The Occupy Wall Street crowd is criticized for not offering an alternative to the capitalism that it says has failed. Maybe they should take the platform of Germany’s Die Linke (The Leftist) Party. It seems to suit their protest signs.
Die Linke’s base consists of young radicals and true-believer former members of the East German communist party. Its top leaders broke with the mainstream Social Democratic Party for having forgotten its Marxist roots.
As a minor party, Die Linke’s goal is to win enough votes to enter the German parliament and do well in local and state elections. Their platform rules out participation in coalition governments. It is therefore an electoral party that can be fairly open about its anti-capitalist agenda. It only has to win about five percent of the votes nationally to be a success.
