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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Relationship with other criticisms

Should McCarthyism be referenced in this article?

What is the relationship between Criticism of communism and Criticisms of socialism?

Should this article be understood as a criticism of socialism, with socialism as in social democracy?

What is the relationship between Criticism of welfare states and Criticisms of socialism? 87.89.44.229 (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 2010

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no move. Multi-page proposal doesn't appear to have generated any kind of support, and is opposed. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 10:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


Criticisms of socialism → Criticism of socialism — Consistency. Vast majority of criticism articles are using the non-plural form. See PLURAL. Relisted. Jafeluv (talk) 00:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC) Marcus Qwertyus 08:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)


WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is tragically not a reason to form "consistency"
At any rate, WP:IAR and WP:Consensus can change mean, from my view, that it should be plural if there is more than 1 (and by having an article i think it is).(Lihaas (talk) 17:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)).
  • do not rename The high level category is Category:Criticisms; lower level categories are named 'Criticisms'; many of the articles are named 'criticisms' and a sampling of the ones that are named 'criticism' show they offer multiple criticisms not just one about the subject in question. These criticism articles are the ones that should be changed, should be made plural. Hmains (talk) 05:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
All category names are plural. Also non-plurals can make perfect sense [1] [2]. Skim through a couple of those, see if it changes your mind. Marcus Qwertyus 12:37, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
First, I think WP:PLURAL is poorly written and needs re-thinking. Second, I see no value in using the singular 'criticism' to describe a entire series of remarks, extending over time, involving multiple subjects, multiple critics, etc. I think the singular 'criticism' is very misleading in these cases, which include all the ones you mention in your nomination as well as others I found in looking at the Criticismstree. Same with 'controversy' Third, I am not considering other words at this time. Hmains (talk) 20:29, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I think that the titles should be "Criticism of" - this is because they need to treat the subject, rather than be a list of "criticisms". "Criticism" here is a mass noun rather than a count noun. Rich Farmbrough, 16:23, 1 January 2011 (UTC).
Concur with Rich Farmbrough. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:20, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree these pages should be "Criticism of...". Criticism is also more neutral than "Inaccuracies", since the allegations of inaccuracy is POV. It's attributed POV, but still POV. "Criticism" is more attributive. Nightscream (talk) 22:45, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: pages not moved. No support at all for the proposal. Andrewa (talk) 11:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


Criticisms of Socialism → Criticism of Socialism — Consistency. Criticism is a mass noun. Vast majority of criticism articles are using the non-plural form. See PLURAL. Marcus Qwertyus 20:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

  • Oppose While criticism is indeed a mass noun like "fish", its form with an "s" does have a meaning separate and distinct from the form without one. Compare "fishes". Where there are schools (or types) of criticism, the form with the "s" is appropriate. In these cases it is better to grasp at the various types of criticism that these doctrines, people, policies, etc. are heir to. As such we should encourage such articles to use the "s" in their title and to avoid having content that just deals with a single type of criticism. --Bejnar (talk) 03:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Section "Absent or distorted price signals" could need editing?

Hello, I finally decided to get more involved on Wikipedia, and I incidentally found myself a bit flustered by this paragraph.

First, there is a quote by von Mises that might easily be read as stemming from Trotsky. Second, it seems that the essence of the section could be summed up easily in about two or three paragraphs.

If no one objects I will attempt to revise the section in the next week or so.

Djupp (talk) 04:03, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Why is the title of this article different?

For Capitalism, the title of the article is "Criticism of capitalism". This article is titled "CriticismS of socialism". Both articles contain mulitple criticisms and the proper name is in the singular(Criticism). Can someone fix this? I don't know how to change the title of an article. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 21:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Social Loafing?

I think under Criticisms of socialism#Reduced_incentives, there should be a mention or link to Social loafing, which gives a more in-depth explanation of this phenomenon. Urumia (talk) 19:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Criticisms are directed toward central planning

The critiques leveled against socialism in this article overwhelmingly focuses on central planning or a command economy, so I have taged the article as being pushing a PoV.Battlecry (talk) 01:54, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. That is what socialism means ... central planning, or the means of production being held in trust by a few, rather then privately in the hands of the laborers themselves. It is quite simple. you have central, or you do not. Thus, that defines ALL ideologies. Or better put, does the individual govern themselves, or does someone else? Simple, and to the point, and logically ... not at all a POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcchat66 (talk • contribs) 05:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Agree, the person who tagged this does not understand socialism. --Reaganomics88 (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
Socialism doesn't mean central planning.

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Requested move 5 July 2018

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved as requested. I also checked the history at the target, and there was nothing that needed to be retained. Dekimasuよ! 00:48, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Criticisms of socialism → Criticism of socialism – Per Criticism of Wikipedia, Criticism of Facebook and Criticism of Google. Unreal7 (talk) 08:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 18:15, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

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.

