Talk:Neosocialism

Recent Edits

Although I generally like the latest major rewrite, I'm restoring several of the removed sections which are relevant to the "what links here" pages, particularly the historical contexts and the work of some world leaders attempting to quantify it. I'm also restoring some of the references section. Please discuss if you think those sections still need to be removed, in order to avoid reverts. 74.192.49.12 17:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The previous note was from March 2007; It's not still true. We need to bring back references to the current usages. The only mention being pejorative is completely misleading. All but one of the participants in the discussion for removal voted either "keep" or "weak keep", but it seems the dissenter hasn't kept much. The current usages should be listed first, followed by history, yes? Summaries of sources don't have to be as long as before.

Much is lost when we fail to mention that the most common modern usage of the term is to categorize the set of political movements which emerged from socialism, but changed enough that they are no longer fully socialist, nor merely revisionist. Most still seek to give government increasing control over the means of production and economy, while perpetuating the shareholder ownership mechanism of capitalism. A secondary usage refers to re-emergence of, or recent improvements to, traditional socialism.

Perhaps we should leave the summary that short, link out to other articles, and cite sources. The other option is to disambiguate, for example, with Neosocialism (reformist), Neosocialism (revivalist), and Neosocialism (historical). I don't think that's a good idea; using an article allows better explanation of differences and still allows linking to the main articles on the various forms of neosocialism (social democracy, democratic socialism, technological socialism, etc.). --Anoop 74.192.49.12 (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed the following paragraph because it doesn't cite sources. Neosocialist ideas might have been discredited, but was the term itself discredited? I believe this needs to be more clearly stated and sourced before returning it to the main page:

'The term "neo-socialism" has since been discredited in France.' 74.192.49.12 17:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Lexis-Nexis

Can we get a date on the Lexis-Nexis search mentioned in the article? New usages of the term may arise, making the cited count inaccurate. Flexiblefine 17:32, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

I performed that search in March 2005, same time I had the dispute with the author of this page. Rhobite 17:34, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Disputed

I'm tempted just to VfD this since the term has barely been used outside of the National Review piece. This article attempts to pit the made-up term "neosocialism" against the widely-used "neoconservatism". The fact that "neosocialism" hasn't caught on immediately is proof of insidious liberal media bias, of course. It's all nonsense. Liberal media outlets make up plenty of words for conservatives, but when Rupert Murdoch makes up a word we write an article about it? Rhobite 09:02, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Please pardon the length of my response, but I find myself in the position of defending why the term should even be included in Wikipedia, as well as my motivations for including it. If you'll bear with me, maybe we can find a good resolution without resorting to censorship.

Actually, I wrote the article upon seeing the word used in print, finding volumes of information about it, but nothing at Wikipedia. The article states that Murdoch coined it, but such is true only to the extent he seems to be the first to apply a pre-existing term to current politicians in "western" capitalist democracies without significantly altering its original definition. If you'll take a look at the better articles resulting from a Google or Lexis search, and scholarly literature predating Murdoch. In general, I prefer to extend my vocabulary rather than censor words I do not know. Hopefully, you can help me better document this term rather than censor it for political reasons.

As far as POV goes, the article documents the nature of opposition to the term, which usually suffices-- with accurate amendments, all of which are certainly open to negotiation.

A dispassionate observer should be able to distinguish between a label applied to a certain agenda (in this case, an agenda involving tax increases and industry regulation), and not fear to apply the term where appropriate. So far I have only discovered two categories of opposition to equitably applying the term "neosocialism" to describe many opponents of "neoconservatism." These two categories include (a) those who have a vested interest in skewing their terminology to support their own POV; or (b) those who believe they are avoiding the appearance of skewing their terminology by avoiding the stigma surrounding the root "socialism." Do you fit into one of these categories? If not, then what is your motivation for such passionate opposition to a reasonable attempt at documenting this term? Either way is fine-- we can eventually arrive at NPOV even when we are biased.

If neoconservatives have diametrical opponents (which I am sure you would agree they do), what pre-existing term is most appropriate to identify such opponents? The term "anti-neoconservative" is not pre-existing, to the extent that variations of it reveal only a few hundred Google hits to date, none in scholarly journals-- compared with several thousand for variants of neo-socialism (about the same as antidisestablishmentarianism -- granted, only about 2 percent of the popularity of neoconservative, for reasons the article attempts to explain). Murdoch found an arcane term, neosocialism, whose pre-existing definition describes the perceived goals of many opponents to neoconservatism-- not only from his own biased opinion, but increasingly as it is being used in scholarly articles and political science journals.

The real objection to using the term is not that it doesn't exist, but that it has "socialism" as its base, and neosocialism isn't really socialism to the extent that Marxism promotes government ownership of industry and redistribution of wealth. However, the word does exist, and to the extent that it exists and is growing in use (often shortened to "neosoc" by opinion-mongers), it seems that having a well-researched documentation of it at Wikipedia would be a good thing.

