Jump to content

Talk:Socialism

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 40.142.183.146 (talk) at 19:20, 27 June 2023 (→Definition: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Vital article

Criticism

We need to improve the section about criticism to a higher standard. 217.74.150.17 (talk) 07:39, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vague comments aren’t helpful. Dronebogus (talk) 12:44, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Dronebogus: agreed! — Python Drink (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They are correct, though. Regardless of providing a critique with clarity, it can't be denied that the section has serious problems. Vedisassanti (talk) 09:43, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is very poor quality and does not reflect a consensus among academics (which should exist, but may not). For example, it does not address the distinction between socialism and communism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.126.71.54 (talk) 19:35, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Socialism on the political spectrum

Should the opening paragraph be used to define where socialism stands as a position on the left-right political spectrum? Helper201 (talk) 12:30, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've started this here because this has been attempted to be removed by editors and IPs and therefore really should be removed until it gains consensus, rather than those who disagree with having a position placed in the lead being reverted. The onus is on the person placing this where they have to gain consensus if there is resistance, not the other way around. It is also not typical for political ideologies to be defined via giving them a place on the left-right spectrum in the leads of Wikipedia pages from what I can see looking around at the pages of other political ideologies. Helper201 (talk) 12:38, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It should definitely at least be mentioned to be a left wing ideology, because that's pretty uncontroversial and I think the IPs removing that altogether are adopting a fringe view. On the larger debate of whether it should say "left wing to far-left", I'm in favour of this wording but I am okay keeping it simply as "left wing" until better sourcing is found (which, really, shouldn't be difficult). That said, I personally think the past two sources used for "far left" are acceptable. — Czello 13:00, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Wikipedia routinely describes various entities as "right-wing" or "far-right". Therefore, stating socialism's position on the left-right spectrum is appropriate. I think left-wing to far-left is best, as it depends on whether one is talking about (say) French socialism or Venezuelan socialism. That said, "left-wing" is better than leaving it out. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:05, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment entities as in political parties, yes, political ideologies or economic philosophies, no, it is not typically used in this context. Helper201 (talk) 13:11, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
From Naziism: Nazism (German: Nazismus) (/ˈnɑːtsiɪzəm, ˈnæt-/ NA(H)T-see-iz-əm), the common name in English for National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus, German: [natsi̯oˈnaːlzotsi̯aˌlɪsmʊs] (listen)), is the far-right ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:04, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ehh, that's very clearly a non-sequitor: Nazism is a much more narrow umbrella of philosophies and the consensus for the "far-right" descriptor vastly more uniform and robust in established scholarship for it than "far-left" is for socialism. In fact, as far as I can see here as a random FRS respondent, there hasn't been a single source supplied as yet that describes socialism collectively as "far-left" or "left to far-left", whereas even the most lackadaisical search into RS for Nazism will turn up hundreds or thousands of "far-right" references demonstrating this as a traditional descriptor for both classical Nazism and it's descendant belief systems. It's a very different level of established sourcing, which is what this issue has to come down to at the end of the day. SnowRise let's rap 20:15, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Left wing is certainly better than leaving it out, but it is more neutral to describe it as being right wing as well. Naziism is exclusively right-wing, socialism is not. See the Guardian (not a right wing source by anyone's standards): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/20/socialism-neoliberal-capitalism-far-right Pbs123456789 (talk) 03:39, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is a misleading RFC. The existing text in the article states that "Socialism is a left-wing to far-left economic philosophy and movement"; Helper is edit-warring against several other editors to change this to state "Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement". Both of these formulations define where socialism stands on the left-right spectrum, but the original text does so more accurately and inclusively. If the opening is not to define socialism's political position, it should omit any reference to left altogether. This would be absurd (although some editors have tried to do this). RolandR (talk) 13:14, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment firstly I'm not "edit-warring against several other editors", unless you want to define one revert of an editor to be an "edit war". Not once has the 3RR rule been broken here. I have removed far-left because of the citations for it breaking WP:SYNTH. "If the opening is not to define socialism's political position, it should omit any reference to left altogether." That is exactly what is being discussed. Look at the two points you made; they are the same. Not defining socialisms political position and omitting left altogether are the same, as left is a political position. The discussion here is apart from where the ideology is on the left-right spectrum (if any) but is about whether or not it should be included altogether, which yes, includes any and all branches of the left and any and all other political positions. Helper201 (talk) 13:23, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Also if we are going to define this ideology via placing it on the political spectrum and more than one position is given, a more explanatory way of doing should be used rather than "X to Y". This is one reason why the lead may not be the best place for this, as it should properly be explained why in some cases it is regarded as one position and why in other cases another. Using the "X to Y" way of doing things makes it sound like socialism in of itself lies between the left and the far-left for example, rather than detailing that the context of where, why and by whom socialism is being defined (such as in the examples of French socialism or Venezuelan socialism mentioned above) can influence or change this and also what type/variant of socialism can also change this. I.e., this is something more complex than what is typically placed within the lead of the page, simply because of the detail that will be required to go into to explain it properly for the reader. Helper201 (talk) 13:42, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning oppose.(Summoned by bot) I think the raised concerns about SYNTH here are understandable, and I'm not seeing anything that has been presented in terms of sources to establish that either "far left" or "left to far left" are dominant descriptors appearing in acceptable WP:Reliable sources, meaning the argument for inclusions is currently failing WP:WEIGHT and WP:ONUS. I can be moved on this with further argument and sourcing, but this is the baseline expectation under policy for inclusion, especially concerning such a far-reaching topic and potentially controversial change. SnowRise let's rap 20:08, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Left-wing yes, far-left no. Left-wing already includes far-left. I don't see sufficiently strong scholastic consensus that socialism is as notable for being far-left as it is for being left-wing in general to justify including far-left in addition to left-wing in the opening paragraph. CurryCity (talk) 03:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The information should be mentioned, but not in the first sentence of the article. Yes, socialism is certainly a left-wing ideology. Yes, a subset of socialism is far-left. But the text as it stands now has two problems: It gives extreme prominence to this fact, by making it the first thing mentioned in the first sentence, and it does not explain it properly.

