[NSP] People's Labour Party-Mountain Party HQ

[Peoples Labour Party]

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Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital.
― Abraham Lincoln

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The People's Labour Party is a democratic socialist and communitarian party in Saint Hilda. We believe that our country and our people are best served by a democratic, egalitarian community whose members are equal partners and citizens, not unequal competitors, and that empowering the working-class by establishing a socialist society is the best way to do this. We believe that this socialism does not contradict our democratic government and traditional values, and instead believe that these three values - democracy, tradition, and socialism - are symbiotic and interdependent.

Membership

1. United Provinces of Atlantica
2. Merni
3. Publectia
4. Mountain Pygmies (MP)

Leadership
Leader: United Provinces of Atlantica (interim)

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The Mountain Party is a political party in Saint Hilda which runs as the same electoral candidates as, but is organisationally separate from, the People's Labour Party. We seek to preach and spread the Mountain Pygmy values of strength, collectivism, hard work, diligence and benevolence, and create a stronger nation through these values.

[Peoples Labour Party]

Platform of the People's Labour Party

Healthcare:

• We support a single-payer healthcare system, free at the point of use and managed by the government.
• We support creating the Hildan Pharmaceutical Agency, which would enjoy a monopsony on all prescription drugs in Saint Hilda. Prescription drugs, when at least two doctors consent, would then be free at the point of use through the healthcare system.
• In order to prevent elite politicians from using a private healthcare system while starving our public system of cash, we support banning all private healthcare in Saint Hilda, barring cosmetic surgeries and the like.

Welfare and Families:

• We support a universal childcare and daycare system free at the point of use based upon the Abecedarian Early Intervention Project in the United States, demonstrated to greatly increase cognitive and economic potential, especially in working-class children.
• We support a universal stipend to all parents based on the number of children rather than income level; we also support doubling that stipend should at least one parent be unemployed.
• We support creating a stipend for low-income families which cannot afford food, and we support creating communal restaurants charging very little money and available to all, based upon WWII-era British Restaurants.
• We support nationalising, at compensation, all currently-rented housing and converting such housing into public housing; we also support constructing thousands of new public housing units, with new housing units constructed according to the co-housing community model in Denmark.

Labour:

• We support enacting a minimum wage of at least 50% of the mean national income.
• We consider workers’ rights amongst the most elementary and fundamental of human rights, and therefore wholeheartedly support labour unions; accordingly, we support mandatory, national-level negotiations between capital and labour, as in Scandinavia, mediated by the government, which shall generally support labour’s position by default.
• We support mandatory workers’ councils managing large and medium-sized businesses and state-owned industry at the shop level, and supervisory works councils in small businesses.
• We support codetermination, so that workers, through their unions, shall elect half of all corporate board members.
• We support a modified version of the Rehn-Meidner plan, whereby workers, through their unions, shall purchase shares equivalent to 20% of a company’s annual profits until workers own at least 30% of a company.
• We support a jobs guarantee, achieved through giving unemployed workers jobs in various sectors, according to their relevant skills and identified economic needs, and through rigorous active labour market policies.
• We support establishing Industrial Syndicates, whereby workers, through their unions, shall give non-binding recommendations to the government in their relevant economic sector.
• We support a 1:12 corporate ratio, whereby executives may earn no more than 12 times the mean or median wage at that company, whichever is lower.

Agriculture:

• We support land reform whereby no individual or family may own more than 100 hectares of farmland.
• We support mutualising all plantations and granting tenant farmers immediately ownership of their land.
• We support banning corporate ownership of land, barring land owned by workers’ cooperatives.
• We support creating the Hildan Agricultural Board, a body which shall enjoy a monopoly on all Hildan food processing and a monopsony on all Hildan agriculture, in the Canadian Wheat Board’s vein; the HAB shall be composed of 18 board members, eight elected by farmers, five elected by food-processing workers, and five appointed by the government.
• We strongly support modern agricultural techniques, and support distributing modern technological equipment, sustainable fertilisers and GMO seeds, etc., to farmers via the HAB.

Education:

• We favour an education system free at the point of use from the pre-kindergarten to tertiary level.
• We favour emphasising egalitarian and democratic values and economic growth in the educations system, according to the pedagogy of John Dewey.
• We strongly support cooperative and vocational education, especially at the upper-secondary and tertiary levels, and consequently support creating cooperative education and apprenticeships at such levels, in close cooperation with the unions.
• We believe that education’s best left in the hands of the experts - teachers and parents - and therefore strongly support an advisory Pedagogical Board for each school, half of whose members shall be elected by that school’s teachers and half of whose members shall be elected by that school’s children’s parents.
• We believe that education should best be suited to each student’s ability, and therefore support creating gifted education programs in the vein of the Avery Coonley School.
• We believe that education’s best left decentralised, and therefore support a system whereby parents may send their children to privately-run schools in the vein of American educator Albert Shanker’s proposal, provided that such schools are non-profit, do not charge tuition, have a Pedagogical Board, are wholly funded by the state (barring religious education programs), and fulfill all state-mandated academic requirements and pedagogical methods.
• We believe that education should be the great equaliser, and thus support equal funding of all schools based on the number of students, unless we identify special needs. We also believe that all private schools, barring those fulfilling the requirements listed above, should be prohibited.

