Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neofeudalism (2nd nomination)


 * 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   keep. v/r - TP 02:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Neofeudalism
AfDs for this article: Articles for deletion/NeofeudalismArticles for deletion/Neofeudalism (2nd nomination)
 * – ( View AfD View log )

This is pseudo-dictionary definition of a neologism dressed up as an article. A search of Google Books reveals no works discussing the use of the term in depth. Most mentions of it are as if 'coining a phrase' by the authors and there is no underlying accepted definition or theory beyond "something happening now that shares some of the characteristics of feudalism". This won't appear in "A to Z of politics"-type books because it doesn't have an accepted meaning beyond this. Pontificalibus (talk) 08:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per previous AFDs and new sources. Lots of political terms are not precisely defined, or have disputed meanings (cf. fascism). Wikipedia should cover them anyway, to serve as a guide to how notable sources (Chris Hedges in this case) have used the term. 78.31.70.182 (talk) 01:20, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * In addition to Hedges: Kim Stanley Robinson, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Bernard L. Weinstein sources now added. 78.31.70.182 (talk) 02:45, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There is plenty of in-depth analysis, available from hundreds of scholarly sources, as a Google Scholar search reveals. Tim Duvall's article "The New Feudalism: Globalization, the Market, and the Great Chain of Consumption" in New Political Science seems a promising place to start. I'll try incorporating his descriptions into this article later today.
 * Also, the literal translation new feudalism should redirect to this article, or this article should be moved there (the terms are used interchangeably), but I can't do either as an IP user. Could someone please make the redirect? 78.31.70.182 (talk) 09:09, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That source you give is one single mention of the word with no attempt to define it. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia not a dictionary. Subjects need to have received significant coverage. Fascism is written about and analysed in-depth in multiple sources, it is also clearly defined. However, this word is more akin to words like "pseudocommunism", "neodemocracy" and "quasiliberal", which are used to make various points but don't have the supporting in depth analysis and clear definition of words like neoconservatism.--Pontificalibus (talk) 08:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * "That source you give" apparently refers to Hedges, ignoring Robinson, Galbraith and Weinstein. While you're correct that Hedges does not define the word, his declining to provide his definition is quite irrelevant if Wikipedia is not a dictionary. What Hedges does offer Wikipedia is a data point on how the term is used. It is not sufficient all by itself, but neither is your focus on one source, to the exclusion of others, sufficient to make your case for deletion. 78.31.70.182 (talk) 08:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Of the other sources, two don't even mention the word, and the other uses it only to link to this very article for a definition.--Pontificalibus (talk) 08:56, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * "two don't even mention the word": you are not seriously going to suggest that if we would have an article on neofeudalism we could not include use of material on new feudalism in it? even when this article already noted the translation before you came along to AFD? Do you think that neofeudalism has a substantively different meaning from new feudalism? This does not make it easy to assume good faith in your deletion nomination.
 * "and the other uses it only to link to this very article for a definition": no, the other uses it to document the use of the term w/r/t Galbraith. 78.31.70.182 (talk) 09:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.  —• Gene93k (talk) 01:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 01:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - Allow time for more references to be added. Northamerica1000 (talk) 19:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * What sources? That's not a valid keep rationale, and there are no sources discussing the subject in depth.--Pontificalibus (talk) 19:59, 4 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete. "Neofeudalism" is a pejorative term increasingly used in ordinary discourse, and occasionally in scholarship, but not with any consistent meaning (it is used for everything ranging from South African Apartheid-era rural policies to modern US wealth disparities), so there doesn't seem to be an actual topic for this article. The current poor state of the article (almost entirely unreferenced OR) reflects this. - 202.124.72.192 (talk) 00:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: added source from Clifford Shearing (who, contrary to assertions here, does not use the word in a pejorative sense, as if that mattered anyway), regarded as "the quintessential scholar of the new regulatory state" by John Braithwaite. Martha K. Huggins and maybe others authors' further examination of Shearing's usage coming soon. 78.31.70.182 (talk) 02:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Shearing adds yet another use, and he explicitly ("what we might term") acknowledges that his use is a neologism. His use also strikes me as pejorative, or at least negative. His definition ("arenas of governance [with] contracts that set out such things as the proper expectations (rights) and responsibilities (duties) of community members") is sufficiently general to apply even to Wikipedia: it does not match the current article lead. The only hope for the article I see is a lead of the form: "Neofeudalism is a negative term used by a number of writers to mean several different things. Uses of the term have in common an implicit criticism of some aspect of society, by comparing it to the feudalism of the Middle Ages." – but I think that even such an article should be deleted. -- 202.124.74.254 (talk) 03:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no Wikipedia-policy-based argument to support your deletion !vote. The terms are not neologisms; neofeudalism has been in use since the 1950s at the latest; new feudalism dates to 1911 at the latest. I have secondary sources forthcoming (such as the already-mentioned Huggins) which comment on Shearing's meaning, and this would satisfy WP:NEO even if the terms were neologisms and first dated to 2011.