I think it is fine to mention the position of socialism on the political spectrum in the lead of the article, and even in the first paragraph. But in the first sentence? No. The fact that socialism is left-wing is true, but it is absolutely not the most important thing to know about socialism. None of the sources currently used mention "left-wing" or "far-left" as part of a definition of socialism, or as prominently as we mention it here. One source is the Encyclopædia Britannica entry on "Left" (not its entry on "Socialism"). Others simply use the label "far-left" for certain socialist organizations without emphasizing the importance of that fact. They just take it for granted as if saying that the Earth is round. These sources are certainly adequate to support the fact that socialism is left-wing (and that far-left socialists exist), but in order to mention that fact as prominently as we currently do, we would need sources that give it similar prominence. We would need sources that put "left-wing" or "far-left" into their definitions of socialism, or that emphasize the importance of this fact in other ways. And we would need enough of them to establish that this is a majority view among scholars (that socialism's left-wing nature is very important, or definitional).

Further, the lead of an article is supposed to summarize its contents, but the article as it stands now does not actually devote any space to talking about socialism's left-wing nature. After the first sentence the term "left-wing" appears only 11 more times in the body of the article (in a 19,000+ word article!), and in all cases it is referring to the "left-wing" subset of a socialist party or movement. 3 of the 11 instances are found in this one paragraph alone:

Left-wing groups which did not agree to the centralisation and abandonment of the soviets by the Bolshevik Party (see anti-Stalinist left) led left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks. Such groups included Socialist Revolutionaries,[138] Left Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and anarchists.[139] Within this left-wing discontent, the most large-scale events were the Kronstadt rebellion[140][141][142] and the Makhnovist movement.[143][144][145]

"The left" appears 8 times in the body of the article, including 2 that overlap with the above 11 cases of "left-wing" (because "the left-wing" appears twice), then once in the name of the Left Opposition, and once in the name of the Democratic Party of the Left.

The term "far-left" does not appear in the body of the article at all. It is only mentioned in the opening sentence and in footnotes serving as references for that sentence.

