoln MIGHT have read Marx, Marx went through a SOMEWHAT authoritarian phase, this is all speculative nonsense that adds nothing to the article. We know for a fact that Marx and Lincoln had a relation as Marx wrote letters to Lincoln directly. While this pointed out, the segment is left (intentionally?) vague and informal. Marx did not go through an "authoritarian phase", but it is correct that Marx did not advocate anything of the likes of Stalin and Mao. Through a pretty simple analysis of the state of the Soviet/Chinese economy anyone with knowledge of Marx can deduce that these are examples of capitalism, or if we want to be less rough on the edges, "State Capitalism." We do not need to cram Das Kapital into this article, but an honest understanding of Marx's writings should be paramount for editing it.
• Less subjective voice, more objective knowledge. Essentially, the same point as above but here I want to emphasize the need for Marxists to write these articles. However, here is a conflict: every leftist that needs to legitimate their claim will claim they're Marxist. Thus, it becomes extremely hard to find those among us who have actual read Capital and understand Marx's critique as opposed to Stalinists and Anarchists who roleplay revolutionaries on online forums. Having an article on Marx/Communism written by a representative moron from the "leftist" Internet spheres is as good as the same article written by a user from Conservapedia. They're too busy with their idol worship and idealist nonsense to write anything remotely subjective ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.130.71.139 / talk 13:10, 6 March 2018 (UTC)}
• A focus on Marx and Marxism, instead of the current focus on everything that happened after Marx died. Call me pedantic, but I believe the actions of Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc. should be contained within their own pages and linked to, instead of giving huge amount of attention to events that isn't really related to Marx or what he wrote. ^{— Unsigned, by: Actual communism / talk / contribs 08:19, 8 March 2018 (UTC)}

This list is a WIP, as I have other work to attend to at the moment.

Until next time. ^{— Unsigned, by: 185.130.71.139 / talk 13:10, 6 March 2018 (UTC)}

IP 185.130.71.139 - sign your messages (click on username below) - and if you are going to make significant changes consider signing in. Anna Livia (talk) 13:21, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Done Actual communism (talk) 08:09, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

I haven't read capital, but I know enough about Marx's ideas to wholeheartedly agree that this needs an overhaul by someone who has more than a surface-level understanding of Marx. He's one of the most important philosophers of all time, and way more attention needs to be paid to his actual influence outside of 20th century communist states.

Minor correction on "Communist" states' views on communism

I changed a portion of one of the sections because none of the nominally communist states actually claimed to have achieved communism. They all claimed to be socialist countries on the path towards communism, which is a stateless and classless hyper-democratic society free of wage labor, private ownership of the means of production, and division of labor. Similar to what left anarchists advocate. The nominally communist countries claimed to be socialist (socialists disagree on whether they in fact were actually socialist), and all had plans for getting to communism that they crafted and carried out with varying degrees of sincerity, but none of them ever claimed to have achieved communism. This should probably be spelled out, and the way I worded the corrections is a bit clumsy, but at least it's not incorrect now.

One of the main reasons I reverted it was that the wording is a bit repetitive (should have elaborated in my edit summary, sorry about that). If you want to add the corrections back into the article, feel free to do so. БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 03:10, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

The latest edit war

This edit appears to be quite contentious in the eyes of User:Oxyaena. I'm personally in favor of letting it stand, if only because I don't see what's wrong with it and it would be a show of good faith towards User:Godless Raven if we don't allow Oxyaena to revert all of their edits (and Oxyaena does appear to have a certain fondness for reverting this user's edits).--"Shut up, Brx." 04:40, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

They're a poisoning the well necrophile troll pos who's permabanned from the ratwiki discord and so many other places. — Oxyaena ^Harass 04:46, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Assuming what you say is true, that's hardly grounds to revert all of his edits--"Shut up, Brx." 04:47, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

What Brx said. This is a pointless edit war, Oxy. It doesn't matter where s/he was banned previously. Let it go. Ace^Moderator 04:56, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

What does the phrase "Marxist dogmas" contribute to the article anyway? If edits are to be preserved in good faith, then they still should be actual meaningful edits. The point is still conveyed if you say "was not a Marxist."-Flandres (talk) 04:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

You see what Flandres has done here, Oxy? Discussed the edit rather than you who did as follows: revert, revert, and then fucking promoting the user. Ace^Moderator 05:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I would gather that "Marxist dogmas" is meant to be a broader term than simply Marxist. And didn't Marx himself say at some point that he didn't identify as a Marxist? I could swear I've read that somewhere (though I wouldn't be surprised if it had been taken out of context). Anyways, the root of this issue isn't so much the edit's merits, it's more Oxyaena's following Godless Raven around. Maybe a mod action is required? Give Oxyaena a warning to back off this particular user altogether?--"Shut up, Brx." 05:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Brx, Marx himself didn't deny that he built a cult of personality he rejected: Source Godless Raven 🌹 ^Heretic 05:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, but should any personal dispute between users really be discussed on this page specifically?-Flandres (talk) 05:09, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Probably not - I was just pointing out that this was the proper way to discuss an edit war. Ace^Moderator 05:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie Please explain to them why Raven is undesirable for this wiki. — Oxyaena ^Harass 05:19, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

For the neutral actors in this conversation, you can read my contributions to this wiki (I listed the major edits here) and decide whether a dissenting opinion is welcome or not. Godless Raven 🌹 ^Heretic 05:23, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

At risk of lighting a fire, should we be referring to Marx's followers as being a "cult"? They're exceptionally dogmatic, yes, but do they match the definition of a cult? When looking at this particular example of measuring whether or not something is a cult, from at least a cursory measurement I would say that Marxism itself doesn't meet the definition of one. Individual subgroups that branched off from his thoughts, yes, for sure (a modern day example of culty behavior that branches from his thoughts is easily spottable in groups like Chapo Trap House, which meet these standards much more), but I wouldn't say that Marxism inherently should be called a cult. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 09:49, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, because even Marx rejected them Godless Raven 🌹 ^Heretic 09:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

"with whom he had disagreements because the latter was a social democrat and not a Marxist fanatic" Marx disliked Ferdinand Lassalle because he was not a marxist fanatic but Marx disliked Marxist fanatics. This is not coherent to me. Féinléiriú (talk) 12:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Marx was kind of an asshat, but I find it hard to believe he was the leader of a cult. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:16, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

GC, have you read anything that I posted? Source Godless Raven 🌹 ^Heretic 13:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Zero mentions of the word "cult" or any derivatives. Personally I like the latest edit. It gets straight to the point without an aside. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:15, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Why would Marx be angry that Lassalle was not a Marxist fanatic when Marx doesn't like his own fanatics according to you? It makes no sense to leave this line in with given you say he disliked fanatics @Godless Raven. Féinléiriú (talk) 16:51, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I concede. Godless Raven 🌹 ^Heretic 16:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Removed quote

What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering.
What is his worldly God? Money.
Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist.
Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities….
The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew.

