Why Not Vote?

[The Young Pioneer]

I've seen a lot of talk here about how pointless voting is.

And don't get me wrong, I've only voted in one election in my life (a national one, which in my opinion didn't get counted- Obama was announced "winner" before my state's vote was even tallied. That made me especially irate considering I'd been wearing the "MY VOTE COUNTED!" sticker all day.).

But why are some people here so adamantly against voting? If I were ever to say I don't vote, my liberal and conservative friends alike would jab at me, "You have no room to complain, if you didn't make your voice heard!" I need an intelligent response to such accusations. I used to be one of those people hollering that at non-voters, and after getting a lot of crap from Europeans when I lived overseas about not voting in my local elections I started to wonder if I should be even more concerned with voting. So, thoughts?

TIA.

[bcbm]

But why are some people here so adamantly against voting? If I were ever to say I don't vote, my liberal and conservative friends alike would jab at me, "You have no room to complain, if you didn't make your voice heard!" I need an intelligent response to such accusations

its the ones who vote who have no right to complain; by voting they are legitimizing a corrupt and broken system that serves the interests of an extremely tiny minority at the expense of everyone else. not voting expresses contempt and rejection for this system and refuses to allow our options to be constrained by a rigged system

[Aspiring Humanist]

the american political process forces us to pick between two very similar candidates who differ on whatever political fad is going around, but they (for the most part) are similar in the things that are most important, private property, imperialism, queer rights, labor rights etc, effectively removing our supposed "freedom of choice". the truth is your vote does not matter because things will stay the same no matter who wins (exceptions in very rare cases) and of course, perhaps most importantly, you do not vote for the president. you vote for someone who votes for the president. this electoral college bullshit is not democracy (evident in 2000 election where al gore won the popular vote but lost the election)
also the system is probably rigged anyway

[Decolonize The Left]

I've seen a lot of talk here about how pointless voting is.

And don't get me wrong, I've only voted in one election in my life (a national one, which in my opinion didn't get counted- Obama was announced "winner" before my state's vote was even tallied. That made me especially irate considering I'd been wearing the "MY VOTE COUNTED!" sticker all day.).

But why are some people here so adamantly against voting? If I were ever to say I don't vote, my liberal and conservative friends alike would jab at me, "You have no room to complain, if you didn't make your voice heard!" I need an intelligent response to such accusations. I used to be one of those people hollering that at non-voters, and after getting a lot of crap from Europeans when I lived overseas about not voting in my local elections I started to wonder if I should be even more concerned with voting. So, thoughts?

TIA.

xIraCchPDhk

It's a great rant, but at about 2:00 he answers your questions.

- August

[Tim Cornelis]

You are giving your voice to an unaccountable representative.

[RedZero]

But why are some people here so adamantly against voting? If I were ever to say I don't vote, my liberal and conservative friends alike would jab at me, "You have no room to complain, if you didn't make your voice heard!" I need an intelligent response to such accusations.

edit: oops, I see August beat me to it and had the same thing in mind. :p Sorry. I posted without scrolling down.
Skip to 1:40, or enjoy the entire video:

xIraCchPDhk

[Tovarisch]

Voting is not bad in general, it's only that voting in Capitalist countries is bad. You're voting for almost the same candidate every time, it's as if there is no choice at all. The people have the right to choose their leader. In Socialist countries there would actually be diversity, you can vote for some billionaire aristocrat, or you can vote for who you really think will do the best for the country. In Capitalist countries you are just choosing between billionaire aristocrats

[Parvati]

I would say it's not a coincidence if it is your conservative and liberal friends who said that...
Anyway, this is the blog we've created for the last election in Canada (we called to boycott it). It's not complete for sure, but it can help

[blake 3:17]

To respond to the OP, voting or not voting can be a tactical or strategic position. I don't vote in advance polls, on principle, because I only make my decision when an election is actually happening.

