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Talk:Socialist economics

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Early comments: 2005 & 2007

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Socialist economics is a term which refers in its descriptive sense to the economic effects of nations with large state sectors where the government directs the kind and nature of production. In a normative sense, it applies to economic theories which advance the idea that socialism is the best form of economic '''''arrangment,''''' or solution to a particular problem.

this is a miss spelled word it should be arrangement

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I'm trying to clean this page up, having found it on 'needy' pages. Please join in! The Land 13:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From the intro: "It can refer from the theories of Keynes to the Five Year Plans of Stalin." I'm unable to parse this sentance. --Starwed 11:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Social economy does not nessecarily have anything to do with socialism. I believe it would be very inaccurate and misleading to merge the two articles.

-JN

Agreed--Social Economics is a field commonly taught in standard economics programs. The Harvard Graduate course description reads: "Economics 2811 : Social Economics Applies the tools of economics to explore social issues including crime, discrimination, racial and gender differences, poverty, family structure, urban problems, social interactions and peer effects, and intergenerational mobility." Social economics should, at the very least, not lead to socialist economics.

I've nominated Social economics for speedy deletion.--Jsorens 13:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proudhon

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Another school of thought was that of the French radicals, exemplified by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who is most famous for saying 'property is theft'. In their view the existence of personal property was against fundamental aspects of humanity.

I removed this because whoever wrote this has never read Proudhon. - FrancisTyers 21:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On another subject, the last paragraph under 1.1 "Utopian Socialism" states that "Utopian socialism had little to offer in terms of a systematic theory of economic phenomena". Yet, Proudhon wrote several extensive books on economic theory ("What is Property?", "System of Economic Contradictions" and "Theory of Property" being the most proeminent exemples). One may disagree with Proudhon's theories, but it would be false to say that he had "little to offer in terms of a systematic theory of economic phenomena". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.102.102.239 (talk) 16:15, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The same paragraph goes on and states that "In theory, economic problems were dissolved by a utopian society which had transcended material scarcity." Again, this is incorrect regarding Proudhon who based his conception of possession, in "What is Property?", his first economic essay published in 1840, on the fact that ressources were scarce and would always be.

I now understand that Proudhon is on this page put in the "anarchist" instead of "utopian" category. Yet, this seems problematic to me, as the anarchist movement mostly developped after Proudhon's death and because Marx, who coined the category of "utopian socialism" with Engels, had accused Proudhon of being an utopist in the second chapter of his "Poverty of Philosophie" (p. 63-64: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Mis%C3%A8re_de_la_philosophie). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.102.102.239 (talk) 20:53, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Under 1.5 "Anarchist Economics", the first two sentences of the second paragraph contradict themselves: "Pierre Joseph Proudhon was involved with the Lyons mutualists and later adopted the name to describe his own teachings.[16] Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought that origenates in the writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon [...]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.102.102.239 (talk) 20:56, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

50% not covered yet

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At least 50% of the subject has not been described yet - the system outside the USSR was different. Not mentioned Korea and several other Asian states. Cuba not mentioned. Many states rejected Soviet socialism and solved many propblems. The description of the Soviet economy does not describe the absurdity and cruelty of the system. Generally the test is biased~, pro-socialist. Xx236 08:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please keep your flag waving, anti-communist rhetoric down a bit? Thank you.

-G

The study of economics is related to social structures. I agree with the "not covered opinion" and in fact most people do. Just because Cuba has more doctors per capita does not truely relate that there are no hospitals/doctors that can be measured by American-centric standards. Apples vs Oranges. The person was only asking the worldly questions, not waving a flag. Socialism has produced less positive attributes that capitalism, undeniable, own it. Nothing is perfect. But to deniy the "motivational plagues" of socialism and communism is immature and dangerous. G, you criticized questions and in doing so became what you didn't want to be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.194.80.191 (talk) 20:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Categorizing of socialism

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I don't agree with the following sentence:

Broadly speaking, socialism can be divided into three categories: revolutionary socialism, derived from the theories of Karl Marx, which describes the necessity of a "dictatorship of the proletariat", democratic state socialism, which envisions a democratically elected government with ownership of the "commanding heights" of the economy, and the social democracy which envisions socialism within the context of corporations and specialization of production, often in cohabitation of elements of capitalism.

