Poor, Edmund W wrote:
Sheldon,
The argument that "no communist regime has ever claimed to actually *be* communist" is already discussed in the Wikipedia article, and is IMHO opinion an example of exactly the sort of "disinformation" your other wiki is supposedly dedicated to exposing.
Instead of trying to run verbal rings around LittleDan, why not take a moment to consider what he *meant*?
I don't think that Sheldon is doing that. He's simply pointing out that it's not a black and white issue, and that a lot depends on who is defining the word. It's quite natural for a person with pro-communist leanings to define that word differently from an anti-communist, and for both to be wrong. LittleDan's question was straightforward, but truth comes in many shades of grey.
Which was, apparently:
- putting communist ideas into effect by creating what
pro-Marxists might call "building socialism" in a country.
The fact that these "socialist" experiments collapsed in the former Soviet bloc would seem to support the POV that communism never works in practice.
Absolutely false. It only proves that it can't pursue its ideals at the same time as it maintains an arms race. The capitalist systems does arms races much better.
Anyway, the question is still whether:
- the Wikipedia ought to assert the fact that communism
doesn't work, or
- the Wikipedia ought to REPORT that various observers
have concluded that communism doesn't work
My understanding of Jimbo's NPOV policy is that we should not assert communism's unworkableness as fact but rather report that observers say it doesn't work.
It's not really enough to use the bare phrase "observers say...". In the absence of knowing just who the observers are, you've just passed the buck to somebody that can't be identified, and whose facts can't be checked.
Eclecticology