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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

	Karl Marx has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
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Examining sources show that one statement in the Criticism section is a blatant lie

Specifically: "Worldwide poverty has increased since the end of the 19th century especially considering that the richest are richer than ever but the poor have remained at the same level and the percentage has risen in the last 30 years"

This is blatantly false. Even on the same page of one of the sources cited it says: "Poverty has decreased over the last 2 centuries" (Sylvia Whitman (June 2008). World poverty. Infobase Publishing. p. 3. ISBN 9780816068074. http://books.google.com/books?id=fk4QHyTMhQkC&pg=PA3. Retrieved 5 March 2011.)

The other sources show that absolute poverty worldwide has decreased 20% since 1980 (according to the UN). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.244.9.8 (talk) 20:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

ideology?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

German Jewish?

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

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

Marxism as the ideology of totalitarian states

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you want exactly? Can TFD provide a reference for his (dubious) assertion that "Since the Second World War view on race and ethnicity have changed "? Marx, Disraeli, and Mendelssohn were baptized as Christians, but all of them were also Jews, a term which can describe both a religion and an ethnicity. Here's an essay by Eric Hobsbawm in the LRB that describes Mendelssohn, Disraeli, and Marx as being Jews (along with Heine and Ricardo, both of whom converted to Christianity as adults). The phenomenon of the assimilated (or would-be assimilated) western European Jew who converts to Protestantism in the late 18th/early 19th century is a pretty common one. In none of these cases that I'm aware of were the converts ever noted for any particularly genuine religious commitment to Christianity. Their conversion itself was a phenomenon of anti-Semitism, and almost always had to do with a desire to be more assimilated into the mainstream, not with any genuine religious conversion. A few generations later, Jews in similar circumstances would have simply become Reform Jews and assimilated without totally abandoning Judaism, but that option wasn't open to Jews of earlier generations. The experience of people like Marx and Disraeli was a distinctly Jewish one, and to pretend as though that context doesn't exist distorts history. john k (talk) 16:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"German"?

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

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