Talk:R. J. Rummel/Archive 1

Presentation, not polemical rhetoric

One should focus on presenting Rummels view, and the cited criticism and claims maintained to have been furthered as criticism ("Some have found the data that he uses to be questionable" / "However, he fails to establish evidence of actual killing."), should be documented. The truth is in the details, isn't it?

References to Rummel often cite his allegations as referring to mass murder, but his definition is not so limited.

I have NO idea why this is in the intro paragraph. Is someone saying that Rummel's findings are incorrect? Mere "allegation"?

And why bring up the "mass murder" definition? It smells like a red herring.

If "references ... often cite" then it should be easy to supply a couple of them. Then we can repair this sentence and put it back into the article. --Uncle Ed 16:53, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Germans 1945/47 How realiable are Rummels calculations)?

One example from [1]
Rummel states in row 304 that the pre war population of the former German provinces was 6500/9000/10000 thousand people low/middle/high
Evacuation row 321 4000//5000 with 618 dead
Remaining population was row 317 100/617/1134
Found in W.Germany row 346 6000/6944/7400

Crude deficit of population he estimated in 319 meaning rows 307-317 6400/8383/8866
How he could calculate that number? My understanding that the proper caluclation is:
pre-war population of 9000 with error margin 2500
remaining 617 with error margin 517
gross deficit is 8383 with error margin 3017

So his number is obviously guesswork.

Another Rummel calculation:
Now he drops his numbers and use another set:
All kinds of migration to Germany row 338 7017/7144/8369
Then he substracts those who reached Germany row 346 again 6000/6944/7400
Deficit according to him is row 349 200/969/1017

I would calculate 7144 with error margin 1225
minus 6944 with error margin 944 and
the result is obviously 200 with error margin 2169!

His number is obviuosly wrong!

In addition it is not clear wether he included the Jews killed during holocaust / I would reserve at least 100 000 killed, Poles and other minorities sent to concentration camps 100 000 is also good estimate /soldiers killed in action at least 500 000 / victims of bombing of the cities I don|t know how many/ his number of victims of evacuation 618 000/ deported to USSR around 200 000 and so on.

By the way, according to Polish sources Polish citizenship was granted to around 1 500 000 former Germans, not 200 000 Rummel claims, and it is obviuosly true, since the emigration of ethnic Germans from Poland continued since 1945. I read recently, that in 1980/ties emigrated 1 000 000 of people on the status of ethnic Germans.

I am going to remove Rummel numbers, since they are obviously not relaible Cautious 21:07, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Disputation of above comments: The appropriate way to analyze Rummel's work should not involve cherrypicking entries. How many entries did the above writer go through to find these seemingly problematic entries? Citing two numbers out of the thousands listed in Rummel's work, disputing them while providing no sources of one's own hardly seems reliable. BAO

No wars between democracies

According to his analysis, of 353 wars since 1816, none have been waged between democracies. "We have a solution for war," Rummel says. "It is to expand the sphere of liberty."

What about the American Civil War, Anglo-Irish War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971? Philip Baird Shearer 21:00, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Pakistan was a military dictorship, not a democracy in 1971. A.S.B.

Question about the Confederacy: I have never read about any actual elections taking place. And if they had been, would slaves have been allowed to vote? A no to any of these question might arguably make the Confederacy not quite democratic or liberal enough to qualify.

See User:Ultramarine/sandbox3. Spencer R. Weart in Never at War uses similar criteria as Rummel and argues that the Confederate States of America was less than 3 years old at the start of the war. Less than 2/3 of the adult male population could vote in the Confederacy, abolitionists were censored and imprisoned, and in the elections in many districts there were no choice of candidates.