I'm in Canada, where we have a social democratic party with institutional ties to the labour movement, called the NDP and I usually vote for the NDP candidate. I once voted for an NDPer and an indepedent candidate got in, and it turned out to be a good thing. I have abstained twice, spoiled my ballot once, and vote Green on one occasion. I came close to voting for a bourgeois party once, but chose instead to abstain.

bcbm:
its the ones who vote who have no right to complain; by voting they are legitimizing a corrupt and broken system that serves the interests of an extremely tiny minority at the expense of everyone else. not voting expresses contempt and rejection for this system and refuses to allow our options to be constrained by a rigged system No. The system is totally rigged in favour of the already powerful. The last two times I voted it was a vote for public services and defence of basic civil liberties and workers rights. The time before I voted for a centrist NDPer but there was also a referendum on electoral reform towards a pretty good system of proportional representation. The reform I voted for was for MMP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation

The best resource and history book on US electoral politics and how terrible the system is and why it got that way, is Piven and Cloward's Why American's Don't Vote. If people want to read it and don't have access PM me and I'll see what I can do.

[Renegade Saint]

There's good arguments both for and against voting in a capitalist state, the best argument for going to the polls is ballot initiatives. It's one of the few times we actually get to decide without bought and sold hacks getting in the middle. Of course the lead-up is dominated by monied interests that skew the results to their benefit, but here in Ohio there were a number of important things on the ballot that we got to vote on directly-SB5 being the biggest.

[Prometeo liberado]

Voting is not bad in general, it's only that voting in Capitalist countries is bad. You're voting for almost the same candidate every time, it's as if there is no choice at all. The people have the right to choose their leader. In Socialist countries there would actually be diversity, you can vote for some billionaire aristocrat, or you can vote for who you really think will do the best for the country. In Capitalist countries you are just choosing between billionaire aristocrats

If this is what you expect Socialism to look like after struggling so hard for for so long then why bother?

[CynicalIdealist]

The real question should be why vote?

[Klaatu]

In my state of Michigan, in 1978, the was a voter referendum to raise the drinking age to 21 (I voted NO)

In the year following the new law, one 19-year old co-worker was *****ing up a storm about the new drinking age. I asked if he voted against it; he replied "no I did not vote at all."

Since I did not turn 21 until April 1979 (three months after the law took effect) I could not drink for three months (after having legally drunk for the previous three years! Nuts to that... I bought 20 CASES of beer, wholesale, in Dec 1978 and was good to go, at least until April :cool:

[~Spectre]

Voting is like punching somebody in the face. It's not always wrong to punch somebody in the face, it's just usually a bad solution.

[X5N]

I dislike the whole "if you don't vote, then you have no right to complain" line of thinking. Your voice isn't really heard when you vote. It's only heard if you vote with the right mob, at least in FPTP systems.

However, I'm not entirely against voting. I just dislike all the myths about democracy -- like the one I listed above, and the whole notion that majoritarian democracy is truly fair.

[Ostrinski]

Meh. I'll vote, if just for the hell of it. As has already been stated, whether or not you vote makes no difference.

[Die Neue Zeit]

If I were ever to say I don't vote, my liberal and conservative friends alike would jab at me, "You have no room to complain, if you didn't make your voice heard!" I need an intelligent response to such accusations.

And those friends of yours are correct, but only if you don't even consider options like spoiling your vote where possible. There are constructive alternatives to pure abstention.

[pluckedflowers]

I've increasingly come to regard the treatment of voting as some necessarily counter-revolutionary act as a rather ironic inversion of the esteem accorded to it in liberalism. We can all be clear on the fact that you can't vote capitalism out of existence or vote socialism into existence. But there are differences between parties/candidates. I mean, I despise the democrats as much as the next leftist, but when there are people like Santorum and Gingrich out there, I find it hard to justify telling lgbt people or women, "Hey, there's really no difference between Obama and those other guys." There is a difference, and it's one that is of significant importance to the lives of most people in the US. So as leftists, we either need to create such a strong movement that we can assure the people who will be affected by the backwardness of the Republicans that we won't let their rights be damaged in any way, or we need to reconsider the dogmatic rejection of voting.

Of course, there is also the problem that the latter position ultimately hands democrats carte blanche to carry out whatever anti-working class policies they want just so long as they don't push the blatant religious fascism the right is offering. What's the solution? I don't know. I think admitting there's a real dilemma is a start, though.

