Germany: Left Party-PDS and Election Alternative agree on a common reformist program

For a reader, the most positive aspect of the new program is its brevity. One is no longer required, as with previous draft programs, to wade through lengthy diatribes about the evils of ‘neo-liberal’ capitalism. The new draft comprises just eleven pages, which outline the main points. In fact, these points have already been included in previous statements of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS, heir to the former East German ruling Stalinist party), primarily aimed at reassuring Germany’s ruling elite that the party was prepared to support the existing system.

The new draft will not cause members of the ruling elite to lose any sleep either. The program indicates that the new party has no intention of implementing serious radical measures. All of the points raised—proclamations of adherence to democracy, freedom, peace, social justice, and also socialism, peppered with hopes for the eventual “overcoming of capitalism” and demands for the re-introduction of a wealth tax and the abolition of European defence projects—have regularly cropped up in every PDS program, without having any practical consequences.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/left-d30.shtml