This quote by Marx (referenced) is not quote mining, as @Oxyaena alleges (and that's the reason she removed it; however, there was no vote on this nor was it controversial; the last controversy about this was a month ago about a totally different section). Marx literally agrees with Bauer's anti-semitic tropes, as demonstrated here:

Bauer has posed the question of Jewish emancipation in a new form, after giving a critical analysis of the previous formulations and solutions of the question. What, he asks, is the nature of the Jew who is to be emancipated and of the Christian state that is to emancipate him? He replies by a critique of the Jewish religion, he analyzes the religious opposition between Judaism and Christianity, he elucidates the essence of the Christian state – and he does all this audaciously, trenchantly, wittily, and with profundity, in a style of writing that is as precise as it is pithy and vigorous.

— Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 10:39, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: The reason (edit summary): "removing shit-stirring that was already voted on to be deleted". There was 1) no vote on it and 2) there is no shit-stirring either. This section (Marx and Judaism) exists since at least 2013. The only thing I did was to add a literal quote of Marx instead of just letting the description of his opinion stand. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 10:41, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

the section you added the quote mentions the quote several times anyway. It's not imo out of context. — Z 11:21, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

We ask the converse question: Does the standpoint of political emancipation give the right to demand from the Jew the abolition of Judaism and from man the abolition of religion? —Marx

The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general, of religious man, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general. In its own form, in the manner characteristic of its nature, the state as a state emancipates itself from religion by emancipating itself from the state religion – that is to say, by the state as a state not professing any religion, but, on the contrary, asserting itself as a state. The political emancipation from religion is not a religious emancipation that has been carried through to completion and is free from contradiction, because political emancipation is not a form of human emancipation which has been carried through to completion and is free from contradictions. —Marx, again, arguing against abolishing Judaism

— Oxyaena ^Harass 14:41, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I also direct everyone to this essay. — Oxyaena ^Harass 14:49, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

the essay which says that marx wrote stuff that may be antisemitic, islamophobic, and anti-Catholic but says its up to the reader to decide. Yes that definitely seems to reinforce my point and not really yours. — Z 14:58, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I say leave the quote. Fits in with SPOV as well as the Marx/Judaism section--Hastur! (talk) 18:12, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

How is being anticlerical now considered bigoted? @Hastur What does that quote contribute to the article, beyond pointless snark? — Oxyaena ^Harass 08:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

It's not pointless snark. It is quite literally a quote by Marx within the topic. The section has existed since at least 2013, mind you. You alleged that 1) it caused shit-stirring (it didn't) and you removed it based on a nonexistent vote, which is why Crow reverted your edit. If you want to remove it, provide arguments. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 08:15, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

It's a literal quote mine that ignores important context, Marx was making fun of Bauer. — Oxyaena ^Harass 10:18, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘To be clear, the section at dispute isn't "Marx and Judaism" in general, it's just the cquote (so it didn't exist since 2013). I was originally gonna say that I didn't care about the matter itself, but after reading the reference, my conclusion is that the quote is accurate and should stay. The segment seems to be broken up into two parts. The first part is deconstructing Bruno Bauer, no dispute there. The second part seems however not so much aimed at deconstructing Bauer, but rather is Marx soapboxing his own ideology over Bauers stuff. The second part is considered to be under enough dispute for Wikipedia to have a section about it (On the Jewish Question, scroll to controversy), so there's at least that. Marx's conclusion in the second part I would definetly characterize as antisemetic, considering Marx reaches the conclusion that "The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism." (very last sentence of the source). There's a lot more in this source that really points to Marx having some amount of internalized antisemitism. My conclusion as a result is that this quote should stay as is. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 11:57, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

"It's a literal quote mine that ignores important context, Marx was making fun of Bauer."^{[What is this? Please elaborate.]}

Anyway, I am considering that since me, Crow, Z and Hastur are of the same opinion that the quote should stay, I suppose that's enough of a mob to have decided this. Obviously Oxy is allowed to question and bring forth arguments that this is quotemining. So far, Oxy blindly took someone's word for it that Marx was "making fun of" anti-semitism, when there is no evidence as such, with Marx even saying he agrees with Bauer's anti-semitic tropes. Oxy, if you want you can expand the section itself (not removing the quote) by adding an alternative viewpoint that allegedly Marx was just memeing. If you do this, use actual evidence, not assertions. Thank you. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 13:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Hastur

@Hastur The quote about Lassalle was racist (n-word use) and anti-semitic; but I think it deserved its own section. With regards to the Category:Racists, if he is in Category:Anti-semite, why not in the racist one too? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 13:55, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to make excuses for using the n-word but extrapolating from that alone that he is a racist comes off as agenda-based. And I'll argue that if we do want to say that Marx was a racist, I think we need more than just a single instance of him calling a white Jewish man the n-word--Hastur! (talk) 14:32, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

What about this? https://books.google.ch/books?id=FH-LCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT208&lpg=PT208&dq=I+do+not+trust+any+Russian.+As+soon+as+a+Russian+worms+his+way+in,+all+hell+breaks+loose.&source=bl&ots=mR1RfXqLqs&sig=ACfU3U1FGNu-dhds0z-NW75raMtyITBiAw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjeqs7zpf_qAhXGThUIHRZ4A6oQ6AEwAXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=I%20do%20not%20trust%20any%20Russian.%20As%20soon%20as%20a%20Russian%20worms%20his%20way%20in%2C%20all%20hell%20breaks%20loose.&f=false @Hastur

I do not trust any Russian. As soon as a Russian worms his way in, all hell breaks loose.

— Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 15:00, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, for one, that's stretching the definition of racism. At that point we're calling him a racist first and then looking for evidence second--Hastur! (talk) 15:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

And this? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569317.2019.1548094 — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 15:16, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

That's better. Far better than the original argument.--Hastur! (talk) 16:02, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Restore the original version @Oxyaena. Again, if you want it gone, as Crow told you, do it on the talk page. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 00:08, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

it must be a trivially easy thing to find instances of an old timey geezer doing old timey racism. what i am not seeing is the significance. the quotes are given context free. there is no indication of how they tie into his life, how it may influenced his works - if at all, if his views evolved over time for better or worse. but there isnt anything. the whole section is more quote than anything else, with the accompanying text being less than helpful. the standard caveat 'a man of his time' is given but nothing more is given to show if that being the case what makes his racism notable or even especially egregious for any other reason than you really want to call him a racist, which you do - 'racist karl', and refer to one example given as 'malignant' to stress how awful his racism was. racism is general is malignant, it isnt necessary to under line that we think its a bad thing, its a given. here its over stating a very weak case. there is no context and its simply not enough to shit out a few quotes and think thats job done.

to be fair, as a lack of context goes, the whole article is lacking. it seems less about marx and more about marxists, making the racism section look even more like an exercise in point scoring in some other internet debate.

i mean what is this article trying to achieve? at best its got the wrong title. as it is, there is little point in edit warring and debating the dubious merits of marx and racism when its inclusion or removal from the article is essentially about adding or removing a little piece of dog shit from the larger pile of dogshit AMassiveGay (talk) 07:36, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

— Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 07:47, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

AMG, if you were to actually read the last article he cited, specifically this one, you'd find that the evidence definitely points to Marx and Engels having been racists--Hastur! (talk) 09:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

i just read it, or the abstract at least, and does appear to provide the context and perspective into marx and racism. do you know whats striking about that article though? that it is not reflected in our article or even appears to be cited. and it would need to be more than just referenced, it would need the relevant points summarised to explain why the racism is significant. its currently just pointing at some quotes 'look he did a racism'. it just looks like a lazy smear as it is. its even worded in such away when referencing engels that it looks like he disagreed with marxs racism 'in opposition to engels, racist karl was...' when hes apparantly just as bad as marx was.

also, its still polishing a turd. the whole article is a bag of shit. a page on karl marx and it says about marx himself is that he was racist. and thats done poorlyAMassiveGay (talk) 11:25, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @AMassiveGay While I don't disagree with the concept of that we should have a higher bar of racism for historic figures being significant enough to mention (since well, it's piss easy to find racist stuff on any historic person), with Marx here specifically, I feel that this bar has been cleared. Compare and contrast it with for example, H.P. Lovecraft, who we clearly do mention being a racist. Why? Because his racism is relevant to his legacy into the present day (his writings had a lot of "Lovecraft-only" horror compared to "actually scary horror" in them, by which I mean things that were only scary to Lovecrafts mind). That is in my eyes the bar that we to some extent should clear. To go back to a previous drama, where the discussion was on whether or not to call MLK a homophobe, the ultimate conclusion reached was that MLKs possible internalized homophobia didn't pertain to his legacy as a whole, and as a result it didn't bear mention on his article. With Marx on the other hand, we're seeing a somewhat recent surge in lefty types (leftypol/dirtbaggers/Chapo fans, pick your genuine poison as to what you'll call them, also these types existed before, see Jacobin Magazine as well) who reference Marx' ideas a lot and tend to try to frame everything into the perspective that Marx' worldview was right no matter what, and this sometimes gets used to reduce things like racism as just "a class struggle". (We saw this with the Floyd protests, where a lot of these types ended up escalating protests into violence into areas that kinda were completely irrelevant to the protests, which resulted in a poorly justified agressive response against the peaceful protestors.)

In that light, if people are willing to consistently reframe everything as being into the specific worldview that is by all accounts Marx' legacy, then we shouldn't sugarcoat the fact that Marx's writings have a good amount of anti-semitism and racism in them, and in doing so that they're also agreeing to that part of his writings. (And I also should add the fact that when confronted about the racism in his works, a lot of them tend to make a poor defense of Marx himself, rather than admit that there's some sections of Marx's writings that can be dismissed as they're racist/anti-semetic, which brings it's relevancy for our mission into dissecting crank ideas and beliefs.) Basically, on it's own saying that you think Marx's theory of communism might have some amount of value isn't negative in and of itself -that's debatable-, but putting Marx on a pedestal is where the issues start to arise, and there's a good segment of them that does that.

As far as the rest goes, the cheap shots like saying racist Karl seem like lazy snark to me, and I don't see any issue in removing that stuff, but that is worthy of a simple cleanup, not of a full wipe of the segment. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 11:39, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

i have no objections to discussion of the mans racism if it is significant to his works and legacy. it seems that it is. my issue is the racism section does not look at any of that. it does not provide necessary context for that. its currently a few quotes with no comment to explain their significance. im not advocating wiping the segment, im saying we need more than pointing at a few quotes and tut tutting. especially when it is clear there is a lot more to add.

that said, why bother right now? its polishing turd as the other segments are just as risible. im not even sure what this page is trying to achieve. why is the focus. i can maybe see what it was going for but it does it so poorly im not sure. its like its a response to an argument someone might have had on some forum somewhere. we can fix the racism segment but how does it fit with the rest of an article where none of its parts fit together. AMassiveGay (talk) 13:13, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Feel free to add to the other parts of the article I guess, saying that working on articles which are bad is bad seems pointless because that's how they become good. — Z 06:14, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

i would think people who know more of karl marx would be better placed to fix it, but fine. leave it as it is. i guess you are happy with this embarrassment of an article. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:06, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

How about you fix it yourself, properly, @AMassiveGay? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 12:58, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@The Crow Most of the actual violence was done by the police, which you'd know if you were actually on the ground at the protests. Most of the protests were peaceful, but the pigs didn't care. I know someone who had their arms up while also peacefully protesting while unarmed and they still got shot with riot munitions. — Oxyaena ^Harass 06:33, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This is unrelated to the talk page. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 06:46, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Can we talk about goddless raven being a lying piece of shit?

Holy shit just fuck you guy. One only needs to read the following paragraphs to determine that Marx was actively refuting Baurer's central point. Given that, your insistence otherwise means were actively lying. It's one thing to dislike communism, which has a mixed history at best, it's another to lie your ass off in order to include a quote of someone Marx was refuting as if its his own words. You need to go the fuck away. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:57, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Which quote, exactly?--Hastur! (talk) 15:06, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

The second one at the top of this section. It's, in context, clearly a precursor to refuting the central point. Reading for comprehension clearly shows that he's directly disagreeing with bauer's points, basically all of them, whatever praise he has for prose. His central thesis comes later.

“”Incompatibility between religion and the rights of man is to such a degree absent from the concept of the rights of man that, on the contrary, a man’s right to be religious, in any way he chooses, to practise his own particular religion, is expressly included among the rights of man. The privilege of faith is a universal right of man.

And given his insistence that the quote is "in context" can only be understood to be purposeful dishonesty. I.e. lying. Which ends any seriousness I take anything he says. Period. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:23, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Alright, but if you read this, you will find that there is a great deal more background to the accusations that Marx is a racist--Hastur! (talk) 15:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

@Ikanreed if you think the quote is out of context add that extra context, don't nuke an entire section which has many other parts to it over your feelings. Wtf. — Z 15:42, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie you too. — Z 15:44, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

You know, I'm fairly sure that if this section is correct, then Hastur will be able to easily demonstrate it. Are you as sure as I am? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:50, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Can we talk about why the quote about Jewish N-words was removed?

