Evolutionary Socialism

Evolutionary Socialism is the personal ideology of DuyQuangNguyenPham. He's economically left-wing, civically moderate, socially leaning progressive, patriotic, internationalist, and interculturalist. Evolutionary Socialism believes in widespread workers' self-management with worker cooperatives and other companies under collective employee ownership through controlling shares in a market economy. To him, other forms of cooperatives are also okay because they serve as an alternative to traditional private enterprises.

On social issues, Evolutionary Socialism supports abortion rights, LGBT rights, decriminalizing marijuana, reformed police forces, etc. However, he recognizes that economic policies must be prioritized as it benefits the most people before moving onto policies mentioned above.

Macroeconomic thought
Evolutionary Socialism is on the fence, unable to pick between Neo-Keynesianism or  Post-Keynesianism. So he just incorporates Keynesian elements into a potential market socialist society instead. That is, strategic tax cuts and increased spending during recessions, and tax increases and decreased military spending during booms. He wishes to cut down debt to get a reasonable debt-to-GDP ratio while not compromising people's well-being.

Regulations
Evolutionary Socialism has never liked the idea of a laissez-faire market. The concept that the government should just stay out of business matters and let supply and demand dictating everything seems alien to him. For this reason, he supports some regulations within the economy.

One of them is the Economic Constitution, similar to the one implemented in West Germany. It's crucial for curtailing any monopoly and domestic cartels during and after the transition to market socialism to prevent spikes in the price for the consumers. Stock buybacks can be harmful as the money is not for the well-being of everyone but only for the shareholders. Evolutionary Socialism plans to limit this kind of behavior.

Some taxations
Extreme inequality can burden the entire society as social problems go up the worse inequality is. Egalitarianism is generally good, as long as it's not absolute.

He generally supports higher marginal income tax for the wealthy. He understands that income tax is not the only way to raise revenue, though. For one, Evolutionary Socialism advocates for higher capital gains tax since the richest tend to disproportionately own more stocks compared to the rest, contributing to higher income and wealth inequality. Removing step-up in basis is necessary to enforce capital gains tax more effectively. Corporations may find moving to other countries to invest there a good idea. Evolutionary Socialism will push for a global minimum tax to counter just that. Other taxations that he wants to implement are land value tax and Pigovian taxes. Land value tax will fight land speculation, while Pigovian taxes will essentially pass negative externalities onto the producers, lowering the demand for harmful products.

Note that he will only add more taxes during economic booms. In economic recessions, temporary tax cuts for the middle class may be the way to go to stimulate the economy.

Welfare & The common good
This ideology supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour over five years. After that, the minimum wage will be indexed to the median wages. The slow rise in the wage floor will improve firm efficiency and reducing absenteeism. Even though millions may be out of jobs temporarily, tens of millions more will see a rise in compensation, reducing overall poverty.

Universal healthcare is a moral imperative nowadays. He initially supports a public option competing with private health insurances to drive down costs. And once the people like how the public option is working out, he can then implement Medicare For All at state levels slowly until single-payer healthcare covers the entire nation comparable to the NHS in Britain. This model can substantially reduce the administrative costs for care. However, there will be campaigns advising people not to abuse this system for the common good.

The schools are free at the point of service and compulsory for children between the age of six and eighteen. Banning political propaganda is obligatory to ensure an informed populace. For housing, Evolutionary Socialism wants to follow the model in Finland. He will increase the supply of affordable rental housing to provide to the homeless. Solving any personal issues is much easier with a roof over your head. Furthermore, he also defends universal child allowance to encourage healthy citizens for the future.

Evolutionary Socialism recognizes the role of private charities, but figures that it might not be enough for the community. Overall, if this ideology wants to add welfare, it needs to be universalist like in the Nordic countries. Universality ensures that the programs are much harder to remove and far less likely to produce resentment, as virtually every person has benefited from these policies.

Maximum programme
Evolutionary Socialism prefers an accretionist route to market socialism instead of violent revolutions. Any form of revolution should only be considered under a very authoritarian government, like the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the  Cuban Revolution against the  Batista regime, and the August Revolution in  Vietnam.

With that said, he believes that there are several ways to achieve market socialism:
 * Incentivize more worker cooperatives with either favorable tax credit or a national bank that provides good loans for businesses that follow the model.
 * Create employee funds that will tax a portion of private companies' profits to buy up their shares. The shares will belong to the employees in that firm. The process will continue until the workers gain a controlling share, allowing collective employee ownership.
 * Encourage schools to teach more about the alternative models of firms in Economics. More people knowing about them means a higher chance of potential entrepreneurs choosing cooperatives as their model.
 * Give the employees the right to take over an enterprise deserted by its owner.

