Progressive Socialist Party (Entropan)

Progressive Socialist Party Partio de Progresema Socialismo
Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party	Håkon Martinsen
Deputy Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party	Angela Rayner
General Chair of the Progressive Socialist Party	PLACEHOLDER
Leader of the Progressive Socialists in Uryho	PLACEHOLDER
Leader of the Progressive Socialists in Rockrsea	PLACEHOLDER
Founded	7 March 1972 (1972-03-07)
Preceded by	Progressive Party Socialist Party of Entropan Co-operative Party
Headquarters	Central Square, Maledonia
Youth wing	Young Progressives
LGBT wing	LGBT Progressives
Membership (2023)	1,982,314
Ideology	Democratic socialism Progressivism Libertarian socialism
Political position	Left to far-left
Affiliate party	Co-operative Party (Entropan) (Progressive and Co-operative Party)
Colours	Template:Colour box Dark red
Slogan	"For a brighter future" (2022)
Anthem	"The Progressive Cause"Template:Parabr
Governing	Democratic Assembly of the Progressive Socialists
Devolved or semi-autonomous branches	Maledonia Progressives Uryha Progressives Leintan Progressives Rockrsea Progressives
National Council group	Parliamentary Progressive Party (PPP)
National Council	41 / 108
Uryho Regional Council	29 / 92
Leinta Regional Council	45 / 156
Rockrsea Regional Council	38 / 144
Provincial Councils	1,259 / 3,180
City/Federate rural Councils	36,654 / 94,713
Police and Crime Commissioners	11 / 39
Website
progresemasocialismoj.en

The Progressive Socialist Party is a political party in Entropan that has been described as an alliance of democratic socialists and the Entropanian co-operative movement. The Progressive Socialist Party have been described as sitting on the left of the political spectrum, with certain factions such as the Red Socialists being described as far-left. Since its formation in 1972, the Progressive Socialists have been in the governing party or opposition in the Entropanian Parliament, or the National Council, seven times, usually in coalition with the Social Liberal Party, the Green Party, or the Social Democratic Party. The Progressive Socialist Party have had one Foreign Delegate, that being Håkon Martinsen, who ascended after the 2021 general election. It is currently the governing party of Entropan.

The Progressive Socialist Party has a unique party structure, with the party having a governing body consistent of all the fee-paying members of the party, which votes on party policy and other such party-wide decisions, with all members being able to submit policy either online or at the quarterly held Progressive Socialist Conferences.

The Progressive Socialist Party was founded in 1972, as an outgrowth of the budding co-operative movement in Entropan, and to unify the Progressive Party, the Socialist Party, and the Co-operative Party, although the Co-operative Party lived on, only being linked to the Progressive Socialists electorally. Its first time in Government was in 1980, where, despite the party only holding 26 of the 600 seats in Parliament, they were made a crucial part of the second Holsen Ministry, with several members getting Cabinet positions. After Holsen's resignation in 1992 and the ascension of the 'New Left' in the Social Democratic Party, the Progressive Socialist Party detached from the Social Democrats and lived on as part of the Second Opposition with the Green Party, until the 2013 ascension of Agapeta Larsen to Leadership of the Social Democratic Party, where the Progressive Socialists joined the 2016 Coalition government. The rise of 'participatory socialist' thought in the Progressive Socialist Party, along with a large co-operative movement and the rise of linked organisations such as the Participatory Movement, saw the Progressive Socialists ascend to become the Governing party in 2020, for the first time.

History

Origins and the Co-operative Movement

The Progressive Socialist Party has its origins in the Entropanian co-operative movement. The rise of co-operatism, the idea of the slow replacement of traditional corporations with worker and consumer co-operatives, was rising towards the end of the 1960s in Entropan, with many co-operatives forming, including Vernier Seafood, which grew to become the largest seafood corporation in Entropan by 1969, and Entropanian branches opened of Co-operatives Tirol, which quickly became dominant in market commerce. By 1970, over 2,132 worker and consumer co-operatives were registered within Entropan. Many groups emerged to represent the interests of the co-operative movement and the ideological attitude of co-operatism, including the Progressive Party, which represented a soft and reformist co-operatist attitude, endorsed by the largest co-operatives, the Socialist Party, which represented a hard and ideological co-operatism that was endorsed by smaller co-operatives, and the Co-operative Party, which represented a combination of the "hard" and "soft" forms of co-operatism.

In the 1968 general election, these parties gained 4 members of Parliament in total, after running 31. This prompted discussions among the leaders of each party, as well as major consumer and worker co-operatives, about how the movement could improve its luck electorally. One suggestion, made at a meeting between the leaders of each body, was to "create a unified front", merging the parties and acting as one group electorally and structurally, with ideological wings for those with differing views. Rounds of negotiations followed, and eventually, on the 7th of March 1972, after votes within each body by members to confirm, the groups formed as a single electoral body, registering with the Party Commission as the Progressive Socialist Party, with the Co-operative Party remaining a separate group, but electorally being unified with the Progressive Socialists.

1976 general election

The 1976 general election was the first time that the Progressive Socialist Party ran candidates. It ran 83 candidates in total for Parliament, and ran the party's leader, Anders Pedersen, for Prime Minister. In the election, the Progressive Socialist Party spent over ƒ300,000 (₵580,000 as of 2023) on election campaigning, including campaigns wherein workers willing to do so at certain co-operatives would be paid to go canvassing or hand out leaflets in support of the party.