Undue focus given to criticisms from Austrian Economics

Why do Wikipedia editors let these dingbats put a mark of such unwarranted size on every page related to economics? Somebody trying to educate themselves on economics with wikipedia would assume that the Austrians are dominant, rather than largely ignored. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.36.30 (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Maybe they have a more well-thought-out argument and a greater need to explain their views - typical of intellectual minorities? --dbabbitt (talk) 16:45, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Nope. Just further evidence of how this fringe group has managed to exploit Wikipedia to their advantage. It may be time for ArbCom to take another look at their behaviour. 86.147.197.31 (talk) 04:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Criticisms of criticisms of socialism

Hello, after finishing reading the article there remains a question in my mind: Should we not also produce counterarguments to the criticisms given in this article? To me it seems that NPOV actually would indicate this as necessary. The way it stands, it seems that Milton Friedman's silly "socialism means inefficient first class mail delivery" argument is somehow the only opinion on the matter (and so on with many other criticisms). There is quite a good amount of respected scholars in both economics as well as political science who would disagree with that. What is the consensus, should there be a "Criticisms of Criticisms of Socialism" article or do we want to include that in this article?

Djupp (talk) 04:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Disagree. Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a debating forum. Wikipedia already contains articles on socialism and its components that extensively detail its merits, and this article contains the critiques. That is sufficient. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:15, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


I understand your concern. However, I am not speaking of the merits of socialism but of specific critiques of some of the arguments given in this article. I still think that this criticism should be addressed in the article. If I understand it correctly, Wikipedia:Content_forking has the following to say on articles like this one: "A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. All POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and therefore violate one of our most important policies." Djupp (talk) 14:50, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


I can't say I agree. It would be pretty difficult to find all the refutations if you didn't know the topic well. I don't think it's 'soapboxing' to centralize the information. -unsigned. 7:56 8/23/2012
Djupp and anon are correct. An article should never contain a single point of view. Wikipedia allows "criticisms" articles only with the understanding that they are articles about criticisms - in other words, articles presenting the criticisms as well as objections raised against them - not articles endorsing the point of view of the critics. KS79 (talk) 23:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Any article presenting a single point of view, without including appropriate critiques, is a fundamental violation of WP:NPOV. 86.147.197.31 (talk) 04:52, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

market socialism is not criticized

The section on centralized planning ends with a comment about market socialism as an alternative to traditional socialism. Would someone please write a criticism of market socialism regarding issues of centralized planning? Thanks! -- Sudozero (talk) 03:05, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

This review of the book The Philosophy and Economics of Market Socialism: A Critical Study, by N. Scott Arnold seems like a good starting point. -- Sudozero (talk) 00:29, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
While I have not yet read it, F. A. Hayek's "Socialist Calculation: The Competitive 'Solution'" [1940] apparently covers this topic. It can be found as a chapter of "Individualism and Economic Order" [1948]: . -- Sudozero (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
The essay that precedes the one I linked to above is "The Present State of the Debate", the second chapter in "Socialism and War" by F. A. Hayek. -- Sudozero (talk) 02:37, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Removal of Drakulić on Communism and Hayek on Totalitarianism

Hey, all. I’ve removed two different criticisms, neither of which was actually a criticism of socialism specifically. I’m more than happy to discuss whether these actually do belong in this article though, since I may very well be incorrect here.

First, I removed the Drakulić criticism of state-run industries in Yugoslavia. If this is just a criticism of state-run industries, then it is not a criticism of socialism, since socialism does not require state-run industries (in fact, the bulk of schools within socialist thought are anti-statist, and a number are outright anarchist) and state-run industries can exist within many socioeconomic systems, e.g., communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism. If this is a criticism, instead, of state-run industries specifically within Yugoslavia, then this would be a criticism of communist (not socialist) statist planning, although for a good chunk of Yugoslavia’s history, it had a market economy, and so it’s not even clear that this criticism makes any historical sense. So: Either a criticism of statism or a criticism of communism or nonsensical.

Second, I removed Hayek’s criticism of totalitarianism. I’m pretty familiar with the book and couldn’t remember Hayek making this criticism of totalitarianism specifically in reference to socialism. I went looking through the book for the material, and the content in our article seems to be a combination of several things Hayek says in a few different places in the book. For those who aren’t familiar with the book, Hayek is kind of all over the place in it, criticizing communism, socialism, statism, totalitarianism, regulation, interventionism, etc. The bits about totalitarianism that seem to have been woven together for our article are about totalitarianism specifically, not about socialism or some uniquely socialist form of totalitarianism. Most of those bits come specifically from parts of the book dealing with fascism. Since totalitarianism is neither necessary (very few socialists advocate totalitarianism) nor sufficient (totalitarianism is compatible with communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism) for socialism, this criticism would be better for an article on totalitarianism, not for this article.

