The Socialist Alternative party is gaining many adherents in the United States. They have a few modest proposals. They believe they can achieve their aims without becoming another Soviet Union. Do you think they can achieve their aims without ultimately turning the United States into a Soviet style tyranny?
The party's ideology is based upon democratic socialism, a society where both government planning and workers' self-management are dominant features of the economy:[19]
The party advocates nationalizing the top 500 corporations and banks within the U.S. economy and running them under the democratic management of elected representatives of the workers and the broader public.
The party advocates for creating living-wage union jobs for all the unemployed through a massive public works program to develop mass transit, renewable energy, infrastructure, healthcare, education, and affordable housing.
It wants to replace for-profit health insurance companies with a publicly funded single-payer system as a step towards fully socialized medicine.
The party wants the federal government to bail out states to prevent cuts and layoffs. It seeks a massive increase in taxes on the rich and corporations as opposed to the working class.
It seeks to raise the federal minimum wage to $15/hour, adjusted annually for cost of living increases and regional differences, as a step towards a living wage for all.
It seeks a minimum guaranteed weekly income of $600/week for the unemployed, disabled, stay-at-home parents, the elderly, and others unable to work.
It seeks to end home foreclosures and evictions, primarily through public ownership and democratic control of the major banks.
The party advocates taking bankrupt and failing companies into public ownership and retooling them for socially necessary green production.
The party seeks to establish free, high quality public education for all from pre-school through college, full funding for schools to dramatically lower teacher-student ratios, and stopping the focus on high stakes testing and the drive to privatize public education.
The party seeks to repeal all anti-union laws like Taft-Hartley. It advocates for democratic unions run by the rank-and-file to fight for better pay, working conditions, social services, full-time union officials who should be regularly elected and receive the average wage of those they represent.
The party wishes to establish a guaranteed living wage pension.
The party wants to shorten the workweek with no loss in pay and benefits – to share out the work with the unemployed and create new jobs.
The party takes a strong anti-war stance, and as such advocates:
That the US completely withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, bring all US troops stationed outside the US home and end all combat operations.
The party advocates slashing the military budget, and diverting funds into social programs.
The party seeks to abolish the PATRIOT Act and other infringements on American's rights.
Equal rights within society are an important feature in the party's ideology:
The party seeks to fight discrimination on the grounds of race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, and all other forms of prejudice. It seeks to establish equal pay for equal work.
The party wants to end police brutality and the institutional racism of the criminal justice system, namely by investing in rehabilitation, job-training, and living-wage jobs, as opposed to prisons. The party seeks to abolish the death penalty.
It wants full legalization and equal rights for all undocumented immigrant workers.
It wants to fight sexual harassment, violence against women, and all forms of sexism.
The party seeks to defend a woman's right to choose whether and when to have children. It wants free reproductive services, including all forms of birth control and safe, accessible abortions, comprehensive sex education, paid maternity and paternity leave, and fully subsidized, high-quality child care.
The party advocates for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, including same-sex marriage.
The party calls for a mass, left-wing party to be formed independent of the Democratic Party:
They call for a mass workers' party drawing together workers, young people and activists from workplace, community, civil rights, environmental and antiwar campaigns, to provide a fighting, political alternative to the pro-big business parties.
The party calls for unions and other social movement organizations to stop funding and supporting the Democratic and Republican Parties and instead organize independent left-wing, anti-corporate candidates and coalitions as a first step toward building a workers' party.
Many imagine that Marxism is dead. The Socialist Alternative would like to disabuse you of this idea. Or abuse you of it, if you persist in your disbelief.
8/18/2014, 9:06 pm
Commissar_Elliott
I just love it when I see the next flavor of socialism being distributed to the masses. The only difference between it and ice cream is ice cream actually tastes good.
I can't help but think of the entire plot of Atlas Shrugged. Their proposals are straight out of said book and the best part is, they don't even know it!
8/19/2014, 9:41 am
RedDiaperette
I do not see on this list any program for planting the trees that the money will be growing on to fund all the other programs. Or for seeding the clouds for the money to fall out of.
I selflessly volunteer to head up the new government agency/agencies for money-tree planting and money-cloud seeding. All for the kollektive! Forward!
8/19/2014, 9:18 pm
Captain Craptek
It's obvious that the Socialist Alternative party is mocking Dear Leader. There can be one, and only one, reason for this outrageous behavior: JEALOUSY! The Socialist Alternative party is weak. Just look at the pathetic, cowering, tentative, backward looking list of "demands" they offer up. Ha! These are the "demands" of sniveling infants.
"The party advocates taking bankrupt and failing companies into public ownership and retooling them for socially necessary green production."
Right! Sure. OK, Pizza Hut declares bankruptcy and the teenage sauce spreaders take over.
Pimpleface #1, "Let's retool and start making portable hydrogen fuel cells first thing tomorrow morning!"
Pimpleface #2, "No way dude. I'm goin on strike!"
No, I'm afraid this will never work. My advice to the Pseudo-Socialist Alternative party: Leave the thinking to Dear Leader - as Marx intended.