Overall, the Progressive Socialist Party, electorally combined with the Co-operative Party, won 8.63% of the vote, and got 31 MPs in Parliament. Over the next 4 years, they would form the Second Opposition in Parliament, alongside the Rockr National Party, although after the Leader of the Social Democratic Party, Curtnaš Näkkäläjärvi, resigned as a the result of the findings of a Parliamentary inquiry into the Newgate scandal, the Progressive Socialists trended in line with the new leader of the Social Democratic Party, Aqquala Holsen.

1980 general election, and membership of the First and Second Holsen Ministries

In the 1980 general election, the Progressive Socialist Party ran 71 candidates for Parliament, and, despite spending more money (ƒ1,200,000, or ₵2,320,000), only gained 26 Members of Parliament, and 7.31% of the vote. Despite their small margins, several talks with Social Democratic leader Aqquala Holsen resulted in the Progressive Socialists being admitted into the coalition of the First Holsen Ministry. The Progressive Socialists became a central part of the Second Holsen Ministry, with Ovllá Rástoš becoming the Minister of Labour in 1981, and Aputsiaq Aros becoming the Minister of the Economy in 1983. The largest accomplishment of the Progressive Socialists while in the First Holsen Ministry was the passing of the New Housing Act in 1982, which began the construction of over 1,000,000 municipal houses for rental to low paid workers and the homeless. Legislation regarding targeting unemployment with public works programs, the expansion of education and healthcare funding, and parts of the Omnibus Freedoms and Liberties Act, were also passed.

In the 1984 general election, the Progressive Socialist Party ran 129 candiates, and managed to get 51 Members of Parliament and 12.08% of the vote, beating out the Green Party to become the third largest party in Parliament. While in the Second Holsen Ministry, Progressive Socialists continued to have a large influence on legislation of the Government, including, most significantly, the Co-operative Economy Bill 1986, which implemented some of the major election promises of the Progressive Socialists, being the preferable treatment of worker and consumer co-operatives in loans, and the slashing of corporation tax for these entities.

The popularity of the Progressive Socialists spiked after the 1988 Bieraš Park bombing, wherein the far-right group Entropanian Institute for Justice targeted several members of the Holsen Cabinet, including Holsen himself, the Vice Minister, and the two Progressive Socialists in the Cabinet, those being the Minister of the Economy Aputsiaq Aros and the Minister of Labour Ovllá Rástoš for an assassination, utilising bounding mines hooked together at the top of stairways that led out from Bieraš Park, set to be activated as the Cabinet were exiting from the park after commemorating the 81st anniversary of the 1907 Entropanian general strike at the Tower of Labour. The Progressive Socialist Minister of the Economy, Aputsiaq Aros, was injured by the explosion, and the Progressive Socialist Minister of Labour, Ovllá Rástoš, was killed by the explosion.

This caused a spike in the popularity of the

Ideology

The Progressive Socialist Party is a left to far-left party. It was formed to provide political representation to democratic socialists and the co-operative movement. Underlining the entire party is the ideology of co-operatism, a socialist political ideology that advocates for the replacement of traditional firms with hierarchical structures with worker and consumer co-operatives with internal democratic structures.

Influenced by interventionist and libertarian socialist economics, the party favours government intervention in the economy, expansion of governmental programs including public works and education, and is in favour of the utilisation of taxation to redistribute incomes. A core policy tenet of the Progressive Socialist Party is also making favourable laws for worker and consumer co-operatives, using a combination of direct government influence (examples including the establishment of the Ministry of Economic Democracy in 2022) and incentive structures (examples including reducing taxation on worker co-operatives while increasing taxation on traditional forms, and implementing favourable loan arrangements for co-operative startups), however, as the percentage of co-operatives in Entropan have risen in the past decade to them constituting nearly 83% of all firms, the shift in policy from the party has gone towards the creation of government programs instead of the promotion of co-operatives.

A major rising ideology in the party is that of participatory socialism, influenced by libertarian socialist economist Micho Visejo, which favours a radical reshaping of the economy to a democratically-planned socialist one in which, instead of economic activity being determined by the market, economic activity would be determined by varying worker and consumer councils, which would send requests for collective and individual consumption and usage of capital goods based on individual and collective income, and collective production, and continue to do so until an annual plan is converged upon, mediated by Iteration Facilitation Boards to comment on the feasibility of requests and to give updated prices. Other parts of participatory socialism include the reshaping of jobs to equally distribute work that is 'onerous', and work that is 'uplifting', and distributing income based on 'time, effort, and personal sacrifice', as well as all companies having internal democracy to determine decision-making. This ideology, linked to the extra-governmental group Participatory Movement, has risen in recent years, with the leader of the Participatory Movement, Håkon Martinsen, currently being the Foreign Delegate of Entropan, and so some of its initiatives, including the idea of participatory polity, have been majorly influential in current Progressive Socialist governance.

Internal Factions

In the party, there are internal divisions, represented by differing factions of the Party, with their own extra-councilor linked groups.

Faction		Founded	Political position	Ideology	Leader	Membership
	Participatory Movement	2014	Left	Participatory socialism Liberal socialism	Håkon Martinsen	684,132
	Co-operative Party	1965	Centre-left to left	Hard co-operatism Progressivism	Angela Rayner	413,721
	Union of Progressives	1978	Centre to centre-left	Soft co-operatism Pragmatism Progressivism	PLACEHOLDER	408,312
	Red Socialists	1978	Far-left	Socialism Anti-reformism	PLACEHOLDER	104,819
	The Progressives	2004	Centre-left	Progressivism Soft co-operatism	PLACEHOLDER	101,314