Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Money-Bargaining


 * 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   delete. Cirt (talk) 06:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Money-Bargaining

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A fringe theory with minimal notability. One book published in 1980, the two other books are self-published (Book Guild is a self-publisher). Minimally cited in the literature, except for three less than stellar book review in the American Journal of Sociology, the Industrial Relations Journal and Political Studies at the time of publication. Since then, nada. Google only finds book listings in online catalogues.

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reason:
 * Stepopen (talk) 04:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Response: Your assessment is fair enough. I had not seen the American Journal of Sociology and Industrial Relations Journal reviews of my 1984 book. You say 'less than stellar' but the AJS review is very pleasing. The reviewer concludes: 'There is an implicit thread running through these observations, but the nature of the link is never clearly explicated. Yet, one feels that Spread is onto something. I think the book is best viewed as presenting useful, sensitizing concepts and even provocative ideas about a variety of social processes well worth further explication and clarification with the goal of a more circumscribed but ultimately more useful theory.' My subsequent two books (2004, 2008) draw out the nature of the link, with full explication and clarification. It seems a pity to deprive Wikipedia readers of these ideas, but I suppose the support I have is too limited and not sufficiently respectable.


 * Weak delete - It's an idea that's been published. (I don't know if the two recent books are self-published, so I'm not sure if they should count.) I'm not big on deleting articles, so that makes it weak. But I still side for delete, given that the idea can't be seen to have caught on beyond the author. C RETOG 8(t/c) 16:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - the articles read like rambling personal essays, and with no additional sources to improve them I don't see how they can be made better. They give an impression of the importance of the theories which may be misleading for readers. The author of the articles seems to be the author of the cited sources (see reply below), raising WP:COI concerns. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Further response:

I suggested an insertion to the 'Economics' entry, on which there have been various comments. My response there is copied below:

Thanks for all the comments.

It appears I am now permitted to edit the page directly, but the comments indicate that it would not be appropriate to make the proposed insertion. There is, in any case, a proposal to delete the main entries on 'Money-Bargaining' and 'Support-Bargaining', to which I have responded on the Money-Bargaining deletion page. I am copying this also to the Money-Bargaining deletion page, since it is relevant to the proposal for deletion.

We have to separate the questions of what is right and what is respectable. If Wikipedia is only concerned with material that is derived from respectable sources, then the queries about the sources (meaning the publisher, Book Guild), may be relevant. The question of what is right would be of no significance.

While the Book Guild is not a conventional publisher, it is not of the undiscriminating kind. It has some distinguished authors. It has published Lord (Denis) Healey, the former British Chancellor of the Exchequer. It also publishes Peter Evans, who was Home Affairs correspondent on the Times for seventeen years. [All the references have ISBN Numbers: Spread (1984) 0-333-36569-0; Spread (2004) 1-85776-860-4; Spread (2008) 978-1-84624-251-9.]

As regards what is right, the 'open edit' approach of Wikipedia suggests a commitment to a wider range of opinion than can be accommodated in formal 'establishment' encyclopaedias. This seems to suggest also acceptance of a broader range of sources. There is an implication that the establishment and its 'respectable' sources could be wrong, or at least incomplete.

In this case, there is a real probability that respectable sources are wrong. If needs and wants are situation-related (see 1 in the proposed insertion above, and 'Money-Bargaining/Situation related selection' in the Wikipedia article proposed for deletion), then economics has been wrong for over a hundred years. Money-bargaining gives a much more realistic account of monetary exchange. Democratic theory is more principles and aspirations than a theory of how government works. The people cannot possibly govern in any direct sense. Support-bargaining gives a realistic account of political, social and intellectual processes.

My entries and proposed insertions are designated 'fringe theory', which is fair enough from the viewpoint of orthodox economic and political theory. The designation makes it easy to delete them. But bear in mind that the fringe may become the mainstream when the paradigm changes. If my entries are designated 'alternative paradigm' it may not be so easy to delete them.

Furthermore, alternative paradigms will probably not be promulgated through orthodox institutions and publishers. Orthodox, or respectable, theory uses orthodox and respectable publishers. Because of the viability condition (see 2 above, and 'Money-Bargaining/Companies as money-bargaining agencies' in the article), orthodox publishers find it hard to publish unorthodox theory. Academics generally approve, buy, read and teach orthodox theory. So unorthodox theory has to use unorthodox publishers. If Wikipedia rules out the use of unorthodox sources, it may also be excluding right theory.

Papersign (talk) 09:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 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.