Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 May 15

= May 15 =

Difference between genres?
What's the difference between the genres supernatural fiction, supernatural drama and magic realism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.250.44.41 (talk) 08:24, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The first two are pretty similar, the difference being something like "Ghosts are out to get me" vs. "I'm in love with a ghost." The last one is entirely different; the two "supernatural" genres usually spend their time articulating the supernaturalness of the world as the major plot element. ("Did you know that vampires and werewolves fight each other?" "No, exposit to me more about this subject!") Magic realism generally just stretches the boundaries of realism as an incidental part of the fiction, and it doesn't systematize it. So your characters end up living forever without it being remarked upon, or people die and come back to life without it being remarked upon, or amazing things happen but it's taken for granted that this is just how the world works. I tend to think of magic realism as having a "foggy" disposition — it doesn't require rational explanations, it doesn't require analysis of weirdness, it doesn't require any of the participants in the book to even realize that they live in a magical reality. In magic realism, when the characters observe something that would be considered supernatural in our world, they just shrug their shoulders, they don't freak out. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Good description, but I think magical realism does not imply that characters shrug their shoulders at "supernatural" phenomena. Consider e.g. Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (the most solidly literary work of magical realism I can think of at the moment). The protagonist is almost obsessed with understanding the nature and meaning of the "supernatural" things that occur. I also just wanted an excuse to mention this excellent book, which I highly recommend :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:24, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The best example of magic realism for me is One Hundred Years of Solitude. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.9.109.240 (talk) 14:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Last year Spain, Italy and/or Greece were together?
When was the Spain, Italy and/or Greece were together in an empire or other kind of national merge (not including the EU)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.76.237.253 (talk) 13:33, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * That would be around 550 AD (see the map to the right), when the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire held not only modern Greece but also all of the Apennine Peninsula. This empire would later also hold parts of the Apennine Peninsula, but never again all of it. The Papal state came into being holding the central part of the peninsula from the 6th Century until the unification of Italy in the 19th Century. If you want Spain within the same realm too, you'd have to go back to before the split in East and West Rome in the 5th Century. 83.250.44.41 (talk) 14:54, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If all you want is the last date that any part of these three countries was under the control of another of them, then that would be 1947, when the Italians were forced to give up their last Greek dependencies. Marco polo (talk) 15:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Another important empire which controlled territory in all three was the Crown of Aragon, a late-medieval empire composed of various kingdoms in union with, and dependencies of, the Kingdom of Aragon, and which controled parts of modern-day Spain, Italy, and Greece. -- Jayron  32  17:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, Spain and much of Italy were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into the 1700s, but Greece was held by the Turks during that time period. Looie496 (talk) 18:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Huh? Austria-Hungary (in official terms) didn't exist until the 19th Century; I guess you were referring to the Habsburg monarchy in general. In the early part of the 16th century they certainly controlled both Spain and Italy, but then the two were split between Charles V's descendent, such that no later Habsburg controlled both as part of a single Empire. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 20:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Are you sure? The Austro-Hungarian Empire existed between 1867–1918, and didn't comprise Spain. 88.9.109.240 (talk) 20:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * He's thinking of the Hapsburg Empire which included Spain and Italy (and others) at various points.  Hot Stop  14:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Also wrong. The Hapsburg empire should not be confused to territories reigned by the members of the Hapsburg monarchy. 88.8.65.241 (talk) 15:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor was also King of Spain.   Hot Stop   17:50, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Charles V was King of Spain, but - as per the wikilink to Hapsburg Empire which you included in your earlier post - the Hapsburg Empire as normally understood began with Charles's younger brother Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. Charles ruled both Spain and the Hapbsurg territories in other parts of Europe, but he inherited the crowns separately at different times from different grandfathers, they remained separate, and were inherited separately - the traditional Hapsburg lands by Ferdinand (who was already effectively the ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia), and Spain, the Burgundian Lands and the Low Countries by Charles' son Philip II of Spain Valiantis (talk) 21:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Brooks's dress?
Would Rebekah Brooks's dress here: http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/national/brooks-and-husband-to-be-charged-1-4548060 be considered stylish in England?

