Talk:Socialism/Archive 10

message: This is my personal take on socialism. Specifically it means a) everyone's basic needs should be met b) following that, the government should be as small as practical.
Of course "everyone" "basic needs" and "practical" need further description.
"Everyone" means everyone. Without regard to their nationality, work ethic, ability, etc. You didn't ask to be here (as far as we can tell) so to be asked to provide for your own survival is double-billing. If we're to be any better than the animals we need to account for the worth and dignity of individuals on some other level than how much money they can make.
"Basic needs" fit into 3 categories of rights:
a) That which ensures basic survival (nutrition, sleep, and protection from nature)
b) That which enables you to build upon that survival to have a "life", since survival by itself is meaningless (education, socialization and gainful activity)
c) That without which you would not be able to use the tools in b to accomplish anything (freedom of expression, freedom of movement, and the right to privacy)
Basic needs need not be a house in the suburbs, a dog, and a station wagon. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a warm piece of pipe were more what I had in mind. If you want more than that, that's where Priviledges of citizenship, luck, family support, or your own hard work come in. This means that the Libertarian aspect isn't contrary to the socialism aspect as most people would assume.
How small government can practically be is something I haven't really worked on too much. Suffice it to say that with the inclusion of a single law, maximum personal worth, all these things would be funded and more without taking away anything someone has the right or need for anyway, and leave plenty to go 'round for other governmental projects which fit more loosely into the realm of "privileges of citizenship" such as health-care, means of artistic expression and the oversight which would keep things from degrading.
I welcome your thoughts (you know who you are) HavenBastion 07:06, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See libertarian socialism. Your description might resemble some forms of LS, but doesn't describe other forms. Jacob Haller 18:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Libertarian Socialism 

message: A new section should be added to the begining of the article that explains what socialism is to various groups, this would be very helpful to laymen that are not as versed in socialist rhetoric as we are. The groups should range from the Marxist definition, to the neo-con definition to be as inclusive as possible. Possibly divided into a leftist section, and a rightist section to avoid confusion. (Demigod Ron 00:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Definitions Section

message: It takes me quite a while to scroll or drag or whatever technique to get to the bottom.  Perhaps an archiving should be in order sometime soon?  Fephisto 19:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree! Sorry to have introduced a new topic before this happened! BobFromBrockley 16:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 

message: Syndicalists have not all supported either the cooperative or the participatory economy. I have rewritten the opening of the cooperatives statement to emphasize that libertarian socialists in general have shared those goals, but have proposed several different decentralized, worker-managed economic systems, not just those two. Moreover, not all syndicalists have been libertarian socialists. I have started another paragraph stating that:
:Syndicalists focus on labor organizing. Most syndicalists expect unions to have a central role in socialist economics; some syndicalists have favored state socialism, more have favored anarchist communism, many have favored collectivist (e.g. cooperative and participatory) economies, and some have favored market economies.
Now I'm most familiar with the American (pre-Wobbly and Wobbly industrial unionist) tradition, e.g.:
# state socialism Earl Browder, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, William Z. Foster
# anarchocommunism Johann Most, Ricardo Flores Magon
# collectivist economies apparently Bill Haywood
# market economies Joseph Labadie, Dyer Lum, apparently Ralph Chaplin by 1919-20 Jacob Haller 19:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: When I added the third paragraph to satisfy the demands of several editors who were vexed at the omission of heterodox socialism, I made sure to mention only the two most notable economic systems to have found support among the anti-authoritarian left. My yardstick for notability was the overview section of an undergraduate textbook on comparative economics. Other economic systems proposed by anarchists or syndicalists are too insignificant to be discussed in the introduction of that textbook, and hence to insignificant to be discussed in this general article. -- WGee 05:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If any one system, besides unionism itself, can claim majority support among syndicalists it is libertarian communism, with cooperativism/collectivism claiming far less support. I am not aware of any systematic survey of syndicalist opinion on the matter. As written, the old text understated the range of syndicalist opinion, and misplaced the mode as well. Jacob Haller 19:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Syndicalist economic systems