James Lee Ray argues there was never a competitive presidential election and that in many of the elections to the Congress there were no choice of candidates. There was a presidential election in 1861 but only one ticket. Ultramarine 09:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

A similar case can be made for the Irish side. Although fairly democratic, and probably would have been elected, the First Dáil was not properly elected, was it? Of course, the same kind of problem will probably occur in any civil war. Still, one might simply argue that Rummels thesis can not really apply to civil wars, since one side is rarely, if ever, democratically elected. His main interest at the time was probably war between countries anyway, so civil wars would need separate handling anyway. DanielDemaret 08:13, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Again from Never at War: The Irish state was less than 3 years old. The initial violence involved rebels acting on their own outside democratic control. Later democratic control of the Irish Republican Army was doubtful and immediately after the war one part of the IRA tried to overthrow the government in the Irish Civil War. Ultramarine 09:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Than you for that information how about Second Boer War? Philip Baird Shearer 09:25, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

What does this mean?

"liberal democracy" being defined as nations which have universal franchise, free speech, and free press all enshrined in their bodies of law. "We have a solution for war," Rummel says. "It is to expand the sphere of liberty."

What does he define as a "universal franchise"? --Philip Baird Shearer 14:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Pmanderson/DPT#Empirical evidence states:

From an early point on, statistical studies were employed to examine the validity of the theory. Rummel studied all the wars from 1816 to 1991. He defined:

war as any military action with more than 1000 killed in battle,
democracy as a stabilized liberal democracy with voting rights for at least 2/3 of all adult males,
and stability as being older than 3 years at the start of the war.

He also implicitly imposed some other related criteria; for example, the chief officer of the democracy must have had a contested election. (See the analysis of the American civil war below.)

Under these definitions, his study found 198 wars between non-democracies, 155 wars between democracies and non-democracies, and 0 wars between democracies [2]. Even some of his supporters acknowledge that the exact line between democracies and non-democracies is somewhat arbitrary, drawn to include the maximum number of democratic states while excluding any exceptions to the theory. This can be criticized as fitting the theory to the data. On the other hand, it also holds for all stricter criteria.

If the above is correct then which power in the Second Boer War was not a Liberal Democracy? --Philip Baird Shearer 00:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The Rummelite dogmatists can find reasons to explain away all the obvious exceptions to their theory: the Boer Republics did not enfranchise 2/3 of their male population, the American Confederacy did not have a contest for head of state, the French Second Republic was too new to be a "stablized democracy", and so on. This involves the imposition of arbitrary conditions to deny the evidence; and even so the factuality of the exclusions is debatable.

The deep objection to Rummellism is that it is vacuous: after applying all the criteria Rummell uses to declare that state A is not a democracy, and that war B is not really a war, very little data are left for the democratic peace, and most of them are explicable by other obvious causes:

From 1816 to the 1880's, at most three states count as stable liberal democracies: Switzerland, San Marino, and the United States. They did not go to war with each other; but geography would have made that difficult.
rom then until 1904, there were non-allied democratic Powers in the world: France, the United States, and possibly Great Britain. It is true that they did not go to war with each other, although they were close to war half-a-dozen times. Neither did any other Powers, except for the Spanish-American War, which was fought between an unquestioned democracy and a state which was close to the boundary (which side it was on depends on which edition of Ted Gurr's work you use).
From 1904 onward, Great Britain was allied to France. Most other democracies (including the United States) were either allied or benevolently neutral towards them, in part because the alliance had one of the two largest fleets in the world.
From 1945 to 1991, almost all the democracies in the world were allied against the Soviet Union.
Since 1991, there have been very few genuinely international full-scale wars in the world. None of these happen to have been between democracies. The Rummellites inflate their data count by accepting Freedom House's absurdly optimistic list of present democracies, which include states less democractic than many they dismiss (like the recent government of Ukraine, and the present government of Nepal).

