Jimmy Wales wrote:
Regarding the policy issue, I wonder if our "standard techniques" for dealing with a controversy are perfectly adequate to deal with the issue. Ironically, the effort to clarify the issue for the mailing list may point the way to resolving the question on the page.
How about this:
China has been traditionally considered a communist state, although the Chinese Constitution states that China is a socialist state. Western scholars are moving away from the label "communist" and calling China "socialist", "[[late socialist]]", or "[[post socialist]]".
I'm not saying that this is a really *good* formulation; I'm sure it could be refined quite easily. But it eliminates a controversy by stating the controversy. All parties can agree to it.
--Jimbo
p.s. Regarding the content issue, it is my understanding that China is nowadays a confused and somewhat internally contradictory place. Shanghai in particular is often cited as being relatively capitalist, even! I don't really know anything about that other than what I read in the newspapers and magazines, though.
I have to agree that much of the situation in China is confused, but so too is the loose way that people often use words. The terms "communist state" or "socialist state" or "capitalist state" tend to be used as epthets more than as descriptions. The range of images that these terms evoke is often so broad as to be meaningless. The criticism intended by an anti-communist when he says "communist" can be taken as praise by one who supports such a system. Their usage frequently muddles the distinction between economic systems and political systems, though these terms are more properly applied to the former. But even when the terms are properly restrictively applied to the economic system that prevails in a state I am often left wondering whether the user really knew anything about economics. Even if the Chinese Constitution says that China is a socialist state, we always need to remember that the official version is not in English, and strange things can happen in the course of a translation.
Personally, I prefer to avoid these terms entirely. I would prefer to describe the system without attaching the label. If the description happens to co-incide with somebody's vision of the term so much the better, but then it is up to the reader to supply the term in his own mind. By supplying descriptions we perform a better encyclopedic service than by appealing to people's preconceptions.
As for "post-socialism" or "post-modernism" or "post-fooism", I know that when someone uses that prefix his commitment to jargon is complete. All that he is telling me is that one system which he didn't understand in the first place has evolved into a different system that he doesn't understand any better, and that they are somehow related in a way which he also does not understand.
Eclecticology