Please let me know if you have concerns with my edits or my reasoning. Thanksforhelping (talk) 06:16, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Criticism of a Communist Slogan or of Income Egalitarianism Is Not Criticism of Socialism

I removed a paragraph (diff) detailing a supposed criticism by John Kenneth Galbraith. My edit was reverted by User:Coolcaesar, so I'd like to discuss.

Since the article is "Criticism of Socialism," inclusion criteria should be well-sourced criticisms of socialism. However, the Galbraith quotation doesn't appear to be a criticism of socialism. I appreciate the suggestion by Coolcaesar to read the linked Google Book, although it was easier to grab my well-worn copy from my bookshelf. Checking the quoted passage, Galbraith is criticizing a supposed claim (by whom isn't clear) that there is a positive correlation between egalitarianism in rewards (I'm assuming this is intended to be read as wages and salaries) and worker motivation. Galbraith states that "[g]enerations of socialists and socially oriented leaders" have learned that such a positive correlation does not exist. Galbraith claims to be criticizing the Marxist slogan "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (which the editor who initially introduced the quotation in our article included). There are several issues with this being a "criticism of socialism," however:

1. It's not clear that Galbraith actually takes this to be a criticism of socialism. He mentions "socialists," but a criticism of socialists adhering to a slogan is not the same thing as a criticism of socialism. This is not a problem with Galbraith himself, but a problem with interpreting what Galbraith is saying as a criticism of socialism—claiming this is a "criticism of socialism" is simply not supported by the source.

2. Galbraith seems to be taking the slogan to mean that there ought to be egalitarianism regarding compensation for work done and that the reason for this egalitarianism is increased worker motivation. However, this is not what the Marxist slogan means. The slogan is neither about compensation for work nor about increasing motivation for work.

3. The slogan is Marx's pithy definition of communism. Socialism is not communism. If some socialists have used the slogan, so much the worse for those socialists, but criticizing a communist slogan, taking that criticism to be a criticism of the people using that slogan (socialists?), and then taking that criticism of those people to be a criticism of a socioeconomic ideology (socialism) requires several unsupportable leaps. Marx's pithy definition of socialism is: From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.

4. Even if we leave behind the meaning of the slogan, leave behind the fact that socialism and communism are not the same thing and so criticism of the latter is not criticism of the former, leave behind the fact that criticizing some socialists is not criticizing socialism, there's the issue of what socialism actually holds. Socialism is a broad range of positions and theories and ideologies; the common link between all is social ownership of the means of production (our Socialism article does a great job with the definition). Socialism has nothing at all to do with egalitarianism in terms of wages or income. If Galbraith is criticizing such egalitarianism, fine, but since socialism is unrelated to such egalitarianism, it's unclear how this criticism could be construed as a criticism of socialism.

5. Socialism also has nothing at all to do with making the claim that egalitarianism in income increases worker motivation. Search the sources for our Socialism article and no only will there be no claim that socialism generally promotes egalitarianism in income, there definitely, absolutely won't be a claim that egalitarianism and worker motivation are positively correlated.

So there's kind of a mess here—source doesn't support the claim that this is a criticism of socialism, communism is not socialism, criticizing unquoted socialists is not criticizing socialism, and the complete mismatch between what Galbraith is criticizing and what socialism actually is. I'm not entirely sure why Coolcaesar believed that removing this quote for all of those reasons was an attempt to censor Wikipedia, but I'll assume that was just an error. The quote should be removed because it either has nothing to do with socialism or it makes Galbraith look foolish (which he isn't) and like he has absolutely no idea what socialism is. Thanksforhelping (talk) 06:51, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I have once again removed this paragraph as per the above comments, as User:Coolcaesar did not seem interested in discussing their revert. I hope that in the future, this user will join the discussion rather than baselessly accusing another editor of attempting to censor Wikipedia. Thanksforhelping (talk) 02:55, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I've been way too busy this year to respond to the foregoing argument, which is riddled with errors. I'll have to take it apart one piece at a time.
The most basic error is the ludicrous notion that "socialism is unrelated to such egalitarianism." G. A. Cohen and Michael Newman (just to name a few) would strongly disagree. --Coolcaesar (talk) 13:59, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Mass killings under nominally socialist regimes

I've added a mention of the mass killings under Stalin and Mao, something that the political right are currently pushing as an indictment of the entire idea of socialism. This is currently a very popular anti-socialist talking point in the right-wing media, and I don't think it can be ignored in this article. As ever, I'm reporting the controversy per WP:NPOV, not assigning right or wrong to either side of the argument. -- The Anome (talk) 13:00, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Calling attention to this section, which is poorly written and contains POV pushing and weasel words e.g. "Many commenters on the political right...". Should be rewritten. "Nominally" should be removed from the section title. 206.172.157.8 (talk) 18:44, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
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