Democracy: One Person, One Vote

Ownership & co-determination: democracy instead of oligarchy

Our vision is a world in which people live together freely and without coercion. To move closer to this vision, we want to democratise companies and corporations over the long term. “One person, one vote” must apply in the world of work too.

This applies in particular to publicly listed companies. It is not shareholders who create value, but a company’s employees. It should therefore be the employees who make the key decisions, for example choosing the management, allocating resources, and other fundamental decisions that affect the future of the employees and the company.

We see so-called steward-ownership as a step in the right direction, but it must go hand in hand with internal democratisation of the company. Voting rights and decision-making power must not rest with a single person, but must be distributed equally among all employees.

We want to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises towards democratic transformation, and to accompany and support them in it. In the long term, democratic companies should become the binding standard.

Democratise bought-back shares

Large companies and corporations buy back their own shares to push up share prices and management bonuses. Together with trade unions, we want to work towards transferring shares that are bought back to a democratically managed ownership fund for employees. Own shares that have already been bought back (non-retired treasury shares) should also go to the ownership fund.

A right of first refusal on shares for ownership funds

To drive forward the democratisation of companies, we want to introduce a right of first refusal on shares for ownership funds that are democratically managed by employees. When a share is traded between third parties, the fund should have the right to acquire it preferentially at the same price. We are committed to supporting such initiatives with grants and loans. In addition, we want to create the legal basis for expropriating shareholders for the purpose of democratising companies.

Tying state support to conditions

We want to tie state support for large companies and corporations, for instance through cheap loans, subsidies or direct investment, to conditions. In return, companies that want support should have to transfer company shares to a democratically managed ownership fund belonging to all employees.

Make it easier to set up works councils

We want to make it easier to set up works councils and to better protect those who initiate them from dismissal. We therefore want to strengthen protection against dismissal for employees who want to set up a works council or stand for election to one. Obstructing or preventing the formation of works councils should become a criminal offence that specialised public prosecutors must prosecute ex officio (as an offence subject to mandatory prosecution). We want to require companies without a works council to let their employees vote each year, in secret and in the absence of the employer, on setting one up.

Strengthen trade unions

To strengthen trade unions, we are committed to making union dues tax-deductible.

A right for employees to take over plants when they close

When a plant is closed, again and again the site, buildings and machinery are sold off and the employees are laid off. We want to offer employees the option of taking over the company’s means of production and continuing to run them as a cooperative. The precondition should be a viable business plan. Through the KfW and the Landesbanken, we want to support these bold fresh starts with cheap loans.

Bringing the platform economy into municipal ownership

Through a support fund and an Agency for Municipal Platform Economy, we want to enable municipalities to develop and run copies of platforms such as Uber, Airbnb or Deliveroo. The boards of such platforms should consist of elected representatives of the municipality together with elected representatives of the people who offer their services through the platform. We reject international, profit-driven platforms and support municipal regulation and bans.

Public services and key infrastructure in public hands

Areas that tend to produce natural monopolies (that is, businesses with high fixed costs and low marginal costs), as well as areas that are essential to ensuring a dignified and participatory life, should as a rule be in state, municipal or, in individual cases, cooperative hands, in order to guarantee equal and fair access as well as democratic control. In particular in the areas of health, housing, transport, water, waste disposal, energy and communications, we support bringing them into municipal or common ownership.

Taxes: tackling extreme concentration of wealth

Taxes are important for steering consumption, reducing extreme inequality and combating inflation. They are not needed to fund public spending in states with monetary sovereignty, as described in the chapter on public spending.

We want to use the consumption-steering effect of taxes in particular to protect the climate, ecosystems and health. Low-income households must not be disproportionately affected in the process.

Beyond that, we want to use taxes to sharply limit and reduce the extreme wealth inequality in Germany. Every billionaire is a policy failure. Billionaires and multimillionaires reflect a system in which the effort and productivity of the many are not fairly rewarded and distributed, but flow into the pockets of the few. In effect, this creates imbalances of power and relationships of dependency that we reject.

We consider the extreme concentration of wealth to be undemocratic and a threat to democracy, because the larger a fortune is, the more massively the opportunities for political and public influence grow, for example through donations to parties, municipalities or universities, media ownership, paid association, lobbying and public-relations work, or the financial means to pursue legal action to enforce one’s own interests. The wealthy have a vastly greater influence on public opinion than the non-wealthy, and in part shape ideology. We want to protect democracy by sharply limiting and reducing wealth inequality.