[thriller]

Saying one has no right to complain if they don't vote is like telling homeless people they have no right to complain when offered the choice between a bowl of piss or a bowl of puke to eat.
I vote, others don't. And I don't care either way. What's important to me is to illustrate to those who vote that they are not changing a damn thing. Just look at Obama. All the liberals come out of the woodwork saying Obama will increase civil liberties and end the Bush era government encroachment. Obviously, this is not the case. Speaking from a local standpoint, Walker got forced into a recall election, yay! EXCEPT, that his democratic opponent is Kathleen Falk, who is a lying POS. Cool Walkers may not be office! But fuck, Kathleen Falk may be in office!
Another point is that the system will never let a politician be elected and change the system. Look at the Hayes Act of 1939 that declares no known CP member can ever hold a federal job (including elected office). That piece of legislation alone should be enough to show that the government will change the rules every chance they get in order to keep the status quo. After all, what good is a law if you can't rewrite it?

[PhoenixAsh]

There are several good reasons not to vote. My personal favorite is that voting itself and the resulting voter turn out give legitimacy to the system of hierarchy by sheer numbers.
The lower the voter turnout the lower the legitimacy of the government and of the system.

However...

There is something you have to keep into account:

A two/three party system is not the same as a system which houses 15+ parties.

Voting in a multi party system can actually make sense especially considering some alternatives. I rather have a radical social democrat make policy than a crypto fascist populist. And a good spread in parliament can render government pretty much impotent or requires bills and plans to be watered down in amendments and changes which can kill their intended effectiveness. A minority government can not effectively govern which will increase polarisation in the political spectrum.

My personal idea is that I vote in local elections where I know the candidates, know their positions and know what they will do and what kind of person they are. I draw bunnies and write poetry on my ballot in the national and provincial elections.

[Sixiang]

Voting is not bad in general, it's only that voting in Capitalist countries is bad. You're voting for almost the same candidate every time, it's as if there is no choice at all. The people have the right to choose their leader. In Socialist countries there would actually be diversity, you can vote for some billionaire aristocrat, or you can vote for who you really think will do the best for the country. In Capitalist countries you are just choosing between billionaire aristocrats
I would hope that we prevent those billionaire aristrocrats from even running for public office in the first place in a socialist country.


In my state of Michigan, in 1978, the was a voter referendum to raise the drinking age to 21 (I voted NO)

In the year following the new law, one 19-year old co-worker was *****ing up a storm about the new drinking age. I asked if he voted against it; he replied "no I did not vote at all."

Since I did not turn 21 until April 1979 (three months after the law took effect) I could not drink for three months (after having legally drunk for the previous three years! Nuts to that... I bought 20 CASES of beer, wholesale, in Dec 1978 and was good to go, at least until April :cool:
My mom did the same thing back then. She was 18 and had been drinking for a few months.

Here's the thing about voting. I think Marx said somewhere that every so often the proletariat gets to choose who will be oppressing him for the next few years (I can't find the source at the moment). I keep that in mind. Voting takes like 10 minutes if that. I'll do it. I still know and recognize that this won't bring about socialism or communism. I still believe in revolution. But I guess voting for the SPUSA or the Green Party is a way of showing that not everyone supports the Republicans and Democrats and that there still are socialists in the U.S. I don't expect them to win. It's more of a statement, I suppose.

[pluckedflowers]

I would hope that we prevent those billionaire aristrocrats from even running for public office in the first place in a socialist country.


I would hope billionaire aristocrats wouldn't exist in the first place in a socialist country.

[Firebrand]

I think that while voting doesn't change anything in itself, if the left doesn't vote then the assumption will be that the right is the majority opinion, and thats demoralising for leftists across the country. For instance I vote labour mainly to try and prove that the majority of the population doesn't support the tories. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean the tories won't take power anyway. All they have to do is jump in bed with the lib-dems. Proving that we do not live in a democracy.

[blake 3:17]

If I'd been in the US during the last presidential election, I would have voted Green most likely, but may have voted Obama at the last minute.

Anybody know the quote from Lenin about the masses only becoming revolutionary when bourgeois democratic means are exhausted? To be clear, I don't support the position because it was Lenin's, I think there is truth in it.

We're constantly struggling for reforms. The way we should do that is win them, and keep fighting for socialist democracy or lose them and keep fighting for socialist democracy. We do have to take account of what happened and how people feel about it.

[Bronco]

In my state of Michigan, in 1978, the was a voter referendum to raise the drinking age to 21 (I voted NO)

In the year following the new law, one 19-year old co-worker was *****ing up a storm about the new drinking age. I asked if he voted against it; he replied "no I did not vote at all."

