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Requested move 22 November 2019

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:38, 1 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]



Das KapitalCapital (book)WP:CONSISTENT with Capital, Volume I; Capital, Volume II; Capital, Volume III; and the Capital, Volume IV redirect. It's completely bizarre that we're using conflicting titles for multiple articles about the same work. I'm suggesting the English titles per WP:USEENGLISH, but don't feel strongly about it; I suppose it's possible the WP:COMMONNAME is actually Das Kapital, and the other three articles should move instead. However, it seems to me that we might actually consider a merge, or at least selective merging and some cleanup; the Vol. I–III articles are looking more and more like WP:CONTENTFORKs rather than WP:SPINOFFs.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  12:15, 22 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with comparing the frequency of the strings "Das Kapital" and "Marx's Capital" (which is done in your link) is that in only one of them is the name of the book preceeded by "Marx's". You are not comparing like for like. The reason why I prefixed "Marx's" is to control for the fact that "Capital" alone (which it would be reasonable to compare to "Das Kapital") refers to many other things besides the book. Other words can also be prefixed to ensure that only uses related to the book are counted. With "first volume of" prefixed we obtain much the same result. ThessalonianR (talk) 17:58, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As I quite clearly said, "Das Kapital" in English sources will almost invariably refer to this work. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:12, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what you're saying, and I don't dispute it. The problem is that the same is not the case with "Capital". We want to compare the use of these two terms only when they are used to refer to Marx's work. Google ngram is a good way of comparing these things (it searches very large corpora of books and its use is recommended in Wikipedia:RM); however, in situations in which one or both of the terms has other referents we must control for this. This graph would not be a very good argument, would it? That is why, as I previously explained, it is necessary to prefix some words to form a phrase that can only be used to refer to the work in question. I have already provided two such searches, one that uses the phrase "Marx's Capital" and "Marx's Das Kapital", the other "first volume of Capital" and "first volume of Das Kapital". Both of those only show a subset of the use of each term, but they show comparable subsets. The problem with the search that you linked to is that it compares the entire set of uses of "Das Kapital" with a mere subset of the uses of "Capital" to refer to the work -- just those that are prefixed by "Marx's". As I said, this does not compare like for like. Does this really strike you as a fair comparison? If so, please give your reasons. I apologize if my previous comments have not been clear enough and hopefully this will help. ThessalonianR (talk) 08:04, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
One problem is that the resulting data is not consistent enough to show which is more common in other contexts. For example, see this ngram in which "Das Capital by Karl Marx" consistently outpaces "Capital by Karl Marx". Dekimasuよ! 15:34, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Given that the frequency of the strings you have compared are a whole order of magnitude less frequent than the ones I linked to earlier, I'm not sure how significant this is. Incidentally, removing "Karl" yields the opposite result, and both pairs of strings put into a regular google search give more results when including "Capital". In any case, this argument was only one of those I made in my original comment. What do people have to say about the fact that in English it is published under Capital? Or that in nigh on all academic discussion of the work it is known as Capital?
To step back for a moment, if consensus cannot be arrived at on what the common name is (although I believe the evidence is very much in Capital's favour) then other criteria such as the use of the English and consistency should surely take precedence, in which case the page should be moved to Capital anyway. As the opener of this discussion made clear, consistency is his main concern. And to insist on the use of German when it is not clearly the common name seems perverse to me. ThessalonianR (talk) 19:15, 29 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - While I've never heard it called "Capital", it seems that this is a common form of the title in English. However, the English form is not the primary topic for the word "capital" and would need a disambiguation. Given this situation, I would think that "Das Kapital" would fall under the directive to use natural disambiguation instead of parenthetical disambiguation wherever practical. --Khajidha (talk) 13:01, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
  • Followup note: I will RM the other articles, then, to match this one's title. I didn't really care which title we used as long as it's consistently used. That said, I think ThessalonianR has a good point, and I also have to observe that how famous a work is has jack to do with what title our article should have. No one questioned whether Capital / Das Kapital is "an incredibly famous book" or "One of the most famous books ever written". This sort of emotional venting is not helpful at RM or any other consensus discussion.  — SMcCandlish ¢ 😼  08:34, 6 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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Footnotes 1, 2, and 3 link to the German editions of volumes 1 to 3, at www.e-rara.ch. Footnote 3 links to the third volume, part one, but there is no link (on that page or elsewhere) to the third volume, part two. However, it appears this (volume 3 part 2) can be downloaded from here: [1]. Should Footnote 3 be amended to reflect that volume 3 is in two parts with a link to each part?

Mgchristensen (talk) 04:27, 9 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

Supposed Bakunin's translation

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"The foreign editions of Capital. Critique of Political Economy (1867) by Karl Marx include a Russian translation by the revolutionary socialist Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)."

That is not the case. Bakunin did start the translation to Russian, but according to Resis quoting Marx and James Guillaume, he never went far. Bakunin praised Das Kapital and wished for it to be translated to French, but he was not its translator to Russian. OliveiraCris (talk) 21:51, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 20 April 2023

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)MaterialWorks 21:09, 27 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]


– Previous move discussions Special:Permalink/1146764052#Requested move 23 May 2018, Special:Permalink/1146764052#Requested move 22 November 2019, and Special:Permalink/1071069187#Requested move 6 December 2019 generally relied on anecdotal evidence that "Das Kapital" is the WP:COMMONNAME which I contest here. While I agree that parenthetical disambiguation isn't beautiful, neither is the fact that "Das Kapital" is used for Das Kapital, Volume I when that name is used at a ratio of one to fifty per Google scholar.