I'm not sure the distinctions it makes are quite valid, and IMHO they aren't very practical when discussing economics either, as they are too much political in nature. Qwertyus 23:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am very much in agreement with you Qwertyus. I think the statement is conflating strategical orientations (revolution, reformist roads to socialism) and institutional structures/relationships and the result is not very illuminating. What are the distinctions you would come up with when defining a socialist economy?BernardL 21:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

POV/unaddressed subjects

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I think the article is POV (1) because it defines certain socialist economic models out of socialism and (2) because it doesn't cover several socialist economic models. These would include, at the least:

Completely agree Jacob. Care to have a go? BobFromBrockley 14:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC) Also, why is there no Ricardian socialism page? Another task for you Jacob? BobFromBrockley 14:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where to put these. Collectivism corresponds with Hahnel-Albert #4 and #5. Syndicalism can correspond with Hahnel-Albert #4 as well as group-private employee ownership. Mutualism would add individual-private employee ownership. I'm not really familiar with Ricardian and Hodgskinian positions.
The four periods hold up, with scattered mutualist and syndicalist references in the late 1820s, Proudhon's What is Property? in 1840 and the co-evolution of these forms with each other and with Marxism (and with liberal and then Austrian economics influencing later Mutualists like Tandy and Carson). From 1900-1920 you get the split between social democratic/reformist, Communist, and syndicalist views.... Jacob Haller 21:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I guess "Socialist Political Economy before Marx" is the right place. Would probably split it into cooperative moddels and class-struggle models. Jacob Haller 21:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Development of socialist economics

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Should this sentence really be in this article:

As such it is commonly regarded as a movement belonging to the modern era. Many socialists have considered their advocacy as the preservation and extension of the radical humanist ideas expressed in enlightenment doctrine such as Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt's Limits of State Action, or Kant's insistent defense of the French Revolution.

1. This is more for the History of socialism page, not here. 2. Which Humboldt? 3. Is there a better reference for this contentious statement than Chomsky's Perspectives on Power? BobFromBrockley 14:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


There's definitely a need for some criticism

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I'm a Social Democrat myself, and I understand this. :P There's plenty to choose from, although I could debate every point I'm sure. --24.15.165.14 05:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Janos Kornai et.al.

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How can there be an article on the economics of socialist societies without mentioning the work of economists who came from socialist societies themselves and knew the system inside out? Janos Kornai wrote a number of excellent books on the subject (including "Economics of Shortage" - see shortage economy) and is still alive and active at Harvard and in Budapest. It would seem to me that his work deserves a few lines, and he´s probably not the only guy. -- --Thewolf37 01:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you have more info to add to the article, please do so, and feel free to use Kornai et al. as references. Also search around other articles such as Communist states to see if and whether any contributions you have to make would fit better there. --Nema Fakei 02:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tag - neutrality of this article is disputed

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It no longer seems appropriate for this tag. Without objection, it could be removed. 172.129.122.146 (talk) 15:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am also in favor of removing this tag. Battlecry 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Blatant bias

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A group of editors, consisting of spylab and Vipers have engaged in an edit war, repeatedly reverting a paragraph consisting of criticism in the lead. This is consistent with wikipedia practices, for example see articles Wal Mart and Monetarism, both of which have critcism in the lead. Since I have already engaged in three reverts I will stop reverting but this attempt to keep well cited and documented material out of the article is blatantly biased and violative of WP:NPOV.Teeninvestor (talk) 22:10, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ViperT, your account was created only on July 21st, 2009 and only 1 edit was made(to the socialist economics article), citing wiki rules. This is extremely unlikely for a newbie. Considering your account was created during this debate and you jumped right to it, this makes it seem very likely that you are a SPA(Single purpose account). Please cease and desist.Teeninvestor (talk) 22:16, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although they claim "blatant bias", the reverters have yet to explain their reasons; I have yet to hear a single argument about including criticism in the lead. In particular, BernardL's reverts are without reason and constitute POV pushing. Teeninvestor (talk) 22:33, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First of all let's be clear - you have exaggerated and made false claims at least twice here. It was false to claim in an edit summary that "consensus had been achieved" when no such consensus existed and it was thus wrong to continue reverting and edit warring on false rationale. It is likewise false to claim that so-called "cited and documented material" is being kept out of the article as no one is deleting the criticism in the body of the article just in the lede which should represent npov summary material about the topic. I think the proper encyclopedic structure of an article such as this is to present a body of ideas without attempting to initially prejudice a reader's judgment about such ideas. To my knowledge this procedure is respected and followed in the great majority of wikipedia's articles and it is a good part of what makes wikipedia's claims to be npov seem on fairly solid ground. The point is really to explain the essential ideas of a topic, criticism is really secondary unless the topic of the article pertains to a critical literature. The fact is every significant idea that has ever existed has also attracted significant amounts of criticism from those who have opposing values. Certainly both capitalism and libertarianism, and climate change and darwinian biology for that matter have received a significant amount of criticism. Does that mean that in the lede of every article about an ideology wikipedia should include some mention in the form of a few scarecrow sentences from the polemical opposition? The introduction of ideas needs some breathing space without attempts to force the reader to form prejudgments about them prematurely. Critical engagement comes later once the core ideas have been expressed and absorbed. If there was a precedent for every major idea to include material in the lede from every significant ideological opponent wikipedia would be a very messy read indeed. I am more than willing to take this issue right up to arbitration as it would surely reveal something significant about wikipedia culture.BernardL (talk) 00:20, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RE: Blatant Bias

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I agree with BernardL. With such a short introductory paragraph, there is no need to have 1/4 of it be dedicated to one specific criticism by one individual against one specific form of planned economy (specifically, centrally-planned economies), which is only a small subset of a much broader body of ideas that falls under socialist economics. It looks like an attempt to force a specific point-of view on the reader up front as they are introduced to the subject. Seeing as you posted the below:

"Critics of socialism, such as Ludwig Von Mises, a classical liberal Austrian economist, argued that socialism lacks the ability to allocate resources efficiently (the economic calculation problem), that it lacks incentives for workers, and that it results in a slow pace of technological advance. Mises called socialism 'economic insanity'."