All of the above can create a social economy dominated by worker coops, consumer coops, producer coops, credit unions, etc. Instead of standard hierarchy in workplaces or limited co-determination, democracy is established in full in the majority of firms. Although cooperatives may have difficulty starting up, higher productivity, longevity, and lower inequality can counteract that downside.

LGBT rights
Evolutionary Socialism approves the right to sexuality. People with different sexual and gender identities shouldn't be discriminated against in society. To solve this, he advocates teaching more about this issue in schools to reduce bias-motivated crimes. Same-sex marriages, or just marriages in general, are protected.

As for trans people, he recommends that they should align their secondary sexual characteristics closer to their gender identity as soon as possible to decrease the chance of being misgendered. The state shall provide resources for transgender people to help with their gender dysphoria, such as puberty blocker below age 16, hormone replacement therapy from age 16 to 18, and sex reassignment surgery above age 18. Of course, parents need to know about such a major decision for further consultation and support. Of course, discrimination based on one's sexuality is not allowed.

Feminism
Despite the focus on economics, this ideology is concerned that women may find themselves at a disadvantage. He supports "equal pay for equal work" as the result. He tries his best to reduce the gender pay gap by:
 * Raise the minimum wage (more on this above.)
 * Don't base the pay for workers on past salary history.
 * Expand paid parental leave and sick leave.

Evolutionary Socialism is also supportive of abortion rights for women. When a mother bears a child that she can't support, that will burden the entire society. He wants to legalize abortion for the first two trimesters since the fetus usually doesn't have consciousness during that period and thus no preference. However, he will regulate any abortions after that, only allowing the procedure when the woman is at risk or when the baby has a disorder that greatly reduces its chance to live after birth (like Type 3 Congenital Pulmonary Airway Malformation.)

Even though this ideology defends women's right to choose, he will surely provide sex education and birth control to reduce unwanted pregnancies.

Criminal justice
In theory, Evolutionary Socialism supports the death penalty as the punishment against the most heinous crimes, like child molestation or mass murder. In practice, though, he opposes it due to its high false-positive rate. Rehabilitating the wrongdoers for reintegration is better than punishment most of the time.

He supports "defunding the police" in principle - reallocating some of the funds from the police to other social workers better equipped to deal with domestic violence. Being in opposition to militarized police is one example. However, if done poorly, it may be counter-productive, raising crime rates in some cities. So, he will hyper-specialize the police forces. To be in a "violent division," a police officer must pass a strict mental health test and keep passing it every year. They will rotate out of that division every five to ten years. Specialization can save taxpayers' money and is generally more efficient.

He is against the police abolition movement because he believes law enforcement can be our protectors instead of predators.

Drugs & Euthanasia
He thinks that soft drugs need to be decriminalized, while hard drugs should remain illegal. Hard drugs may give temporary highs for the consumers, but their downsides outweigh any upsides (see the opioid crisis.) While there is no such thing as a cannabis crisis, overusing marijuana can increase the risk of traffic accidents.

On Euthanasia, he unquestionably supports the procedure. The government has no right to force a sick person to continue living if he/she doesn't want to.

Environmentalism
Evolutionary Socialism thinks that pollution and climate change are the two biggest threats that humanity has to face. Although individuals should have the awareness to protect the environment, that's not sufficient. Therefore, he's a bright green environmentalist, which means that he supports technological advancements to develop more sustainably. Synthetic meat, GMOs, nuclear energy, renewables, biodegradable plastic, and other technologies all play a role. He will harshly fine companies that deliberately dump their waste into the ocean to disincentivize such behavior. A carbon tax will be levied on businesses to encourage decreasing carbon emissions. He will also stop subsidies to the fossil fuel industries. The state shall accommodate nature by building green and blue infrastructure that considers the unintended consequences on public health.

Religious matters
On one hand, he strictly opposes a theocratic government. Religious laws can stifle progress, such as denying reproductive care for women. The merge of church and the state is likely to result in the centralization of powers when leaders justify their legislation in the name of gods. On the other hand, he also opposes strict state atheism. The concept usually translates to state worship, and the government has a high chance of persecuting minor religious groups to make religion a personal matter.

Evolutionary Socialism ends up supporting secularism as a middle ground between both. He will ensure the separation between the church and the state for modernization, but freedom of religion is upheld.

International relations
Evolutionary Socialism is a civic nationalist, meaning that he defines nationhood as something based on common values and citizenship. He doesn't think that we should discriminate against immigrants because of their different ethnicities, races, or even cultures. For this reason, he welcomes immigrants as long as they can understand and uphold the nation's values. There will be a five-year period before immigrants can access welfare, however. An unusual characteristic of his patriotism is his liking both the United States and  Vietnam at the same time. Representative democracy is a great model to follow, but Evolutionary Socialism also enjoys Vietnam's dedication to socialist ideals.

