Programme Of The Die Linke Party

Die Linke as a socialist party stands for alternatives, for a better future. We democratic socialists, the democratic left with different political biographies, ideological and religious influences, women and men, old and young, established and immigrants, people with and without disabilities, have come together in a new left party. We cling to the dream of mankind that a better world is possible.

We are not and will not be like those parties that obsequiously submit to the wishes of the economically powerful and for that very reason can scarcely be told apart. We pursue a concrete goal: we fight for a society in which no child has to grow up poor, in which all men and women can live a selfdetermined life in peace, dignity and social security and can democratically shape social relations. To achieve this we need a different economic and social system: democratic socialism.

We want to use the grandiose ideas, the visions and creative forces of men and women for convincing political projects, to overcome hunger and poverty, to get the consequences of climate change and environmental disasters under control.

We are not prepared to accept a world in which profit interests determine the prospects of millions of men and women and in which exploitation, war and imperialism cut whole countries off from hope and the future. Where profit rules above all else, there is little space for democracy. The untrammelled freedom of the big corporations means bondage for the majority of men and women.

We proceed from the traditions of democracy and socialism, of the struggles for human rights and emancipation, against fascism and racism, imperialism and militarism. We want to overcome all social relationships in which people are exploited, disenfranchised and deprived of the right to make their own decisions and in which the social and natural foundations of their lives are destroyed.

We want to use the new possibilities of knowledge acquisition, cultural exchange and communication for a future that is worth living. We want to expand the rule of law and the welfare state so that women and men can make sovereign decisions concerning their working and living time and can seize opportunities to participate, to acquire education and to be there for one another socially.

Limitless wealth for the upper echelons, humiliation for the growing mass of the poor and decreasing prosperity for the vast majority are not the result of the internationalisation of production and trade but of global capitalism. The consequences for Germany are omnipresent: a growing lowwage sector, annihilation of jobs, cutbacks in social benefits, impoverished municipalities, the lack of training places, social privileges in education, twotier medicine, elderly people in poverty or without decent care. Current politics has been subordinated to the interests of corporate bosses and the wealthy. This agenda runs counter to the interests of the majority of the people. We believe in global cooperation rather than the concept that might makes right. A world under the diktat of an omnipotent global capitalism is not a world worth striving for. Business and politics must be centred on the vital needs and interests of the majority of the people.

We want to help turn passive resentment into active resistance. We put up resistance to wage dumping, the robbing of welfare recipients and the selling off of public property. We want to change the balance of social power, and are fighting for a different policy. Democracy. freedom, equality, justice, internationalism and solidarity are among our fundamental values. They are inseparable from peace, the conservation of nature and emancipation. We are fighting for a system change because capitalism, which is based on inequality, exploitation, expansion and competition, is incompatible with those goals.

We have united in a new political force that stands for freedom and equality, fights resolutely for peace, is democratic and social, ecological and feminist, open and plural, militant and tolerant. Together with citizens in Germany, in Europe and throughout the world, with trade unions and movements, we are looking for alternative solutions and social alternatives. We want to build a society of democratic socialism in which reciprocal recognition of the freedom and equality of every individual is the condition for the development of all in solidarity. We are fighting for a change of course in politics that will open the way for a fundamental transformation of society, that will overcome capitalism.