Talk:Socialism of the 21st century/Archive 1

Archive 1

link to puk.de does not work

No it doesn't. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 21:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Stuff can be gotten from Politik and Kultur if you can read German. The document should be in either the Verschiedenes or Text and Infos § 72.228.150.44 (talk) 22:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually it isn't. After registering and going to HD's home page in the site which had a list of articles, still couldn't find the single ref upon which current text is based. This is wrong anyway as a basis and I've tagged appropriately. I don't believe there is anything else in this conceptual namespace ATM (e.g. Socialism in the 21st century) so perhaps a move is also called for. 72.228.150.44 (talk) 22:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I would have liked to remove the tags I placed, but rechecking site in question showed no change from above situation. Lycurgus (talk) 17:19, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Importance

The generic topic, not the slogan/author/whatever, are of paramount importance, if the scope of the article changes, that should too. Lycurgus (talk) 18:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

May 4, 2013 Revisions

I have made significant revisions that added seven sources to this article, significantly decreased bias and provided a more well-rounded treatment of the topic. With that said, the article could use additional expansions from anyone with a background in Marx studies and/or economics.KLi 32 (talk) 03:39, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

It is my opinion that my edits adequately addressed the concerns previously noted in the multiple issues banner. I have removed them.KLi 32 (talk) 03:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

So, according to user KLi 32, in order to contribute additional expansions to this very biased and non-neutral article, an editor MUST be fluent in Marxism. Why not ask for editors fluent in Realism instead, so as to have some true facts in the article, for a change? --AVM (talk) 21:32, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree that this article is very biased, against socialism.76.88.160.97 (talk) 09:20, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the article is clearly biased against socialism. Ohaitrans (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Brazilian Socialist Involvement

This is a brief comment to add some context to the discussion.

On the topic of Latin American Socialist governments, it is essential to provide context as to how these government got into power. It is necessary to "follow the money" as these leaders were financed by potentially dubious means. It is equally important to note that Brazil's current president, Dilma Rousseff, and her presidential predecessor, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva (Lula), are also Socialist / Marxist leaders. Their Marxist backgrounds and philosophical formation would not appear as much in media headlines as Brazil's political parties and voters have provided a stronger opposition to their domination of the main branches of government. Also, due to tacit censorship of media, their past and current affiliation with hard-line Communist Parties is blurred. Lula has been working with Fidel Castro since his rise in the late 1970's. Dilma Rousseff was a Marxist / Communist Party militant and guerrilla during the 1960's and 1970's. She spent several years in prison for Bank Robbery, Arms robbery from a Military depot, and involvement with her communist party's assassination of military and police.

Lula started the Forum of Sao Paulo with Fidel Castro in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The Forum of Sao Paulo is an organization which has pooled money and resources to fund Socialist candidates throughout South America. Lula and Dilma Rousseff are under a lot scrutiny due to the fact that their Worker's Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores) has illegally siphoned money from Brasil's state run oil company (PetroBras), among other state institutions, to fund 1) Campaigns of Socialist candidates in Brazil, South America and Africa 2) To pay off political affiliates and businesses that support the Worker's Party agenda.

Historically, once Socialist/Marxist leaders and their parties get into power, they rarely peaceably relinquish their control and hegemony of the government via democratic vote. This has been observed with Socialist / Marxist parties in South America and throughout every continent (North Korea, Soviet Union, Albania, China, Cuba). These are not typically democratic forms of government.

Reference: Dilma's Communist Militancy: http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/felipe-moura-brasil/2014/10/12/eduardo-jorge-admite-o-que-dilma-sempre-escondeu-eramos-a-favor-da-ditadura-do-proletariado/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.239.228.212 (talk) 18:44, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Questions over Elections

The first paragraph gives an unsourced line that questions the legitimacy of the elections in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, would think we should have some credible source to support this claim as everything I've seen from respectable places (Carter Center, UN, election monitors) has been that the election processes have all been clean. 143.167.114.255 (talk) 11:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Whitewashing, misuse of sources, and personal attacks

Te og kaker, there are some problems with your recent edits.
1. The content you added is impossible to reconcile with what the sources say. For instance, you added:

the economy in Ecuador continues improving exponentially

But the source says:

Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa, remains popular, although his government's commitment to developing large-scale mining and further oil exploration will sustain a risk of social unrest in 2015-19. Growth, which is dominated by public spending and oil activity, will be constrained by weaker oil export prices over the forecast period, which will limit fiscal revenue and delay further investments in the petroleum sector.