I hope this helps. Septentrionalis 22:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Eh, see the discussions on Democratic peace theory. This is just Pmanderson original reserach.Ultramarine 16:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

When Ultramarine does not want to admit a fact, he calls it original research. Septentrionalis 18:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Poland - quality of Rummel's "research"

Rummel accuses "Poland". The majority of his readers ignore that Poland was a Soviet protectorate 1944-1956. The Polish government in London didn't have any power. The puppet government Lublin/Warsaw was imposed to the Polish nation by the SU, USA and UK, never elected by the Poles.

Rummel uses overestimated numbers of German victims, ignores recent research, e.g. by Ruediger Overmans or Polish historians.

Rummel suggestively describes the tragedy of expelled Germans. This tragedy has been prepared by the Allies in Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam. Imagine former prisoners of Auschwitz or Gulag organising humanitarian travels for people, who mistreated them or their families weeks ago. The Germans weren't enemies of the Communist administration. They were to leave. Polish activists were to be tortured, murdered, deported to the SU.

I used to discuss with Rummel, but he doesn't accept any critics. He knows. Xx236 15:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Rummel->Freedomist->Libertarian F*****t?

I added his view on freedom of speech. Obviously, he is a extrem partisan of libertarian persuation. I would treat his statistics, theory and assertion with pinch of salt. I wouldn't call him a David Irving of Libertarianism but I think the accusation may not be that far off the mark. At least, we should clarify that he is a partisan. Adding "controvercial" in the intro wouldn't be that NPOV in my view. FWBOarticle 12:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

He is a former Libertarian. Certainly not a facist. Please respect Npov. Please avoid weasel words like "critics claim", give sources for who says. Also, you cannot make generalization like this, "This methdology seems to be the case in many of Rummel's estimates. He gross over the complex factors of historical event and attribute all deathtoll to his target regime, which help to support his political theory.", using a doubtful single example. This is your opinion and original research. Please cite a critic who says this.

Regarding his "censor the media" he states "In both World Wars I and II, the media reports on the war were strictly controlled. They must be again. Just in lives alone that might be saved thereby, it is necessary. How far should this go? I would use the censorship of World War II as criteria. This would mean, for example, that news reports of secret commando operations in Iran, or the employment of a secret weapon, or . . . well, you get the idea." Read more here [3]Ultramarine 14:05, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

John Grohol

Seems to be a person who runs a Wikipedia clone.[4] Thus is seems that the reference to John Grohol is actually a reference to wikipedia itself. Thus, much of the criticism of Rummel is original research. I will shortly remove it unless someone shows that it is not original research.Ultramarine 03:40, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

As often, Ultramarine's source does not support him. Septentrionalis 03:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Read at the top, John Grohol's psychcentral. Here is the Rummel article clone which some have though is an original article by John Grohol.[5] I will shortly remove all the original reserach unless a genuine article by John Grohol is presented.Ultramarine 03:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you; that does look familiar; it would have been more helpful if you had presented that link first. Which claims are you claiming as OR, in this article? Septentrionalis 04:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I will shortly remove everything for which there is no clear source.Ultramarine 04:05, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

A decent respect for the opinion of mankind would requre that you actually bother to search for it first. If you don't, I shall; but I'm sure you'd prefer that I not interest myself in this article. Septentrionalis 04:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Have searched, found nothing except psychcentral.Ultramarine 04:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I see no evidence, however, that it's a mirror. Dr. Grohol chose to republish, as he is free to do, a former state of this article. (He does not, for example, reprint Democide or Democratic peace theory; nor does his article reflect the recent changes made here.) Therefore this is independent publication, and sourced; all that is justified is a reference, which should be sufficient to caution the careful reader. Septentrionalis 04:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

You are actually arguing that a mirror of a former Wikipedia article can be used as a source in Wikipedia? Ultramarine 04:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I still see no evidence that he is a mirror, as opposed to choosing to republish one article. The source, by the way, is properly Rummel's response...Septentrionalis 04:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

It is a mirror of this article: [6] Obviously this should be corrected. Articles about living people are especially sensitive, remember the recent controvery regarding other articles about living persons.Ultramarine 04:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

A nice argument, in the archaic sense of the phrase. Please stop being defensive and try to reach a genuine compromise with this FWBOarticle, or I will interest myself in this article. Don't bite the newbie.