Google ngram shows that "Marx's Capital" is used more often than "Marx's Das Kapital" at a ratio of three to one. [1] As does Google scholar at a ratio of six to one. ("Marx's Capital" vs "Marx's Das Kapital") Google search hits finds usage at a ratio of seventeen to one. ("Marx's Capital" vs "Marx's Das Kapital")

Per Google scholar:

  1. "Capital Volume I" is used over "Das Kapital Volume I" at a ratio of seventeen to one. ([2] vs [3])
  2. "Capital Volume II" is used over "Das Kapital Volume II" at a ratio of fifty to one. ([4] vs [5])
  3. "Capital Volume III" is used over "Das Kapital Volume III" at a ratio of thirty-three to one. ([6] vs [7])

And Google ngram finds no results at all for "Das Kapital Volume I/II/III", as opposed to "Capital Volume I/II/III". ([8]) I've edited this section slightly to make it more clear. :3 F4U (they/it) 19:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It was noted previously that Encyclopedia Britannica uses "Das Kapital", however I'd like to point out that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy uses "Capital". :3 F4U (they/it) 18:20, 20 April 2023 (UTC)      @SMcCandlish, Galobtter, RL0919, Necrothesp, Dekimasu, ThessalonianR, BD2412, and Gonnym: Pinging those who have previously contributed to these discussions :3 F4U (they/it) 18:45, 20 April 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Oppose. Both Das Kapital and Capital are commonly used in English. The former is more unambiguous without extra context. Capital (book) is less ideal because it does not disambiguate from Capital (novel) or any other book of the same title (even though Marx's is the most prominent). In the context of Marx scholarship (etc.), it may well be customary to simply say Capital, but that is because of the context. And the comparison of Ngrams between "Marx's Capital" and "Marx's Das Kapital" is inapt, because only the former requires any inclusion of "Marx's" to be unambiguous. I would support the alternative Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. SilverLocust (talk) 23:49, 20 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The more I think about it, the more I wouldn't be against the original titles from four years ago (Das Kapital, Capital, Volume I, Capital, Volume II, and Capital, Volume III). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy doesn't sound bad either (though Capital (book) should continue to redirect here). :3 F4U (they/it) 01:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well to me that shows Das Kapital is prevalent and specific references to individual volumes are sparing by comparison. You might also consider that English sentence may also use "Volume I of Das Kapital" or "first volume of " as a phrase in text while "Das Kapital, Volume II" is as likely to be a citation as it is to be text referring to the book itself. If anything the methodology of searching JSTOR should be improved, and that would still be ignoring usage in other areas of life. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:27, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Legacy / Influence Section

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Seems crazy to me that this article doesn't touch on the impact of one of the most socially impactful works in recorded history. The article for Harry Potter has a "Legacy" subheader overviewing all the fanfiction those books inspired, but nothing for a book that inspired social movements, political parties, economic reconfiguration, societal revolutions, assassinations, or civil wars in nearly every country on the face of the earth over two centuries?

Imagine if the article for the 95 Theses didn't mention the development of Protestantism. Bit of a head-scratcher. Jhodders (talk) 22:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a legacy section at Karl Marx#Legacy. What information distinctly related to this work, rather than Marx's writings as a whole, do you propose ought to be added here? SilverLocust (talk) 06:09, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Opening - in contrast to

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The opening has the sentence "Marx aimed to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production in contrast to classical political economists such as Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill."

I don't think Marx was in contrast to them, any more than any of them were to each other. In fact, Marx was in many ways a faithful follower to Ricardo in many matters, particularly value, and our modern neoclassical economists are the ones who are in contrast to David Ricardo on many things (although not free trade, where they tend to agree with Ricardo).

I am changing those "in contrast to" words. I am not sure what the exact wording should be, but saying Marx is in contrast to Ricardo makes no sense, as he was a more faithful follower to Ricardo than modern economists are. I don't know what the exact words should be, but they should not be in contrast to, against and so forth.

I am also changing a repeat of this language further down the page.

In Book 1 of Capital, Chapter 1, Marx says "Since Robinson Crusoe’s experiences are a favourite theme with political economists..." with a footnote referencing Ricardo, and Marx goes on to use Robin Crusoe as a metaphor and quotes Ricardo's use of Crusoe in a footnote. This is just the beginning of Marx's references to Ricardo, who he often followed, although he sometimes diverged from him.

Describing Marx's relationship to his predecessors is complex, as he is, in his mind, sometimes following them, sometimes clarifying and adding to them, and sometimes contrasting them. To use terms Marx and Engels use, this is not an anti-thesis to the theses of previous economists, but a synthesis of them. Minimax Regret (talk) 15:42, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the Complexity of "Volume IV"

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I was doing some reading and happened upon the CPSU's introduction to their version of Volume IV/Theories of Surplus Value by karl Marx. It claims that the version by Kautsky, mentioned in this article on the Works, bastardized the original manuscripts and left out a lot of details, which their publication corrects. I have not read either version of Volume IV, so I cannot confirm whether or not the accusations in the preface are true (I suspect though that they likely are,) but in any case, it seemed like important information to include in the article, given this is essentially the only place on English Wikipedia which mentions anything about Volume IV, and a separate publication of it which is extremely different seems like it would be necessary to include. Thus I made an edit adding that the CPSU's publication exists and that it claims to be "more correct."

If anyone who has worked on this article has any further knowledge of the topic of what "Volume IV" precisely is, and how accurate a term that even is given that it seems only Lenin and Engels reference it that way even if it was intended to be a finishing work to Volumes I-III, I would appreciate a review of my edit and of the CPSU's preface to their version for accuracy's sake. Thanks AquaticOnWiki (talk) 02:04, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]