Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-11-27 Laissez-faire

Mediation Case: Laissez-faire
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Request Information

 * Request made by: SFinside 19:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Where is the issue taking place?
 * ...Laissez-faire


 * Who's involved?
 * ...SFinside, LDFGeneral, Intangible


 * What's going on?
 * ...LDFGeneral and Intangible are not allowing SFinside to add specific, cited content to the article. They are censoring the article against Wikipedia NPOV policy. They also refuse to allow my placing of a POV tag at the beginning of the article.


 * ''What would you like to change about that?
 * ...Determine if NPOV is being violated and state your determination. Request arbitration if compliance is not forthcoming.


 * Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?
 * ...non-discreet

Mediator response

 * Is this case still active or can I close it? --Ideogram 21:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Closing. --Ideogram 01:21, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Compromise offers
This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.



Discussion
Here is the text I had put into the article:
 * "Many economists and historians (such as John Maynard Keynes) record that laissez-faire policies played a role in creating the Great Depression. Businesses make investments based on expectations of profit. Therefore, if a fall in consumption appears to be long-term (e.g. in a recession or depression), businesses analyzing trends will lower expectations of futures sales. Therefore, the last thing they are interested in doing is investing in increasing future production, even if lower interest rates make capital inexpensive. In Keynes’s view, since private actors cannot be counted on to create aggregate demand during a recession, the government has the responsibility to create demand."

The above was replaced with the following:


 * "Economists and historians (such as John Maynard Keynes) record that laissez-faire policies played a role in creating the Great Depression. Keyne's believed that classical liberal economics had a fatal flaw, and that was market instability as a result of inadequate investment. In Keynes’s view, since private actors cannot be counted on to create aggregate demand during a recession, the government has the responsibility to create demand."

The reason given was that the former is original research. Nevertheless, the text explains Keynes' view and it is sourced to Keynes' work on the subject. This is also text found on another wikipedia page Causes_of_the_great_depression. The text is also cited there. My suspicion, from their discussion on the talk page, is that these editors are not allowing NPOV in the article and their POV should not be allowed to dominate any topic or article in Wikipedia. This is further evidenced by the fact that the latter paragraph is devoted to a criticism of laissez-faire, while a page-long advocation of it is given immediately after.SFinside 19:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)