So, where is the lie? Did Karl Marx call Lassalle a "Jewish n-word"? Yes/No? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 15:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Hint: Yes he did. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 15:45, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't particularly care if you also told the truth while lying. Someone who didn't lie their ass off can remake the section. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:47, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

So you admit that you removed a section that is accurate only because you dislike the person who wrote the section? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 15:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Frankly that quote isn't as good as you think it is, Raven. Granted, he said the n-word, but he was using it as a pejorative rather than as a racial slur. There's far more evidence of his racism elsewhere--Hastur! (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

very based hastur. pewdiepie only said the n-word as an exclamative, not a pejorative! — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:03, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not quite so simple. For one, pewdiepie, as I understand it, says the n-word a LOT. Secondly, on it's own it doesn't indicate very much. And whatever else I said on Discord--Hastur! (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

So did Marx! "As he [Tremaux] indicates, (he was in Africa a long time) the common Negro type is only a degeneration of a much higher one." - Marx. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:09, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Look, Raven, we know that you're incapable of learning, but one guy being racist in the 19th century isn't remarkable, you might as well put up a section on racism for every person we have an article on who lived in the 19th century. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I don't care about the rest of your slapfight, but please stop edit warring over the section. GR didn't add parts of the section (multiple people did and some parts are iirc as old as 2013), it existed before he started adding to it. Nuking the entire thing is excessive and isn't contributing to much of anything. Discuss nuking parts of it and make arguments in favor of nuking parts of it and come to a fucking conclusion over it. Page locked for a few days and restored to pre-deletion status (I think) so you guys can hash it out. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 20:57, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

what is the purpose of this article?

i'm bringing this up again, because i am yet to get a satisfactory response. its easy to say 'you can edit the article yourself if you dont like it' but its an asinine suggestion when in my view it is not a few minor fixes needed but complete deletion and then rebuilt from the ground up with a more structured and coherent whole. so no. i cannot 'fix it myself'. i cannot even tell what we want from this article because its current form gives me no indication.

i can break down its current form to further explain.

1 What Marx did and didn't do there is lots here that he didnt do. very little of what he did do, and then nothing of relevance. we are not told of what he did do later on in the article, there is the one line intro above the contents to tell us the two works hes most known for, but thats it. i can understanding dispelling popular misconceptions, but this are just trivialities.

2 Marx and Judaism there is nothing here. states hes of jewish descent, baptised a lutheran, and wrote a maybe antisemitc/maybe satire. the biq quote starting this section would suggest we are leaning to antisemetic, but theres nothing here fleshing out the context or the extent of this. section opens talking of conspiracy theorists tie marxism to international jewish conspiracy, and thats it?

3 Marx and communist states this is just the old who killed the most - capitalists or communists numbers game. always crass and poorly addressed here. there is commentary on where marx expected the proles to rise up, but its pretty superficial at best and it not clear what point is being made. and who exactly are fanboys?

3.1 A frequent argument by Marxists they are not real communists, oh yes they are and no they are not' panto debate. not fond of this particular quarrel. its more nuanced than usual i guess, but still framed in as a they are or they are not binary. taking theory to put into practice means adapting to the challenges of where its being tried. where takes or has taken countries dosnt mean they are not real marxists. doesnt mean they are all the same either. context.

4 Marx and... Sci-fi? describing a fundamental flaw of communism imho as end goal. here a little inaccurate in parts, and could be better put.

5 Marx's racism see above for what i think here. too much quote and too little valid commentry

6 Marx's influence today 6.1 The good 6.2 The bad 6.3 The Ugly this is all dross.

7 Marx versus Marxists more dross.

in short there is nothing here that gives a sense of of who marx is and his place in the world. nothing on his works. what there is seems like a response to some internet debate, with or between marxists but nothing really connecting it to marx that would better placed in the article on marxism. as would anything on the failings of marxism, especially when there is nothing on marxism itself here. no one part, aside from what i thnk of each individual part, follows the other.

i would suggest reformatting with a short bio, explain what he is known for, as wel as his fundamental beliefs and some brief commentry - more indepth would be better placed in the marxism page. then we can look at his legacy from the soviet union, through the cold war, to china and the world today and beyond. racism and his judaism would go here as would conspiracy theories.

i cant fix none of that without instant reverts and accusations of edit warring for even minor edits, and this would require a consensus for such an overhaul.

feel free to disagree, i'm not trying to score points here. but if you do disagree, if you think its fine more or less as is, then tell me - what is the purpose of this article? and does it serve this purpose AMassiveGay (talk) 16:41, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Let's see what the mission says.

1. Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement;
2. Documenting the full range of crank ideas;
3. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism;
4. Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.

There is space for 1. "pseudo-science" ("scientific socialism" while not being at all scientific); there is space for 2. "crank ideas" (such as LTV, Marxian "economics", "historical materialism" as pseudo-history, the unfalsifiable claims he made, etc.); there is also space for 3. "authoritarianism and fundamentalism" e.g. the autocratic and genocidal regimes he inspired and the cult of marx/marxism. I would argue 4. too but there is already enough material for it to be missional. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree, or at least mostly agree, with AMGs assessment hence why I have not been active on this talkpage even though I have watched this petty dispute unfold. I use the phrase "petty dispute" because even before GR got his hands on it this article this article was badly designed, a battleground for people of differing ideological tendencies to score points against one another via edit disputes. Allow me to preempt claims of purposeless complaining by offering a solution-we delete this article and interested users can make a alternative one in their draft space. A vote can be held to determine which version is the best and thus get to replace this article in main space.-Flandres (talk) 16:51, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

How is Marxian economics pseudoscientific? There's also no "cult" of Marx, anymore than there's a "cult" of Adam Smith. Also the LTV is a crank idea? Do you even know what the LTV is? Marx's application of the LTV is flawed, yes, imo Carson does a far better job with applying it than Marx does/did, but that doesn't necessarily make it a crank idea. — Oxyaena ^Harass 17:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

This article needs work, that much I can agree. But not deletion. It is also missional. Also, interesting to see the usual suspects appear. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:07, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think AMG is worried about missionality here. Rather, if this article is to serve a purpose beyond exemplar of poor writing and shoddy design, what does it need to do / contain that isn't already adequately covered in communism, socialism, Das Kapital, and the Communist Manifesto? Helena Bonham Carter (talk) 17:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