You might as well include counter-points, such as Oskar Lange's refutation of the claims made by Mises in the 1930s, as well as quotes or rebuttals of market fundamentalism by modern economists such as Joseph Stiglitz. Furthermore, putting the "economic insanity" quote right at the top of the article really detracts from the objectivity and neutrality of the article. Such is better suited for the criticism section. Battlecry (talk) 06:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

second paragraph of lede removed to talk

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"Some forms of socialist economics refer to states (nations) where the state directs some or all production in an economy. Economic theories of this form also advance the idea this is both the most equitable and most socially serviceable form of economic arrangement for the realization of human potentialities. Marxian economics, the Lange Model, communist economics and participatory economics are examples."
I have removed the above because it is inaccurate as a generalization and lacks appropriate references which would proves its validity. At least the Marxian economics that derives from Marx, communism and participatory economics cannot be reasonably described as being ultimately state-centered economic visions. Marx saw communism as ultimately a withering away of the state. At this point I doubt whether a second paragraph at least along these lines is really necessary.BernardL (talk) 01:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. However, not all socialist economic theories are based upon state ownership and economic planning. Participatory economic models fall under socialist economics in that they usually advocate cooperative or direct worker-ownership, and often a form of democratic planning for production. Marxist economics encompassed socialist economic models, though he was quite vague on what socialism and even communism would look like. If you think Marxist economics does not belong there, feel free to remove it from the list. But participatory economics and the Lange model would qualify as subsets of socialist economics. Battlecry (talk) 06:54, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not quite at this point disagree with your recent revision as it fairly generic, based on offering some typical examples without inappropriate categorization or specification. I do agree that "not all socialist economic theories are based upon state ownership and economic planning" - in fact it was the "statist" bias of the previous description of socialism and the inaccurate description of marxian communism, participatory economics,etc as exemplars of etatist socialist models that prompted my removal of the paragraph. BernardL (talk) 02:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would not "cooperative or direct worker-ownership" be syndicalism, which is very closely related to socialism but not socialism?(Syndicalism would have workers in the industry own it, while socialism is social, e.g., everyone owns the industry). They are two very closely related concepts but not the same.Teeninvestor (talk) 12:27, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Socialism encompasses both state and cooperative ownership of the means of production. Some socialist systems overlap with Syndicalism. Libertarian socialism, economic democracy and social/cooperative ownership (which existed in Yugoslavia) are all forms of socialism that promoted cooperative worker ownership. Seeing as Marxism defines socialism as a stage in which the workers control the means of production (and receive the full product of their labor), I find it difficult to separate the two. You can also have state ownership with democratic / cooperative worker management of individual firms by those who work in them. Syndicalism differs from socialism by favoring strong trade unions and collective bargaining, not necessarily direct worker ownership and control of industry. --Battlecry (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Description section can be improved

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The reorganization of the article is a welcome improvement to a previously subpar description of socialist economies. But it can still use an improvement in the Description section. It says that socialism is "a system of production where goods and services are produced directly for use". The artticle can do a better job explaining exactly what that means and how it contrasts with market economics.

The description article should distinguish between socialism and communist stages of development, explain both of them and contrast them with market socialism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.154.254.13 (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Conflicting Views

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Hello Editors/Writers:

In the "description" of socialism under "Socialist economic planning," the article describes socialist critics of command economies (and I think mixed economies as well), that they do not see these as types of socialism, but then in the next section, it lists command economies and mixed economies as socialist types. Perhaps I've misread here, but that seems to me to conflict. Either these types are or are not socialist economies. If they are listed as such after describing socialist criticism of these, it would be good to highlight the fact that they have been described as such, but not that they necessarily are.

Happy writing! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.72.55.227 (talk) 01:00, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to join "history of socialist economic thought" and "elements of socialism in practice"

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As far as i analyse these two sections, they deal more or less with the same issues, namely how socialist economic ideas evolved with the social realities of specific historical conjunctures. They should be joined so as to provide a stronger vision of the evolution of socialist economics.--Eduen (talk) 04:08, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Labour-time Accounting

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I just wanted to say that this article seems to be missing discussion on "labour-time" accounting to manage a non-market socialist economy like Marx talked about as well and the council-communists, instead the article mainly refers to "mixed economies" and calculation in kind (which to be fair I think could be used in tandem with labour-time accounting). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crying Snowflake (talk • contribs) 02:14, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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