message: Can we agree on what topics to include (and not to include)? I proposed the following list above:
# General observations. The calculation problem could go here.
# Soviet planned economy.
# Soviet NEP, Chinese system.
# Western mixed economies.
# Cooperatives (e.g. Mondragon/MCC) and collectivist anarchist systems. Possibly also Yugoslav system and Kuzbass autonomous industrial colony.
# Labor unions.
# Socialist market economies. Mutualism, etc. as well as what Marx calls 'Bourgeois socialism' (in the Manifesto).
# someplace in there, gift economies, anarcho-communism, and perhaps Fourier as well.
WGee argued against including the market economies. I'd like to expand the whole section, since this is one of the most important topics for the article. Also, can people say what they are most familiar with and most interested in improving? Jacob Haller 05:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm inclined to disagree. These are things which need to go in the main article, Socialist economics, while this section of this article should be fairly succint. BobFromBrockley 10:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Economic System(s): Topics to Cover

message: I feel compelled to bring this back to the table. Is there ANY way that we can convert the spelling in this article to British English? The reason I would favour this is because such would be the more European way to go in stylistic characteristic. Socialism is an inherently European ideology (at least in the systematic sense), it enjoyed a higher degree of success in Europe and elsewhere in the Non-American world, and the United States now more than ever is going the opposite direction of socialism. In fact the only relation the U.S. has ever had with this ideology (though an important one to note) is that it has played a role as the world's biggest opposer to it, why then should we use the American spelling medium in describing this ideology's history and socio-political attributes?EnglishEfternamntalkcontribs 02:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Policy. WP:ENGVAR to be precise. --Guinnog 02:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for spelling conversion

message: This pertains to the rewording of the word "condemned" to "criticized" (ugghh, having to write that with American spelling, yuck, but that is not the point), for the reason that there is no sufficient evidence that ALL socialists of the 19th century went to the extend that they "condemned" BOTH capitalism and private property. To add to this, "condemned" is a harsh word which implies malice and that socialist thought is "malicious", in fact I don't think well of this word being used to describe any type of opinion, and that is why I have re-worded the word in other articles in the past. Furthermore, while all socialists are ideologically against capitalism, it would be inaccurate to state that they all are against private property as well. We all know that not all socialists seek to do away or even alter rules of private property. If the sentence was reworded to describe capitalism only, then "and" would be appropriate, but since this is not the case, I think "and/or" is more accurate, and I don't see how it would be unencyclopedic. Bottom line, unless something could be cited that proves that all socialists, each and every one, condemned both capitalism and private property, the current revision might be acceptable,....but since it is unencyclopedic to use the terms "all", "nothing", "always", "never", except in very select cases, I don't see how even that would work. It is for this reason that I conclude the change is necessary, general consensus on this matter in the past has favoured this direction.EnglishEfternamntalkcontribs 03:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewording of "condemned" to "criticized"

message: I added an international grouping to the list of socialist organisations and it was deleted without comment. I wonder what the reasoning is for the list of socialist organisations? Is it possible to list the main international socialist groupings? As it stands the list seems rather selective.
I pesonally think there should be short list, if one can be agreed, as some guidance, and they could perhaps be confined to international groupings, as they are currently, but with omissions. I know there is a discussion above which did not conclude this, but some organisations have been added since.
Andysoh 14:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Socialist organizations  

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--One Salient Oversight 01:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *That's cool, but maybe I should amend mine to say "tax myself"...EnglishEfternamntalkcontribs 18:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Userbox available

