RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Comparative advantage

Comparative advantage | Result: Deleted

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Keep

 * Ehh, stubs happen, it's not useless or off-mission - David Gerard (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't object to its length, I object to its content/quality. Show it to an economist and see how they will react.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would like to see it kept, but its current content is crap (see my delete vote) and I can't be bothered to rewrite it here and now. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:54, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Keep, rewrite from scratch as a one-sentence stub, and hope someone eventually makes a decent article out of it. Probably won't happen, but you never know. Landmartian (talk) 17:30, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete

 * 1) An orphaned article that contains a very distorted description of the actual concept (see wp:Comparative advantage). It seems to have been created solely as a vehicle for a rather... unique rebuttal to a MRA talking point. ZooGuard (talk) 22:39, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 2) Copy the MRA part to an appropriate article, delete the rest. Bicycle  wheel silverbrain.png 23:07, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 3) It's a useful concept... But is unlikely to develop into anything useful to the mission. Move the immigration stuff to an immigration article, the misogyny stuff to a misogyny article, and kill it. 01:30, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I read the WP article, realized our article on it is also a wee bit, kind of, somewhat, slightly, wrong. 01:13, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) This article simply seems wrong. Carpetsmoker (talk) 22:17, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 2) This is not what economists mean by the term. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 04:51, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Eh, there's something Not Quite Right about using this subject to deal with issues around misogyny/immigration and the like. -- MtD Notorious Sodomite   04:57, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The theory of comparative advantage has often been used to show how relations between the sexes can be made more harmonious and productive; see for example the "Division of Labor" chapter of It's Not You, It's the Dishes (originally published as Spousonomics), or this article, the latter of which shows how even when women are superior at all household tasks, it is still optimal for men to help with the chores in which they have a comparative advantage, so women can focus on what they have a comparative advantage in. Wikipedia notes that sex‐differentiated comparative advantage in tasks was part of what led to the evolutionary origin of the sexual division of labor in humans. As for immigration, economist Benjamin Powell explains, "free trade in labor, like goods and services, allows people to do what is in their comparative advantage. Immigrants free up natives to take more valuable positions." That was exactly the point that the article made. Landmartian (talk) 05:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I did not investigate the subject in depth, but the Wikipedia page has a vastly different explanation of the term. If this term is also (ab)used to promote something in MISSION, then it seems it's a good page to have, but, it needs to 1) explain what the standard definition is, and then 2) explain how this definition/idea is abused. As you see, almost everyone agrees this page should be deleted as it stands be cause it seems misleading, so if you want to keep this page, you need to rewrite it (if it fits MISSION that is, I don't know if it does as I don't know enough about this) Carpetsmoker (talk) 12:21, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) While an article on this topic is probably relevant, the current incarnation misses the central point of the comparative advantage hypothesis: That a focus on comparative advantages in the guise of cheap labour and/or raw materials tends to lock in poor countries as low-profit primary sector producers. Indirectly, comparative advantages thus simply assumes that the status quo is somehow the default or "natural" position, missing the point that comparative advantages have their own history and can be shifted. If taken to its extreme, it's the argument that only Great Britain should have industrialised, because the rest of the world would be "comparatively" better at shipping food and raw materials to Britain and buying British manufactured goods in return. Sure, comparative advantages can be (ab)used in a gender perspective too, but that's hardly the most prevalent, or (arguably) its most problematic usage. Its use in ensconcing gender inequality is "merely" a subset of the general logic by which comparative advantage thinking tends to favour the status quo (or even seeks a return to a past status quo). ScepticWombat (talk) 11:54, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The concept of comparative advantage also can be used to support free immigration, which can help solve the problem of locking in poor countries as low-profit primary sector producers in a global economy. Suppose Britain has all the factories. If people are free to migrate from agricultural countries to Britain, they can still participate in industry, provided that they can compete with the native workers there. In practice, industry has tended to be quite willing to hire immigrant workers, despite their cultural differences.
 * Comparative advantage exists not only between countries but between individual people, so it not only makes sense to have free trade among nations but also among all the people in the world. The full implementation of that requires the removal of impediments to migration so that people can travel to wherever in the world they can contribute most optimally to production. Landmartian (talk) 17:29, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem is again that comparative advantage arguments seem to have a nasty tendency to morph into a sort "economistic" version of paternalism: You're comparatively better suited to a minimum wage job trundling hazardous waste, because I'm willing and able to pay to be educated, and so I'm "over-qualified" for such a task, while you come from a family of semi-illiterate subsistence farmers in . Yes, comparative advantages can be used to argue for freer migration, but look at who is doing the arguing: I doubt it has as much to do with the wonders of multi-culturalism or meritocracy as it has with keeping minimum wages at, well, a minimum. Also, ScepticWombat (talk) 20:01, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's the invisible hand that guides people to the job at which they have a comparative advantage. People apply for the highest-paying job, with the best working conditions, for which they're qualified, and end up where they have a comparative advantage. Landmartian (talk) 01:34, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Goat

 * How abused does a concept need to be before it warrants an article? Like I don't think anyone here thinks that Quantum physics shouldn't exist.  This subject is a lot narrower in terms of who abuses it.  I don't feel like I have an objective assessment for when it should versus shouldn't.  Ikanreed (talk) 17:33, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Some concepts have articles because they're abused, others have articles because they can be used to counter abuses. Landmartian (talk) 18:04, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be used by you.  19:26, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sweet dreams,ScepticWombat (talk) 20:04, 13 January 2015 (UTC) Weaseloid.
 * Everybody's looking for something. Bicycle  wheel silverbrain.png 21:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Who am I to disagree? Landmartian (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2015 (UTC)