Since I did not turn 21 until April 1979 (three months after the law took effect) I could not drink for three months (after having legally drunk for the previous three years! Nuts to that... I bought 20 CASES of beer, wholesale, in Dec 1978 and was good to go, at least until April :cool:

In situations like this I think it's alright to vote, I'd sure as hell vote No if they ever tried to increase the drinking age to 21 in the UK (I know they wouldn't)

Although with national and parliamentary elections I don't think I'll vote because it's just a way of propping up and reinforcing the hierarchical state, and you won't ever find the solutions we need from ticking a box on a ballot paper

[Klaatu]

Some people have said that their vote does not matter. In a representative democracy, that viewpoint has some merit, but in a direct democracy (referendum) an individual's vote certainly does matter.

[thriller]

I just remember a Debs quote: "How can we expect the workers to aim with bullets when they can't even aim with their ballots?" Always found that quote interesting. One of buddy's always says he feels like if he doesn't vote he's slapping others in the face who can't vote.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I am generally against Democracy as practiced here in the US, and I had planned on not voting at all in the last election, but was eventually swayed by the prospect of defeating Senate Bill 5, which was an anti-union bill here in Ohio. I left everything else on the ballot blank, but some Leftists I knew considered even this to be some sort of retreat into liberalism. If in special circumstances we have a realistic chance to defend the working class in elections I think we should take that opportunity, even if the process itself and the system it gives legitimacy to is repugnant to us.

[Klaatu]

I am generally against Democracy as practiced here in the US, and I had planned on not voting at all in the last election, but was eventually swayed by the prospect of defeating Senate Bill 5, which was an anti-union bill here in Ohio. I left everything else on the ballot blank, but some Leftists I knew considered even this to be some sort of retreat into liberalism. If in special circumstances we have a realistic chance to defend the working class in elections I think we should take that opportunity, even if the process itself and the system it gives legitimacy to is repugnant to us.

It is perfectly OK to leave everything else on your ballot blank. If you just vote for or against an issue which is important to you, then you have done a great service to the oppressed (as you said, the anti-union bill)

Others on this site have blasted me for "going along with the bourgeois system," but what else to do right now? The Socialist Revolution is not going to happen next week. The union is in trouble now. Voting, strikes, demontrations, etc are what we can do right now.

[Klaatu]

I would hope that we prevent those billionaire aristrocrats from even running for public office in the first place in a socialist country.

IMHO, I think there would be NO rich and NO poor people at all in a Socialist country. Everyone earns a wage, and people are paid at a level according to their intrinsic value to society. There is no unemployment, because if you have no job, The State will give you a job. Most importantly, there are no rich people, because no one has a right to siphon the wealth of an entire society toward themselves.

[#FF0000]

because you can't vote capitalism away.

p. much that simple

all parties are equally opposed to your aims and goals so why support them?

[GPDP]

I can't vote anyway, so the issue is pretty much moot to me.

IMO, the only things worth voting for are referendums and such, not so much bourgeois politicians.

[cb9's_unity]

The whole "it legitimizes the system" thing is a pretty week one. This isn't a perfect analogy, but it's sort of like saying that paying the rent is supporting the capitalist system. My point is that any engagement with a system does not necessarily legitimize it.

Socialist revolution is impossible without engagement with capitalist institutions. In fact, it is the imperative of the socialist movement to subvert those institutions or show them to be a mockery. Most Americans (I have no idea if my analysis is right for other countries) have very little conception of what meaningful political action is outside of the poll booth. The Occupy movements provides hope that this sort of thinking can be eventually overcome, but it also illustrates how even the relatively progressive elements of the American public have no idea how to expand a movement without focusing on an election.

Perhaps a problem with many socialist electoral campaigns is that they don't emphasize enough the the sham that the elections are. They need to emphasize that a vote on a socialist party isn't a waste simply because a vote for a bourgeois party is one. This isn't a grand or inspiring thing to include in a platform, but class consciousness starts with discontent before it develops a real political character.

Americans are extremely discontented with the electoral system. Thus it is more logical to start with it than to avoid it.

[blake 3:17]

Great post cb9! Thanks!


Most Americans (I have no idea if my analysis is right for other countries) have very little conception of what meaningful political action is outside of the poll booth. The Occupy movements provides hope that this sort of thinking can be eventually overcome, but it also illustrates how even the relatively progressive elements of the American public have no idea how to expand a movement without focusing on an election.