message: The paragraph on mixed economies should be removed. According to the textbook Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2004), the planned market economies of Sweden, Japan, and France were "varieties of advanced market capitalism," not forms of socialism.  Our categorization of economic systems must not contradict those of mainstream sources. -- WGee 21:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a section on socialist economics - since nationalisation and the mixed economy were the actions (largely) of mnominally socialist parties, I think it shoudl say.  Certainly, within popular definitions of socialism (which NPOVwise we should be aware of) mixed economies are a product of socialistickness. IMNSHO - certainly I think we need to mention something about nationalisation under capitalism.  I don't dispute the source you cite (personally I'd call it state capitalism and have done).--Red Deathy 06:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, 'Dictionary of economics / Bannock, Baxter & Davis.  London : The Economist in association with Profile books, 2003.' defines a mixed economy as a market economy, but also categorises Western European social democracies under socialism, so I'll restore the para.--Red Deathy 12:00, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The section is about socialist economic systems, not socialist economics.  A mixed economy or welfare state in which a select group of industries are publicly owned may incorporate certain socialist economic principles, but it is not a socialist economic system. This is verified by the aforementioned textbook on comparative economic systems. -- WGee 18:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And the contrary is verified by the economic dictionary. I suggest we rename the section, if that's the bar, but mixed economies belong in there somewhere, else we're POV neglecting the work of self identified socialist movements in government.  IMNSHO.--Red Deathy 09:24, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Red Deathy. Many movements and parties which have been called socialist (e.g. British Labour Party) advocated mixed economy. And why shouldn't section look at socialist economics and socialist economic systems? BobFromBrockley 11:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: That seems to be an excellent re-write: but I'm not so sure about splitting the sections, especially with regard to you health warning regarding the SU et al - I think they should remain in the same section, but then, I would, wouldn't I?--Red Deathy 06:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good, well, I'm happy either way, so I'd be interested in what others felt. Andysoh 23:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mixed economies 

message: I rm'ed 172's def. because at least one or two sources (Ollman, for one) I've seen would define market socialism as one that uses market mechanisms for allocation, not necessarilly in competition with a private sector (i.e. competition between state owned enterprises, and planned markets).  I'll defer to an authoritative citation, obviously.--Red Deathy 13:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What you removed  is  not my definition. Nikodemos keeps periodically deciding to either remove or change the reference to market socialism in the intro, seemingly piqued over the removal of (his preferred conception?) "libertarian socialism." (This is frustrating-- not the high quality of work I'd grown accustomed to expecting from him over the years.) I suppose I ended up restoring something different from what I thought I was restoring. Now that I have read the sentence, I see that it is not an adequate summary of all well-known understandings of the term. I will insert a new description. 172 | Talk 14:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, that was my definition.  I thought we were referring specifically to China's "socialist market economy," since market socialism was enclosed in quotations marks.  This reminds me that we should expand the "Socialism as an economic system" section to include the various forms of market socialism, especially "socialism with Chinese characteristics," with its publicly owned "town and village enterprises."  We should also discuss participatory economics in the form of worker-managed cooperatives, employee stock ownership programmes, and worker co-management, which has recently taken root in Venezuela.  I will probably only be able to help expand the section sometime next semester, though, in early spring. -- WGee 22:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No need to apologize. It's not your fault that sentence on market socialism keeps getting removed without warning. The definition was one of the ones out in the literature, just perhaps not the most widely accepted. 172 | Talk 01:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Market socialism def.

message: I disagree with the definition of market socialism in this article: "have proposed various forms of market socialism, attempting to reconcile the presumed advantages of cooperative or state ownership of the means of production with letting market forces, rather than central planners, guide production and exchange." This is not the normal understand of market socialism. In market socialism the means of production are privately owned but prices are set by the government to influence production policies. Central planners are indeed guiding production. The definition is sourced but I'd like to see what those sources say. I doubt they say what this article says they say. Road to nowhere 18:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Encyclopedia Briannica "Socialism" article says: "Others advocate a “market socialism” in which the market economy would be directed and guided by socialist planners."  Road to nowhere 18:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Market socialism definition above. And about 30 other threads. Jacob Haller 20:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Market socialism

message: After several requests over the last twelve months (!) for some archiving, I split the old talk page  into two archives (see top of page for details). 
None of the discussions, so far as I could see, were current, or lasted beyond April, but if anyone wants to cut and paste any discussions back into here, they will have no difficulty at all in doing this. I made no attempt at refactoring the discussions. Andysoh 10:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archived old talk to Archive 8 and Archive 9 

