Talk:Mises Institute/Archive 7

ANI
An ANI has been filed concerning recent edits here 04:00, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

sources for BLP claims
Neither "Searchlight" magazine nor the SPLC are great sources for anything approaching a contentious claim about living persons as a rule. If cites for association are needed, surely better cites should be found, and inclusion of contentious claims about any living person must meet the standards and strictures of WP:BLP. Collect (talk) 13:43, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * What, exactly, is unreliable about the SPLC? &mdash; goethean 15:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Where it gives an opinion about a living person, the issue of WEIGHT for such an opinion where it is the only source at all given about the person in a list not on the main BLP for the person is questionable. As is "Searchlight" for any claims about a person.   The name of the person in the list here is not the issue, AFAICT, but some claims about the person may well be at issue, so the proper thing is to remove the source and any possibly contentious claims about the person.   Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't know what that means. &mdash; goethean 15:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Footnote for history edit
The previous edit, reverted here has material which discusses the paleo-libertarian strategy of Rothbard. But it does not directly support info related to the history of the institute. It is more focused on the Ron Paul newsletter issue. The sources are not "a discussion of the paleolibertarian period of the Mises Institute". – S. Rich (talk) 21:28, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think that discussion of the views and strategies of the founders of the institute is verboten. &mdash; goethean 22:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, not verboten. And that is why the views and strats in the early years was put into a footnote. The development of the LvMI was (perhaps) an off-shoot of the strategy. Since the sources cited do not, do not themselves say that LvMI was established in order to expand upon or develop the strategy I think the best place for the info is in a footnote. Having it there supports the earlier material about the rift. Perhaps the footnote could be clarified somewhat. Something like "When discussing the Ron Paul Newsletters in 200x, authors X & Y mentioned that LvMI had ....." – S. Rich (talk) 22:55, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Well? ... Let me add that the footnote serves to provide the pertinent information without UNDUE emphasis. The single comment from Horowitz about the unsavory people involved Mises.org nearly 30 years ago. It does not deserve a full sentence in a two-sentence paragraph. – S. Rich (talk) 16:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC) Also, the footnote is in keeping with WP:FNNR – "explanatory footnotes that give information which is too detailed or awkward to be in the body of the article". 16:54, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

RFC result on removing section on "views espoused" as justification for earlier edit
This edit reverted an edit which removed material about Mises-related people. The source did not describe the organization's views. The edit was in keeping with the "RfC: Should "Views espoused by founders & organization scholars" be in the article?" closure which said "I'd suggest to editors that the best way to move forward is to identify independent, reliable sources as a basis for the organization's views on various issues and reinforce them with specific publications from Mises members. [Emphasis added.]" The SPLC material only identifies the people as being associated with LvMI. It does not say that LvMI holds the views. The closure also cautioned against SYNTH. – S. Rich (talk) 21:42, 14 June 2014 (UTC)


 * "the organization's views" &mdash; the underlying premise being that not-for-profit organizations are persons? It is hard to understand how a think-tank has views apart from the views of the scholars which comprise the think-tank. &mdash; goethean 22:00, 14 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I think it is OR for us to select individual members and report their views as representative. We should instead use a source as a guide for appropriate weight.  The SPLC for example has an article about the LvMI which could be used to outline typical views.  But the actual source used is about the neo-confederate movement and probably more relevant to that article.  In comparison, one could select a number of Democrats - George Wallace, Jim Jones. Larry McDonald and present their views in the article about the Democratic Party, but it would be misleading.  TFD (talk) 22:18, 14 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with TFD. In the RfC I argued for a broader removal of the material. But I am satisfied with the RfC closure (which is why I cited it). My previous edit removed the material that said "X, who has been a scholar at LvMI, said Y." I left the mises.org sourced material. Thus a cunumumdrum exists – we have material published by Mises.org which says "I think Z about this topic". And the reader is left to suppose that Z is the official view of LvMI. Well, to select different people who've been published by mises.org means cherry-picking various items from the primary source.  With dozens and dozens of people, publishing hundreds of items, there is a huge variety to select from. Unfortunately we've had people selecting material which, shall we say, tended to portray LvMI in a certain light. The edit I made was perhaps a first step to get these portrayals in a NPOV mode.  – S. Rich (talk) 23:04, 14 June 2014 (UTC)