In liberal democracies the most conception of politics is that it happens in legislatures, parliaments, and so on.

I've been doing work on a fairly specific issue -- public transit -- and we've been doing very bottom up kinds of community organizing. What I've found most striking, and I think the people we're talking to (ie people riding public transit) is that we're asking people to take part in a major social policy position. It's one in their immediate material interests, but being asked it totally takes people aback.

Purism on this issue makes no sense. I put no faith in electoralism, a bit of faith in a few elected politicians, but to totally neglect or ignore elections or representative democracy is as much a dead end as putting complete faith in them.

In English Canada we have a moderate social democratic party, the NDP, which I usually support except when it is too painful. If I were in Quebec I would join Quebec Solidaire in an instant. It is imperfect but a big step in the left direction http://www.quebecsolidaire.net/our-history

I am interested in alternative models of how to use the role of 'being elected'. If elected, rather than sit in an undemocratic parliament or congress, why not use the resources to do community or issue based work? Use the microphone, not to talk to your fellow elected but to the masses. Use the status that being elected brings to aid social and labour movements.

The main socialist and anarchist writings on the subject come from a hundred years or more ago. It's 2012.

There are huge fights happening right now in Toronto. The role of certain left city councilors has been massive in turning the tide against the right wing mayor. The best of them say -- Go do it! Don't do it through me, build your grassroots groups and campaigns! They recognize they only have a certain number of votes and they're in the minority, but we've won a number of substantive issues in direct defiance of the executive.

A few years ago, the Sparts put out a position paper that they wouldn't assume executive office. The big joke about that is when has a Spart been elected to anything? They worried suddenly the Dems or Labour Party will collapse and one of them will have to be President or Prime Minister?

[cb9's_unity]

I am interested in alternative models of how to use the role of 'being elected'. If elected, rather than sit in an undemocratic parliament or congress, why not use the resources to do community or issue based work? Use the microphone, not to talk to your fellow elected but to the masses. Use the status that being elected brings to aid social and labour movements.

While this is a theoretical issue, it is important to at least develop an answer. You certainly make some valid points, but the socialist parties would actually do well to proclaim to be democratic agents within the undemocratic legislatures. The working class would certainly have a powerful weapon in a legislator who could tell the public exactly how legislation is being made, or, more likely, to show just how uncooperative the bourgeois legislators would be. If somehow any genuine revolutionary socialist could get elected to any position above the municipal level we could certainly propose some bills that would be embarrassing for the other parties to reject or stall. If this was done intelligently the people would see just how anti-worker the major parties are.

My difference is that I would be unwilling to support any social democratic groups seriously. Reform must always be looked at as a tool rather than a goal.

[blake 3:17]

I think we're mostly agreeing. I came close to joining the federalist NDP, under Layton, who was very very good on Iraq, Quebec and feminism. He doubled the party membership, largely through a couple of independent Left movements but also complete opposition to the war in Iraq.

Anyways, he died, and the party's fucked, and I don't especially care about the latter. I did attend a few hours of the funeral.

I'm not sure what you're criticizing me on about social democracy or social democratic groups. The groups I work with and support on a local basis are the kind of the left of the left.

I see a lot of value in certain forms of radical reformism. Has the US produced a better political leader than Martin Luther King?

[cb9's_unity]

I wasn't criticizing you at all, just stating my own approach. You know your area's politics better than I do.

However, I'm distrustful of reformism. King was certainly a great leader, and an undoubtedly a successful one, but civil rights and socialism are not identical (despite sharing common ground). A successful socialist movement has to very clearly and carefully identify itself as something which only exists to bring an end to capitalism and a start to workers democracy. Reform as a means can be used as a measure in which the working class can see its strength, but as an end it only cements a bourgeois worldview into the working class. For King civil rights were the ends, and his tactics were crafted with that in mind. We need to place socialism as an ends, realizing the tactics will likely be very different.

[Prometeo liberado]

I like bunnies.

[MotherCossack]

I like bunnies.

ahhhhhh!
you are so cuute!!
but..what... hey... its ok...i'm mad too!.

