The difference between what you mean by Marxism and what you mean by liberalism certainly is clear enough. The difference between what you mean by one of these terms and what someone else means might be immense.
Let's take liberalism.... You wrote, "liberalism, in theory if not in practice, is essentially a doctrine about what constitutes legitimate exercise of state power, favoring limitations of state power in defense of (negative) liberties (i.e., freedom from the state) of the individual, mainly propertied individuals." That's a good 18th/19th century definition. The vast majority of our contemporaries see liberalism in terms of emphasizing state authority. It doesn't matter that we're historically right and they're historically wrong, because we can't make ourselves understood, right? Or Marxism.... You wrote, "The Marxist tradition, in contrast, has seldom embraced any categorical limitation of state power in theory or in practice." There is no class content to this kind of an abstraction about "state power." Marxists discuss the state and state power in terms of class realities...and they're pretty categorical about that. Solidarity! Mark L.