Stopping growing wealth inequality

Very large fortunes must not keep growing. We therefore support a tax rate of one hundred per cent on any income above a private wealth of ten million euros. Business assets and up to three privately used properties (or alternatively, if fewer than three properties, further assets of one million euros for each missing property) should not be included in the wealth calculation, whereas bank deposits and cash, securities, additional properties, and valuable vehicles, land, luxury and art objects with a market value of 50,000 euros or more should be. For jointly managed wealth of couples, double the ceiling, that is twenty million euros, should apply. It should not be treated as joint wealth, but calculated as it would be divided between the two after a divorce.

Reducing extreme wealth

Extreme wealth inequality must be reduced. We therefore want to tax very large fortunes progressively: at one per cent a year on wealth above 10 million euros, 3 per cent from 50 million, 5 per cent from 200 million and 10 per cent from 500 million euros of wealth. Business assets and up to two privately used properties (or alternatively, if fewer than three properties, further assets of one million euros for each missing property) should not be included in the wealth calculation, whereas bank deposits and cash beyond that, securities, additional properties, and physical goods such as vehicles, luxury and art objects with a market value of 50,000 euros or more should be.

No tax on inheritances under €500,000 & an inheritance ceiling

We want to fully exempt inheritances below 500,000 euros from inheritance tax. At the same time, we want to introduce an inheritance ceiling of 500,000 euros per heir. Physical goods above this, such as properties, vehicles, land, and luxury and art objects, that are not sold by the heir should also be tax-free and counted at only five per cent of their estimated value in wealth calculations. If they are sold, however, once the inheritance ceiling of 500,000 euros per heir has been reached, a levy of 95 per cent of the sale price should fall due. Bank deposits, cash or securities above the ceiling should not be inheritable. The deceased’s business assets should be democratised, that is, placed in the hands of the company’s employees. Published intellectual property should enter the public domain. For the widowed, the wealth of the deceased partner should be fully and tax-free inheritable. So that the inheritance ceiling is not eroded through multiple inheritances or gifts, we want to consider the total sum, that is, to include earlier inheritances and gifts as well.

Reforming the law on charitable status

To limit the political power of individual large donors and to democratise philanthropy, we want to fundamentally reform the law on charitable status. Every citizen should receive an annual donation budget of 200 euros, which can only be donated to non-profit organisations. For the receiving organisations, these donations are tax-free. We want to tax all further donations at the normal corporate tax rates. For donors, donations above the annual donation budget should no longer be tax-deductible.

Taxing financial-market activities fairly

Interest, dividends and other capital income, as well as profit margins on the sale of shares and other securities, should be combined with a person’s remaining monthly income and be subject to normal income taxation. We reject a separate (lower) taxation of capital income, as is the case with the capital gains tax.

Lobbying: exposing it and tackling it

Every democracy must be based on the principle of “one person, one vote”. We want to expose and tackle the rampant influence of the German, European and global oligarchy and its lobbyists.

Banning paid second jobs

Being a member of parliament is a full-time job. That is why we want to ban any paid secondary work, such as speaking engagements or consultancy roles, for parliamentarians in full-time parliaments. Income from other sources (for example from rental agreements) should have to be reported in full and immediately to the relevant parliament and made public.

A ceiling on party donations

To ensure that wealthy people cannot buy influence through party donations, we want to cap donations to parties at a maximum of €10,000 per person per year. All donations of 1,000 euros or more should be subject to immediate publication. We want to ban corporate donations and party sponsorship.

Reducing privileges for parliamentarians

Excessive privileges for parliamentarians cause members to lose touch with the average population, and holding on to power becomes more important than political work for the common good. We therefore want to sharply reduce the privileges for members of parliament. Their salaries must be based on average wages. Transitional pay should be limited to three months. Social-insurance contributions should fall due as in a normal employment relationship. We also want to require parliamentarians to disclose their income and wealth situation once a year, as is the case in Greece, for example.

A genuine transparency law

State data and documents must be publicly accessible, machine-readable and with open interfaces. That is why we want to develop the Freedom of Information Act into a genuine transparency law. There must be no redactions and no withholding of documents. The state must not keep secrets from its citizens, as the revelations by WikiLeaks and others show.

