Michael R. Irwin wrote:
I think our current process works overall in the long
run in that the bias is steadily eroded as diverse new
contributors discuss and improve it. I think it is probable
that much bias still exists in many areas through lack
of diverse participation in the community or in specific
areas.
I think that Lee's woek on the Recent Changes page will help here. As
long as recent changes was at 2000 article per day, they would
understandably fall off the table more quickly, often before anyone had
a chance to review them at all.
Perhaps if a few Marxists join us to hand trickle
their
material in we can request that they help us identify our own
biases in other material as we assist them in NPOV'ing
the new Marxist material. In other words, that they
participate fully in the community project with the goal
of a complete NPOV enclyclopedia. This could be a quantum
leap in overall quality from some perspectives.
The very first thing that I look forward to here is for at least one of
the people from
marxist.org to visibly participate in these debates.
Thus far they've only had the opportunity to sit back to see how the
wind is blowing in the Wikipedia debates.
Jimmy Wales wrote:
What I would object to is a generic article called
"freedom" which
says "Freedom for the vast majority necessarily means restriction of
the freedom of a small minority to exploit the labour of others".
However, I can see some validity to this particular theoretical
viewpoint.
His mistakes were apparently in assuming that we
must regulate the capitalist out of existence entirely, if he
did, and that only the greedy, wealthy, minority must be
regulated.
Any judgement of Marx must take into account the simple fact that he
died in 1883, and he was limited in his opinions by events that preceded
him.
The article mentioned restriction not obliteration.
It
turns out that partial implementation of his theories in the
U.S. in ways compatible with the equal protection clause of the
U.S. Constitution, have had solid merit; while eliminating the
capitalists entirely did not work well for the Soviets.
The equal protection clause is one of the more marxist elements of the
U. S. Constitution despite the fact that it was written before 1818.
There are many crypto-marxists in the United States, as long as you
don't point out that their views correspond with Marxist ones. Like the
gays of 50 years ago, they're afraid to come out of the closet.
>And "Positive freedom has been built up almost
exclusively as a result
>of the struggle of the working class: initially the legislation
>limiting hours of work, child labour and so on, later the creation of
>free compulsory education, public health systems, right to form trade
>unions, and so forth, freedoms which explicitly limit the freedom of
>the capitalists to exploit workers, but give worker the opportunity to
>develop as human beings."
>
Except for the words "almost exclusively" I have no problem with
this.
This was the great contribution of the 2nd International. Their
accomplishments stalled with WWI, and it is only recently that France
has seen the wisdom of further reducing the mandated weekly hours of
work. With President George III the US has shown signs of going
backwards on this.
>Now, my objection is not just that these things are
wrong, nor that
>they are the noble foundation of the great riproaring genocides of the
>past century.
>
Marx never mandated genocide.
China is a bit more perplexing. Are the Chinese people
gaining more "negative freedoms" relative to where they
started when the Communist Party took over?
China has never abandoned the superiority complex that goes with being
the middle kingdom. Even its own brand of marxism had to be subservient
to that principle. The continuing occupation of Tibet and the claims to
Taiwan have more to do with nationalism than with marxism.
Eclecticology