[MotherCossack]

oh- !-my- !- god-!
shit... we have to do something!
(unless we are bourgeois and comfy and dont need any change
and secretly only like the idea of revolution and change.
maybe we used to want change...
but, of late have found all this jaded capitalism works for us.
maybe the thought of a violent struggle [or even peaceful-ha!-]is a bit of a pain.
and the odd grumble and diverting little vocal joust is all we really want?)
well, for me... i have to do something and if voting is all that there is
i'll take it until you lot with your superior attitude organise something else..
cos i have to have some way to say no. NO!. NOOO!!! i dont want this!!

[MotherCossack]

oops... sorry lost it a bit there...
dont mind me... i'm english, can get a bit ruffled, now and again...
it is fun though!

[workersadvocate]

What about independent working people' democratic mass organizations...why not build those in every workplace, every workingclass neighborhood, and in every school where numbers of working class people or youth from to working class attend.

Build that, and we'd certainly not need to fuck around desperstely voting in bourgeois elections anymore. Instead, we would do our voting in the institutions of our self-actualized workers' republic, readying to overthrow and replace capitalism.

When we go to vote in bourgeois elections, we are saying that we must depend on the institutions of our class enemies, we are saying we have no class confidence and no class solidarity and no class independence ourselves. Shit, in America, even most of the existing unions are sellout business unions acting like dues extortion agencies and another layer of management to police the workplaces. We're not gonna ever even build an independent mass labor party on that basis, folks...wake up!
We working people are entirely on our own. We must start from that point, and rebuild, reorganize, reoccupy, represent ourselves alone from below, resist and revolt! Turn to the working class and our own independent potential power! If we want to overthrow the system of the 33%, we'd better get busy educating, organizing, and agitating within the working class 67% and stop fucking off chasing class enemy politicos in the class enemies' system seeking bogus reforms. We need to decisively win a class war where winning class takes all...then we'll impose the systematic change we really need through our own workers' republic based on workplace and working class mass organizations.
Everytime we go into a ballot box to vote for any of the class enemy options, we are actually saying that the working class itself, through its own independent potential power, isn't capable of actualizing revolutionary systematic change and we're not going to do anything serious about it!

[Die Neue Zeit]

What about independent working people' democratic mass organizations...why not build those in every workplace, every workingclass neighborhood, and in every school where numbers of working class people or youth from to working class attend.

Build that, and we'd certainly not need to fuck around desperstely voting in bourgeois elections anymore. Instead, we would do our voting in the institutions of our self-actualized workers' republic, readying to overthrow and replace capitalism.

Comrade, despite the stubborness of ad-hoc-councilists, this follows the SPD model and is called the Party-Movement. It's better to internalize the workers councils as direct party organs from the get-go than to see the ad hoc equivalents become grossly ineffective on their own (http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html?p=2272215).

OTOH, there would still be use for mass spoilage and mass spoilage campaigns to send a message. Abstention would still be ineffective.

[Klaatu]

The whole "it legitimizes the system" thing is a pretty week one. This isn't a perfect analogy, but it's sort of like saying that paying the rent is supporting the capitalist system. My point is that any engagement with a system does not necessarily legitimize it.


It's like driving down a very beat-up bumpy road. You are not "in favor of bumpy roads" just
because you MUST travel down one to get to work everyday, and that is the ONLY possible route.

[cb9's_unity]

Everytime we go into a ballot box to vote for any of the class enemy options, we are actually saying that the working class itself, through its own independent potential power, isn't capable of actualizing revolutionary systematic change and we're not going to do anything serious about it!

You have no right to tell me, or anybody else, what I am saying when I go to the ballot box. The working class can analyze its own goals and its own position and is thus capable of being smart enough to understand that its ultimate potential power means more than any methods it uses to reach that power.

[Bronco]

It's like driving down a very beat-up bumpy road. You are not "in favor of bumpy roads" just
because you MUST travel down one to get to work everyday, and that is the ONLY possible route.

The only possible route to where? We won't see the end of Capitalism by voting so I'm not sure what you hope to be achieving or where you hope to be going by driving down this bumpy road

[workersadvocate]

You have no right to tell me, or anybody else, what I am saying when I go to the ballot box. The working class can analyze its own goals and its own position and is thus capable of being smart enough to understand that its ultimate potential power means more than any methods it uses to reach that power.

So what are you saying then, when you go into the ballot box, instead of going to your coworkers, to other workplaces, to the working class neighborhoods TO ORGANIZE OUR POWER?
What other conclusion is there?