In particular, I deplore the efforts to remove Rummel's unfortunate views on censorship (to which the source is obvious, and readily attainable) and the mention of his democratic peace theory; this is where his view ought to be explained at length. In fact you appear to be attempting to write this atricle as a panegyric on Rummel, without attempting to explain what he actually says at all.

Please try and play nice; not every user is as resilient as Mr West, Mr Scaife, and myself. Rules-lawyering is deprecated. Septentrionalis 05:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Did not remove the minute controversy regarding his blog post. Have noe removed the original research.Ultramarine 05:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you; now please talk to him and see what he actually wants. You may not find it as unpleasant as you suppose. Septentrionalis 05:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The removed material follows. While not, as it stands, up to Wikipedia standard, it is preserved here as a source of possibly useful criticism. I will assume that the use of a word ambiguous between now and not above is a genuine typo, and not an effort to deceive. I deprecate this removal in general; this sort of thing leads either to revert wars, or to drving off potential collaborators. It would have been much more wiki to have labored to improve the criticism.

General criticisms

One critic, John Grohol, has republished a Wikipedia article, in a state which claimed that Rummel does not consider the number of deaths due to anarchy and the lack of government, through mechanisms such as civil conflict, the breakdown of society, and foreign invasion. Rummel has responded that this is false and that his estimates for each country include that for war dead and internal nondemocidal violence. Moreover, the most anarchical system may be international relations, wars of which he have tallied and included in his analysis.

Another point by the same critic is that Rummel is claimed to calculate the death toll by comparing the statistical data before and after a certain date and derive an estimate about the number of killings that occurred between. He is claimed to fail to establish evidence of actual killing. Rummel has responded that there is no indication of what estimates are claimed to be wrong. He uses all kinds of documents to establish democide, such as refugee reports, memoirs, biographies, historical analyses, actual exhumed body counts, records kept by the murderers themselves, and so on. He has tried to summarize all estimates available in the literature and many of these documents establish evidence of actual killing.

The same critic claims that it is a flaw in Rummel's statistical calculations that he doesn't use error margins. Rummel has responded that his data are not a sample but instead all estimates available in English for all nations over a period of a century, and available in the libraries he worked in, including the Library of Congress. Error margins are inappropriate when dealing with the universe of data and not a sample.

Yet another criticism by this critic is that Rummel's results are based on an absolute trust in statistical data and statistics are prone to errors. Rummel has responded that he is certainly aware that he presents an estimate. He argues that the estimates are accurate enough to be used in to establish the causes of democide and thus for moral criticism and in guiding policy. Some critics allege that he commits a classical error of statistics, that "Correlation implies causation". Correlations between democide and certain political systems do not prove that these political systems are the causes of democide. However, Rummel's research uses much more advanced statistical methods than calculating simple correlations. It is false to state that there is no way to infer the causal structure from statistical data.

NOTE: Rudolph J Rummel has responded to some of this criticism on his blog Democratic Peace.

Specific criticisms

The same critic thinks that the data that Rummel uses is questionable. For example, his Soviet death toll estimate(and especially his Gulag death toll) is claimed to be based on many outdated sources with exaggerated statistics. Rummel has made his calculations and sources available online.[10] Note that they are from his published books and thus do not include new research and new sources available after the publication date. Regarding Stalin's victims Rummel's counts 43 million deaths inside and outside the Soviet Union. This is much higher than an often quoted figure of 20 million....[defense of Rummel as retained in article]

Another example of alleged manipulation by this critic: Rummel estimates the death toll in the Rheinwiesenlager as between 3,000 and 56,000. Official US figures were just over 3,000 and a German commission found 4,532. The high figure of 56,000 also merited the notation "probably much lower" in Rummel's extracts. Rummel has responded that this is misleading. His estimates generally are close to the ones given above and he ends up with a most probable estimate of 6,000. The low and high are meant to be the most unlikely low and high, and thus to bracket the probable true count. It is to determine these lows and highs that he includes what some others might consider absurd estimates.