 * "Explicitly" would mean actually saying "I'm coining a neologism here." You meant "he implicitly acknowledges", and you are wrong about any implication. Such rhetorical forms as might term or might call can indicate the application of an understood term to a disputed target.
 * That there are traits which have led to calling South African apartheid-era rural policies and modern US wealth disparities (not so diverse a range there) by a common term is rather an argument for noting what traits have led to such labelling. Shearing's use helps bring the diversity and commonalities of usage into clearer view. It does not match the article lede because I just added it, and the article lede still waits to be changed. I suggest you either change it now, or wait for me to finish sourcing a fuller article, rather than complaining about minor inconsistencies of a work in progress.
 * You openly distort the text by taking "One of the features of this new feudalism is that the contracts ..." as a definition when it is not presented as such. But your distortion is an irrelevancy anyway; it should not be of interest to the Wikipedia editor whether a term is general or specific, only whether the sourcing is verifiable.
 * Likewise, it does not matter what you think is pejorative or negative. This is simply nothing to do with Wikipedia policy, though it does hint at what is the real cause of your nitpicking here. I suggest you read the original if you want to see what positive utility he draws from risk-based private/public policing as it may be applied to restorative justice (the larger theme of his article). Then you can get on with denouncing the pejorative article on foolishness. 78.31.70.182 (talk) 04:23, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It is a fact that the word has been used for a while. It's also a fact that, as the nom says, "most mentions of it are as if 'coining a phrase' by the authors and there is no underlying accepted definition or theory beyond 'something happening now that shares some of the characteristics of feudalism.'" In particular, it's been used to refer to wealth disparities, to rural employment contracts, to patterns of governance (by Shearing), and other things. There is no consistent topic there to write an article about. The word is simply a way of saying "some aspect of what I am studying resembles the Middle ages in a negative way." -- 202.124.72.73 (talk) 04:54, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That is not a policy-based argument. Nevertheless, note that the article has been about "policies of governance and economy" for years now, and everything you mention fits under that topic. Feudalism was vastly nuanced and complicated. It is not surprising to find that concepts of neofeudalism influence different areas of research differently. 78.31.70.182 (talk) 05:03, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


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


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   05:52, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - the article's horrible and the term is misused. To the extent that the term "Neofeudalism" actually exists it is often made in reference to the historical re-emergence of serfdom in Eastern Europe (east of the Elbe +). But that's not what this is about. This is straight up use of Wikipedia for the purpose of some idiosyncratic political agenda.Volunteer Marek(talk) 06:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC) Add: (And holy crap, the article doesn't even manage to get the term "feudalism" right (even in the Marxist usage of the term). The way the term is used in the article is basically some high school-kid version of "a stand in for things which are bad", sort of like if you used the term "fascist" to refer to your parents because they won't let you stay out past midnight or something. Immature embarrassment to the encyclopedia.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Again I note !votes not based in any deletion policy. If the article was bad, then improve it. If the term was "misused", then use it better. If Marek is aware of some meaning in Eastern Europe, then Marek should have added it.
 * The relevant question is whether an article can be based on secondary sources, which discuss primary sources' use of the term. That is all. So that the ignorance of policy does not remain fashionable here, I have now stubbed the article to show how a basic policy-compliant article can begin. Taking the criminology usage of the term as a narrow scope, this stub already satisfies the core content policies of WP:NPOV, V and OR, and so should be kept as is. But I will continue to expand it. DeliciousBits (talk) (formerly 78.31.70.182) 22:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete - Original essay about a non-notable neologism. Carrite (talk) 00:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * What? Where is the "original essay" you speak of? I insist that you should actually look at the article and substantiate that specious claim with a quote. And it is not a neologism, but even if it was, it would pass WP:NEO: "cite what reliable secondary sources, such as books and papers, say about the term or concept". DeliciousBits (talk) 02:23, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete WP does not allow cut-and-pasting of (quoted) paragraphs to form nearly the entirety of an article. I share Marek and Carrite's concerns on other issues. Kiefer .Wolfowitz 02:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe the quotes are valid in this article (I think we should put that as a separate question to the resident copyright experts) but they can be trimmed if you like. They can be removed entirely. They exist currently to show the theoretical basis of the concept. Even if they were removed entirely, the article would be a stub sufficient for keeping.
