Neo-Piratism (Neo-Korsancılık) is a work-in-progress doctrine that defines several pirate values initiated by Tan Siret Akıncı, former general secretary and current co-president of Pirate Party Turkey. The doctrine got solidified and accepted by PPTR in the I. Pirate Party Congress held on 15 August 2021. It was called "Tan Doctrine" before getting its new name on an assembly meeting of PPTR.
The Pirate Values
The pirate values in Neo-Piratism are the following:
- Propagation of classical pirate views like reforming/eliminating copyright and patent laws, supporting transparency and digital freedoms.
- Unlimited free speech/expression and right to self-determination in the party and the government under a civil libertarian constitution.
- Decentralization and direct democracy sustained by free open source blockchain technologies.
- Establishing a free market economic democracy and evolution towards gift economy by supporting cooperative and indie development models
Crticism of Pirate Codex
While Neo-Piratism accepts the values in the Pirate Codex as genuine pirate values, they are seen too general and not enough at all for a real political organization that is required to represent particular socioeconomic and domestic policies. For example, its not enough for a party to define itself as "fair-minded", which is a very general and naive identification that can be used by any political party regardless its orientation. According to Neo-Piratism, the Pirate Codex should adhere to at least big tent libertarian values.
Governance of Pirate Party
According to Neo-Piratism, a pirate party must have separation of power in its governance and a strong administrative structure to sustain the pirate values. In the constitution of Pirate Party Turkey, the roles of general secretary and president are extended on a cooperative manner to secure the status-quo within the party while balancing each other.
For the security and continuity of the party, a pirate party administration should set a clear example to the party members and symphatizers while allowing everyone to get involved in the organization rather than closing itself to other people by fear of securing pirate parties. The Pirate Parties implementing isolationism and collective leadership generally have very weak governance and complicated bureaucracy.
Factionalism
Neo-Piratism suggests that the pirate parties allow factions within, which would enable a better grassroots political environment for discussion of policies while securing the status-quo party administration by making any opposition transparent and accountable.
Democracy
Neo-Piratism supports direct democracy within the party by allowing unlimited free speech in the pirate community groups (which plays an important role at seeing people's demands and being accountable to them as party leaders) and adoption of democracy software that makes referendums easier.
Positive Strongmanship
Neo-Piratism is in favor of a positive strongman theory, that a person who can overcome hardships faced by the party and its subordinates should be nominated for higher positions by the party administration, naturally rewarding their merit and hardwork. It shouldn't be mixed with meritocracy as there is still the democratic process of decision making within the party.
Identity Politics
While being in support of unlimited personal freedoms and progressivism, a Pirate Party should be against to the identity politics as it pushes the party to authoritarianism and outside of main Pirate Values. As a response to the main way of progressive policies set to support identities, Neo-Piratism suggests supporting freedom only, which enables everyone to have rights in the community. This policy is initially named Liberty First, where personal freedoms are said to be the only solution to identity crisis.
Economy
Neo-Piratism is in favor of big-tent libertarianism, thus supports less to very little government involvement in trade. Its not capitalist neither, not supporting big companies to own most of the capital. The economic policy of Neo-Piratism can be determined as left libertarian, where worker cooperatives (which are seen to be more effective than corporations) are encouraged in a free market economy.
Neo-Piratism also emphasizes the gift economy in long term, where exchange of valuables are not sold but done on a non-profit voluntary basis. Best example of gift economy can be free and open source software development, where the incentive is not profit but development of the product and even the process of enjoyment itself, where alienation of labor is not a thing.