Rummel follow those scholars who argue that famines like the Great Leap Forward and the Holodomor were deliberate and could have been avoided completely. Some argue that the adverse weather contributed to bad harvests during the Great Leap Forward. Plus localised famine was not a rare occurrence in China. Thus some part of the death toll may have been unavoidable and therefore not a democide.

Archiving

I suggest we should archive the older material, especially that which original research. Remember, this is a living person and Wikipedia must be very careful with presenting inaccurate information. I will shortly archive the older sections.Ultramarine 03:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree; this page is shorter than 32K; and so much shorter, for example, than Talk:Democratic peace theory. Septentrionalis 04:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The point is that the inaccurate information should be removed. Again, remember that Wikipedia must be very careful regarding articles about living persons.Ultramarine 04:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a talk page; not article space.
This comment is a further example of the sort of suppresssion being exercised on this page.
Even were there consensus for these inaccuracies (and there is not), John Stuart Mill was right in holding that the proper respnse to inaccuracy is to explain the truth, not to censor the falsity. Septentrionalis 04:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Again, no evidence has been shown that the accusations are false. Therefore, I will shortly remove them unless evidence is given.Ultramarine 04:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Septentrionalis, you seem to want that Wikipedia should contain personal attacks and very serious unsourced accusations against a living person. Please state here why you want this. Ultramarine 15:56, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I have reread the full text of the talk page. I see no personal attack of any kind. Neither Ed Poor's criticism of the article nor the criticisms of Rummel's theories are personal attacks; and the article is deficient in not responding to them. Please stop commenting out other user's posts: it could be seen as vandalism. Septentrionalis 16:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Calling someone a "Facist" is a personal attack. Again, the dismissal of his research is original research and very serious accusations against a living person and researcher. Wikipedia must be very careful to avoid this against living persons. Explain yourself, or the text should be hidden.Ultramarine 16:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

No, criticism of his research is criticism, just as Ed Poor's criticism of this article is criticism. While the deleted extracts are not up to Wikipedia standards, they could be made so - although with more effort than I have as yet chosen to spend here; and are a useful resource. The only use of Fascist on this talk page is your own misspelt protest; the invocation of John Irving has several interpretations, none of them compliments, but it is impossible to tell which is meant. A rational response would be to quote Godwin's Law, and ignore it.

Further blanking of whole sections of this article will be treated as vandalism. Septentrionalis 17:54, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Rummel is called a Facist which is certainly a personal attack. Very serious unsourced accusations against a living person should be removed. Again, Wikipedia must be very careful to avoid this against living persons.Ultramarine 17:57, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Please, what is this? [7]. Again, please stop insisting that Wikipedis should contain personal attacks and serious unsourced accusations against living persons. If you continue, I must report this.Ultramarine 18:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

No, in the case of a statesman or political scientist, it is an analysis. Nor is the use complained of (since you both misspelt it) a claim, but a question. Would you object to the comment: "Is Franco [or Mussolini's granddaughter] a Fascist?" Septentrionalis 18:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Blog post

The minute controversy and misunderstanding regarding Rummel's blog post is too unimportant too mention. As such, it should be removed.Ultramarine 21:51, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I continue to oppose the delberate suppression of Rummel's self-inflicted embarassments. Septentrionalis 15:55, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Eh, nothing has been suppressed or removed yet, we are discussing it one the talk page. Wikipedia should not mention every minor detail. Please explain why Wikipedia should mention that some people misunderstood a blog post? Ultramarine 16:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Did they misunderstand it? Some would call it quite clear. Did Rummel flip-flop? Let the reader decide. Septentrionalis 17:32, 18 February 2006 (UTC)