Economics:

• Our ultimate goal is transitioning from capitalism to socialism, and the People’s Labour Party shall never rest content until socialism replaces capitalism, both domestically and internationally.
• We support state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, namely energy, water, telecommunications, public transportation, mineral and extractive resources, and banking.
• We support a highly progressive tax system and a highly aggressive wealth tax at the most extreme wealth levels, both to raise revenue and to reduce inequality.
• We favour creating a local currency through a delayed peg with an array of international currencies, including the United States dollar, the Swedish krona, the Euro, the Japanese yen, and the British pound, able to grant us both monetary independence and monetary stability.
• We favour using a mixture of direct and indicative planning, all of which shall be highly computerised, similar to planning now used by many modern corporations.
• We support establishing a sovereign wealth fund, funded by 50% of the wealth tax. This sovereign wealth fund shall not only accrue revenue for the government but also serve as an economic stimulus; the fund shall be focused on investing in Saint Hilda itself.

Foreign policy:

• We consider Sweden our closest ally, and firmly support continued close cooperation with Sweden, both culturally and economically.
• We favour membership in CARICOM, CELACS, the United Nations, and the Association of Caribbean States.
• We oppose membership in NATO, in order to avoid involvement in foreign entanglements.
• We support a single-market agreement between Sweden and ourselves, provided this is a genuine agreement on trade, and does not force neoliberalism or capitalism upon our nation.
• We support recognising the sovereignty of Palestine, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and Somaliland.

Environment:

• We consider climate change the greatest threat to humanity, and will treat this issue with the appropriate treatment it deserves.
• We support, through energy nationalisation, transitioning Saint Hilda to an energy system entirely based on renewable and nuclear energy by 2030.
• We support a carbon tax, the proceeds of which would be given back to the people via a tax-free monthly check.
• We strongly support public transportation, including both a national heavy rail system and light rail systems in urban areas, and believe that public transportation, not private transportation, should be the primary Hildan transportation system.
• We are willing to support car bans in urban areas, assuming public transportation infrastructure is satisfactory.
• We support subsidising electric cards and prohibiting imports of non-electric cars.
• We consider protecting the Hildan natural environment a top priority, and hence support greenbelts in urban areas, declaring large swaths of Saint Hilda protecting, and reforesting deforested areas.

Democracy:

• We believe lobbying undermines our democracy, and hence support a ban on lobbying Parliament.
• We believe that private campaign financing, especially when occurring in a country with high economic inequality, greatly threatens any democracy, and hence support granting every voter a certain amount of money, only to be spent on campaign donations (similar to American politician Andrew Yang’s Democracy Dollars proposal). We also favour prohibiting all political donations except those from this campaign finance stipend and political donations accrued through party or organizational membership feeds, provided that such fees do not exceed an amount equivalent to $100 annually.
• We favour granting individuals the rights of initiative, referendum, and recall, provided that such initiatives do not violate the Constitution.
• We believe that voting is a duty as well as a right, and consequently favour compulsory voting, albeit permitting individuals to cast a vote “against all” candidates; if “against all” garners a majority of the vote, we favour holding a new election.
• We support mixed-member proportional representation, as this maximises local representation and fairly represents all citizens’ voices.

Social, Moral, and Cultural Issues:

• We favour traditional social and moral values, and believe such values should be inculcated in our education system.
• We strongly support continuing the existing Monarchy, as a force of national unity.
• We strongly oppose abortion, and believe life begins at conception, but acknowledge that in certain cases, abortion is inevitable and prohibition will only lead to back-alley abortions; therefore, we believe that abortion should only be legal for socioeconomic reasons, fetal defects, rape, incest, or the mother’s mental or physical health, and only up to 24 weeks, except in the case of the mother’s life; moreover, we support state funding of crisis-pregnancy centres, mandatory ultrasounds and 24-hour waiting periods, and state services to pregnant women in order to reduce abortion.
• We support government recognition of same-sex marriage, but believe that it is each individual’s and church’s freedom of conscience to accept or deny such marriages.
• We strongly support religious freedom, but acknowledge the special role and precedence of the Church of St. Hilda for most Hildans, and therefore support allowing Hildans to contribute a very small portion of their taxes to this Church in lieu of the government.
• We acknowledge the media’s role in weakening moral values, and hence support state subsidies of artistic works reflecting moral, pious values, and promoting every Hildan’s duty to bear many children.

[Peoples Labour Party]

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[Peoples Labour Party]

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[Peoples Labour Party]

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[United Provinces of Atlantica]

Valdemar Lindberg enters the PLP HQ with anticipation.

[Kyrusia]

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