From its beginnings, Marxism has been under strong attack by critics, often for claims that Marx himself never made.  For example, some have viewed Marx's materialism as evidence that he ignored the role of ideas in history and in people's lives. Others have claimed wrongly that Marx's labour theory of value ignored the effect of competition on prices. Many argue that with the advent of the welfare state and the relative prosperity of workers in much of the Western world, Marxism is no longer relevant.  Marxists answer that the basic structures that set capitalism apart from other social forms--private ownership of industrial wealth and alienated wage labour--have changed very little in the past 100 years.

Some, finally, point to the antidemocratic practices of many, “Communist” countries and claim that authoritarianism is inherent in Marxist doctrine. Marxists respond that Marx concentrated on advanced industrial capitalism and never supposed that socialism could achieve its full promise in relatively poor nations.

Marxism, as defined here, has had its main influence among workers and intellectuals in the capitalist countries, especially in Europe, which have used it as a major tool in defining their problems and developing political strategies. In the Western countries even non-Marxist intellectuals, particularly sociologists and historians, have drawn considerable insights from Marx's writings.  In the Third World, Marxism--considerably modified by a strong dose of voluntarism--has clarified the nature of the enemy for many liberation movements.  In the Communist countries, selected doctrines of Marx have been frozen into abstract principles and formulas to serve as the official ideology of the regimes.  The influence of these three versions of Marxism is as different as their content.