Closing loopholes in the lobby register

We want to close the loopholes in the lobby register. This includes requiring all lobbyists to declare their financial spending and their goals. There must be no exceptions for particular interest groups. Furthermore, we want to add a legislative and executive footprint to the lobby register. It must be documented who was involved in drafting a bill.

Reshaping the auditing sector

Auditing firms are currently subject to an incentive structure that makes them inclined, when auditing the annual accounts of corporations, to overlook the odd accounting or balance-sheet error, because their client is the very company being audited. We want to end this moral hazard by requiring that, in future, the state’s financial administration commissions and pays for audits of corporations. Moreover, we will mandate the strict separation of auditing firms from management-consultancy firms, so that the same people who check a company’s books do not advise other firms on how to effectively disguise inaccuracies in their balance sheets. Such a separation of activities also creates more competition and corporate diversity in a market that has until now been dominated by an oligopoly of just four large firms.

Data protection & AI: self-determination and clear guidelines

It is a fundamental right that individuals can decide for themselves which data are disclosed and how they may be used. We want to strengthen this right to informational self-determination further and equip it for future innovations. We will also develop practical guidelines and modern education programmes to promote the media and data literacy of companies and citizens.

Artificial intelligence and other automated decision-making systems will fundamentally change our world. We believe that automated decision-making has many positive qualities and can help to solve problems and foster social progress, but that it also raises serious questions of a technical, ethical and socio-economic nature. That is why we need clear rules and guidelines, at both the national and supranational level, on how we deal with automated decision-making in future.

Giving the right to one’s own data constitutional status

We are committed to ensuring that exclusive control over one’s own personal data in the context of electronic communication is explicitly named and incorporated as an inalienable fundamental right into the Basic Law of the Federal Republic, as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Introducing labels for digital products

We want to introduce user-friendly labels that inform potential users of an online service or buyers of a digital product about critical factors, similar to the way nutritional values are listed on food packaging. These digital labels should be standardised and summarise important characteristics in a compact, easily understandable format. Examples of such characteristics could be how and where the data are stored and in which country the company pays taxes. The labels should also apply to online services that profit from user data, even when the user’s registration does not require a conscious payment, for example in the form of a membership fee.

Integrating critical digital aspects into audits

We want to require auditing firms to gather information on the quality and security of the technical infrastructure of digital companies alongside the annual accounts. For companies that hold data on at least 1 million people, penetration tests of their servers, websites and apps should be carried out as a mandatory part of this, to prevent data leaks and harmful malfunctions. It should also be ensured at these companies that not only the IT department but all senior staff have attended a seminar on data protection. For small and medium-sized enterprises whose annual income is less than fifty times the new costs, we want to provide unbureaucratic support with grants in implementing the rules.

Enabling non-personalised use

We want to give users the right to make non-personalised use of platforms and other digital services, so that their data are not collected and used for purposes that are not necessary for the actual service, for example for personalising advertisements. Oversight should be carried out by institutions created specifically for this or by existing ones, rather than relying, as at present, on companies’ self-regulation and the so-called “market forces”.

Uniform, binding standards for automated decision-making

Fundamentally, we are committed to developing and implementing minimum technical requirements and standards that guarantee transparency, reliability and security. This also includes the mandatory use of vetted and discrimination-free data sets. Furthermore, we want to introduce ethical standards that prevent any kind of discrimination and exclusion through automated decision-making. These standards should also serve to ensure that the privacy and data protection of all stakeholders can be guaranteed.

Defining the areas where automated decision-making may be used

Since automated decision-making can be applied in almost all sectors, we call for a clear definition of the areas where it may be used, as well as for a ban on automated decision-making in certain sectors. Clear bans should apply in the case of military operations, police investigation, intelligence work, biometric facial recognition, access to public services, and the scoring of social behaviour. In addition, in other areas such as medicine and healthcare, clear limits must apply to how far algorithms may be used and in what form the sometimes highly sensitive data are made available to them. For people affected by automated decisions, we want to introduce a right to human intervention.

Creating transparency

More and more often, users do not really know whether they are interacting with a machine or a real person. We therefore want to ensure that, in future, it must be clearly indicated whether you are interacting with a machine, in order to create more transparency. It should also be clearer to users which data are processed and how. Everyone should have the right to an “opt-out” option if they prefer to receive a standard result from an algorithm, rather than having personal data used to produce the result.

