Talk:Capitalism

Criticism in the lead: RFC before

I recently added a paragraph to the lead summarizing the "Capitalism#Criticism" section of the article. The text in the lead was taken straight from the body. Foolishly, I did not check the talk page first, as I assumed that the omission of any criticism from the lead was just an oversight or a sign of underdevelopment of the article. I now see the discussion above at #Is criticism warranted? and was pointed to an earlier 2021 discussion, Talk:Capitalism/Archive 32#Criticism.

I believe that not summarizing the Criticism section of the article in the lead violates global consensus of MOS:LEAD, which guides us to summarize all of an article in the lead. For this reason alone, I don't understand editors objecting to summarizing the criticism section in the lead.

As a separate grounds, WP:NPOV requires as policy that all significant viewpoints be summarized in articles in proportion to RS. Without a doubt, criticism of capitalism is a significant viewpoint (perhaps even the majority view!). Omitting any criticism of capitalism from the lead violates NPOV because it omits a significant viewpoint. Criticism is due for the lead because criticism of capitalism is prominent in RS.

After reading the prior discussion, I do not have any hope of convincing the participants in those discussions to change their minds on this. So I am inclined to launch an RFC, and I ask what the RFC question should be. We could do something specific like: "should this edit be reinstated?" or something general like "should the criticism section of the article be summarized in the lead?" The problem with the latter question is that the answer is "yes duh" because we always summarize all sections of an article in the lead.

Thoughts? Levivich (talk) 16:16, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we always (should) summarize the entirety of an article in the lead. As you see in the discussion directly above, myself and others feel that any criticism of Capitalism from NON-economists doesn't belong in this article AT ALL. My opinion is that most criticism directed toward "capitalism" is not truly criticism of the capitalist economic system, but criticism of the current state of the world (or country), in which people blame capitalism for their current life experience when they are in fact experiencing capitalism CONFLATED with racism, sexism, and other cultural norms (gender roles, etc.) set by the dominant class in society, not PURE capitalism. Externalitys are an example of true scientific/economic criticism.

I feel that a good subject for an RfC would be "Should this article contain criticisms of capitalism from NON-economists? (like religious criticism)" - as such, that would gain consensus on what we have been discussing directly above, and then answer the lead question. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:35, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that, the situation makes more sense to me now. As a starter, I think the right word isn't "criticism," but "critique." There are, of course, many and varied critiques of capitalism, just as there are critiques of communism and other economic systems and ideologies.

That said, I do not believe that critiques of capitalism are limited to economists. I can't off-hand think of any RS non-economist critiques of capitalism, but I bet they're out there.

That said, I'm not sure the question even needs to be answered. If we were to collectively gather the WP:BESTSOURCES for the article Capitalism, some of those may not be written by economists, I don't know. For any given source, the author's qualifications are certainly relevant in determining if it's an RS. But I think it's far more productive to talk about specific sources than to talk about setting rules like "economists only."

So with that said, I'm damn sure that if we gathered the best sources about capitalism, those sources would include critiques of capitalism. But I can see how the existing body section is more of a collection of criticism of capitalism, rather than a summary of critiques of capitalism from the best sources about capitalism.

And, finally, I agree that the body should be straightened out before we worry about summarizing the section for the lead. I think the best approach would be to identify some WP:BESTSOURCES for this article, see what they say about critiques of capitalism, and summarize that in the body, and then summarize the body section in the lead. Accordingly, I will not launch an RFC about the lead at this time. Levivich (talk) 00:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

You're right about the majority of criticism of capitalism is probably from laypeople who don't know what the term means. However, it's not just for economists to discuss, as there are historical, legal, philosophical, and environmental aspects that are just as important as questions of "How does this differ from mercantilism" or simple definitions. Capitalism is a topic of many different disciplines and the article shouldn't be exclusively an economic one, as it isn't called "Economics of capitalism."

