[viandante]

This is good news. But I am not sure yet if I would vote for them (usually I do not vote). Their economic policy seems not mature enough or too much towards an even more socialist State. This is what is now failing us in most of the western Europe.

I would really like to see some groups against copyright/patent madness AND against public spending/over taxation madness we have been struggling with for the last decades. Unfortunately, it seems that in Europe those ideas tend to polarize between 2 'very' different groups such as left (and not even all) for the copyright thing and right (and not even all) for the taxes thing. And that's why I do not vote.

[nickik]

Fuck I just wrote a juge text but the link expired and I lost it.

Heres the short version:

Generally I agree and I would like to see that too.

About PP:

1. Basic Income (BGE) is a very liberal socal policy(something I could see Friedman or Hayek support). It rases the amount of GDP on the government side but takes away a lot of the controll and bureaucracy that is there now.

2. The want to take away alot of state power too, specially in police and military. Think about what massiv change there drug policy would make.

3. The are the only ones that I could ever see attacking finance. Because (a) the are young (b) not infiltrated by lobbiests (yet) (c) currage to trie something diffrent (think out of the box) (d) efficent use of tools and communication (work on the buget like a opensource project would be something worth trying)

Rather have liberal statist with a social side then conservativ statist with love for police (CUD) or hardcore statist like (SPD).

[roel_v]

"Basic Income (BGE) is a very liberal socal policy(something I could see Friedman or Hayek support)."

Actually Friedman (I assume you're talking about Milton Friedman here, since there are several prominent economists named 'Friedman' nowadays) advocated just that in 1962 in 'Capitalism and Freedom', albeit in the form of a negative income tax.

[mjn]

I believe Friedman supported it sort of half-heartedly, because he thought the population wouldn't stand for not having a social safety net at all, and if there was to be one, the negative income tax was less distorting and less bureaucratic than the usual mixture of rent control, food stamps, and unemployment benefits.

Hayek did support it on more philosophical grounds, because he thought it would increase individual freedom. Almost the exact opposite reasoning as some libertarians, actually. It's common for libertarians to argue that social programs should be handled by private charity, but Hayek worried that doing so leads to collectivism, because people feel bound to social cliques that provide social safety for their members (ethnic groups, churches, etc.), and fear leaving the groups lest they lose their insurance. So he would prefer there be a society-wide safety net not tied to these cliques.

I kept forgetting where he had written that, so I excerpted a quote in my mini-scrapbook here: http://www.kmjn.org/snippets/hayek79_minimumincome.html

[nickik]

Yes I talk about Miltion. He supported the negative income tax because it was a better system (I think that BGE is even more effectiv). The diffrence between Milton and me for exmple is that he tought that the NIT was only temporary. He wanted a temporary system until the Free Market did not need such a system any more but I think he agree that it would take a while.

[mduerksen]

I encourage you to vote next time. Of course no party will ever be fully aligned with your interests. And true, the Pirate Party has only recently started to seriously think about topics outside their main fields. But no party completely pushes through their own positions anyway:

If the Pirate Party would form a coalition e.g. with the Union party, they would have to negotiate a coalition agreement. And each party will make sure that they please their clients (i.e. their voters or other supporters) sufficiently. So the Pirate Party would probably abandon their weaker positions (e.g. economic policy), but hold their ground on their main topics (copyright/patents etc.).

[philippK]

well i have bad news for you. the only party in germany that is really pro free market capitalism, the FDP, is on its way to obscurity due to severe policy missteps.

All the other parties embrace, as we call it here, "social capitalism" to varying degrees.

So, in germany, you mainly have the choice between several "left leaning" parties.

When measured by US standards, most our parties are "socialist".

[viandante]

As much as definitions are concerned, also US has only socialist parties. The first problem begins when your parties only discuss about further spending and never about expense reductions (as in US too). The other problem begins when the State thinks it has the right to decide on things that should be left to the individual, for example, it makes absolutely no sense that in Germany shops are mandated to be closed on Saturdays (less of this in Us?).

Finally, as there is no pure socialism/capitalism, I believe we should look at few simple things. For example, effective taxation (together with mandatory helthcare and pension) on the individual should not be 50% of his income (and it is in Italy, for example); public spending should not be 50% of GDP either. Let's start from here...

[nickik]

I think you use the term socialism wrong. Socialism means the workplace is owned by workers in some fashon. What you talk about are Statist policys. They are often confused because what people often mean when they say Socialism/Communism is State Socialism USSR style.

I agree that we need to throw away this rules and lot of burocracy. I think the BGK is a nice system if you want to have a social system and a pension system without giving the government real controll of the people (Gov. part of GDP would rise but the controll would be a lot less).

Taxation needs to be simpler, the current system is all about spezial intresst. Its a difficuled field but there are many ideas.

[Tichy]

It seems to be by US standards every state that collects taxes is socialist. After all, that means the government decides what to spend part of your money on. Why is it more socialist to spend the money on healthcare than on a new motorway?

[viandante]

I am not from US, but indeed I do see as socialist any State that collects taxes. Socialism is a broad definition, I just like to use it like this because it shows that the problem is the continuum and not the extremes. And for me the main continuums to look at are spending and taxes on GDP. Those should be lower than 50% (arbitrary number from my side, but it makes sense).

[jfrm]

You could distinguish you position from simple apathy. Show your discontent by voting in blank (protest vote) or other minor party.