Solidarity Party: Time to restore society

Family business decision-making. Photo Paul Efe from Pexels

One day the American Solidarity Party might achieve sufficient voter support to be in a position where it is invited to enter into a formal coalition with one of the two main parties. That would require Christians to vote with the strength of their convictions, to vote in a manner where they do not have to block off one part of their conscience but can joyfully apply the principles they want to uphold.

Voting with a peg on the nose has become the state of affairs for those who over the long term have voted for a workers' party, such as the Labor/Labour Party in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. (Note the spelling difference in Australia.) Of course, this is because those parties now find it easier to pursue fashionable cultural reforms rather than revamping the modes of doing business and other elements of governance of the economy that have given rise to gross inequality of incomes, and the flow-on effect of stress on family life and welfare services.

The American Solidarity Party introduces its platform this way: 

The American Solidarity Party is committed to addressing the needs of the human family and the earth that sustains us with prudent policies informed by Christian democratic values. We offer the following proposals as a solid foundation for a government that supports life, justice, peace, and a healthy environment for all.

The party uses everyday language to spell out how it views economics - "political economy (economics) is a branch of political ethics". On that foundation it "rejects models of economic behavior that undermine human dignity with greed and naked self-interest":

We advocate for an economic system which focuses on creating a society of widespread ownership (sometimes referred to as “distributism”*) rather than having the effect of degrading the human person as a cog in the machine.

Its Economics platform is worth a read to glimpse how we could be living while in a modern industrialized society: 

🔅 Our goal is to create conditions which allow single-income families to support themselves with dignity.

🔅 We support policies that encourage the formation and strengthening of labor unions. Efforts by private entities to use public power to prevent union activities or to retaliate against workers who organize for their rights ought to be resisted at every level.

🔅 We call for the repeal of corporate welfare policies, for shifting the tax system to target unearned income and reckless financiers, and for changing regulations to benefit small and locally-owned businesses rather than multinational corporations. Economic rentiers and speculators who produce nothing but only take from workers through gimmicks allowed by corrupt relationships with public power need to pay their fair share through taxes on land, capital gains, and financial transactions.

🔅 We will work to restore the requirement that corporations must serve a public good in order to be granted the benefit of limited liability. We support the prohibition of corporate bylaws and the repeal of state legislation requiring shareholder profit to trump considerations such as employee wellbeing and environmental protection.

🔅 To deprive workers of their wages is a “sin that cries out to heaven.” The Department of Labor must investigate all cases of wage theft and fraud in a swift manner.

🔅 We support mechanisms that allow workers to share in the ownership and management of their production, such as trade guilds, cooperatives, and employee stock ownership programs. Rather than consigning workers to wage slavery under far-away masters, such ownership models respect their essential dignity.

🔅 Industrial policy and economic incentives need to be re-ordered to place human dignity first and to recognize that the family is the basic unit of economic production. We are committed to policies that emphasize local production, family-owned businesses, and cooperative ownership structures. Measures that prevent large corporations from passing on their transportation costs to local communities will help re-energize local production and local enterprises.

🔅 The bloated, “too big to fail,” multinational economic concerns which dominate the economic landscape need to be brought to heel and concerted antitrust action must be taken to break up the oligarchies that use their private power to corruptly influence public governance.

🔅 The monopolistic power of corporations, especially in the area of patent and copyright law, allows them to price-gouge workers and families. We call for a restructuring of intellectual property laws to encourage innovation rather than rent-seeking.

🔅 We support and encourage measures which allow local communities to limit the power of outside interests in managing their land. Tenant unions, community land trusts, and community-oriented development are to be supported in the effort to ensure the availability of affordable and inclusive housing. Allowing local communities more flexibility will allow for more diverse and innovative solutions to local problems rather than imposing them from a far-off central authority.

🔅 We advocate for social safety nets that adequately provide for the material needs of the most vulnerable in society. These programs need to also help the most vulnerable find a path out of poverty by providing them with the tools they need in order to fully participate in their communities with dignity, and not trap them as subsidized labor for private interests. 

🔅 To restore long-term solvency to the Social Security trust fund, we call for an end to the FICA tax cap.

🔅 Unemployment benefits need to include the option of allowing beneficiaries to take their benefits in the form of start-up capital to start or purchase businesses or create cooperative enterprises that help them to escape poverty on their own terms.

🔅 Natural monopolies and the common inheritance of the natural world need to be closely managed and protected by the public and not surrendered for a pittance to private greed. Our support of private property rights does not mean that we should surrender our common property into the hands of private oligarchs. Policies that deliver citizens their fair share of our common wealth and inheritance of natural resources are to be encouraged in the form of a citizen’s dividend and baby bonds.

🔅 Predatory practices which care more for stockholder value than human life must cease. We call for community-oriented lending practices and mutual aid organizations to replace predatory lending agents that target poor people and working-class communities. We must reject a financial system based on saddling workers with debt and interest payments that merely fuel consumerism and instead embrace one that encourages productive activity.

Societies all around the world are coming to the realisation that the way we have been living cannot continue and a new framework has to be put in place - with urgency!  

[*] Distributism

For further reading about alternatives to the worldwide status quo, see these:

[X] Mondragon Corporation - business group of worker cooperatives

[X] Cooperation Jackson - cooperative businesses in Jackson, Mississippi

[X] International Cooperative Alliance

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