The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  04:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right-wing socialism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

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The article consists of two examples of writers using the phrase "right-wing socialism", but in different ways. (One writer uses it to mean reform socialism, while the other uses it to refer to conservatives who adopt reform socialist policies, and puts the term in "quotation marks".) This is a dictionary definition and original research. TFD (talk) 01:51, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - This is so stubby that it's hard to tell but when done in depth this topic would be essentially a fork of fascism or national socialism on the one hand or social democracy on the other. An amorphous concept with various possible interpretations. We should just steer clear of it altogether. Carrite (talk) 03:10, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge - Merge article with Socialism. Monterey Bay (talk) 04:57, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't merge. It is only a fringe, minor opinion to consider these movements a tendency of socialism. --RJFF (talk) 07:45, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as a POV fork of (for example) Fascism. AlexTiefling (talk) 08:51, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Looking at the article sources, the Huerta source seems reliable (Edward Elgar Publishing is small but seems legit), but I'm less sure about the Rothbard, which is published as an ebook by a libertarian think tank, the Ludwig von Mises Institute - is that a WP:RS? If the term is used by multiple authors for similar phenomena in reliable sources, it's notable, but not sure that is the case. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep/merge There are clearly movements which can be characterised in this way from Bismarck's welfare state to Blue Labour. Left/right are relative terms and so topics of this sort are best discussed in a wider context such as Left-right politics. Warden (talk) 09:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

MovementS (PLURAL) can indeed be characterized by this phrase. The phrase is malleable and thus not suitable as an encyclopedic topic, since it would inevitably result in an original essay on "What 'Right-Wing Socialism' Means to Me." Carrite (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Delete (My bad. I typed "keep" when I intended "delete", and then didn't come back for several days.) The movements and people mentioned in the article are clearly notable. What does not seem to be is the expression itself. Borock (talk) 10:28, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm baffled how you arrive at a keep opinion from this perspective... I don't think anyone would argue that the movementS (PLURAL) covered in the piece are not notable. They are also covered in depth under their proper names elsewhere, which renders this not only a "not notable expression" but also a fork of multiple, only vaguely related articles. Carrite (talk) 15:33, 17 April 2012 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 15:34, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete (unless secondary sources are cited): The article is currently only about the libertarian usage of the term "right-wing socialism", as "right-wing socialism" is not a broadly accepted concept. The sources by libertarian writers are primary sources for this usage, there are no secondary sources verifying this from a third-party position. This indicates that the concept has not received a considerable echo among experts. Therefore, it is not relevant. --RJFF (talk) 09:14, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Noting that this article as recently as February was 29K long, and was reduced by 25K by one seeking deletion. The topic is clearly notable, and was used as a term in the New York Times [1], [2] in Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship by Huerta de Soto - 2010, [3] African Socialism by Rosberg and Friedland, etc. Notable topic, even if those seeking deletion removed 90% of the original content, the remaining content is proper. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC) Re-added on-point and sourced section on conservative socialism", noting this is not related to "fascism" in any event. Collect (talk) 13:09, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a dictionary, but an encyclopedia. If a term is used from time to time, but not associated with a particular, definable concept, you cannot write an encyclopedia article about it. You could write a disambiguation or a dictionary entry. "Peron (...) installed a sort of right-wing socialism..." and "French right-wing socialists" don't describe the same concept, even though they use the same term. --RJFF (talk) 13:20, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Collect, I do not understand your comment, "this is not related to "fascism" in any event". You provide a source that says the fascist leader Juan Peron "installed a sort of right-wing socialism". TFD (talk) 15:56, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not Peron should be considered a fascist is highly debatable and depending immensely on POV. But that is not the matter of this discussion. --RJFF (talk) 19:45, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Collect. Notable topic with enough academic attention. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 13:00, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is it? Two sources coming from the very same school of thought is "enough academic attention"? I don't think so. --RJFF (talk) 13:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep With 6,670 results on Google books it is obviously worthy on an article. And the term has been around since at least 1920[4] Darkness Shines (talk) 12:35, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, the books are not about the same concept as the article (except the one by Huerta de Soto). You seem to overlook this problem. They are mostly about the right wing of socialism, i.e. revisionism or social democracy, but not about "socialist policies carried out by liberal, conservative and fascist governments". --RJFF (talk) 12:41, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom., Carrite, RJFF & WP:FORK. There does not appear to significant secondary sources existing regarding the concept as defined in the article--JayJasper (talk) 18:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, the original article was 29K long, but huge amounts of sourced text was removed[5] just six weeks prior to this AfD, even though there was no clear consensus on talk for such an action[6], so that the lede now reads:

"The term "right-wing socialism" is a term used by Jesús Huerta de Soto in his book Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship to describe what he considers socialist policies carried out by liberal, conservative and fascist governments.[1]"

when in the previous 29k version it read:

"The term "right-wing socialism" is a term used by exponents of the Austrian School of economics and some conservative thinkers to describe right-wing movements and politicians that support social solidarity and paternalism as opposed to what they see as anti-social individualism, commercialism, and laissez faire economics.[1][2][3][4]"

The original version of the article is here. It appears the tactic of removing huge amounts of sourced text under the pretext of improving an article then nominating for deletion a couple of weeks later is sadly becoming common. Clearly it is a notable topic as Google books and scholar shows. --Nug (talk) 21:39, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's a pity that you obviously haven't read the above discussion before you formed your opinion and stated your position. I have already outlined that most of the use of the term "right-wing socialism" in literature and scholarly works doesn't refer to "right-wing socialism" in the sense the article explains, but merely to the right wing of the socialist movement or a particular socialist party. (i.e. reformist or revisionist socialism/Bernsteinism/social democracy)

And your assumption that the article was shortened to set up the AfD is wrong. A great amount of material has been cut off, because the article meddled different terms and concepts under the title "right-wing socialism" in a way that was not justified by cited sources. You can reconstruct this if you read the article's talk page. I can assure you that I didn't think of proposing the article for deletion when I cut off this only peripherally related material that was connected to the topic of the article only by OR and/or synthesis. --RJFF (talk) 22:26, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yet you remove text while this AfD is open with the misleading edit comment "OR/Synthesis to equalize "right-wing socialism" and "conservative socialism", see discussion"[7], when in fact Huerta de Soto explicitly links "right-wing socialism" and "conservative socialism" together on page 98 of his book. --Nug (talk) 22:38, 20 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, he removed material that was added after the AfD was introduced. And if you would read material before re-adding it, you would realize that it has nothing to do with what De Soto was talking about. We don't need more garbage articles that combine entirely different concepts that have been described by putting together the same adjective and noun - we have enough already. TFD (talk) 17:02, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any reasonable article needs to present a discussion of any variants of related concept. Just because some people are too lazy to improve the article isn't a valid reason for deletion. --Nug (talk) 21:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I'm not arguing for deletion because I don't believe in the existence of right-wing socialists: I do. I'm arguing for deletion because this article is an original synthesis of ideas, politically biased, and a fork of other, more neutral articles. AlexTiefling (talk) 20:35, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Your claim of original synthesis of ideas is disproved, Huerta de Soto devotes an entire chapter to the topic Right-wing Socialism in his book Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship (Fourth ed.), beginning on page 98: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nug (talk • contribs) 21:39, 21 April 2012

• NOTE I've restored the original content that was removed some week prior to the AfD, so that participants here can view it. --Nug (talk) 21:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. This is a POV-fork of many articles about various groups at different times described as "right-wing" by different sources (mostly in passing). These movements may be notable, but the term "right-wing socialism" as used here to bring all of them together isn't. Therefore, since no writer combines all of these into one interrelated phenomenon, the article should either be deleted or turned into a disambiguation page. The latter option would be way too messy, so I would delete. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 23:17, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein  05:40, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Relisting because the article is now substantially different from what it was during most of the AfD.  Sandstein  05:40, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• keep per Borock. I see these improtant movements as completely notable. The fact the phrase is used in differenet places in different ways is clear evidence that an article is needed to sift through these definitions. Its not as simple as a definition article - this deals with the term, background, explaination and so on. The article for sure requires improvement, but so do many articles here in the project and that is not a valid point for discussion. Outback the koala (talk) 19:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If a title may refer to more than one topic, we are supposed to have separate articles, per WP:DISAMBIG. We do not for example combine articles for Paris, France and Paris, Texas. TFD (talk) 20:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ah, but the article makes clear that it is the same topic and used in the same context, but the phrase is used by authors and acedemics in different countries in different ways with their different meanings. Outback the koala (talk) 08:23, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete At best, a metaphor, and at worst, an oxymoron. Either way, not supported by scholarly consensus; many speak on the subject, but few agree what the subject is, let alone on its particulars. No more than the sum of its parts, for which there are articles already. Anarchangel (talk) 14:21, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Looks solid and well sourced after improvements during this AfD. My very best wishes (talk) 04:43, 30 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.