As such, I think it is actually WP:UNDUE to mention the left-wing to far-left position of socialism so prominently. Mention it in the lead, yes. The opening paragraph, maybe. The very first sentence, no.

In any case, this leads me to the second problem: Insufficient detail. As it stands, the article says that socialism is "left-wing to far-left" and then never elaborates on this. The topic never comes up again.

As a solution, I propose that the mention of socialism being left-wing should be moved out of the opening sentence but kept in the lead - perhaps at the end of the first paragraph, perhaps elsewhere - and expanded into at least a full sentence. For example, the sentence could say:

Socialism is left-wing, and some socialist thinkers and organizations are on the far-left.

It could be longer than that, too, but I think that is the minimum that must be said. "Left-wing to far-left" is just unclear. Does it mean that some socialists are left-wing and others are far-left? Does it mean that some scholars consider socialism left-wing and others consider it far-left? It's open to several interpretations. KS79 (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Avoid far-left in the lead. I feel like the real question being asked here is if we should include "far-left" in the lead, and I'd generally say no to that. The article and sourcing doesn't support it, the body doesn't discuss it, and without some sort of clarifying source it is mostly meaningless because "left-wing" encompasses the entire spectrum of left-wing thought. There's a deeper problem that "far-left" isn't a really well-defined term to begin with ("far-right" is used almost exclusively to refer to fascism or ideologies clearly adjacent to fascism, to the point where the term could almost be said to have been coined to describe it; whereas far-left can encompass everything from communists who want a centralized state controlling everything to anarchists who believe there should be no states at all - this is something we discuss with sources in eg. Far-left politics.) So saying "far-left" here without any clarification is meaningless, and the reason we have no clarification is because we don't actually have usable sources. Also note that to the extent that we define the far-left on far-left politics at all, the one definition we have a cite for there is that in France it is considered to be anyone further left than the socialists, which axiomatically excludes them.[1] --Aquillion (talk) 15:07, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    What about "left-wing" like has been said in the discussion? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:23, 9 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Left-wing" only, not "left-wing to far-left". As per my usual opinion on these RFCs, the term "left-wing" includes the entire left side of the political spectrum including "far-left", and therefore the phrase "left-wing to far-left" does not make sense. It's like saying someone can be found "somewhere between America and Texas". (Also: there are plenty of center left socialist parties in the world, which in my mind strongly implies that socialism spans the entire left wing, yet another reason for saying simply that it is "left-wing".) Loki (talk) 19:32, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose inclusion of the descriptor left-wing. Per SnowRise's reasoning: reliable sources WP:RS have not been presented that this descriptor is part of the standard one sentence definition of socialism. Therefore, those who wish to include the descriptor have failed to show WP:ONUS that there is due weight WP:DUE to include the descriptor for a one sentence lead definition of the term. The current addition of the descriptor in the lead sentence is per policy a form of WP:SYN and should be removed. The relevant manual of style guideline for the discussion is MOS:LEADSENTENCE. Specifically:
If its subject is definable, then the first sentence should give a concise definition: where possible, one that puts the article in context for the nonspecialist.
Here is a sample of one sentence definitions for socialism from different reliable sources:
"Socialism is any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." Merriam Webster
"Socialism is the set of beliefs that states that all people are equal and should share equally in a country's money, or the political systems based on these beliefs." Cambridge dictionary
Social is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." Oxford dictionary
"Socialism is a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government." Random House
"Socialism, social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources." Encyclopedia Britannica
--Guest2625 (talk) 01:14, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would consider the sources except the last as cases of dictionary brevity and simplicity as opposed to encyclopedic detail. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:30, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
^this is certainly true. Social is merely advocating for the communal ownership of a "thing" regardless of what it is. It is a bit archaic for Wikipedia to describe it as a something merely "left wing". Pbs123456789 (talk) 03:40, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Far-left is not necessary in the lead, as "left-wing" already includes the far-left, so the phrase "left-wing to far-left" is meaningless. The phrase "centre-left to far-left" (people like Tony Blair and Keir Starmer have defined themselves as socialists) might make sense, but as that is the same as saying "left-wing", I can't see any sense in it. Boynamedsue (talk) 10:36, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Cosseron, Serge (2007). Dictionnaire de l'extrême gauche [Dictionary of the far left] (in French) (paperback ed.). Paris, France: Larousse. p. 20. ISBN 978-2-035-82620-6. Retrieved 19 November 2021 – via Google Books.

