[lbo-talk] Fun with Wikipedia

Lance Murdoch lancemurdoch at gmail.com
Thu May 5 10:48:55 PDT 2005


On 5/5/05, Tom Walker <timework at telus.net> wrote:
> Last October I noticed that Wikipedia had an entry on the lump-of-labour
> fallacy, an obscure matter about which I know quite a bit. So I added a
> few paragraphs to balance off the received ideas that were inelegantly
> parroted in the entry. A week ago, a self-described "PhD candidate" and
> guardian of the status quo deleted my edits and offered his or her
> expert opinion on my lack of credentials and faulty logic. Not being one
> to carry on debates with ignoramouses, I'm walking away from that
> futility but not before offering LBO subscribers the titillating
> opportunity to view a real-life re-enactment of the Monty Python
> argument clinic sketch. The numbered points are mine; the indented
> responses were added by the deletist "PhD candidate." My only question
> is what motivates such ferocious attachment to... what?

The pointlessness of fighting on Wikipedia is being discussed on Louis Proyect's Marxism list right now. Having fought the good fight on the "Khmer Rouge" article since 2003 on Wikipedia and still having it be a disaster, I spend my time writing articles for Anarchopedia and/or Infoshop's OpenWiki (or Dkosopedia, or Demopedia). It really is NOT worth your time to get into fights on Wikipedia, your best hope is to be ignored and hope no one else gives a crap enough to revert your contributions.

As far as political economy - I tried to modify the Economy of the United States article, the basis of which is a CIA report. My assesment of the US economy - "Over the past three decades, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the United States has dropped. Decades of brisk productivity growth began slowing down in the mid-1960s, since which productivity growth has been slow, and long, deep recessions during which high unemployment exists have returned." was removed. It was replaced with "In November 1980, Robert G. Anderson wrote, 'the death knell is finally sounding for the Keynesian Revolution.' Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, and was of the opinion that 'government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.' Reagan cut taxes and reduced regulations, and the economy rebounded. Unemployment and inflation dropped back to normal levels, and as one journalist described it, it was no longer impressive to simply have a million dollars, it was the rate at which you made each million of dollars."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States



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