Comment by Jensson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jensson | Hacker News Reader

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Sanders is far more left than any government in Europe. His reforms include giving 20% of every public/large company to workers, make 45% of company boards elected by workers, the government will instruct large companies what their long term plans must be and they are legally bound to follow those rather than the owners wishes, companies restructuring their organizations must give even more ownership to the workers who were laid off during the restructure etc.

Those things are much more radical than anything you see in Europe, he isn't left-liberal, he is about as far left you can go without being outright communist. Note that I myself support left-wing liberalism very much, I want public healthcare, strong separation between religion and state, free speech etc, that isn't what makes Sanders far left, it is all the other things he also wants to do.

Everything I mentioned here is all on his homepage: https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-an...

> make 45% of company boards elected by workers

This is already the case in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

Not 45%, no. Being a third and being 45% are very different in terms of power. A third means you have a voice but the other part still has twice the seats you have, 45% means you are basically equal to the other part.

Also, if it was just the 45% worker representation on boards and not the other things I'd consider him traditional left. It is a bit further than what you can find in Europe, but not overwhelmingly so, however all those combined is.

> The law allows workers to elect representatives (usually trade union representatives) for almost half of the supervisory board of directors. [..] It applies to public and private companies, so long as there are over 2,000 employees. For companies with 500–2,000 employees, one third of the supervisory board must be elected.

Ok, scratch that part. The other parts still stands. Also, Germany is relatively right wing in many other regards, cherry picking the most left wing part of every European country will still result in something far left of what you see anywhere in Europe.

I don't think most governments in Europe could be considered "left" at all, especially not right now, but most European countries have a quite healthy and significant presence of left-wing parties in their parliaments anyway, while in the US Sanders is on the very extreme end of what Democrats (who can't really be described as left-wing on the whole) have to offer already.

That doesn't apply to every European country though. I live in Poland, where left-wing parties have struggled to enter the parliament for many years now and the main fight happens between liberal right and far right. The US scene, although different in several important aspects, appears somewhat similar in this regard. We also have some individuals in the major liberal right party that could transfer into a left-wing party without raising too many eyebrows.

IIRC, Sanders specifically favors "socialism with Scandinavian characteristics".

I live in a Scandinavian country, we don't look at all like what Sanders proposes. We have high taxes and lots of benefits from the state, but we also don't have many regulations preventing businesses to run their company as they wish and we have plenty of billionaires. Sanders would be far left in my country, not just left.

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