You say all these kind thing about the working class, and they are true, particularly when the most politically conscious and politically active working people (a minority to be sure) are based and doing work within our class, rather than absent and fraternizing instead with the far more numerous middle class active politicos and their superficial temporary cross-class alliance serving themselves but leaving the working class 67% out cold.
Those of us worker-communists need to stop abandoning our class in favor of the middle class activist clubs, trendy middle class college student left scenes and bureaucrat leaderships, while telling ourselves that the rest of the working class will spontaneously figure everything out and what to do about it on their own. Taking the more comfortable easier road to nowhere still gets us nowhere. We need to take the hard barely travelled road back into and doing our work from within the working class itself, even if we'll lose some middle class friends by taking that course (were they ever really with us working people anyways?)
I know it's scary, and it's common to feel like we need the middle class activists' help because the working class left is curently so small, so unorganized, so isolated/alienated from our own class "as is". By middle class activist criteria, most working people are just too much trouble to bother with and they can't easily run out from demo to demo like middle class college kid activist can, nor would they seek out the mass media limelight as boldly due to fearing repercussions fron their current bosses or future potential employers or perhaps some asshole from the criminal injustice system that could fuck their world up on the excuse of their political activities, or from business union sellouts would rat them out to the bosses to get rid of "troublemakers".
In other words, most working people aren't ideal candidates for the sort of business enterprise that middle class left groups are involved in, so they seek out better substitutes in the interest of their groups, to heck with what Marx says is the only consistently revolutionary class...they're not so great at being activists in middle class left groups, and its the middle class that dominates in American political activism and showing off for the media cameras! As if that's what really matters! Activist demos happen again and again, then they leave, working people are left not more educated or organized and brought into struggle against the system then before, the middle class takes this to mean the working class is apathetic and weak and too backwards, so they start looking at more focus on the middle class and of course how to vote at the system's ballot box. And working class reds are stuck feeling that the middle class left us all that's possible now and we might as well just settle for and depend upon this, the best we can get. No!

[cb9's_unity]

So what are you saying then, when you go into the ballot box, instead of going to your coworkers, to other workplaces, to the working class neighborhoods TO ORGANIZE OUR POWER?
What other conclusion is there?

You need to stop putting words in my mouth. Stop thinking its your way or the highway. Stop believing that the only valid distinctions between on how to move forward are the ones you have drawn. You're stuck in antiquated arguments.

It's not as though trying to organize the workplace and going to the ballot box are mutually exclusive. You want to instantly make any form of electoral activity a middle class affair. We can put all the effort we want into local organizing, but it will mean nothing if people don't think there is a practical path forward. So as we try to organize people locally we also need to take the fight to the bourgeoisie on their own ground in the elections. It is where everyone looks to for how political progress is being made whether we like it or not. In an ideal world we could totally avoid the corrupt the bourgeois elections, but that just isn't the hand we were dealt.

However its your type of thinking that will hold us back. Its a type of thinking that there is only one narrow path forward. All deviation from that path somehow taints the movement, and makes it doomed to failure. If you have ideas on how to start organizing locally then that is great, and I support you in that path. You've basically started equating all forms of electoral activity to middle class collaboration. We need to start expanding the methods of working class activism instead of turning them against each other.

[Brosip Tito]

Electing a more worker friendly government that would increase the living standards of the proletariat is something we should be doing. Though, we shouldn't be campaigning for the democrats, or whoever, but just go and vote for the party that will look after the working class better.

It's here that I believe in a revolutionary party that runs on a platform of opposing. A party that refuses to take power, and opposes all anti-worker, pro capitalist legislation, but supports the good legislation. It can help spread class consciousness and I think it also is a measure of how much support revolutionary socialism has.

That's my two-cents.

[Klaatu]

The only possible route to where?

To your job. I was not trying to hide a metaphor within a metaphor :)

[hatzel]

Two things worth remembering:



1. 'The System' couldn't care less whether you vote or not. You might think your not voting is sticking two fingers up to 'the Man' but 'the Man' isn't paying you any attention whatsoever. On the other hand, orchestrated non-cooperation in the electoral process - be this through a complete abstention or through vote-spoiling - can perhaps be a relatively effective form of protest ('relatively' here used to imply a comparison to other forms of protest, like marches or #occupy-style stuff, which may not themselves be particularly effective), but if you individually decide to sit at home on election day you shouldn't expect that anybody other than you will see this as striking a serious blow to the legitimacy of the prevailing system. Don't be silly. It might make you feel better about yourself, but such personal choices don't have much significance in the real world, though they may if they constitute a part of a collective action and are thus construed as overtly political acts, though this does not imply that they will themselves have any direct political ramifications.