message: There is a lot of controversy on the J.K. Rowling page on how to treat her idolization of long-time socialist Jessica Mitford and inclusion of names from Mitford's autobiography in her Harry Potter series, such as Dobby, the house-elf who inspired Hermoine to form SPEW to advocate on behalf of elf-worker rights.
There are moves to completely delete the Politics of J.K. Rowling, despite her many instances praising Mitford and subject of equity of magical creatures and mud-blood wizards in her books.  If you take interest in finding a balanced article, please participate in the discussion.  Despite the book being fictional, it does serve as an important allegory. Libertycookies 14:53, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Socialist influences of J.K. Rowling 

message: A recent revert by WGee unfortunately changed "aspirations" back to "rhetoric", and "theory" back to "agenda". 
Perhaps the reverting of these changes was an oversight, as these words, in their context, were clearly POV. 
I have tried to improve the section a little with a reference to the semial work of the period. 
I also wonder whether the removal of the link to the article workers' movement, and the comment "we don't need any more links to crappy, inaccurate articles" is not really appropriate. I didn't restore the link, but would be interested in what the perceived inaccuracies in the article are, so that they can be changed.
Andysoh 00:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aspirations or "Rhetoric", theory or "agenda" - POV?  And removal of link 

message: I had trouble with the following two sentences opening the "The rise of the Soviet Union" section. 
* "The Russian Revolution of 1917 marked the definitive split between Communists and social democrats. Communist parties in the Soviet Union and Europe dismissed the more moderate socialist parties and, for the most part, broke off contact."
Yet the fourth congress the Communist International (December 1922) discussed "Left Unity" and it became policy to unite with other socialists at local level in local struggles while criticising the social democractic leaders. 
In Britain, of course, the CPGB attempted to affiliate to the Labour Party almost every year from 1920 until well into the late 1930s, and many Communist Party members or fellow travellers, like Jim Mortimer, entered the labour Party and ended up in leading positions. As a formulation, even with the equivocation, 'broke off contact' doesn't work. ("Dismissed" is not the best word either.)
Apart from the "Third Period", (when they practiced 'contact' with the social democracts of a different sort!) ideologically the Communist Parties were committed to various forms of collaboration with other left and petty-bourgeois parties, under the later Popular Front ideology and the preceding Two Stage theory in particular, but also dating from the fourth Congress which attempted to curb the ultra-left tendencies. 
Of course this is only one side to it, but it is a side that is missing. Jacob also made some points I’ve incorporated here for clarity. 
How about something like:
* The Russian Revolution of 1917 and the formation of the Communist International (also termed the Third International or Comintern) in 1919, brought about the definitive ideological division between Communists (denoted with a capital “C”) on the one hand, and other communist and socialist trends such as anarcho-communists and social democrats. 
What do others think? Andysoh 22:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I strongly support this or similar wording, as this has bothered me about the article too! BobFromBrockley 10:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK I'll go ahead with this unless anyone objects Andysoh 14:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The rise of the Soviet Union: Broke off contact? 

message: (feel free to add more)
Proudhon, letter to Marx, 1846: Jacob Haller 23:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some early definitions

message: In the Manifesto, 1847, Marx identifies communism with one kind of socialism: "critical-utopian socialism." In his early letters, Marx often refers to "communists and socialists" or otherwise pairs the terms in ways which imply he views these as related ideas, but not synonyms.
In the Philosophy of Misery, 1846, chapter 2, Proudhon, identifies communism as the negation of property:
In social economy, it is not the same: thus we see, for example, that property being proved by its results to be false, the opposite formula, communism, is none the truer on this account, but is deniable at the same time and by the same title as property.
At times in this work, Proudhon steps outside the socialist movement to criticize it; here he uses the term to describe state-socialism, particularly Blanc's. Moreover, he regards communism as the extreme case of socialism (so defined) or democracy (identified with the latter). Jacob Haller 23:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ISTR Morris would interchangeably call himself communist or Socialist - there certainly wasn't a hard and fast divide between them - although, I suppose if the choice of term was a preference for sounding 'hard' on one side or anotehr this may have reflected deeper social differences within the movement (as later emerged).--Red Deathy 07:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Early distinctions between ''socialism'' and ''communism''