I'd prefer if someone who actually lives in England and is at least casually aware of current styles would answer, as I'm not posting to be snarky but merely for information's sake. --NellieBly (talk) 17:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I suppose only in a Harry Potter film. 80.58.205.34 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:24, 15 May 2012 (UTC). :


 * I'm not fashion guru, though I am British. I agree with the poster above, it's a bit off. 130.88.172.34 (talk) 17:27, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The Guardian seems to have been a little obsessed with the dress recently. Judging by their praise: "she's very well dressed, in neck-high crepe, essaying a Winona Ryder chic", I would say that they, at least, consider it fashionable. There has also been some buzz around Twitter, with most 20-something woman (who, as we all know, are the fonts of all fashion knowledge) seeming impressed. However, the Guardian (again) think that fashion may not have been top of her mind when pulling the dress out of the wardrobe: "A white Peter Pan collar sends the most unambiguous of fashion messages. This is pop-culture shorthand that even David Cameron couldn't misinterpret. It means innocence, both in the sense of being free from guilt, and of a lack of sophistry.... Brooks's Leveson outfit places her in a long line of sophisticated women who choose to project a more doe-eyed vision of themselves in court... This is a 72-point headline of a dress. It is clear rather than nuanced; that's what makes it clever. Brooks may be projecting a different image, but she still thinks like a tabloid editor." - Cucumber Mike (talk) 17:43, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Kirsty Wark was wearing a dress with a similar collar, so was someone else on the telly yesterday. It seems to be very in right now. Also happened to suit Brook's purpose perfectly. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * What purpose was served? She got indicted, AFAIK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.34 (talk) 17:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * She'll be before a jury before long. Never too early to project a butter wouldn't melt image. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:23, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Operation Weeting has nothing to do with the Leveson Inquiry: they are merely running concurrently and happen to be investigating roughly similar issues. Therefore her appearance before Leveson would have had no influence whatever on the Crown Prosecution Service's decision to arrest her.(Personally I thought for the image she would wish to project to the Inquiry, a sharp business suit would have done, unless she thought she could charm Robert Jay and Brian Leveson...) --TammyMoet (talk) 20:33, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, everyone. I asked because to me here in Canada, that dress looks like an 80s maternity dress that someone dragged out of the local Goodwill shop, not something a well-off adult woman would wear. --NellieBlyMobile (talk) 21:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

French language of South Asia and other european languages of South Asia
I heard that Bengali language is the "French language of South Asia". How so? and which language is the "Italian language of South Asia"; the "Spanish language of South Asia"; the "Portuguese language of South Asia"; the "German language of South Asia"; the "Dutch language of South Asia"; the "Norwegian language of South Asia"; the "Danish language of South Asia" and the "Swedish language of South Asia"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.153.188 (talk) 18:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Telugu was called "Italian of the east"...--151.41.231.33 (talk) 06:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Google "French language of South Asia" and this page is the only result. Anonymous.translator (talk) 19:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it is because Bengali has a rich literature, and so does French. These comparisons are not to be taken very seriously. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:12, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * So then what is the preferred language in which to be rude to tourists in South Asia? :-) --Trovatore (talk) 23:39, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I wonder if "the French language" in this case is a mis-translation of lingua franca (which has nothing to do with French)? I didn't think that Bengali was a lingua franca anywhere, but that would at least make some sense, whereas "the French language of ... " doesn't convey anything meaningful to me. --ColinFine (talk) 21:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I concur with those thoughts. --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  10:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It would make more sense to say that English is the "lingua franca" of South Asia, wouldn't it?
 * From Bengali language: Bengali is ... native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. So, it certainly seems to be the (or at least a) lingua franca of Bangladesh and parts of India, which are all in South Asia.  Given the linguistic diversity of the whole South Asia region, which includes all of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, I'm not sure it's possible to identify a single tongue as "the" lingua franca.  English is probably the most widely used language throughout the region, but it's a second or later language for many people there.  --  ♬  Jack of Oz  ♬  [your turn]  23:51, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

