Jon Johanning wrote:
>
> Which train? Which track? It's even more hopeless trying to find a
> single, consistent "Marxist" position on anything than it is finding a
> Buddhist one. Just about every idea you can think of has probably been
> embraced by one "Marxist" group or individual and denounced by another
> one. Just keep in mind that the master himself made a famous
> pronouncement: "I am not a Marxist."
This paragraph is pretty accurate -- there is an old wisecrack that wherever two marxists meet three tendencies form. But it is _not_ correct to use Marx's observation here, since he used it in specific reference to a really oddball group in France who called themselves "Marxists." It was a chance observation in a particular context, and it is distorting to call it a "pronouncment" as though he were laying down some abstract universal principle. He wasn't. And it is only famous because it is so universally misapplied.
Carrol