These are very different.

2. The content you removed is supported by multiple high-quality sources (I mean the sources actually say similar things to what I added to the article - the refs aren't just decorative). Removing such content because it clashes with your political beliefs is a Bad Thing.
3. Don't call me Hitler.
4. Quit editwarring. [1] [2] [3] [4]. The sooner you take your finger off the revert button, the sooner other editors may be able to bring the article in line with what reliable sources say. bobrayner (talk) 13:53, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

You are editwarring, because you started this, by removing content and adding subjective edits. The things you wrote in the article are still just opinions, and you added them as if they were facts. According to the Democracy Index (which is far from a left-wing source, rather the opposite), Venezuela is not even an authoritarian regime. Even the CIA-funded, right-wing Freedom House considers Venezuela "partly free". YOU are the one who is removing content because it clashes with your political beliefs. I have seen you do similiar things in other articles too, both with your current account and with other socks. You blame me for abusing sources. Well, actually I didn't add those things. I saw you remove sourced content, and considering your last edit, I believed that you did so because it didn't back up your views as a conservative right-winger (as I guess you are). --Te og kaker (talk) 14:19, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

"You blame me for abusing sources. Well, actually I didn't add those things". Yes you did; here and here. Lying about your own edits just discredits you further.

I'm intrigued by the suggestion of sockpuppetry. Who do you think is my sockpuppet? bobrayner (talk) 17:23, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I have already explained on my talk page why I suggested that you might be a sockpuppet of ZiaLater (or whatever the account was called). No, I did not add those things. I saw that you removed them and I guessed that you did so because you wanted to censor the article from things who are not your own opinion. I also saw that you had added the bullshit about Venezuela to the article once again: Your claim that Venezuela has developed from an "authoritarian state" to a "dictatorship" seems to have little support. As I mentioned before, EIU in its Democracy Index considers Venezuela a hybrid regime, not an authoritarian regime, with an index of 5.07 (lower than 4.00 would be considered authoritarian). EIU is not exactly a left-wing source. Even the Freedom House–which is very pro-US and right-wing in its reports–considers Venezuela "partly free", with a rating of 5.0 (6.0 or higher would be "not free"). This is from an organisation which consists of mostly conservative and very right wing people. Even they consider Venezuela "partly free", so even gringo-conservatives admit that Venezuela is no dictatorship. The state of Venezuela's economy is also mentioned in the article, so why mention it even more? And when you are writing about the results of socialism in Venezuela, you must of course also write about the achievements of the process - poverty was reduced quite much. Te og kaker (talk) 21:48, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

What measure of poverty-reduction are you using? Presumably not one that considers the accessibility of common goods and services to ordinary people. bobrayner (talk) 21:58, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Poverty has increased, possibly higher than when Chávez began his presidency. Reliance on oil money in the 2000s made poverty drop, but the continuation of spending policies from the 2000s with low oil prices of the 2010s has led to some problems since no money was saved for a bad day. Borrowing a lot has not helped either and caused much debt. So yes, there were some quick, nice results with this high amount spending. But sometimes doing things too quickly or too much is not sustainable (rushing a job, drinking too much alcohol, etc. etc.) no moderation caused some problems for Venezuela especially since they are one of nations that saved the least amount of money among OPEC nations. This is why there is an estimated poverty rate around 50% right now and estimates that it may be over 60% by the end of the year.