What's this flag?
Take the American flag, replace the red with green, add a few more stripes, make the blue, uh green or white (I forgot, probably green) and replace the stars with a gold London Underground shape. It was on King of the Hill, a long haired young Texan guy has it on the wall. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:11, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Do you mean this: File:US EcologyFlag.gif? - Lindert (talk) 21:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * We have an article Ecology Flag... AnonMoos (talk) 22:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I think we should all go out and buy new ecology flags, and either burn the millions of old flags or fill landfills with them. :-) StuRat (talk) 22:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * That must be it, guess it didn't have a few extra stripes after all. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll mark this resolved. StuRat (talk) 23:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Ludwig van Beethoven's background
Ludwig van Beethoven's surname means "from the beet farm". Was this the name of a town, or were his ancestors just from a generic beet farm? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 21:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It is not known exactly how the name originated. It is possible that the name derives from the Belgian town of Bettenhoven, the Flemish name for Bettincourt, in the province of Liège. It has also been suggested that Beethoven is derived from the Betuwe, a region in the Netherlands. - Lindert (talk) 21:59, 15 May 2012 (UTC):
 * Some believe that hoven in Beethoven comes from the word "ouwe", meaning alluvial plain or lowland. It seems unlikely we'll ever know for sure. What is known is that his grandfather Louis was born in Mechelen (so was I :-)) in 1712. Louis' father Michael was a baker in Mechelen (born there in 1684) but later started trading in furniture and lace, and his father Cornelius (1641-1716) was a carpenter. Michael first made a fortune but later lost it all to speculation. He went broke in 1741 and fled to Bonn. Louis was a choir boy in Mechelen and later a tenor in Leuven. More on Beethoven's genealogy: http://www-public.rz.uni-duesseldorf.de/~molberg/beetnach.htm Ssscienccce (talk) 21:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Killings per country total
I would like to know what country(s) killed the most people in history. Including slavery, war, genocide etc. I have found wars, genocide etc. however no complete lists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.60.148.91 (talk) 22:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd think the Soviet Union would top the list, with all the intentional starvation of rebels early on, WW2 deaths, and massacres in various occupied nations, like Poland. China would also be high on the list, if you include the millions of people who died as a result of the disastrous Great Leap Forward program. StuRat (talk) 22:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It depends how you do the counting: but Germany, USSR, and China are certainly on the top. 88.9.109.240 (talk) 22:50, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Here's one somewhat well-known website: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:05, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * This question is unanswerable. The concept of "a country" has implicit meanings that exceed the history of a particular state.  We can indicate which continuous governments were involved with large numbers of deaths; or, which tolerated policies that caused deaths; or, which intentionally established policies with large scale death as an accepted aim.  However, if we try to extend it beyond a particular government, serious definitional errors enter.  If we accepted constitutional continuity, then both the United Kingdom and United States would be eligible for high rankings due to the nature of imperialism, as would the PRC due to political campaigns internal instability and internal imperialism; but this would be evaluating apples and oranges in the sense that the United Kingdom's constitutional continuity pre-dates modernity whereas the other two states are modern in origin.  If we claim some concept of "pre-modern nationality," then the politics as usual of pre-modernity means that every country looks equally barbarous; in the words of Laibach, "Bloody soil; fertile land."  Finally, what little comparative work has been done in modern preventable mass mortality has been fixated on states loathed by liberal democracy—rather than a full analysis—and has focused on attempts to produce statistical series.  Little work has been done as of yet on comparative studies of causation. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * There are many problems which make this question virtually unanswerable. One would be when is a death considered the fault of a nation? Do you count famines, whether blamed upon communism, or more often capitalism? deaths caused by pollution, deaths caused by lack of universal health care, deaths caused by wealth inequality, deaths caused by loose gun laws, deaths caused by not surrendering in war, etc. Unique Ubiquitous (talk) 23:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Also, do you count civil wars? Russia had a rather bloody one early in the 20th century, but it's nothing compared to China's history in the past 200 years: the Taiping Rebellion killed anything from 20-50 million, the Dungan revolt around 10 million, and the Chinese Civil War up to 5 million, and that's just the main ones. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:07, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The Government of the United States of America also has a brief but murderous history. --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 21:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The brief makes the numbers small, so nothing to compare with the big 4: Soviet Union, China, and Germany, and Japan. StuRat (talk) 21:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Right. It's not all relative. Or does someone believe that Island killed more than Germany? It's clear which countries are on the top of the list. 88.8.65.241 (talk) 21:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Aren't you forgetting the British Empire? Solving their trade deficit with huge quantities of opium, fighting a war over it. Chinese opium users went from 2 million to more than 100 million, and population fell by more than 30 million in the 40 years after the first opium war. Diseases the British rulers brought with them often killed half the population in their colonies. They also were the first nation that used concentration camps (in South Africa). Ssscienccce (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I might exclude diseases, assuming that was accidental. To me "killing" implies intent.  Now, in cases where the diseases were spread intentionally, those I would include. StuRat (talk) 23:45, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Just like the Gov. of the USA did in Guatemala. --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 01:46, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Do you have a link for that ? StuRat (talk) 16:36, 18 May 2012 (UTC)