You mean like yourself? — Oxyaena ^Harass 17:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Another argument for deletion and taking this topic to draftspace-unless the people making their own drafts explicitly say everybody is free to edit them these petty edit disputes, largely proxies for personal vendettas, will cease, or at least decrescendo in intensity.-Flandres (talk) 17:29, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I'd agree with @Flandres and @AMassiveGay, though I would like to point out several problems with thinking critically I've observed in Marxist circles as well. However, I'd honestly prefer if the article went into more meat than "Soviets did bad things" and "A man from 1800s Europe was a bigot", as these are quite petty points that don't really address the actual flaws (and there are flaws) in Marxist thought. In short, I'd say either let AMG re-write the article or take Flandres' suggestion and start from scratch. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:54, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I want to see more substance here. What was the exact relationship between Marx's ideas and the horror show states that popped up? That being said, I think the article topic is significant enough that I would oppose outright deleting it or moving it off to draftspace. Maybe put up the WiP template. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:15, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Given how AMG is the one making the claims of issue here primarily, I would recommend he well... goes and fixes it? Like we're an open project. One can complain all they like, but the nice thing is that we can always take up the tools and edit the page ourselves. If his edits turn out to be shit, guess what? We can change those too. I... don't see the point of bickering about it. We have a template for WIP articles that are to be taken as under construction so we can always slap one of those on them (I think Duce is doing that with his patching up of our country pages). Frankly, I don't take a lot of issue with the page as is however and I don't care a lot for vocal grandstanding to fix it when it's clear that the person who is grandstanding seems perfectly capable of editing the issues with the page to begin with. As is, I would say that while the writing may be a little subpar/made to be a counter in an internet debate, it's by no means poorly enough written to move it to draftspace or to get rid of it outright. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 19:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@The Crow To quote AMG anticipating your style of response, " its easy to say 'you can edit the article yourself if you dont like it' but its an asinine suggestion when in my view it is not a few minor fixes needed but complete deletion and then rebuilt from the ground up with a more structured and coherent whole. so no. i cannot 'fix it myself'. i cannot even tell what we want from this article because its current form gives me no indication. ". Which to suggests that they are not in fact grandstanding, but feel like no one is listening. So, responding with "Well you can just do it yourself" doesn't really address this, instead it sort of just proves the original poster right. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:02, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that AMGs breakdown of the article doesn't prove to me that the "article needs to be deleted and rebuilt from the ground up". I can see flaws with the structure of the article, but I don't see anything that makes it go to the point where we ought to throw out the entire thing as crap. Yeah there's a few structural issues, but that doesn't mean we throw out the baby with the bath water so to speak. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 20:32, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

What's the ideal RW article on Karl Marx? Name, country of origin, birth/death we can agree on, I'm sure. Maybe some bits about his personal history, like how he ended up in England. Best to keep that brief, though. Follow it up with a summary of his views (which would include racism and anti-semitism, I suppose), and some rebuttals to his views that are obviously incorrect (such as the labor theory of value). Then under "see also" we'd slap whatever ideologies he ended up inspiring or are similar to his. Sound good?--Hastur! (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Hastur If I may, I'd like to suggest we actually go into the unsound assumptions within Marx's work, which would require some rather heavy reading for those who aren't already familiar with the most relevant pieces of his work. Das Kapital, volumes 1-3, the Communist manifesto, and Critique of the Gotha Program. I propose these so that we can steelman the topic, and then get down to the task of refuting the ideas therein. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Why this is absurd

This page has existed since 2009. And only now, in the year of Our Lord, 2020, that I took some time to edit it, people want it gone? Really? If that is the case, yeah, fucking delete it then. That's my suggestion. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 19:00, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Not everything is about you on a personal level. Sometimes, people forget things exist, or they just learn about them, or they think one minor point is one too many, etc. And grandstanding about the matter and taking it personally doesn't really help improve things. Just food for thought. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not necessarily that they want it gone (and bear in mind that "they" in this case is like two or three people so far), but rather that they think it ought to be fundamentally different than what it is now--Hastur! (talk) 20:21, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

That being said, I can understand that frustration and sense of futility that is expressed here. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 20:56, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Really we should listen to the people calling for deletion and clear the wiki of pages like Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump since they are poorly written and redundant to our page on Fascism. — Z 01:53, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

That assumes all those pages are as equally badly designed, which they are not. The Hitler one could be redundant but is also well made. The Trump article could probably use some clean up but with so much up in the air now is probably not the time. The Marx page is not just redundant(if it is at all), it is badly made. Like GR, you really do have trouble understanding the true positions of those who disagree with you,hmhmhm...-Flandres (talk) 02:04, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I love how all the good faith explanations I put out for consideration were promptly ignored, and bad faith assumptions were posited roughly two hours later. Really proving that you're nuanced and thoughtful, and not just sectarian and petty. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 02:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

You better stop attacking her, @Flandres. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 02:44, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Attacking her how? By rebutting her?-Flandres (talk) 02:47, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Stay on track. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 02:48, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

If you insist. Ze is straw manning the argument presented by Amassivegay and others, as if they are saying we should delete it and leave it at that when we quite clearly wanted the article reworked, albeit in different ways. You will note, if my proposal is implemented, there will still be a Karl Marx article at the end of the process. the only user who advocated for outright deletion without any hope of replacement on grounds of redundancy was HBC, who has only commented once. Nearly everybody wanted a article on Marx, some of us thought this particular iteration was beyond recovery. GR bringing up that yes Marx is missional as if it was a rebuttal and Ze's straw-manning post above are both based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what was being said.-Flandres (talk) 03:00, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Again, what is a RationalWiki Karl Marx supposed to look like? That's what we need to figure out. I don't think anybody is seriously considering NOT having an article on the guy--Hastur! (talk) 03:03, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

beats me. i suggested a very simple outline up above, similar to what you've suggested. ultimately enough background to give an idea of his life and word he inhabited, some basic summaries of key ideas and works - probably mostly uncontentious stuff i'm guessing - structured in a such a way that things can slotted in a removed if need be without too much hassle or unbalancing the whole thing because there is no sense of time and place. you would not need much in the way of refutations, the in depth analysis being better suited to the page on marxism proper. in terms of legacy i guess from the russian revolution, the cold war and beyond looking the spread of marxism, the effects on the geo politics and conflicts of the 20th century, the outlook going forward, and if he can be blamed for the many atrocities and catastrophic missteps that have arisen. what conspiracy theories exist around him, how the deification or demonisation in some quarters warps our understanding. i stress actual analysis of marxism would be mostly superfluous here, but will need enough to put everything else in context, but im sure that would sort itself out as things are put in place.

are there no templates for this kind of thing to ensure articles have a uniform look and can grow with a logical feel? this isnt the first article thats become a mess with folk adding and removing disparate content with no thought to the whole. i usually just ignore it because culling the chaff would leave little salvageable that im usually ill equipped to replace with suitable content and i look like im just bitching again. basic skeleton of article templates could at least have a foundation to fall back on without needing to go through all this rigmarole. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:02, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I would agree with the broad outline-a briefest of biographies, the basic gist of his views as presented in his works, a quick look at his legacy, who likes him and hates him, his actual relation to the 20th century regimes claiming his works inspired them, such and such. The finished product would be rather short, and in my own view it should be rather anodyne.-Flandres (talk) 14:49, 7 August 2020 (UTC).