message: I think the date is wrong on this: 
:*"The moderate, or revisionist, wing of socialism, led by Eduard Bernstein, dominated the meeting of the Second International in Paris in 1889. Lenin and the German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg emerged as leaders of the more radical minority, with followers of German theorist Karl Kautsky constituting a smaller faction."
Bernstein was close to Engels until his death in 1895. It was only after Engel's death that "Bernstein became an advocate of reformism, coining the aphorism: “The movement is everything, the final goal nothing”." 
I've temporarily removed it. Possibly this describes the meeting of 1900 in Paris? We can re-insert it if we can date it accurately.
Andysoh 23:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  date seems wrong 

message: Since this is supposed to be a part of the Politics series can we not add a mention somewhere in the introduction that socialism is one half of the urban socio-economic cleavage.
Note: A cleavage being one way of dividing political opinion in a society - the others would include urban/rural, centre/periphery and religious cleavages.
Socialism is very much an urban ideology which also doesn't seem to be made clear from the article. Certainly in the United Kingdom, Liberalism is the traditional opposition to Conservatism in rural areas.
===Criticisms of Socialisms===
Here no note is made of the chief difference between socialism and liberal conservatism which would be the two liberal extremes of the urban socio-economic cleavage (though obviously communism and fascism are the authoritarian extremes); Liberal Conservatism encourages equality of opportunity and Socialism encourages equality of reward irrespective of effort.
This is also missing from the main ciriticisms of socialism article.
RichardColgate 04:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's just not true. Quite a lot of socialist movements have had their roots in rural areas. And many socialists hold that, to quote one slogan, "labor has a right to all that it creates." Jacob Haller 17:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV - Socialism as one half of the economic political cleavage 

message: Here no note is made of the chief difference between socialism and liberal conservatism which would be the two liberal extremes of the urban socio-economic cleavage (though obviously communism and fascism are the authoritarian extremes); Liberal Conservatism encourages equality of opportunity and Socialism encourages equality of reward irrespective of effort.
This is also missing from the main ciriticisms of socialism article.
RichardColgate 04:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's just not true. Quite a lot of socialist movements have had their roots in rural areas. And many socialists hold that, to quote one slogan, "labor has a right to all that it creates." Jacob Haller 17:51, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticisms of Socialisms

message: Would it not be more Neutral to also mention that Socialism is an ideology rather than 'a series of movements' as the current article starts.
: How about - "Socialism refers to a broad array of movements and ideologies which aim to improve society..."
:Andysoh 14:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Socialism is an ideology? 

message: The inter-war era and World War II section was a stub which didn't mention World War II, so I have expanded it a little. It is still as yet wholly inadequate to describe the period. Andysoh 00:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The inter-war era and World War II 

message: I've removed following text from introduction: The Socialist International, the affiliate body for most of the world's social democratic parties, such as the Socialist Party of France, describes socialism as "an international movement for freedom, social justice and solidarity." I did that because Socialist International describes democratic socialism in such way, and not whole socialist movement (source is here). So that text is suitable for Democratic socialism article, and not this one. -- Vision  Thing -- 17:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In as much as this article deals with all socialisms, and as the SI is the preponderent socialist movement on the planet at the moment, it is certainly not giving undue weight to cite their definition in the lead.  This is especially so as the lead of this article concentrates on the diversity of definitions of socialism.  --Red Deathy 06:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not undue weight to mention Socialist International in the lead, but it is factually incorrect to ascribe their definition of democratic socialism (one specific current of socialism) to socialism in general. -- Vision  Thing -- 18:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Gotta say, Vision Thing is right... ~ Switch (✉✍☺☒) 02:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: SI definition

message: Different definitions of socialism affect several articles. For instance, Criticisms of socialism involves criticisms of some definitions, but states conclusions about all definitions, which poses problems.
I suggest creating an article on definitions of socialism (1) to discuss the issue without cluttering the main socialism article and (2) for reference to avoid edit wars elsewhere. Jacob Haller 21:18, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Definitions of socialism - possible spinoff article