 * How about a single man? Leopold II of Belgium was the sole owner of the Congo Free State and responsible for 5 to 15 million deaths. Ssscienccce (talk) 21:48, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Are we limiting this to existing countries? I would think the Roman Empire would probably be included in the top ten... based simply on longevity. (ie it was around for centuries and had time to kill lots of people). Blueboar (talk) 22:14, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Exactly my thought, although Egypt was the example. Key question: is the OP searching for X million, X percent of national (empire) population, or X percent of global population? DOR (HK) (talk) 09:13, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Though those places had considerably fewer people in them back then than they do now. The Roman Empire in 4th century contained only some 56 million people, total. They'd have to do a lot more systematic killing to come anywhere close to the level of the great democides of the 20th century, which operated against much, much larger populations (USSR and China in particular). 56 million is less than the total number of Allied WWII war dead, for example. I have heard it estimated that the 20th century was probably the bloodiest ever in human history, in terms of raw numbers (not necessarily percentages), and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true, in part because the total human population was so high, and our ability to make good on violence so aided by technology (and I don't necessarily mean chemical warfare or atomic bombs or anything like that — boring technologies like transportation play a huge role in that capability). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with Mr.98. The 20th century manufactured a gigantic, lethal war machine unparalled in the history of mankind.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:19, 17 May 2012 (UTC)


 * But, the Roman's didn't limit their killing to within the regions they controlled. And, even though they didn't kill as many people per year, if you multiply that lower rate by centuries, you may get up in the range of WW2. StuRat (talk) 16:42, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The combined world population during the centuries of the Roman Empire was much lower than that of the 20th century and their wars never involved such a vast swathe of territory as WWII.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:51, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * They were, however, around for a very long time: if you count from the founding of the City to the Fall of Constantinople, Rome had 2205 years to rack up the body count; they could match Leopold's 15 million with an average of 6800 deaths per year, which could be reached just through judicial executions. (In case you're unaware of it, "Byzantine Empire" is just the modern name for the eastern Roman Empire.) --Carnildo (talk) 00:21, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I would argue that it's improper to talk about "countries" killing people before the development of the modern state. I also doubt that the coercive apparatus of the Roman Empire exercised anywhere near the relevant amount of power to enable mass democide on modern levels even over a long period of time. There's also the issue of the systematicity -- "democide" implies it's systematic, and I don't know of any examples where the Roman Empire systematically exterminated groups of people, though there might have been individual instances of brutality. But that doesn't make it any different from any other empire in history. All the great pre-modern empires from all over the world can list many atrocities under their name. If we're going to look at the Roman Empire, how about the Chinese Empire in its various incarnations? I'd also point to Slavoj Zizek's argument that every state must suppress its obscene and illegitimate origins to establish the myth of its legitimacy (as different a figure as Edward Luttwak points out the same thing&mdash;all states are founded in bloodbaths by their very nature as monopolies on legitimate violence...) --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 03:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The article Democide has some numbers and links. 66.127.55.46 (talk) 05:35, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Declaring money to keep the same value
Would it not be possible to increase the total amount of money in circulation without causing inflation by declaring the money to have exactly the same value as before, and freezing prices and wages at pre-money increase levels? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 23:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * No, price freezes never last for long. StuRat (talk) 23:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, but ideally, it would work, wouldn't it? Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 23:34, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * If by "ideally", you mean "in a world where laws of economics don't apply", then sure, why not. StuRat (talk) 23:37, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You can create money by fiat; value, not so much. If you could somehow enforce such a scheme, you would essentially just be expropriating value from suppliers of goods and labor, giving them less value for it than they would freely trade it for.  In the absence of such expropriation, all you'll do is create shortages.  --Trovatore (talk) 23:35, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * (ec) Maybe, but complete price and wage control is intensely difficult; and if you succeed, by not letting producers/employers respond to price/wage signals, you'll start to see shortages (demand greater than supply) after you introduce the new money. (Incidentally, declaring money to have whatever value doesn't do much, it's the fixing that does the donkey work.) Oh, and of course there'll be no impact on GDP as a result, since you're just displacing other people's purchases rather than adding to purchases. This fact would seem to call into doubt why you would want to undertake the enterprise in the first place, of course. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 23:38, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Nichevo. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty 23:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * If you set a price platform sufficiently high through state expenditure you can force much of the advantages of price fixation (low inflation, wage stability versus inflation) without a number of the detriments (capital flight, mass unemployment). Of course you need something like a Cold War or the RSDLP(b) to get this.  (amongst other reprehensible conditions). Fifelfoo (talk) 23:48, 15 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Even in a no-economics dream world it still wouldn't work. It would just make the CPI constant but all the other inflation metrics would still shoot through the roof. Anonymous.translator (talk) 01:09, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually we can freeze prices if we accept rationing, a forced reduction in goods diversity (and often quality), input-output table command of the "commanding heights" of the economy, wage freezes and reductions in real terms, capital controls, and an infinite consumer of last resort in the government. Occasionally this is also coupled with real limits on returns to capital.  It is called a war economy. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think you missed my point. Economists have dozens of metrics to measure inflation. CPI is only one of them. Many people equate CPI with inflation, but that's far from true. If you freeze prices, inflation would still be soaring according to Producer price index, Commodity price index, and Core inflation measures. Suppose Stalin was able to dictate every single price within the USSR, he still can't control Commodity price index because the commodity prices are determined by international supply and demand.Anonymous.translator (talk) 03:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * From what I've read of the early Soviet Union, the principal commodity export had an internally mandated production price that was artificially low to allow for export. Yes, the value form is resistant to human control; but, you underestimate the extent to which state capitalism can effectively export "values" from price indicies into externalities—consider "primary socialist accumulation" which was effectively capitalist enclosure under state control.  By destroying vast amounts of wealth through such devaluation, in a situation of wholesale growth and full consumption of any produced product, you can keep a heavy lid on multiple definitions of inflation.  The externalisation of price movement flows into availability (grain requisitioning) and into forced consumption of wasteful products (over capitalisation not resulting in an immediate over production crisis).  Soviet economics are a wonderland of controlled variable tests on the limits of capitalism; they really did some very unusual things.  Fifelfoo (talk) 04:18, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Nixon tried a wage and price control. It didn't work. The result was shortages. Just like they would predict in Econ 101, a class which Nixon apparently never took. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Are the predictions of those who have taken Econ 101 any more reliable? AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:55, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I think Bugs was saying that anyone who have taken Econ 101 wouldn't be ignorant enough to impose price control, since they don't work. Anonymous.translator (talk) 03:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * (ec) I wouldn't assume that Nixon was too stupid or ignorant to know what would happen. It's possible that, knowing the economic consequences, he would have done it anyway, because the calculation was political rather than economic.  (It's possible that he miscalculated politically as well, but that doesn't affect my point.) --Trovatore (talk) 03:37, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Would zero inflation even be desirable? I thought governments generally aimed for a low, but positive, level of inflation, and our article lists some advantages of inflation. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 10:21, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * It certainly would make life simpler for those who want to compare prices and get the best price. With prices constantly changing, especially for gasoline/petrol, it's quite difficult to find the best price in your area.  There are apps that attempt to track this, but their info isn't always up-to-date.  Then there's the effect of inflation on loans and investments, which can be quite complex to figure out. StuRat (talk) 22:19, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