I've already stated my agreement above, but I'll state it here as well. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 14:59, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This page like all other pages on this Wiki is an examination of the cringe and fringe views of the World, so in context to Marx that's all the bad and stupid stuff he wrote and a mention of all the genocides and mass killing that his work was used to justify. Seems pretty simple to me. Anyway rather than arguing about it, write a new draft version of the page and see what people think. — Z 15:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

It's nice to see you agree with the core of my proposed solution. Allow me to put forward a compromise. Anyone interested can make their own draft which will later be voted on, but this current page stays in main space throughout that process. I would then recommend anyone interested to not invest too much work in this page because it might get replaced, and instead ask the creators of the various drafts permission to edit those.-Flandres (talk) 15:20, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't really care about Marx

But tried to include both sides on his stance on Jews, even if the 'whitewash marx', side is a bit culty on this issue. Deleting actual quotes of his would be too far, but will leave it up to the ideologues here to war over this further. Fourier and other older and newer socialists are far more interesting to me than this guy.Neiltyson1fan (talk) 00:35, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

overhaul/starting a fresh

i have begun a complete overhaul of this article which will not feature much of, if any, what it currently consists of. working on the time line of his life and works at present, and when i have something nearer to worthy enough to replace the current page i will put in draft space for perusal. AMassiveGay (talk) 10:40, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Seems good to me. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 15:08, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

i feel i should warn folk progress will be slow. i am easily distracted. AMassiveGay (talk) 15:28, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

"Couch Potato"

The section "Couch Potato" is useless and does nothing other than bias the reader against Marx's ideas. This might be valuable in a biography or even the proper Wikipedia page (on which such subjects are present), but for a website like Rational Wiki, which is focused ideological, skeptical, and scientific subjects, this is pointless. It amounts to nothing more than gossip.

The reference to "carbuncles" is not only pointless, too; it's also a misinterpretation and insensitive. Marx's "carbuncles" were one of many health issues he suffered from. Recently, in 2008, a dermatologist wrote a paper retrodiagnosing Marx with hidradenitis suppurativa, aka acne inversa. You can find that on PubMed here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17986303/

This is a common tactic among Marx's more wingnutty critics, whether they are making stuff up wholesale or cherry-picking parts of the man's life to criticize. For gods' sake, the source on this is Intellectual Takeout, a neoconservative rag! Why on earth would this be a good source for information on Marx's life?

We can have a sensible, nuanced, and dare I say, RATIONAL conversation about Marx's beliefs and legacy. I am a fan of much of Marx's work, but I am more than open to critique. This post is far longer than it should be, but this angers me deeply. We can talk about his theories, the issues therein, and criticize them. We can talk about Marx's complex relationship with philosophy of science, or We can even talk about Marx's weird anti-semitism, or how his theories have unfortunately influenced horrible authoritarian regimes, or even get into the class reductionism we see in Marxist discourse, or, hell, the misanthropic tendencies present in some of Marx's work. But we cannot and should not resort to insulting a man's personal life and disabilities so you can get a leg up.

I say this section needs to go. Monochroma (talk) 17:00, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Well... looks like I came late to the party. I did not really see the discursive war above this post. I must really sound silly, now.

It's kind of absurd that roughly HALF of this article's word count is dedicated to the man's prejudice and not his political theory. Evidently, the man was a bigot, and that really ought to be addressed. To imply that is even anywhere approaching 50% of his legacy is patently, well, wrong. I definitely think the "Couch Potato" section needs to be axed entirely.

I'm glad there are going to be efforts to rehaul this page. @AMassiveGay, if you want any support on the rewrite, I'd be glad to help in the ways I can. I have some thoughts on improvements and ways to approach certain subjects, but I am by no means an expert on Marx. Monochroma (talk) 15:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Personal life section

Why is it here? What is the missional value of dedicating a whole section with multiple subsections to his private affairs, when our propose here is to debunk his ideology (with some background to help you understand it).-Flandres (talk) 22:15, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

From my understanding the second paragraph seems written with the intent to setup and underline that Marx wasn't a particularly hard worker, which somewhat underlines the hypocrisy in his ideology putting forward the idea that people will just be a hard worker for each other and his relationship with his parents showing that he isn't above being extremely petty, which seems weird again with how heavily his own ideology underlines cooperation. The part about his ancestry is merely used to explain why cranks like tying Marxism into Jewish Global Conspiracy theories. YMMV on missionality, the part about his ancestry seems relevant to me, you can argue that the couch potato and parental relationship is a cheap dunk. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 22:20, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm willing to accept the ancestry section on that basis...but the later two still seem "petty" in their own right. Like, if it were an off hand line in another section that would be okay, but having sections all their own just doesn't seem to further our goal in analyzing him. I was thinking about removing them...but I wanted to hear arguments like yours (which convinced to keep the ancestry one) because I know almost better than anyone how passionate people can get about this article.-Flandres (talk) 22:25, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I fail to see how that even "underlines hypocrisy", unless there's some an inherent conflict between not working and disliking conditions under capitalism, unless whoever wrote that seems to think he was some kind of Stakhanovite decades before that was even a thing. --Invare (talk) 22:54, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Would Marx support Bernie Or Bust?

The answer is that Marx would only support voting for a worker's party, and seeing how the democratic party isn't one by any socialist's definition, he'd advocate forming a worker's party and campaigning on that party without any compromise. He'd probably advocate campaigning for the British labor party under Corbyn or pre-Blair or maybe Die Linke, but never for a party like the DNC.'Legion^{what do you want from me} 00:52, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

This article was written by politically illiterate rubes for the most part, so don't hold your breath. — Oxyaena ^Harass 01:54, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Sanders wouldn't be sufficiently radical enough for Marx.Yakikako (talk) 01:26, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Did Marx even participate in elections? --BON ^{— Unsigned, by: 168.91.2.97 / talk}

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you.

(EC)Do the congresses of the IWA count? GeeJayK (talk) 21:36, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

[EC]He didn’t really participate in any political activity other than writing. He may have aligned himself with groups that participated in elections, but those groups would need to actually be fighting against capitalism or feudalism (so he wouldn’t “support” Bernie or Corbyn or any mainstream, modern western politician). Even then he didn’t put much stock in them, in his view an election under capitalism would always favour capitalist interests. Christopher (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Marx's racism?