 * In other words, you'd rather than the article refrain from reporting on the more outrageous topics that LvMI has published. Zip it. &mdash; goethean 23:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No. Inrageous, rageous, or outrageous is a matter of opinion. I'd like NPOV to prevail. How do we do that? Report on only the more or most outrageous? Report on everything? – S. Rich (talk) 23:53, 14 June 2014 (UTC)


 * We should not read through the LvMI website and determine what is signficant because that means making a judgment, which is "original research". Instead we should rely on the weight that reliable sources provide to the various views in articles about the LvMI.  Journalism in mainstream media, SPLC reorts, and academic textbooks and articles are written by people who are trained to do this.  Even though the weight they assign will represent a judgment, it will be a mainstream judgement.  That is why we rely on "secondary sources".  There is a problem that these sources generally ignore the LvMI.  But the solution is a shorter article.  TFD (talk) 23:58, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * True. A shorter article will be the result. I only removed the SPLC material that said stuff about persons who had published with LvMI. The SPLC material did not address LvMI directly. At the same time, there was primary source material in the article added by some people who, I believe, found the material to be less than favorable. What to do with that material is another question. – S. Rich (talk) 00:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Note, the archive bot picked up the RfC on this topic and archived the thread as we were discussing. Here is the archive link: Talk:Ludwig von Mises Institute/Archive 6. Also note that the two of the proponents to include material are now topic banned from the article and one proponent is indeffed. I had held off on editing the article in accordance with the RFC result because the ArbCom on the topic was underway. This said, I do not want to rehash the RFC. The closure is what we must live with. And the closure says we take out stuff that does not state what the organizational views are. We do not engage in synthesis to say "author X, who is associated with LvMI, holds these views." – S. Rich (talk) 16:30, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

The material which talked about the Mises people, and not the institute, has been removed. We are left, however, with the short paragraphs in which primary sourced LvMI-published material is used to say what the various scholars have written. As TFD says, we should not be going through that stuff to pickout what we feel is important. At the same time, a description of their views may be helpful to the reader. So here is my thought: Mises Inst. has 16 Fellows listed (and each is notable with their own WP article); this article lists them & each has a brief description; what might work is a bit more detailed description of what they have each written through Mises.org publications. (For example, Block is best known for his book Defending the Undefendable was published through Mises.org.) Thoughts? – S. Rich (talk) 16:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree. We should re-name the section "Senior fellows" and provide the complete list, along with brief descriptions of them sourced to LvMI.  (Rothbard for example should not be mentioned.)  That is an acceptable use of primary sources.  TFD (talk) 22:49, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

A serious conceptual error in the page
There is a serious conceptual error in the page: The Mises Institute's mission is described, among others, as "defense of the market economy". In reality The Mises Institute is advancing capitalism and replacing market economy. Market economy is an economy based on exchanging goods with money as a means, but the Misesian (and Friedmanite) dogma is based on accumulating money at the expense of exchange.

Capitalism is wealth accumulation but market economy is economic exchange. The Misesian framework keeps money artificially scarce (the "sound money" pseudo-argument) and is identical to Friedmanite framework. Needless to say that this difference means different concepts of individual freedom. The Misesian interpretation is enhancing the liberty of the few at the expense of the majority of men.

The "sound money" pseudo-argument is also a means to wage war against modern states and constitutes at the same time the basis of expectations manipulation. John Maynard Keynes held expectations as exogenous but Friedmanites and Misesians have endogenized these, and call them rational (or consistent) referring their rationality or consistency to the economic model. Mises and his followers are totalitarians (or inverted totalitarians). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vienna Totalitarians (talk • contribs) 20:58, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Even if everything you say is true (I personally have no idea whether it is or not), to make changes to the article you would need to provide reliable sources that verify any new content. Safehaven86 (talk) 21:22, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Neoliberalism
My Neoliberalism's addition to "See also" section was reverted by, whose action I consider an undue censorship. I'd like to see where the local consensus stands on this. Carlotm (talk) 07:44, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I simply do not see the relation. The "neoliberalism" article explicitly mentions that the ideas defended by the subject of this article are opposing to it, and there is no mention to "neoliberalism" in this article. Saturnalia0 (talk) 07:56, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