Far-left

Czello where in the citation you provided does it explicitly call socialism itself far-left? Helper201 (talk) 13:08, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"make a reengagement with far-left socialist currents" — Czello 13:36, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this is what I saw. The problem is its calling currents within or of socialism far-left, not calling socialism itself far-left. Helper201 (talk) 13:51, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that if socialism has far-left currents, then socialism is "left wing to far-left", as the original description read. — Czello 13:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think this falls under WP:SYNTH. I mean I'm sure you could find far-right currents of conservatism; would that mean conservatism is far-right? No. I'm not saying that it couldn't be included somewhere else in the article to specifically say that currents of socialism have been referred to as far-left. My opposition is using this to define socialism as far-left as a whole. Helper201 (talk) 14:18, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
We're not saying that it's far left as a whole - we're saying it's left to far-left. Regardless, I've now added another source which is more explicit. — Czello 14:23, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The citation you are using isn't for that though, it’s for far-left. The bridging/linking is not what the citation is being used for. Also, can you please provide the quote for the new PDF citation both here and within the citation itself as a quote? It seems to be talking about parties, where does it call socialism itself far-left? Helper201 (talk) 14:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • That doesn't follow. Putting it in the lead implies that that is a significant part of the topic (significant enough to highlight in the first sentence of the lead, which requires exceptionally high-quality, extremely specific sourcing that emphasizes its central importance to the topic) - otherwise we could describe almost any political party as far-left or far-right in their first sentence by citing some random source that has a passing mention of their far-right or far-left elements, no matter how minor. Would you accept eg. a source describing far-right currents in conservatism, right-libertarianism or the Republican party as a rationale to describe those as far-right in their leads? (I can produce extensive sourcing for each of those, far more extensive and specific than what you've presented here. In fact, our article on Conservatism already contains a paragraph in the body on it, which by your logic could easily justify a mention in the lead.) --Aquillion (talk) 15:09, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw this conversation, and I think it is a good example of the confusion created by the phrase "left-wing to far-left".

If I am understanding this correctly, Czello interprets the phrase as meaning "Socialism is a left-wing ideology and some types of socialism are far-left", so they found some sources that call certain types of socialism far-left (which is of course true, although I would argue not definitional).

But Helper201 seems to interpret the phrase as meaning "Socialism is an ideology that may be left-wing or far-left", in other words meaning that socialism as a whole is sometimes far-left (in certain countries, or at certain times, or according to some scholars). This is false, so Helper201 correctly points out that no sources support this.

The problem is the inherent ambiguity of the five words "left-wing to far-left". The phrase is unclear. It could mean all sorts of things, some correct and some incorrect. People who read it will easily get the wrong idea if that phrase is used in the article. That's why I argue that this information cannot be conveyed properly with just a short phrase. KS79 (talk) 14:33, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, apologies - just catching up on this thread. My interpretation of that phrase is that socialism is an ideology which can have left wing applications but can also have far-left applications. Not every form of socialism will be one or the either - it's a broad ideology which can spread across both "left-wing" and "far-left" depending on its application. However, perhaps I'm reading the phrase different to others. — Czello 14:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I support the proposed edit describing socialism as "left-wing to far left." This shouldn't be controversial. Flavor of the Month (talk) 23:38, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect Etymology

The Latin word sociare means to associate or to be sociable and the Italian word sociare means to socialize. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joyfulism (talk • contribs) 04:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Definition

I strongly disagree with the article's claim that Socialism is defined by public ownership. Searching Google for "socialism definition" gives, as its first hit, the oxford languages dictionary definition:"a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." Note that ownership is a sufficient BUT not necessary characteristic. To the extent that "the public" - as delegated to government - regulates and controls many (most?) aspects of the organizations that produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services, socialism is far broader that "public ownership". 40.142.183.146 (talk) 19:20, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Socialism&oldid=1162222194"