Seriously? I think this website has to be better than the DailyWires of the world. Right? Am I wrong? Amarty (talk) 18:00, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

That’s not much of a conversation starter, what do you think the section gets wrong? Christopher (talk) 18:01, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Marx wasn't racist. He supported anti-colonial movements in the world. Amarty (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

If you want to convince anyone, you need to address the examples in the section. Claim they’re taking out of context or something. Christopher (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

(EC) You can do both. Marx was an European born in the XIXth century. Pretty much everyone was a racist back then. Churchill was also a racist, and that doesn't diminish his merits. I agree that the section is longer than it should be though. GeeJayK (talk) 18:05, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

All it does really is grasping at straws. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:07, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Why? This just reads like a hit piece on one of the greatest western philosophers. Why have it in the first place? PS: What is an "edit conflict"??? Is that some sort of war on this website? Amarty (talk) 18:07, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

@Amarty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Edit_conflict MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:08, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

(EC) Who are you talking to on this last post? About Edit Conflict, here: RationalWiki:Newcomers#Editing.^{— Unsigned, by: GeeJayK / talk / contribs}

Because he was a racist. This website is about pseudoscience, bigotry and woo, not a bunch of puff pieces. If the guy is an asshole, we'll document it. CorruptUser 18:11, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

This section is quite literally "reverse whitwashing", it serves no purpose other than make Marx seem worse than he is. I suggest to remove it entirely. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:13, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Amarty (talk) 18:13, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

The section is problematic, I agree. But why should it be removed? GeeJayK (talk) 18:15, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

It adds nothing substantiative to the article, it simply exists as a list of goofs when they were normalized back then. All it does is discredit Marx's accomplishments for no good reason. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 18:19, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

No. Erasing uncomfortable facts is Orwellian. CorruptUser 18:16, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

As I said, I belive the section has many problems, but should we erase the racist sections on the Winston Churchill article? How about deleting the category racists on the Zachary Taylor article? GeeJayK (talk) 18:24, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Churchill advocated for racism and he was a capitalist. Marx advocated for a system that abolishes racism (ideally, that is). Amarty (talk) 18:26, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

"Our heroes did good, ergo we should ignore any problems they had! Your heroes said something nasty on Twitter when they were 15 and should be cancelled!!!" CorruptUser 18:27, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Why are you being so hostile? Amarty (talk) 18:28, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

[EC]IIRC “on the Jewish question” is about how anyone, Jew or gentile, can “be a Jew” in the sense of embodying antisemitic stereotypes, and how it’s capitalism not Judaism which is the root cause of such behaviour. It’s not politically correct, but hardly damning for a man who’s been dead for 100 years. The other examples are harder to dismiss. Christopher (talk) 18:29, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

@Christopher do you believe capitalism inherently necessitates things like racism, considering the profit motive? Amarty (talk) 18:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

(EC) @Amarty It's called hypocrisy. John Locke advocated for a system where everyone is equal, but he didn't believe that atheists had these rights. GeeJayK (talk) 18:33, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I fail to see why a sociopath would be racist/sexist. Refusing to rent an apartment to someone who is willing to pay you isn't just racist, it's poor business sense. Refusing to let Black people into your school reduces the overall quality of potential students and your school loses prestige in the long term. Bigotry is a human failing, not an economic one. CorruptUser 18:36, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

(EC) The best argument in my opinion is that he was just reproducing views that were common in the XIXth century. Everything else so far sounds like whitewashing. GeeJayK (talk) 18:36, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

On a related note, why did we remove the part about Marx's hygiene and whatnot? The man was a hypocrite; extolled the virtues of the working class while mooching off of others, real working class Joes would've utterly despised the man. CorruptUser 18:38, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Cory, commenting about perceived hypocrisy in his personal life does not further the main aspect of our mission-critiquing his bunk ideology.-Flandres (talk) 18:42, 24 March 2021 (UTC)-Flandres (talk) 18:42, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I get that liberals don't like Marx, but those attacks are just defamatory. Amarty (talk) 18:39, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

It's only defamation if it isn't true. CorruptUser 18:42, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll say it again. The section has many problems and ignores the historical background. But I don't see it's defamatory, unless you think someone cannot be a racist just because he believed in a system that everyone is equal. Marx didn't have the access of the modern biology and sociology, I agree. But that doesn't mean he wasn't racist (albeit, I'll repeat, the section should be re-written). GeeJayK (talk) 18:43, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree. At most the section should be re-written, because his bigotry did in fact contribute to his worldview. On the other hand we should put it in temporal context.-Flandres (talk) 18:45, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Just for context, the section in question was added by Raven. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:52, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Funny, I was checking it right now. I also thought it was him (I spent most of the last night correcting an absurd mistake he made on the Social democracy article. But in fact it was written by Neiltyson1fan. Sorry, Oxy, it was one of your friends this time. GeeJayK (talk) 18:56, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I believe it was started by raven, and Neil added a lot to it afterward.-Flandres (talk) 18:57, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

You're both wrong. A section on Marx' racist behavior already existed. Raven then tried to expand on it in the usual way that Raven did. Neiltyson1fan came quite a bit after. Personally, I think that whilst Marx wasn't particularly extremely racist compared for his time, one can fairly likely point to the fact that present day Marxists aren't above often being massive racists themselves when it hits convenient (the anti-idpol crowd) will likely feel their opinions are very validated by Marx' more contemporary racism. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 19:26, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Why is this relevant to Marx, tho? Guy said some common stuff for his time. Not worth cluttering half his page with that. Amarty (talk) 16:34, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Because it DID influence his work. Take the Asiatic mode of production for instance.-Flandres (talk) 16:42, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Why are most Marxists opposed to racism then? Amarty (talk) 16:47, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Because people in a movement NEVER have differing opinions from its founder...-Flandres (talk) 16:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Why are you removing anything I am adding to the page? Amarty (talk) 16:50, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘You should wait until the discussion here has concluded before editing the page. Having “anti-racism” as a pro when we’ve got a whole section about he was a racist is incoherent, and Marx wasn’t an anti-fascist as he died before fascism existed. Christopher (talk) 16:51, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

(EC)You added only two things, one of which credits him for opposition to an ideology that did not exist until decades after he died.-Flandres (talk) 16:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

But it says "fucking tankies", when tankies didn't exist until very much after his death? Amarty (talk) 17:25, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

