(Swedish) Left Party caps MP pay with new 'party tax'

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.thelocal.se/38392/20120109/



Sweden's Left Party decided on Sunday to implement a mandatory “party tax” that would cap take-home pay of the party's elected officials at 27,500 kronor ($3,950) per month, requiring them to donate the remainder to the party.

The Left Party has long felt that politicians' salaries are too high and has previously had a system whereby elected officials could pay a voluntary fee of 5,000 kronor to the party coffers.

But on the final day of the party's congress on Sunday, Left Party members voted to make the fee mandatory while at the same time nearly doubling its size to around 10,000 kronor.

“Members of the Riksdag will have to donate any amount over 27,500 kronor after tax. We're talking about pre-tax incomes of about 40,000 kronor,” Left Party spokesperson Kristoffer Housset told the Dagens Nyhter (DN) newspaper.

Now any Left Party member who runs for elected office will be required to sign a contract with the party pledging to abide by the new rules.

The party also plans to make public the list of party members who have paid their fees.

According to Housset, the new system will make it harder for Left Party politicians to get re-elected if they don't abide by the rules.

The motion passed with a clear majority, with 129 members voting in favour, while 84 voted against the tougher rules.

According to Left Party estimates, fees taken from the salaries of Riksdag members alone are expected to add about 2 million kronor to party coffers.

[blake 3:17]

A good step.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

A good step.

Relatively, I guess, but still, this is a bourgeois social-democratic party, so it's pretty much all talk and appearance and no substance.

[piet11111]

The dutch socialist party has a similar system in place for many years but i do not know the details of it.

[Wubbaz]

The Red-Green Alliance in Denmark is using a similiar system called "partiskat" or in English, "party tax". Each MP of the party must pay that part of their income which is above the average income of a trained worker in Copenhagen. Also, everyone employed within the party offices that take care of administration and such also have a fixed wage, as far as I remember.

The Alliance also has a rotation principle, which means that no member of parliament may sit in the parliament for more than 2 terms in a row, or 7 years (which is practically the same thing).

[Crux]

According to Housset, the new system will make it harder for Left Party politicians to get re-elected if they don't abide by the rules.

Which incidentally puts into question how much this will be followed or enforced. The Left Party says many good thing's on paper.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Which incidentally puts into question how much this will be followed or enforced. The Left Party says many good thing's on paper.

You yourself should already know. Sweden already has party-list proportional representation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Sweden#Riksdag_elections


The unicameral Parliament of Sweden has 349 members. 310 of these members are elected using a party-list proportional representation system within Sweden's 29 electoral constituencies. These constituencies are usually coterminous with one of the Swedish counties, though the Counties of Stockholm, Skåne (containing Malmö), and Västra Götaland (containing Gothenburg) are divided into smaller electoral constituencies due to their larger populations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveling_seat


They are more commonly known as "adjustment seats", and can be found in other countries as well as Norway and Sweden where full proportional representation at the highest level (e.g. national) is sought.

The very nature of party lists should enable the Left Party bureaucracy outside the "three branches of government" to parachute and yank MPs at will between elections.

Party-Recallable, Closed-List, and Pure Proportional Representation (http://www.revleft.com/vb/party-recallable-closed-t94427/index.html)

[eyedrop]

You yourself should already know. Sweden already has party-list proportional representation:

In practical terms every party tends to be dominated by the parliamentary representatives.

[Q]

Now any Left Party member who runs for elected office will be required to sign a contract with the party pledging to abide by the new rules.

The Dutch Socialist Party has something similar and the SP is the richest party in the Netherlands because of it. The deal is that SP MPs get €2000 (plus expenses) and put the remainder €5000 go to the party coffers. For municipal council members (which get between €200 and €900 a month, depending on the size of the municipality), they have to give all of it to the party.

The judicial construct is similar, in contractual form where the money directly went to the party and the party would then pay a salary. But the legal status is somewhat shaky as in the Netherlands representatives get chosen without any obligations to the party ("zonder last of ruggespraak"). Since the government made a bit of a fuss about it a few years ago, the party changed the construct a little so that the money gets paid to the representatives, but they still have to pay the majority or all of it to the party.

Because there is no real political story behind this from the side of the SP and because the party apparatus is carrying out these rules in a draconian way, this means that the party has been losing local council people by the bushes as people find them unfair for the work they do. So, they often just keep their seat, but are kicked from the party.

[Ocean Seal]

So I guess they'll have to find other ways to take home an excessive salary.

[DaringMehring]

Insofar as anything can be a good measure, when it is related to a socialist party's electoralism in bourgeois democracy, this is a good measure.