In a system such as ours, where the ballot box is put forward as the place to voice our opinions, to make some kind of change, such popular refusal to acknowledge, respect or accept this pitiful offer might have a positive impact on the morale of resistance, in much the same way that other symbolic actions may (though this relies on the preexistence of popular opposition to the electoral process or the system in general); it would be foolish, however, to embrace the axiom of liberal democracy - that political action should crystallise around the ballot box - and merely invert it, claiming that refusal to vote is as powerful a political statement as the current system would have us believe voting is. With that in mind, I personally wouldn't honour the ballot box by being all "it is absolutely positively totally completely a-hundred-bagillion-percent imperative that you do not vote ever!!!" like some people do. I feel this is capitulating to the prevailing ruling ideology that the contemporary electoral process has a certain quasi-mystical significance, rather than recognising that is it is little more than an unimportant little ritual conducted every now and then.



2. 'The System' couldn't care less whether you vote or not. As an individual not voting doesn't challenge the legitimacy of the system, an individual voting doesn't lend it any legitimacy. There is no tangible impact either way. Even though you might think that voting for the right candidate could change something. Don't be silly. It might make you feel better about yourself, but such personal choices don't have much significance in the real world. Voting and not voting alike are equally insignificant. However, voting might, like non-voting or vote-spoiling, have a positive impact on the morale of resistance, in the right circumstances; campaigns to elect 'farcical' or 'fringe' candidates (such as the Official Monster Raving Loony Party here in Britain) have a certain potential, inasmuch as it may be seen as subversive, mocking the system offered to us.

Implemented into a broader strategy, such acts may perhaps be useful, not for enacting change, but for concentrating popular discontent into some kind of movement, building a certain sense of solidarity, a "you're not the only one who thinks this is bullshit." Such campaigns should not be instantly discarded, but taken as seriously as one might take a protest march or a newspaper or any other symbolic (though otherwise impotent) action. That is to say, decisions made concerning the use (or non-use) of the ballot box can only ever be of indirect (potential) significance, though in most situations it is entirely personal, and does not have any tangible sociopolitical impact - acts of personal significance, however, need not be disparaged, and may still have worth in empowering the individual to then participate in more effective forms of resistance.

...but voting for Miliband over Cameron or Obama over Romney (or whoever ends up standing against him) isn't symbolic action no no you'd might as well just draw a massive dick on the ballot paper and call it a day...

[Firebrand]

Like it or not elections act as a barometer of public opinion. So if the left all sits on their arses and refuses to vote and as a result the right gets in, then the conclusion drawn by the population will be that the right is more popular than the left and that means that anyone who thinks that actually they think the whole so called democratic system is bankrupt and they want something else will feel like they are alone in thinking that. This will mean we end up with a bunch of people who hate capitalism but think that because its just them that feels that way there's nothing they can do and so just watch reality TV in the hope that their brains turn to mush.

Also if the govt is as far left as you can get in the mainstream democracy you live in and they are still doing right wing shit, then that discredits bourgeois democracy far more than if a right wing govt does the same. People will say "but I voted for labour why are they still cutting benefits, this isn't a democracy its a multiple choice dictatorship" wheras if there is a tory govt people will just say "well its a tory govt it does what it says on the tin, i guess everyone else supports benefit cuts."

Actually the coalition govt is a blessing from that perspective because no-one voted for it, and it will do the furthest right wing tory shit possible without any kind of electoral mandate, proving that democracy is a myth.

[gorillafuck]

Voting is not bad in general, it's only that voting in Capitalist countries is bad. You're voting for almost the same candidate every time, it's as if there is no choice at all. The people have the right to choose their leader. In Socialist countries there would actually be diversity, you can vote for some billionaire aristocrat, or you can vote for who you really think will do the best for the country. In Capitalist countries you are just choosing between billionaire aristocratsNo, you couldn't.

you're confusing socialism with a political system of capitalist elections that has somehow reconciled all class antagonisms.