Talk:Economic spectrum

Cleaned up and reworded this article, although some aspects still need looking at (possibly for POV).

Suggest page is redirected to 'Political spectrum' or something similar - it is more than a discussion of 'economic spectrum'.

The following paragraphs were removed from the main page for cleaning up (to be NPOV):

Conservatives always maintain that the definition is inaccurate,i.e., they are all in favor of change--they just want to make sure it is the "right thing to do before doing it". The difficulty is finding the "right thing". What they really mean is that they are looking for the "perfect" solution to a major social problem. Perfection doesn't exist, therefore conservatives never are able to find a solution to any major problem. The only solution acceptable to the conservative, an exception dictated by the liberal ideology, is less government and lower taxes. See the record of the conservative forces in the US in opposing the abolition of slavery, women voting,labor unions, child labor laws, minimum wage, unemployment compensation, anti-trust laws, food and drug laws, social security, civil rights laws, voting rights laws, environmental protection laws, gay rights laws,etc. Basically, they are opposed to any hindering of capital under the guise of protecting the rights of the individual.

THIS IS CONTRARY TO THE IDEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. The US has a liberal ideology that is so deeply ingrained that the society doesn't know the ideology exists. Instead, it is considered "human nature" to be greedy, competitive, and self centered, not realising that it is the liberal ideology that contributes to this view of what makes human beings what they are as human beings.

If everyone is a winner it is not a competition. Poverty is built in to the system. This means that in most cases a person who is born into a wealthy family will have the best chance to go to the right schools, meet and/or marry the right people, get the best jobs, and will gravitate to the the sources of wealth/power. Those that are born into the lowest rungs of the economic ladder are more likely to end up being in the margins struggling to survive. Those that end up being the losers will be blamed for being losers according to the dictates of the "individualism" nature of the ideology. Given enough time, a society with a liberal ideology, will be very much like a society with a conservative ideology, i.e., your position in life is pretty much determined at birth. Inequality is the inevitable result of a society operating with a liberal ideology.

You can be a reactionary operating within a socialist ideology. A socialist ideology has never existed except in theory. The 21st century U.S. seems to be controlled by reactionary forces bent on achieving a conservative society much like Saudi Arabia. Their definition of "freedom" is an economic consideration of a market economic system not the democracy of a politcal system. The characteristics of a liberal ideology of "limited government" cause them to think of government as an evil and not the tool of the people. They are, basically, not as concerned about democracy as they are preserving a market economic system(capitalism) which, to them, is one and the same thing. To them DEMOCRACY=CAPITALISM and SOCIALISM=TOTALITARIANISM. This ignores that each is on a different spectrum and you cannot make those automatic determinations. In fact, if you are going to have a socialist ideology in existence--SOCIALISM=DEMOCRACY.

If this knowledge does not exist the individual and the society is more likely to be at the mercy of the opinion makers. In the US, it is the mass media, generally controlled by the conservative (reactionary?) forces playing to the dictates of the liberal ideology.

--cfg 20:05, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Uncited, POV

Much of this, especially the "Discussion" section smacks of a POV essay; all of it is uncited. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The accuracy of this article is a cause for concern:

it contains a lot of unlikely information, without providing references.
it contains information which is particularly difficult to verify.--Ezeu 19:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And worst of all: "economic spectrum", when one encounters the word in the literature, means the gamut of income across the population, from the indigent to the super-rich. No indication anywhere (except of course in Wikipedia mirrors) that it means the degree of government influence on the economy.

This ought to be redirected to Social class. 81.193.159.230 23:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]