MFHowA1

From Pirate Party Belgium
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Version 1

I think we must work on 2 fronts. A market one by making our own companies and political ones by helping NGO and trying to get elected to influence the policy of a country.

Version 2

As Gandi said : Be the chang you want to see in the world.

Version 3

Pirate Party must have a smooth and effective organisation, with a strong political program.


Version 4

Liquid democracy is far from what the political system is right now, so how do we evolve from one to the other? Of course, we have already stated some tools necessary: open source and transparent government with open data, supporting P2P economy, Unconditional Basic Income, simplifying legislation.

An Unconditional Basic Income is the only thing that can save the Belgian economy at the moment and that is something we can put in the picture. The problem however is that it changes power that much that politicians and people with power are afraid of it and will do everything not to let it pass. A UBI does not change a lot for most people and in what most people do, but it changes a lot in the minds and will change a lot for those in power. This is all the clearer with the coming referendum about UBI in Switzerland: The population is mixed (50% pro / 50% against), but almost 80% of the members of the parliament are against. To us, a partial basic income and partial basic income experiments do not make a lot of sense, because it does not take away fear, but it does the necessary publicity and could simplify legislation already.

We can however support legislation that is similar to a basic income: money for families with children, was once set up as a basic income for the child, pension systems could evolve with a fixed base also and money given to union members, could be given to everyone instead as a kind of basic income. In order to evolve towards liquid democracy, we should work as much as possible in a liquid democratic way ourselves to be an example for others. This is not easy: we see that it is difficult to get everyone to use an existing liquid democracy tool. But that should not stop us: people don't need to be superintelligent to decide in a liquid democracy, but putting the environment together to be able to decide in an objective way, requires a lot of skills, but is feasible with the necessary resources and right states of mind.

Liquid democracy is the way to go, but the party needs to grow first before it will be possible to be fully liquid democratic ourselves. And the day there is liquid democracy, we won't be necessary anymore as a party. Another argument about being small for the moment (in order to have significant resources you need to have more than 10% of the votes), is that we don't necessarily need to take a position about everything and study every subject in detail. Instead, we can ask ourselves which arguments would be brought objectively in a liquid democracy, how people would react and how it would be different from the ongoing discussion. The different goals we have will not necessarily come in the order we thought them to: a UBI will take away fear for liquid democracy and simplify legislation, but we might need to simplify legislation first or prepare it at least in order for a UBI to be possible. Open source tools might need to be developed first for the liquid democratic mechanisms to function. This manifesto gives a solid foundation and it is important to get its position known to everyone and convince it is the only way really forward, the only way to change. A new website and the use of social networks to promote it, are the first steps.