This is all according to reliable sources as well, which I can provide of course. And no, Bob and Zia are two different people (two different genders as well, I think?) so no need to worry about that.--ZiaLater (talk) 18:01, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

@ZiaLater: I no longer supect you two to be the same person: Bob is simply not possible to talk to, he sees no difference between Wikipedia and his private blog, he believes that even garbage belongs in an article if it is sourced. And as I have mentioned before: the crisis is mentioned under the section Criticism, as are the views on the system as authoritarian - although of course written in a more moderated way. Personally I thought your last version of the article about Hugo Chávez was OK. That version came after a compromise between you and another user. This could never have happened with Bob. He is not even worth talking to. Seems like I just have to keep on reverting his blog-like edits. But I'm sorry for my most likely wrongful suspicion against you. Te og kaker (talk) 23:12, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

We all just need to be nice to each other. I tried to edit things for both sides, but there needs to be more than just Venezuela even though an interesting situation is occurring there right now. Ecuador has some pretty interesting things that have happened during the recent years. It would be nice to see things like "Venezuela did it this way ... meanwhile, Ecuador tried it a different way and ... resulted." It would also be nice to turn the "Criticisms" section into an "Analysis" section or something similar, just not original or potentially biased research. Just some of my ideas.--ZiaLater (talk) 15:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that would probably be a good idea. Te og kaker (talk) 17:04, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Lula

In a previous revision (721060181) I have added Lula to the list of supporters with a citation of his party resolutions when he was in power in which "Socialism of the XXI century" is mentioned as a goal of his government. In the revision summary I explicitly cited this as the reason for the addition. This has been undisputed for 8 months, until 189.122.194.136 (talk) removed my addition (he didn't undo my revision, he just removed the text), breaking the punctuation in the sentence. He did not state a reason for his revision in the edit summary nor here in the talk page, thus I undid it and started watching the page. If someone thinks my revision should be undone, please discuss it here or at least state the reason for the edit. Saturnalia0 (talk) 22:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

state

No apparent/egregious POV issue and no discussion since placement. Since this thing is somewhat of a past phenomenon at this point, an update reflecting that is in order, glaringly absent is how it collapsed in Venezuela in the absence of Chavez, was generally personality dependent. 98.4.124.117 (talk) 06:55, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Bias against authoritarianism

Currently, we have a "criticism" section, where authoritarianism is criticised as a thing in itself. There are at least two problems with this (1) we are working from a bias liberal/libertarian (bourgeois) starting position that authoritarianism in itself is automatically a bad thing (2) we cite obvious enemies of socialism to "prove" this.... the Economist, the personal publication of the Rothschild family and British neo-liberal imperialism. The Washington Post and Harvard University... propaganda organs of the the foremost capitalist power on earth, the United States. If Bolivarianism is authoritarian, we should mention that, but not make value judgements as to whether that is a good or bad thing. NPOV must be maintained. Claíomh Solais (talk) 20:48, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I haven't read the section but if your problem is with The Washington Post, The Economist and Harvard University as unreliable or otherwise problematic sourced I suggest you bring the issue to WP:RSN. Actually no, I suggest you don't do that, as it would be a waste of time. A more productive endeavor would be to suggest other reliable sources which you believe have not been given their WP:DUE weight, as I have a hard time believing you'll find any support on a crusade against western media on the English Wikipedia, which basically worships it. Saturnalia0 (talk) 00:05, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Buen Vivir

The section on Buen Vivir is interesting, but I don't really see how it's necessarily socialist. To me it seems more related to the worldview of the Quechua people (see Sumac Kawsay) than any Marxist theory. Should this really be included? Accon4 (talk) 08:00, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Undue

The criticism section focuses overly on Venezuela. To have a more balanced criticism section more cases need to be discussed and some place need to be left for views defending Socialism of the 21st century from criticism. Dentren | ^Talk 18:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

NACLA

An edit I made was reverted due to a source being in violation of the rules, but that source was cited previously in the article for different purposes. Why is it ok there and not later on? I'm genuinely asking; new to editing. Gintowe | ^Talk 12:16, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Because I was unaware it was used elsewhere in the article. I have removed that occurrence as well. For some reading on Reliable Sources: WP:RS, WP:IS. To assess whether a random source is Reliable, Wikipedia uses WP:USEBYOTHERS, so if this NACLA org is cited in many articles by respected journalistic sources like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc., that gives a good indication that it is itself reputable. Advocacy organizations are different from news organizations like the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. who hire people with degrees and background in journalism, whose reputation relies on them being as objective as possible, and who will lose their job and career if they stray too much from acceptable journalistic standards; there is no such expectation for writers at advocacy organizations. Welcome to Wikipedia! It just takes some time to learn the policies. ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:49, 17 January 2023 (UTC)