Competition & innovation: preventing the formation of monopolies

Especially in the digital economy, we see growing market concentration that leads to the formation of monopolies. These companies come above all from the USA or China and, through their market power, leave hardly any competition in many areas. We therefore need far-reaching measures with which we can create an independent and globally integrated European digital economy.

Strengthening competition law

Because of the ever-increasing market power and monopoly-building of large companies, we want to tighten competition law. Companies must no longer be allowed to exploit their market power, as they do for example through the transfer of data and integration across their various services, or through the exploitation of network effects. Above all, we want to enforce competition law more stringently in Germany and Europe, which can result in both fines and the breaking up of companies.

Stopping tax flight

Under the current regulations, digital companies in the EU can shift their profits and assets into tax havens. We want to stop companies’ tax flight. This requires stronger Europe-wide cooperation.

Promoting innovation

To achieve our goal of an independent and globally integrated digital economy, extensive measures to promote innovation are needed. One important aspect is investment in public basic research. In this context, we want to make research work at universities more attractive. We want to tie grants for private companies to clear social and data-protection conditions.

Innovation as a commons

Innovation should be understood as a commons and not be limited to the economic growth of private companies, but rather take place in an inclusive system in which all stakeholders, such as users, employees and citizens, are of equal importance and contribute to the common good. This also means that innovations based on public basic research remain in the public domain and may not be patented. Along with this, we want to limit copyright and reverse the burden of proof, so that something remains a digital common good until it is demonstrated, in a proportionate manner, that it is protected. We also want to reform copyright rules so that the rights of users, authors and innovators are appropriately balanced.

Net neutrality and a free internet

We want to guarantee net neutrality for all users, whether it involves mobile data or transmission by cable or DSL. Internet providers must not interfere with users’ content, for instance by throttling the transmission speed of certain content or favouring other content that is not counted towards the data allowance on mobile tariffs. To guarantee a neutral internet with equal opportunities, all content must therefore be transmitted under the same conditions. Beyond this, we want to prohibit providers and private companies from censoring or blocking content or websites on their own initiative and outside the courts. This also includes the use of upload filters to remove copyrighted content. If accounts or content are blocked, the reasons must be communicated transparently to the affected users, and there must be the possibility of applying for these contents to be unblocked in a similarly simple and transparent way.

Supporting the local economy

While digital services and platforms can have positive effects on parts of the local economy, they often bring far-reaching negative effects with them. To counterbalance their ever-increasing market power and effects on the local economy, we want to give greater support to the latter, as well as to platform cooperatives.

Press freedom: protecting journalists & whistleblowers

Press freedom is the backbone of a democratic society. Journalists and whistleblowers hold the powerful to account and uncover wrongdoing and abuse of power. We want to protect them and their work, in Germany, Europe and worldwide.

We are committed to a diverse media landscape and want to counter the increasing oligopolisation of the media. We want to make access to diverse media as low-threshold as possible. This also includes our wish to preserve and develop public service broadcasting.

Freedom for Julian Assange

We condemn in the strongest terms the international persecution, inhumane treatment and torture of Julian Assange. We likewise condemn the silence of the members of the federal government who, through their tacit consent, have become complicit. We are committed to the immediate freedom of Julian Assange.

A safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers

Germany and the EU should become a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers. To protect them lastingly from political persecution, we want to issue humanitarian visas without bureaucracy and offer them asylum. The security authorities must ensure that they can live here safely and continue their work.

Protection for whistleblowers

We are committed to the swift implementation of the EU Whistleblower Directive. Protection must be extended to national law and to all areas that are in the public interest. We want to require larger companies to set up internal anonymous reporting points.

Protecting journalists from intelligence services

Journalists must not be spied on by intelligence services. We therefore want to ensure that journalists are protected from any access by intelligence services, for instance under the BND Act, through state spyware or through software such as Pegasus.

Introducing an anti-SLAPP directive

To protect journalists from abusive lawsuits, we support the introduction of an EU-wide directive against so-called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). Obvious SLAPPs should be able to be dismissed at an early stage, and their abuse should be punishable. We want to support the victims of SLAPPs financially in their legal defence.

Championing press freedom worldwide

In foreign policy, we want to stand up resolutely for press freedom. With countries where journalists suffer persecution and where no improvement is in sight, we want to scale back economic relations. We want to tie trade and investment agreements to the protection of a free press.

Media vouchers

To give more people access to a diverse range of quality media, we want to provide every citizen with media vouchers that can be used to take out subscriptions.