 * Here is the same stub, this time without any quoted paragraphs. It clearly shows the meaning of the term in the criminology use (best explained by the Bruce Baker sentence, in my opinion), and it shows that the term is in usage such that we can at least write a verifiable stub on the criminology sense. Would you agree with that much? DeliciousBits (talk) 03:46, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - I've been asked for a clarification of my position on this topic. Here goes. "Neofeudalism" is not a valid analytical concept. Much like left wing fascism it is a contradiction of terms and its use is strictly as a pejorative. Feudalism was a social and economic system that predated capitalism; dredging up the archaic word, hooking a "new" on the front, and using it as a slag against the right wing is an exercise in polemics. "Oh, they want a king and a few lords and a mass of serfs, just like the middle ages — neener neener!" Writing it up like it is a valid analytical concept and tagging on a few footnotes doesn't make a circle square. Now, don't get me wrong, this is exactly the same politicized bullshit behind left-wing fascism — which is apt to be kept on the basis of mass WP:ILIKEIT arguments and a shallow close. Same deal though — it is a pejorative used in the contemporary political environment by one team against the other as an attempt to link the opponents with a historical evil. There is no such thing either as left-wing fascism or neofeudalism outside of the POV-laden polemics of talking heads. I voted for delete there. And I'm voting for delete here. Carrite (talk) 03:36, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. I called that right. That makes three notability challenges and three bad closes on left-wing fascism. Carrite (talk) 03:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * LINK. Carrite (talk) 03:44, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So this is about some wikipolitics I don't understand. Could this article please be evaluated on its own merits? Have you tried clearing your browser cache? The rewritten article now has nothing to do with left or right, and it is certainly not being used as "a slag against the right wing". The article is about Shearing's concept in criminology. DeliciousBits (talk) 03:53, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Crossposted from Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron: I think Neofeudalism can be kept using the secondary sources that rely on Shearing's (primary source) use of the term. (There are other uses outside criminology, but AFD participants said the article was too broad). These secondary sources, as currently used in the article, include Baker, Huggins, and Zedner. There are several more, which I will continue supplying as time permits. Where I think Article Rescue Squadron participants may be able to help: concepts from the larger blockquotes can be summarized to clarify the sources' meanings. I believe all these larger blockquotes are ultimately permissible to present the sources' reasoning in their own words, but this question can be delayed for the resident copyright experts until after AFD, so I have removed the quotes for now. At this time, help summarizing the quotes would be appreciated. DeliciousBits (talk) 07:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Neofeudalism controversy in United States politics should not be listed up top, since that was a fork of the main article, and has nothing to do with this nomination at all. Looking through the history of this article, it seems to have gone through a lot of changes, from one thing to another.   D r e a m Focus  10:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. The issue is not whether neofeudalism is a "valid analytical concept"; that's not for us to decide, per WP:NPOV. Rather, the issue is whether the term is in widespread enough use to be notable, and whether its use can be documented with reliable sources. If the term is used frequently in the published academic literature, then it counts as notable; Carrite's arguments are certainly valid criticisms of the concept, and it may very well be a highly-contested and controversial theoretical model, but that doesn't mean it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. Here, there are citations to the work of multiple academic criminologists (including Lucia Zedner) in which the term is used and discussed. The lead section could probably be reworded for NPOV, to make clear that it's a term used in the work of specific scholars rather than a universally-accepted concept; and if there are scholars critiquing the concept, mentions of their work belong in the article too. But as far as I can see, there are enough sources here to demonstrate that the term is in widespread use in the academic criminological literature, so I'd say it probably passes the threshold for inclusion. WaltonOne 11:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. That the term pops up often enough doesn't mean it's a valid topic for an article. That the term is in widespread use, maybe, does not yet mean that it points to a specific concept, which is what is necessary, lest we get a vague definition followed by a dozen examples that have nothing to do with each other. And a vague definition, that's what we have. Drmies (talk) 01:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. I see that the article is now a stub, containing several definitions, all different, and none which are in fact "reminiscent of those [policies] present in many feudal societies." I must say, I see no indication that there is a coherent topic here. I believe Walton is wrong: it is not enough for the "term [to be] used frequently in the published academic literature" -- it must be used to mean the same thing, otherwise it's not actually a concept at all. -- 202.124.72.203 (talk) 09:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. There are plenty of obviously-notable concepts the definitions of which are highly debated. There's a huge amount of debate over what "fascism" does and doesn't mean, for instance. Similarly, there's a huge amount of debate over what "slavery" means (see wage slavery as opposed to chattel slavery, and the disputes as to whether the former is an abuse of the term). The same is true of "socialism", "conservatism" and "liberalism", for that matter; there's no universal consensus about what these terms mean, and different writers certainly don't use them in consistent contexts and with consistent meanings. That does not mean the concepts themselves are non-notable: indeed, the very volume of debate they've generated is evidence of their notability.
