Key Principles
These core principles guide our democratic socialist policy framework and show how different elements integrate.
1. Both/And Not Either/Or
We must address both policy math AND corruption simultaneously. Progressive taxation works if corruption is broken. Breaking corruption works if progressive taxation funds alternatives. Solving one without the other fails. They must be solved together.
2. Ownership Over Employment
We build equity and power, not dependency. Worker cooperatives beat job guarantees. Ownership creates real stake in outcomes. Employment preserves extraction. We shift from employment relationship to worker ownership.
3. Direct Not Mediated
We connect needs to abilities without middlemen. Eliminate extractive intermediaries. Direct public construction instead of developer subsidies. Single-payer instead of subsidized private insurance. Worker cooperatives instead of capitalist employment.
4. Break Monopolies
We use progressive corporate taxation and active anti-trust enforcement. Monopolies eliminate competition, extract rents, capture regulators, and destroy local economies. We break them systematically through taxation that penalizes scale, anti-trust that prevents consolidation, and public alternatives that create competition.
5. Attack Unnecessary Consumption
Climate change is solved by eliminating capitalist waste, not individual consumer guilt. End planned obsolescence. Require right to repair. Eliminate pointless commuting. Stop food waste. Worker cooperatives have no infinite growth imperative. This changes everything.
6. Public Ownership Where Appropriate
Natural monopolies, infrastructure, and essential services should be publicly owned. Utilities, transit, banking where competition doesn’t improve outcomes. Public ownership provides service efficiently without profit extraction. Seattle City Light, Bank of North Dakota, Vienna housing all demonstrate this works.
7. Cooperative Where Possible
Competitive sectors, community scale, and worker control are best served by cooperatives. Healthcare delivery, childcare, food systems, skilled trades, tech services, manufacturing. Worker ownership without the growth imperative of capitalist firms. Real market discipline with worker benefit.
8. Transparency as Anti-Corruption
Make extraction visible and embarrassing. Real-time public databases for all contracts. All meetings recorded and public. All lobbying disclosed immediately. Every dollar traced. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
9. Progressive Revenue
Tax wealth and capital, reduce burden on labor. Wealth over $10 million taxed annually. Capital gains as ordinary income. Progressive corporate tax penalizing monopoly scale. Financial transaction tax. Carbon tax with worker rebate. Eliminate worker taxes on first $40,000 to $50,000 of income.
10. Universal Basic Services
Housing, healthcare, education, food free at point of service. Not means-tested, not subsidized private provision, but direct public provision. Everyone covered. No bureaucracy determining worthiness. Service as right, not commodity.
11. Democratic Control
Real power to communities, not consultation theater. Participatory budgeting for major spending. Community control boards with actual budget authority. Citizens’ assemblies for policy development. Workers controlling their enterprises. Democracy in economics, not just politics.
12. Rapid Implementation
Demonstrate competence through speed and transparency. Don’t study for two years whether to build housing, build housing and iterate. Don’t hire consultants to study whether to hire consultants, hire workers and deliver services. Show this works through action, not promises.
How These Integrate
These principles aren’t isolated. They work together. Progressive taxation funds universal services and worker cooperatives. Breaking corruption ensures revenue goes to services, not extraction. Anti-monopoly creates space for cooperatives to compete. Public ownership handles natural monopolies. Worker cooperatives handle competitive sectors. Attacking consumption addresses climate change AND eliminates extraction. Democratic control ensures power serves people. Rapid implementation proves competence.
This is comprehensive, integrated restructuring. Not piecemeal reforms. Not isolated policies. Systematic change that addresses the interconnected problems workers face.