Unlike regular Multiculturalism, he seeks to fight the tendency of cultures to self-segregate into parallel societies. Even though this ideology supports the existence of multiple cultures, there needs to be cross-cultural communication and cultural fusion, and the state needs to promote common ground between them. So there's still a collective identity among diverse cultures. Evolutionary Socialism supports moderate nationalism that is not exclusionary nor considering itself to be superior to other nations. This can challenge the rise of right-wing populist parties and prevent them from getting into power, like what the Social Democrats did in Sweden.

He is also non-interventionist, believing that national boundaries are not arbitrary constructs because of self-determination. He is aware of Vietnam's history of being colonized by other great powers throughout its existence. And thus, Evolutionary Socialism is sure that foreign wars are very seldom justified. However, he will still retain trade and diplomacy to help out other countries with aids if needed.

As for trade, he's currently leaning more toward free trade than protectionism, as prices for goods can be lower for the workers, and real income is likely to grow. However, Evolutionary Socialism understands that there are always winners and losers in these trade agreements. So for the workers displaced by foreign competition, he supports creating generous retraining programs to help them adjust to new jobs. Additional Earned Income Tax Credits might be needed when the minimum wage is not yet a living wage for the employees. Furthermore, free trade agreements should have minimum labor and environmental standards, making them 'fair trade.' That way, it wouldn't be the race to the bottom but rather a ladder for developing countries to get up.

He supports regional unions and the United Nations in its current form since they helped solve global problems like climate change and pollution. However, any further developments must be unanimous among their members. One reason is that without the agreement of some countries, these organizations will impede their national sovereignty.

Form of government
To him, democracy isn't necessarily the best political system but rather the least bad system devised by humans. Even if it got corrupted, it would still be better than a despotic government that consistently enacts terrible policies. Democracies are much less likely to go to war, and they don't kill their citizens as much.

Evolutionary Socialism supports a representative democracy with direct democratic elements. A referendum will pop up before the enactment of a particularly controversial policy, like cybersecurity laws. He prefers the parliamentary system to a presidential one because the prime minister is much more in sync with the legislative branch than a president. Depending on the population, each state will have a certain number of seats. Every political party will have a chance to gain representation with proportional representation instead of first-past-the-post. He dislikes plurality voting precisely because it tends to punish compromise and reward partisanship. Anyways, all of those seats will form a parliament. Some parties that generally agreed on core issues can form a coalition, getting a high enough majority to govern.

The Media
In his view, Evolutionary Socialism thinks that the mainstream media is usually not trustworthy for the people. He supports the Fairness Doctrine to present opposing views fairly, preventing the political polarization found in the US. Media cooperative is a fascinating model and can operate more independently due to the minimization of the agency dilemma. He wishes to incentivize creating more of them.

Electoral process
Evolutionary Socialism feels that corporations have too much power over the political process. He wants to restrict big money by setting an upper limit on the expenditures given to political campaigns. Additionally, he plans to create an independent electoral commission to draw boundaries and monitor elections properly.

Civil liberties
Evolutionary Socialism supports free speech, but he's not a free speech absolutist. According to the Paradox of Tolerance, if a society is tolerant without limit, eventually, the intolerant will destroy any semblance of tolerance. He doesn't support speech if it's defamation or incitement. If you try to damage someone's reputation for no good reason or encourage a person to hurt any group of people, you will be fined accordingly. Besides that, dissent is allowed as a way to spot any shortcomings to improve the system due to his pluralism.

Additionally, he fiercely defends peaceful protests (freedom of assembly.) As JFK puts it, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." There should always be an avenue for the public to reform the government to become better. He even supports riots if they're against the public institutions.

Restrictions
However, he thinks the riots against any other kind of property are mostly unjustified. Destruction of businesses can ruin the lives of many people who worked hard to build them.

He supports gun control because guns aren't often used for defense as most people think. Guns are only allowed for anyone from 18 years old or above, and universal background checks are employed. Less gun prevalence can reduce instances of violent crimes, like school shootings, for example.

With the release of vaccines, Evolutionary Socialism wouldn't necessarily make vaccines mandatory for everyone, but he will make it a requirement to travel and to participate in sports events. Tying vaccines to positive events will incentivize people to take them.

This ideology has a very controversial take on privacy. He allows placing surveillance cameras in public places to combat unlawful activities. A potential thief can be discouraged to steal when he sees the camera watching him in a store. But since this can be a violation of the right to privacy, he will use referendums for every new camera system. Because even if you have nothing to hide, you still have something to fear.

Best buddies
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Friends
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Frenemies
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Non-friends
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Enemies
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