But tankies at least on paper revere his words and do these actions in the name of fulfilling his dream. There are numerous sources of Anti-fascism and Anti-racism completely unrelated to Marx so saying that is part of his legacy is absurd.-Flandres (talk) 17:28, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Tankies are a direct subproduct of Marxism. Anti-fascism doesn't have anything to do with Marxism, unless if you think Fascism was only created as a reaction to the rise of the communist parties... GeeJayK (talk) 17:39, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see how ad-hominems debunk any ideology. Like, Adam Smith thought landlords were bad so that means liberalism is debunked? ^{— Unsigned, by: 168.91.2.97 / talk / contribs}

"Marx the anti-semite"

Marx was Jewish, and why only have a section on Marx's problems and not, say, the problems of Darwin? This site defends the bigotry of Darwin, but unreasonably castigates the bigotry (real and/or perceived) of Marx. Why the double standard? Spot (talk) 15:58, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

If you scroll through the fossil record, there's a pretty storied history of why it's like that. I think we should absolutely address Marx's bigotry, but it's undeniably overkill. I'm considering re-writing that section and just cutting down the length and excerpts. Completely unnecessary. Monochroma (talk) 04:58, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Given the immense controversy of that section, I feel like the edit I just made was justified. I changed very little of the actual content, but reduced the overall length of the section, including excessive blockquotes (really, do we need to expose people to that kind of vitriol to get the point across?) and some minor rewording. Monochroma (talk) 06:47, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it was removing excessive block quotes

My edit was reversed, claiming I removed "most of the article." I think this is false. The content of the article upon removing the block quotes was almost *entirely the same*. I think there is absolutely no reason that we should put these quotes on display, counting up every single vile thing the man said. We can summarize them and offer analysis, but I think it's plainly stupid to leave it as it was.

Further, this single section, "Marx's contemporary bigotry", has been a constant source of debate and vitriol on this page. My edit attempted to offer a location to discuss the bigotry of Karl Marx without completely dominating the article, and exposing people to hateful speech. If people would like to discuss that or edit it, I'm cool with that. But we've been waiting for an improvement on this section for years. I'm rolling it back. Monochroma (talk) 08:56, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Marx and his influence on economics

This is grossly innacurate. The only Marxian economist on RePec that I'm aware is Paul Roemer. Even fringe economists like Ludwig von Mises have a bigger impact to the economic thought. Many ideas from the XIXth century are still relevant for the economic thought today, just to name a few:

• Comparative advantages - David Ricardo
• General equilibrium - Léon Walras
• Price elasticity - Alfred Marshall
• Marginal utility - William Stanley Jevons
• Marginal productivity - John Bates Clarke

All these ideas are still part of the economic science today, and many Nobel Memorial Prize laureates built their theories upon them, like the Arrow–Debreu model with the general equilibrium and the Heckscher–Ohlin model and the comparative advantages.

Which Marxian idea is still in vogue today? None. Sure, Marx was relevant to political movements, but that doesn't make him influential on the academic/theoretical field of economics.. I'll remove this passage if no one disagrees with me. GeeJayK (talk) 16:27, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I mean, yeah, if you're looking at mainstream economics, Marx's work isn't influential at all. But there is an entire subsect of economics that is dedicated just to building off of his work. I'm not under the illusion that his work is widely accepted outside of that, but to assert that Marx isn't influential on any field of economics is to just ignore an entire heterodox school, especially when there's a burgeoning interest in Marxian economics now, too. I don't really get your point, either. It's not like there's a huge scrawl on this page about how Marx changed economics forever. It says he's a deeply influential economist. That's all. Not on the merits of his theories, just that he is influential. Which he unquestionably is. Is he Adam Smith? No. But it's hard to ignore the marks Marx left on the world. Monochroma (talk) 01:10, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

You can also make the argument that besides the minority of economists who specialize in Marxian economics a considerable amount of that right libertarian tradition in economics is active reaction to Marxist and socialist thought more broadly and so denotes another means of Marx’s impact. To influence a field is not necessarily to be widely accepted by it. Freud was influential to psychology but his theories are widely rejected. I wish people gave marxian economics a bit more attention though. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 09:01, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

That's a good point. I've heard the argument that Keynesianism, no doubt particularly major, grew from dissatisfaction with Marxian, Austrian School, and mainstream economics. Though I admit I am not well versed in economics at all. Regardless, I'd be open to rephrasing of whatever particular passage this is referring to but I think the key assertion is pretty off here. Marx is profoundly influential, no matter how you slice it. Maybe the OP would prefer "political philosopher"? "Godfather of political economy and socioeconomics?" Not sure. Monochroma (talk) 09:57, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Racism and double standards

This article goes out of its way to demonize Marx for his typical 19th century racism, while the article on Darwin goes out of its way to apologize for Darwin's typical 19th century racism (apologize in the classical sense: "in defense of"). Judging from the talk page history, I'm not the first one to notice this. If we are going to hold influential 19th century thinkers accountable for their bigotry, we should at least be consistent in doing so. Vee (talk) 18:29, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

The difference is that we had an edit war on this page in the past because a now banned user insisted we covered it in the laziest cheap dunk fashion possible (and another banned user insisted we didn't) before we cut the gordian knot by putting none of their versions on the page. I do think there is specific merit to covering Marx' racism in a negative light whilst being neutral-ish on Darwin. Darwins racism is not exactly well known about the man, nor does his legacy really encompass much of his racism. By contrast, Marx' at best lack of care about how he perceived race back in the day is still having some very negative effects to this day (it's arguably the ground root for class reductionism). Just my 0.02 as to why our pages cover these two individual thinkers differently. -- Techpriest (talk) 19:16, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Marx was also very Orientalist. Did you know he excused the atrocities of the British Empire in India simply because "the Brits were introducing private property to India which previously had none." This is because Marx views capitalism as the predecessor to socialism, which coincidentally just so happens to be rooted in the developmental history of Europe, which Marx generalizes to cover the entire world. Marx, for all his genius, was ironically enough a very Eurocentric thinker. Vee (talk) 19:23, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Marx's sociological and political work were more important IMO than his economic work

Although a lot of his work in sociology does cover the interplay between sociology and economics. Marx covers the economic aspects of class struggle, gender, imperialism and whatnot and how they all play into the wider socioeconomic system of capitalism which other economists of the time didn't (and to this day still downplay and ignore somewhat). Vee (talk) 18:31, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Granted there were other thinkers roughly contemporaneous to Marx who covered these subjects and aspects too, but regardless of their individual merits they were not as influential as Marx was, for better and/or for worse. Vee (talk) 18:41, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

fine we can exclude the last thing I added

Not much outcry to put it back in 2600:4040:403C:F300:D5CA:1F44:A6A5:C908 (talk) 00:06, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

You can make an account, you know. Vee (talk) 02:35, 13 November 2022 (UTC)