IMO there is some connection, but IMO not enough to include on a short "see also" list.  North8000  (talk) 13:47, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Wolfgang Streeck in his How Will Capitalism End? writes explicitly about "neoliberal Hayekianism". Carlotm (talk) 00:45, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Nicholas Sarwark
Can someone explain under "criticisms" the Nicholas Sarwark controversy in further detail? The Jason Stapleton interview of Nicholas Sarwark may help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ghoul flesh (talk • contribs)
 * Wish I could. The source is essentially a blog that is looking at Sarwark's Tweets which vaguely reference Tweets from an un-verified Twitter account under the name Tom Woods. I do not think the "criticism" from the LP Chair (Sarwark) is either WP:V or WP:NOTEWORTHY. – S. Rich (talk) 23:55, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree, it hasn't gotten much coverage at all, but Sarwark has gotten a lot of backlash from libertarians for his comments. Many want him removed as chair in 2018. See the comments on this video for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKDvAkUuztQ It's a major controversy in the LP right now.

It would probably stand to be mentioned on Sarwark's Wikipedia page rather than Ludwig von Mises Institute's. I know there is a problem with notability, though. Ghoul flesh •  talk 00:40, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

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"the 9th most influential think tank in the United States"
The lede states that " according to a popularity ranking of 2015 the Mises Institute ranked as the 9th most influential think tank in the United States", citing a page on thebestschools.org website. Per Manual of Style/Lead section, "significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article", and accordingly this statement, if it belongs in the article at all, does not belong in the lede, since no mention of it is made elsewhere. And I have to ask whether it actually belongs in the article anyway. I see no obvious reason why thebestschools.org should be considered a reliable source on 'popularity' or 'influence' as general concepts. Nor does it appear to claim to be so. Instead it gives its own criteria. Whether such criteria are valid as a measure of 'popularity' is clearly a subjective opinion, making the ranking itself subjective. And per Wikipedia policy, opinions need to be described as such, and properly attributed. If this ranking is to be mentioned at all I'd suggest that it is first necessary to find evidence that it is being cited by third-party sources, and then reworded to explicitly state where the 'popularity ranking' came from. 86.143.231.214 (talk) 19:25, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Self-sourcing
I have removed a lot of self-sourcing, for exactly the same reasons that we recently did this at. Wikipedia works from sources that meet a trifecta: reliable, independent, secondary. Self-sourcing is reserved for de minims use for uncontroversial facts (e.g. addresses or an establishment date when other sources only have the year). Much of this article was promotional material drawn directly from the subject's website. "X promotes Y, source, page on X's website promoting Y" is never a good look. And that was a lot of the content here.

Anything significant will be covered in reliable independent secondary sources, and can be included when such sources are identified, but it must not go back in form the primary and unreliable sources, because that's not how Wikipedia works. Do read the debates on the KofC page and look at the history of the article. Note how the editor most determined to self-source ended up topic banned. I hope that doesn't happen here. Guy (help!) 12:22, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * For example, them, as a primary source is straightforward and definitive on what their official mission statement is, and you removed that. North8000 (talk) 14:40, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * , because if their position is significant then it will be covered in reliable independent secondary sources. Remember, this is a think-tank promoting a fringe ideology (fundamentalist anti-governmentalism). Per WP:PROFRINGE, we do not place ourselves in the position of arbiters of which statements are significant and which are not, we rely on independent sources. Reliable ones, that are not listed as questionable at places like WP:RSP.
 * I do encourage you to read the archives at the KofC article - that was exactly the same situation with a considerably less controversial subject.
 * All you need is independent RS and we're good. The 14,000-odd bytes of unreliably sourced and primary sourced PR is not on though. Guy (help!) 08:43, 12 February 2020 (UTC)