 * Obviously you're right that it wouldn't be a notable concept if the different authors cited simply happened to have used the terms "neo-" and "feudalism" together by pure chance, in the course of talking about completely different concepts in completely different fields of study. But it doesn't seem like that's the case here; although there is substantial scholarly disagreement over what "neo-feudalism" is, and plenty of debate as to whether it's a useful or applicable term at all, this doesn't mean that there is no common conceptual thread in the literature. WaltonOne 19:02, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Articles can cover a range of concepts (recall Marek's objection from the opposite direction, that the article was missing some important other meaning, thus not broad enough), but 202.124.72.203's objection here is simply not informed by the actual article. Every single one of the concepts in this article is either Clifford Shearing's original or a commentary on Shearing's. It is theoretically impossible to come up with a more consistent topic, unless that topic has only been discussed by a single person. When more than one person has discussed a topic, then literally the only thing we can ever do is cite what one source said and cite what other sources said in direct response. Huggins, Baker, Zedner and Shearing are all talking about precisely the same thing: Shearing's usage of neofeudalism. If this is not blatantly obvious enough for 202.124.72.203, then 202.124.72.203 is invited to either do the work of taking the full blockquotes and elaborating on their content, or, alternatively, to argue here for my inclusion of the full blockquotes.
 * Ultimately I agree with Dream Focus that the article should be broader than this, but I have stubbed it to focus exclusively on Shearing's usage in criminology just to demonstrate what a singular focus could look like, since this was one of the fashionable complaints from earlier. DeliciousBits (talk) 23:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Walton makes a convincing argument. Because some use the phrase differently doesn't mean its not a notable concept.  Instead of having separate articles for each use of it, just put them together in their own sections here.   D r e a m Focus  19:19, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. I see the article has been transformed again, into a quote farm that goes beyond "fair use" into copyvio territory. -- 202.124.73.219 (talk) 23:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That is a reversion in direct response to your facetious complaint that the authors were not talking about the same thing. Including the quotes demonstrates that they are all talking about Shearing's usage, and thus shows how you were wrong. Of course you're going to complain about it either way. Again, you are invited to do the work of taking the content of those blockquotes and incorporating it into the article in your own language. Please, find some way to contribute productively here. I believe the quotes are valid in this article, but that is a completely separate question from whether or not their substance can support an article. Do not conflate the two, and let's let the resident copyright experts decide what constitutes fair use (a discussion which can and should take place separately from AFD; this is simply not the venue for your new complaint, which you are invited to take instead to Copyright problems). DeliciousBits (talk) 23:28, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Added four more secondary sources, Marina Caparini, John Braithwaite, Ian Loader, and Randy Lippert & Daniel O'Connor, all of whom are referring directly to Clifford Shearing's use of the term, which remains the sole topic of this article. I think it is necessary to keep the blockquotes in for the duration of this AFD, since they all make clear they are referring to Shearing's usage, lest we get more lazy falsehoods like Drmies' when others don't bother to check the stub's sources. DeliciousBits (talk) 19:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC) Added another secondary source from criminology, Les Johnston, who explicitly says that Shearing's concept has been influential in the field. DeliciousBits (talk) 20:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC) Here's what the present article looks like without long quotations. It's coherent but would benefit from more summary of the cited sources. If the article survives AFD then I'll attempt some summary. DeliciousBits (talk) 10:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep and rewrite from scratch The term is clearly notable and used extensively in various literature, such as here, here (wow, that's old), here, and here, with many more examples besides. It's a term that seems to span from events in the far past, such as the formation of Mexico, and the present, this private governance thing. It's quite clear that the term is notable and has an extensive history that needs to be covered. The current article, however, is pretty much crap. The sources are useful though, but the rest of the article should be stubbed and rewritten from scratch with better formatting, organization, and little to no block quotes. Silver  seren C 05:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep but rewrite. The present article is just an assembly of long quotations. According to a search for the title phrase in WorldCat, "new feudalism has also been used for a variety of other topics. The 16th-18th century movement described by Volunteer Marek above is also a real historical topic, and not limited to Eastern europe, though I am do not recall what the normal name for it is in English-I do not think it's this one.     DGG ( talk ) 04:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep and rewrite. Altho, interestingly, I would define neofeudalism completely different from these people...--Metallurgist (talk) 14:44, 16 September 2011 (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.