Talk:Karl Marx

Article Checklist for "Karl Marx"

Workgroup category or categories	Philosophy Workgroup, History Workgroup, Politics Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	No
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Larry Sanger 13:29, 20 October 2007 (CDT); Eddie Ortiz Nieves 10:59, 20 October 2007 (CDT)

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Richard, sorry, but Marx is obviously a philosopher first and foremost, and an economist. Those are the subjects that he wrote about and is famous for. He also really belongs in politics because of his foremost position as the political theoretician of the left. He had a great impact on history, obviously, but via his impact on philosophy, economics, and politics. The leading experts about Marx are not historians, but philosophers, economists, and political theorists. --Larry Sanger 13:29, 20 October 2007 (CDT)

Larry--let's your experts handle this one please. Let the philosphers contribute but so far they have not made a contribution here. As fir the economists, he's a minor figure as the article explains. Richard Jensen 13:44, 20 October 2007 (CDT)

This is a tough call. In the narrow social sciences, Marx's contribution is I think in the order Politics, Sociology, Economics. History is clearly a major component -- not only because of his historical importance, but also because of the role of history in his own writings. Arguably, his account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism was the best thing he wrote. And, yes, he also has a role in philosophy. How to prioritise? I have no idea. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 13:48, 20 October 2007 (CDT)

History comes in because he had an enormous influence on historiography. Economics on the other hand --he had little influence there. ("a minor ricardian" as Samuleson says.) In 2007 among active scholars I would guess he is best represented in literature departments! The problem is that the coding system allows only three categories. The solution is to chnage a line or two of code and make that 5 categories. Richard Jensen 14:19, 20 October 2007 (CDT)