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Maxim Lott (February 18, 2021). "Inside Wikipedia's leftist bias: socialism pages whitewashed, communist atrocities buried". Fox News. Retrieved February 18, 2021. The two main pages for "Socialism" and "Communism" span a massive 28,000 words, and yet they contain no discussion of the genocides committed by socialist and communist regimes, in which tens of millions of people were murdered and starved. "The omission of large-scale mass murder, slave labor, and man-made famines is negligent and deeply misleading," economics professor Bryan Caplan, who has studied the history of communism, told Fox News.
Material from Socialism was split to Socialism (economic system) on 14:01, December 26, 2015. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted so long as the latter page exists. Please leave this template in place to link the article histories and preserve this attribution.
Clear usage of slanted argumentation in supposed factual description
Under the section on planned economy it is written "State socialism is unfeasible in this view because information cannot be aggregated by a central body and effectively used to formulate a plan for an entire economy, because doing so would result in distorted or absent price signals" This is a clearly a subjective opinion of the writer which if anything should be in criticisms of socialism. Nowhere is it mentioned either that 21th century computing, AI and statistics can be used to potentially predict with a high degree of probability the consumption of a population and required production. Midflyer (talk) 17:18, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also Socialism is more of an economical theory than a political ideology. The modern invention of categorising socialism under the political umbrella terms such as "left-wing" ideologies is a modern invention produced by mostly non academic slanted sources and as a product of modern right-leaning propaganda. The definition of Socialism is simply: 'workers controlling the means of production' which is a purely economical definition and not a political ideological one. whilst socialism obviously branches off and can have progressive social elements social similar to left-leaning ideologies, it is important to make the distinction as the economical mode of function should be the focus point of socialism. Midflyer (talk) 18:37, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it does seem to be very subjective. It would more correct to add that this is the opinion of a writer or a group of scholars or we can potentially remove it altogether if it's not significant enough. Frankserafini87 (talk) 01:35, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There were certainly Marxists who did not think central planning viable. For example Engels wrote that:
Only through the undervaluation or overvaluation of products is it forcibly brought home to the individual commodity producers what things and what quantity of them society requires or does not require. But it is just this sole regulator that the utopia that [central planning advocate] Rodbertus also shares would abolish and if we then ask what guarantee we have that necessary quantity and not more of each product will be produced, that we shall not go hungry in regard to corn and meat while we are choked in beet sugar and drowned in potato spirit that we shall not lack trousers to cover our nakedness while trouser buttons flood us in millions, Rodbertus triumphantly shows us his famous calculation, according to which the correct certificate has been handed out for every superfluous pound of sugar, for every unsold barrel of spirit, for every unusable trouser button.LastDodo (talk) 12:26, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the line in question. It was sole-cited to Friedrich Hayek, who absolutely should not be used in Wiki-voice for discussions of the qualities of socialism. As I said in the edit summary this abuse of wiki-voice is so bad it's very nearly WP:PROFRINGE and is at the very least non-compliant with WP:NPOV and his opinion is undue and should, at the very least, be heavily attributed rather than in wiki-voice. Simonm223 (talk) 12:43, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify a bit: this appears to have been a reference to the socialist calculation debate, which is (or at least was in the early 20th century) absolutely a mainstream debate within economic theory. The issue with the text which Simonm223 rightly removed was that it was WP:SYNTH, implicitly equating Hayek's position in this debate with Trotsky's. To be sure, there is an interesting parallel there, but we'd need a secondary source in order to discuss this in article space. Generalrelative (talk) 14:27, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, however, the section is missing something about older criticisms of central planning by Marxists, which do not draw on the Austrians. LastDodo (talk) 16:55, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Vipz This was not boiler plate "anti-communist propaganda" delivered by a nonentity. He is the president of Argentina, a well known economist, and his speech was delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos. His speech, in its entirety, has gone viral on the internt and has been garnering widespread coverage in the press and media to the degree that it probably rings the notability bell in its own right. Google is your friend. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:46, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Virality of Milei's recent speech is temporary, and it certainly won't pass a WP:10YEARTEST. It is in its entirety boiler plate anti-communist rhetoric, everything from making people poorer, through having always failed, to 100 million deaths. There is no original criticism here that an academic body of people could come around and uphold it to support its notability. Nothing dissimilar to hundreds of remarks about the same topics made by Trump. And again, this article and this section is not a catalog of speeches that 'criticize' socialism. –Vipz (talk) 05:06, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree. The last thing this section needs is to be blown up with run-of-the-mill criticisms of socialism from reactionary politicians.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 05:40, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The point still stands. Politicians lie like they breathe, and I don't believe it would be constructive to start shoehorning their screeds into this section, be it Milei, Trump or anyone else. Besides, it is redundant. It is already noted in the last paragraph that "Many commentators on the political right point to the mass killings under communist regimes, claiming them as an indictment of socialism". That should be sufficient. Including each individual commentator (like Milei) seems to me to be undue.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 05:53, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The speech covers a great deal more than that. Beyond which I would note WP:IDONTLIKEIT (already mentioned below). You seem to have a very strong prejudice here. Criticism of socialism is not ipso-facto a "screed." My point also stands. Polemics and name calling are not conducive to a constructive conversation, especially on a sensitive topic. Unfortunately, I do need to get some sleep. I will pop in later today when I have some time and we can continue the discussion. -Ad Orientem (talk) 06:03, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@VipzWP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a compelling argument. You are certainly free to disagree with his remarks. But the speech goes into considerable detail and has garnered massive coverage in the press and media. That coupled with who delivered it and where, and IMO it easily passes the customary standards for a mention in the article. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:15, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Ad Orientem: "I don't like it" isn't what I stated. I pointed out issues with this addition, and you just repeated what you previously stated without addressing any of my concerns. –Vipz (talk) 05:20, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Vipz Your concerns as far as I can tell are that you do not agree with his speech, You believe that his position would not pass muster with an academic body. And you think it is similar to remarks by Donald Trump. (A point on which I strongly disagree, but then I have listened to the entire speech.) You also refer to the speech as part of a catalog of criticism "by just anyone." Not many speeches by the President of the United States get this kind of coverage. It appears that you believe his speech consists of the four sentences quoted. I am guessing you have not heard the speech or ready any of the coverage. FTR I have. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Vipz I think we are in different time zones. It is close to 1 in the morning here and unfortunately, I need to get some sleep. I will be happy to have a look at this later in the day when I have a few minutes and continue our discussion. Good night (or day). -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:47, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I've now got three people telling me they don't agree with the edit. While I don't agree, I will wait for the time being and see what kind of legs the speech has. If I choose to take this up again, I will open an RfC. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:08, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Make that four people. WP:INDISCRIMINATE - socialism has faced many angry far-right politicians' ire in the past and will sadly probably face many more angry far-right politicians' ire in the future. Cataloging every random far-right president's complaints would be deeply WP:UNDUE. Simonm223 (talk) 12:33, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Charity seems to be an individual act. But can socialism be thought of as a kind of ingrained philosophy where the government or church-in-charge uses funds to aide those in need? (Food, medical care, fire wood in the past, etc.) And they do it for ethical reasons because they are fellow Humans. So far as I know, this has been happening since at least the Middle Ages in Europe and immigrated into North America with the planter groups in the 1600s. Am I missing the boat and don't understand my own words or is this article slanted in economic and political directions?
Thank you for your time, Wordreader (talk) 20:31, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-3 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