Let's use socialism as an analogy. The strictly economic aspects (like how resources are distributed and how economic planning works) are important to understanding, but so are aspects such as the difference between Marx and Lenin, what "dictatorship of the proletariat" refers to, and the effects of the Cold War. An economist couldn't fully flesh those things out relying entirely on economic theories, yet they're crucial to understanding socialism in context.

I think a brief summary, including which disciplines criticism is most likely to come from, would be a reasonable compromise that would improve NPOV without devolving into "why capitalism is bad." 2603:7081:1603:A300:D803:2828:381E:DF61 (talk) 20:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Obviously, sociologists' views on the nature of capitalism should be included. Indeed, the idea that only economists should be included as valid criticism has the hidden assumption that economics is not a political science, which it definitely is. And as a branch of politics, valid criticism of capitalism can come from almost any quarter including, especially perhaps, people unhappy with the world it has created. What better criticism is there of an economic system than looking at its effects in the real world rather than in nice neat models? 2A00:23C8:2296:5601:A15:14DB:B865:1E66 (talk) 09:10, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

A sea of blue

Stylistically, this article lead is so dense with blue links and refs that it does not fulfill the purpose of a lead; it is an ocean of blue. The first sentence has five refs. the second sentence has twenty blue-links and six refs.

Overall, this lead has thirty-seven blue-links. World War II is blue-linked! Credit card is blue-linked!

A lead so difficult to get through fails to fulfill its purpose when it discourages reading the article itself. So now I think I'll join the discussion. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 00:29, 23 August 2024 (UTC) —

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by Narutolovehinata5 talk 17:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that capitalism has led to exorbitant inequality and class warfare?

• Source: https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/2935/economics/inequality-and-capitalism/

• Reviewed:

Created by ManOfDirt (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

ManOfDirt (talk) 01:33, 23 December 2024 (UTC).

• article not created, expanded 5x, or promoted to GA in the past 10 days, and is orange-tagged in multiple places. (For what it's worth, the hook source also seems unreliable). Staraction (talk | contribs) 02:56, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

No mention of minimum wage

Currently, there is no mention of minimum wages in the article. They are in nearly all developed economies. A pure free market capitalism does not set minimum wages. But pure free markets are rare.

So this could be mentioned and referenced in these sections:

• Capitalism#Modernity
• Capitalism#Wage labor
• Capitalism#Role of government

Some more useful links:

• List of countries by minimum wage

US states are the size of many countries:

• List of US states by minimum wage

And here is a useful chart:

US federal minimum wage if it had kept pace with productivity. Also, the real minimum wage

The above chart might be useful in this section:

• Capitalism#Corporate per Corporate capitalism and Corporatocracy.

I probably will not be coming back to this article much if at all. So do what you will with these ideas and links. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC) --Timeshifter (talk) 01:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Why would we add a mention of minimum wage on a article about capitalism, it has nothing to do with it, in fact the minimum wage is anti-capitalistic, so it seems odd to add it Jjbomb (talk) 09:04, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Why is this article locked and corrections to obvious errors constantly reverted?

Since when is work ethic exclusive to capitalism? Almost every society has encouraged work ethic and hard work. Feudalism encouraged work ethic. Slave masters encouraged work ethic. Decentralization also needs to be removed because state capitalism doesn't believe in decentralization. And private property is mentioned twice in the lede. First it says capitalism supports private property and a few words later it says it recognizes property rights. That's the same thing. The lede is full of inaccuracies and is redudant.

It also says capitalism supports production of commodities. Really? Almost every civilization encouraged mining commodities and metals and growing agricultural commodities. I didn't realize capitalism was around during the copper age.

The lede needs to be trimmed. Maybe make it simple and write that capitalism supports profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, self interest, price system, commercialization and wage labor. 2601:940:C101:26B0:C903:C023:A313:85EB (talk) 06:26, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Ledes summarize content within the body, per MOS:LEAD. You're welcome to edit the body with verifiable and reliable sources before you update the lede. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 07:54, 12 February 2025 (UTC)