Talk:Economic freedom

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Contents 1 NPOV: Citing one study for "numerous empirical studies" 2 POV 3 Marcuse 4 Reinserted NPOV tag 5 Administrator review is necessary for this article

[edit] NPOV: Citing one study for "numerous empirical studies"

"Numerous empirical studies have found that, among other beneficial effects, economic freedom promotes economic growth and poverty reduction." I'm concerned about this line for two reasons. First of all, the subject is "numerous empirical studies," but there's only one citation. Secondly and more importantly, it is non-neutral and overly simplified; it represents a point of view. --aciel (talk) 17:21, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Source (OECD yearbook) says: "Ongoing work, by those involved in the economic freedom project and outside researchers, shows that economic freedom promotes economic growth and poverty reduction. These findings are now relatively uncontroversial and have been published in leeding peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Economic Review." Listing number of studies and then saying "numerous studies say..." could be classified as original research, this is not. It doesn’t represent a point of view. Studies have really shown that economic freedom promotes economic growth and poverty reduction, that is a matter of fact, not of opinion. -- Vision Thing -- 19:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you could qualify the statement? Economic freedom MAY promote economic growth and poverty reduction, perhaps. For example, economic freedom for American coffee companies could promote American economic growth and poverty reduction--but what about in Central American countries? It might increase poverty there as well. The point is that it all depends upon how you define/qualify economic freedom. Thus, oversimplification. --aciel (talk) 01:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

If the general economic freedom increases in the USA, incomes of American consumers increase and they will buy more high quality coffee and so incomes of Central American farmers would increase. Economic freedom for American coffee companies is just too narrow concept, please look at the broader picture. --Doopdoop (talk) 12:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POV

This article, in the version I just found of it, appears a pure propaganda piece. It also seems badly sourced at first glance. I've tried to change things starting with the opening paragraph, however I haven't gone into the detail of the rest of the article and don't really have the time to do so. I'd ask others to try.Nwe (talk) 01:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you be more precise, apart from the last piece of the introduction you removed appropriatly, I don't see what you refer to. You can't say that you haven't even read the article and add a POV tag. Without any proper arguments, the tag will be removed soon. --Bombastus (talk) 01:29, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The notion that it is "embodied by" something generally provides an automatic POV slant. The claim that it is "characterized by....freedom of economic initiative" is also very biased". That such a catalogue of biases could persist in the opening paragraph is likely to imply that the rest of the article will be biased, particularly since it seems to follow a structure similiar to that laid out in that very opening paragraph.Nwe (talk) 01:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Marcuse

I dont have the knoledge to write a peice but shouldnt a counter point be introduced considering economic freedom as freedom from the economy aka One dimensional man and other works (im sure it was an earlier notion though) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.116.11.186 (talk) 17:27, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Our object is the economic freedom of the producing classes; this ultimate goal will be attained after a long and bitter struggle; therefore, our primary task is to organize the masses and lead them in the struggle for economic freedom.

M N Roy, On Non-Violence and the Masses (1923)

I would rather someone else write it and will leave time for that but there does need to be a discussion of this alternative leftist view of economic freedom. eg Freedom from work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.116.11.186 (talk) 18:02, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reinserted NPOV tag

For many of the same reasons as Nwe mentioned above. This entire article is pure propaganda, with sources culled from hack think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation. J.R. Hercules (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Pure propaganda- can you try to be a bit more specific please? Larklight (talk) 08:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I can understand why socialists and communists would disagree with the way this article is written. However, it is important to note that their viewpoint (that economic freedom does not equal prosperity) is in the minority at the present time, according to the academic literature. Hence, it is not propaganda to assert that evidence overwhelmingly favours greater economic freedom (i.e. rule of law, enforcement of contracts & protection of private property) if some mention is made of Marxist economists, who deny all the available empirical evidence. Readers should be made aware that disagreement persists. I would say the same thing if this were a global warming article (there are sceptics out there). Mookrit (talk) 11:22, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Please be more specific with your objections. Only thing sourced to the Heritage Foundation is its Index of economic freedom, so that isn't a valid objection. -- Vision Thing -- 15:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If you had read my comment above, you would have found that I cited Nwe's earlier comment as explanation. As for my own, extra objections: 1) "economic freedom" isn't an academic term, and has no accepted meaning. As such, the term requires the use of quotation marks around it, as well as a qualifier which points out that it is an expression used by proponents of laissez-faire capitalism; 2) the sentence, "Empirical studies have found that, among other beneficial effects, economic freedom promotes economic growth and poverty reduction., is POV because it is a) based on one single study; and b) the study was funded by private think tanks whose very reason to exist is to propagate the tenets of neo-liberal and/or laissez-faire capitalism. When I earlier added a qualifier to that sentence, pointing out the very simple fact that the study came from a private think tank, another editor removed the qualifer with the absurd explanation that "pointing out sponsers (sic) is petty and irrelivant (sic)."

No, it's not petty or irrelevant to do one's job when editing an article, which is, namely, to provide facts.

In short, I will continue to do what I can to make sure this -- and other economics articles -- are not hijacked by the Milton Friedman/von Mises/Hayek crowd. J.R. Hercules (talk) 17:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

There are two sources for claim about empirical studies. One is OECD yearbook which says "Ongoing work, by those involved in the economic freedom project and outside researchers, shows that economic freedom promotes economic growth and poverty reduction. These findings are now relatively uncontroversial and have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Economic Review." Other is to list of numerous other studies. Both sources also refute your claim that "economic freedom" is not an academic term. -- Vision Thing -- 18:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

+1 Vision Thing. The academic litterature quoted here is more than enough but I strongly doubt Hercules' will to accept it. As he himself recognizes, he is in a crusade against an hypothetical 'Milton Friedman/von Mises/Hayek crowd". I let you judge the neutrality of this attitude.. --Bombastus (talk) 20:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Administrator review is necessary for this article

As the NPOV tag keeps getting removed, and no substantive changes to the article have been made to counter the NPOV, it's now necessary for some official oversight on the matter. J.R. Hercules (talk) 21:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

What is the problem? All your points have been refuted above. Economic freedom is defined in the article as: (a) property rights, (b) enforcement of contracts (c) rule of law. You can talk to a left-wing economist like Paul Krugman and you will get the same answer - economic freedom and free trade generally promotes growth/prosperity. This article is uncontroversial because it does not delve into genuine areas of disagreement in economics (like whether health and education should be provided publicly or privately) but focuses on the basics. Here is a link to a paper that notes that economists overwhelmingly support free trade: http://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/sofiwp/2006_006.html Mookrit (talk) 12:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

One obvious POV point is the section regarding a constitutional amendment to protect "economic freedom". Not only does it portray such proposals as uncontroversial, it fails to even mention that such an amendment would essentially bar all government regulation of the economy. It's a radical fringe concept that's being painted by this article as mainstream and essentially unopposed. 71.203.209.0 (talk) 16:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)