The flip side to the argument that "neosocialism is not socialism" is that if neoconservatism were entirely consistent with the traditional definition of conservatism, then there would have been no need for the term "neoconservatism" to be coined (the POV of many traditional conservatives who are increasingly called neocons without good reason). The asserted differences between neoconservatism and conservatism are many, but primarily the perceived rejection of fiscal conservatism and libertarianism by the necons (evidence of which includes deficit spending and the Patriot Act). However, even most traditional conservatives would argue that taking fiscal conservatism and libertarianism out of general conservatism fundamentally changes it into something else. Thus neoconservatism, when accurately applied, does have a legitimate, dispassionate reason to exist. So does neosocialism, even if it isn't as popularly used.

Feel free to voice specific objections to how the article characterizes the concept, and we can work out a suitably balanced presentation. Nixing terms simply because they are not part of one's vocabulary or tend to be objectionable to ones own POV, however, is probably a bad practice-- the same goes for disputing an article's NPOV without citing anything specific that violates NPOV.

I'll give you a few days to help me work out specific problems with POV. Otherwise, I'll have to assume the overgeneralized objection is motivated entirely by partisan POV and remove the NPOV flag. That said, I would welcome any legitimate input various partisans can contrubute to help strengthen the article, and I think you would find me reasonable to work with.

I stopped reading your comment about halfway through. I resent that you're making assumptions about my motive, and I will not dignify this comment with a response. Rhobite 18:36, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry you got the wrong impression. I made no assumptions, was careful to ask questions to find out your own motivations in your own words. The only assumption was contingent upon any potential lack of response. I have clearly outlined my motivations, and you have not. I guess we have to leave it at that.

Removed parts

I removed some parts of the article entirely. They constitute original research and express a point of view. Unless they can be cited, please don't put them back in. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Verifiability.

• "whenever outright government ownership is too unpopular..." - please cite, I couldn't find this in Murdoch's piece or anywhere else
• "Most recently, the term neosocialism has been proposed, largely by those branded as neoconservative by the American press, to describe what they see as the prevalent economic view of their political opponents in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe." - removed whole paragraph, this use of the term needs to be cited. I could not find any articles using this term.
• "Those whose views are most often associated with the above definition of neosocialism include Democratic Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ted Kennedy, John Edwards, John Kerry, Tom Daschle and others..." - removed whole paragraph, this use of the term also needs to be cited.
• "Around the world, the list of leaders whose policies are associated with the above definition of neosocialism include..." - needs cite
• "While the principles of neoconservatism and neosocialism are in tension if not entirely contradictory, it is important to note that neosocialists and neoconservatives have managed to form several important coalitions, most notably the alliance between Blair and American president George W. Bush on the issue of expanding the War on Terror into Iraq, at considerable political cost to both leaders." - needs cite, esp. Blair's status as a "neosocialist"
• "Relative usage of the terms neosocialism and neoconservatism are being studied as possible evidence of media bias." - please link to this study, I'm genuinely interested.
• "Even the journalists employed by Murdoch's own media companies have avoided using 'neosocialism'" - please cite an article describing this phenomenon within Murdoch's companies.

Rhobite 19:13, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Nice stub, but you should have offered it on the talk page and obtained my consent before changing the main article. If you can remove portions without my consent, I can restore portions without yours. You have no authority over me.

You have not even attempted to support your list of allegations here with any evidence, so I reject them all. Just because you have not tried very hard to find things doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means you have a lower threshhold for citation than most.

I'm working up a better article offline, and will follow your lead of replacing the main article with it when it is complete.

Until then, I'm making a few minor modifications to your proposal, mostly to improve style and accuracy.

I moved your comment to the bottom of this talk page - hope you don't mind. This is not your article, and I don't need to ask your permission before removing opinionated, uncited speculation. Please see Wikipedia:Be bold. You're welcome to edit it, but I'll ask you again to please cite all your sources. This is not an unreasonable request I'm making. The parts I removed were unverified. For instance, the article claimed that the use of the term is being studied as evidence of media bias. It is your burden to give evidence of this study, not my burden to find it. I don't believe it exists. If you'd like to write opinionated, unproven political essays, I recommend that you join a message board. Rhobite 21:18, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Splitting the article?

I'd like to propose splitting this article. It is clearly about two separate things - the early-20th century movement in France and the contemporary movement. Roniius^{talk to me} 03:15, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Taking a look, the new meaning was added fairly recently in this edit: [1] . I'm not sold that this is a concept that stands alone at all - why are "Wake Forest University economist Allin Cottrell and University of Glasgow computer scientist Paul Cockshott" 's book so important to talk about here? A lot of the "references" are really just "articles Cockshott thinks proves his point" which is not really germane to notability. I think the new "neosocialism" can just be merged to Towards a New Socialism, and even that article is shaky. SnowFire (talk) 07:40, 28 October 2021 (UTC)