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Comment by deusex_ | Hacker News Reader

There's a joke going on that the Pirate Party is the IT department of the communist party.

In general the trouble with Pirates is unpredictability. They are very socially liberal, but economically and geopolitically they attract a wide mix of opinions. The have a higher incidence of conspiration theorist, they have a strong anti-US base, and in general they avoid to address these topics since it cannot pass the internal voting that is part of their control structure. In communal politics it does not have so severe implications, so the biggest question is how fit he is managerial wise.

The new mayor was virtually unknown before the election, it's just a gamble at this moment and everybody is "let's wait and see, can't be worse than the previous arrogant mayor Krnacova from ANO"

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> There's a joke going on that the Pirate Party is the IT department of the communist party.

Yes, because in Eastern Europe, if you're even slightly left, or don't agree with U.S. on everything, you must be a communist.

Apparently from one block to the other.

As someone from that part of the world, I generally find it annoying that people automatically assume left == communist because of the Soviet past. As a result, we mostly have only right-wing or neoliberal type parties in Eastern Europe, because if you propose any sort of social democracy, you'd end up being attached to communism.

I view it as very unfortunate and simplistic. As in, communism didn't work out, let's run waaay to the right. Oh, right is bad? Let's run even further to the right, that outta fix it!

(Failing to realize that what you really dislike is authoritarianism, which these all share.)

How about a social democracy? The Scandinavian model? Market economy with strong social programs.

So you could start a business without being absolutely mortified about what'd happen if it fails, for example? How else is the overall standard of living supposed to improve over there? Corporate tax cuts and trickle-down economics has been tried, it doesn't work.

Social security is one thing, but the Czech Pirate Party doesn't want just that. Actually social security is not even on their current program, they have different leftist ideas they try to implement like governmental control of shared economy, housing, ...

So to answer your point, how do you start a business while being mortified whether you're breaking some law and whether what you're doing is even allowed at all, and whether you'll become unable to pay all the taxes and afford all the compliance required, and whether your business will become illegal next year (happened to many people here already, it's absolutely not an irrelevant fear - actually Airbnb is the livelihood of many people in Prague and the Pirate party essentially wants to destroy or at least very significantly impact their businesses)?

That's why we have the joke. Not because everything left is automatically bad - ČSSD was the leading party for many years as well as KDU-ČSL. There is no party that stands for the Nordic model.

And people don't like the USA here, btw.

However...

> (Failing to realize that what you really dislike is authoritarianism, which these all share.)

... completely agreed on that.

ČSSD as well as KDU-ČSL are very much centre/-right parties, which is what I meant by neoliberal. They're not left, they're part of the problem. This is like the Democrats in the U.S. They don't actually represent the left, they got co-opted by the same interests as the Rebuplicans + they don't hate gays, (great, but a low bar).

So in essence these sorts of parties are no different than the right ones, they stand for incrementalism+cronyism and because incrementalism doesn't work for many people they turn to the right as a result.

If you think to Bernie Sanders vs Hillary Clinton, parties like ČSSD and KDU-ČSL represent the Hillary type, but what you really need on the left is the Bernie, or even better, Jeremy Corbyn type of person/party.

I agree that corrupt bureaucracy is a problem, but breaking barriers to entry for small/medium businesses is on top of the left-wing agenda in parts of the world where real left actually is, that's why when you think of European startups, you think Scandinavia.

> There is no party that stands for the Nordic model.

That's because the Nordic model is a nuanced one and from my experience you get shouted at as if you're a communist if you ever mention it in Eastern Europe, mostly because people don't understand it, but it's hard to even make your case without getting attacked.

Communist, or Anarchist?

They are not anarchists, just leftists.

That is the thing. Nobody knows yet. So far from what I have actually seen in their actions, there are more along the lines of mild-mannered dreadlocked bureaucrats with technological-streak.

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