User:Whoop_whoop_pull_up -- The famous decree of the ancient Roman emperor Diocletian (Edict on Maximum Prices) was partly intended to have just that effect. We don't know a lot of the details of what happened, but overall it seems to have been strikingly ineffective at best, and economically disruptive at worst, despite being backed up by harsh criminal penalties... AnonMoos (talk) 03:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * On the other hand many price freezes in pre-capitalism were successful, because the market was so much smaller than other economic functions (like home production, or substitution home production, or latifunda production, etc.) 60.242.186.80 (talk) 06:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Whoop-whoop, governments can't do it precisely, wholly, always by declaration, but they can do it. And it is done all the time with large government deficit spending. That is what government deficit spending essentially is - putting new money into the economy. It is not necessarily seriously inflationary if the new spending or tax cutting is well-directed or if it is needed everywhere, as it is now or during the Great Depression. Then it will significantly boost employment & production, and no freezing of wages and prices is necessary. Especially in a modern society with a Big Government, the government simply "freezing prices and wages at pre-money increase level" that the government itself pays will have significant disinflationary effect. Freezing of prices that are set by private agents with significant price-setting power could counter inflation with no real damage to the rest of the economy and could allow even more spending. Japan has been running big deficits for decades and is still fighting deflation, not inflation, because it has terminated its expansions too soon based on bad economics. Most of the laws of economics spoken above - aren't, or only apply in the grossest way. Had governments around the world not run big deficits in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, we would be in the midst of a second Great Depression. As it is, we're pretty close, particularly where austerity is occurring or threatened. Nichevo, laissez-faire is not a serious answer to today's economic troubles.John Z (talk) 06:01, 17 May 2012 (UTC)