Some parties have even gone so far as to strengthen it, by simply capping all members' incomes at a level approximately equal to working class, including MPs, with the rest of funds going to the Party. Then everyone is equal and also has to live on something similar to the means as the working class. I don't want to bring up the name of the Party I know does this... but if you know my general sympathies, you can guess.

Although, now that I think of it, the CPUSA pays its Party staff all the same amount -- $25,000/yr -- regardless of their role. However, I believe they can also have income and gifts from other sources, so... it's not really the same thing, though still a nice principle.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In practical terms every party tends to be dominated by the parliamentary representatives.

I am not ignorant of that problem at all. The question then becomes one of obtaining political domination over any parliamentary representatives.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Why is this an issue? We don't run in bourgeois elections to tame the best from the inside. If I was an MP for a party that wanted to reform Capitalism (well, i'd be a sell-out but nevertheless...), there's no way i'd donate a penny to them. If I was going to give the money to anyone it'd be a homeless/shelter organisation or something, least it won't get lost in bureaucracy that way.

Why, oh why, oh why, in 2012, are people still putting their faith in political parties and other such bureaucratic organisations as the vehicles for Socialism? It's crazy. The various Labour, Social-Democratic and Socialist Parties have stabbed the working class in the front, in the back and almost everywhere in between, whilst the Trade Unions have been no better over the years. And then there's the various 'Communist' parties..:rolleyes:

This is cheap sloganeering but, if ever cheap sloganeering has been relevant, this is it: people, not parties!

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

The various Labour, Social-Democratic and Socialist Parties have stabbed the working class in the front, in the back and almost everywhere in between, whilst the Trade Unions have been no better over the years. And then there's the various 'Communist' parties..:rolleyes:

On this note, the new party leader, a further step to the right in a long trend thereto, and responsible for the removal of "communist" from the name of the party (it had long since abandoned it in practice, of course - 1944 saw the removal of the demand for the dictatorship of the proletariat and it's been a down-ward spiral ever-since) today announced he was looking at Stig Henrikssons rule in Fagersta, a small county town, as a possible source of inspiration. In this small town, the Left Party has been having its own majority from time to time. Stig Henriksson was involved with the most rabid right-wing faction within the party, the so called Vägval Vänster (Road Junction; Choice Left), parts of which later split with the organisation. As is to be expected for such an attempt to reform capitalism - if we are generous enough to grant that it is something than he desired - it was clearly a failure, because the policy followed included serious cut-backs of public service, privatisations and liberalisation and pro-private business politics (The Left Party officially is in-love with Keynesianism as well). Even the moderate party had no complaints on coöperating with the Left Party in Fagersta - that's how far they went. Henriksson is quite popular within the party despite this because of his consistently good electoral result.

The Left Party is not socialist and I do not think that we should pay all that much attention to what they do. Though this might be a relatively good step, the entire idea is generally silly and frankly irrelevant in terms of substantive politics apart from an attempt to look good.

[DaringMehring]

On this note, the new party leader, a further step to the right in a long trend thereto, and responsible for the removal of "communist" from the name of the party (it had long since abandoned it in practice, of course - 1944 saw the removal of the demand for the dictatorship of the proletariat and it's been a down-ward spiral ever-since) today announced he was looking at Stig Henrikssons rule in Fagersta, a small county town, as a possible source of inspiration. In this small town, the Left Party has been having its own majority from time to time. Stig Henriksson was involved with the most rabid right-wing faction within the party, the so called Vägval Vänster (Road Junction; Choice Left), parts of which later split with the organisation. As is to be expected for such an attempt to reform capitalism - if we are generous enough to grant that it is something than he desired - it was clearly a failure, because the policy followed included serious cut-backs of public service, privatisations and liberalisation and pro-private business politics (The Left Party officially is in-love with Keynesianism as well). Even the moderate party had no complaints on coöperating with the Left Party in Fagersta - that's how far they went. Henriksson is quite popular within the party despite this because of his consistently good electoral result.

The Left Party is not socialist and I do not think that we should pay all that much attention to what they do. Though this might be a relatively good step, the entire idea is generally silly and frankly irrelevant in terms of substantive politics apart from an attempt to look good.

Ain't that how it always is.

Electoralism and reformism go hand in hand, and reformism cannot maintain anything resembling socialist approach in the general capitalist framework for long. It's really just a dead end that leads people away from socialism to liberalism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is cheap sloganeering but, if ever cheap sloganeering has been relevant, this is it: people, not parties!

Let me know when councils that just pop up from proverbial holes in the ground actually work in the long term for society.

Sorry, I was quite emotional there.


Though this might be a relatively good step, the entire idea is generally silly and frankly irrelevant in terms of substantive politics apart from an attempt to look good.

Why is it silly and not substantive? Beyond mere electoral machines, it's another measure of membership commitment to the class-for-itself (that is, the party-movement of the class).