Should Leftists Vote?

[Richard Nixon]

Should leftists opposed to the current "system" vote? Is it better to vote for a lesser evil or should leftists not vote at all?

[mykittyhasaboner]

Too broad. Be more specific.

[Richard Nixon]

Too broad. Be more specific.

For instance would voting be supporting the "system" and should or should not leftists vote? For instance are all the (major) candidates bad more or less and thus leftists shouldn't vote or should the candidate whose slightly more enlightened be supported?

[mykittyhasaboner]

For instance would voting be supporting the "system" and should or should not leftists vote? For instance are all the (major) candidates bad more or less and thus leftists shouldn't vote or should the candidate whose slightly more enlightened be supported?

Uh which candidates? Which system? I said be specific.

If we are talking about the US, then voting is simply a waste of time, since there are no real options.

[h0m0revolutionary]

There is no parliamentary road to socialism. And candidates standing for propaganda purposes would be best putting their efforts elsewhere.

We seek to abolish the state, not utilize it, not legitimise it's bourgeois procedures and practices.

I personally have no problem voting if it's in my immediate interests, for example if Candidate A promises to increase minimum wage and Candidate B wants it abolished... But it's not a priority, the priority is organising and agitating the other 364 days of the year too.

Would I campaign for a candidate representing the left-wing of capitalism? No.

[Richard Nixon]

Uh which candidates? Which system? I said be specific.

If we are talking about the US, then voting is simply a waste of time, since there are no real options.

I mean whatever nation you live in.

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Yes, they should where the option is present.

[h0m0revolutionary]

Yes, they should where the option is present.

And what will they achieve once they're sitting on those benches?

Kinder capitalism? Greener capitalism?

I'm honestly asking.

[Green Dragon]

There is no parliamentary road to socialism. And candidates standing for propaganda purposes would be best putting their efforts elsewhere.

We seek to abolish the state, not utilize it, not legitimise it's bourgeois procedures and practices.

I personally have no problem voting if it's in my immediate interests, for example if Candidate A promises to increase minimum wage and Candidate B wants it abolished... But it's not a priority, the priority is organising and agitating the other 364 days of the year too.

Would I campaign for a candidate representing the left-wing of capitalism? No.

Np parliamentary route to socialism? At least you are being honest as to the nature of socialism. most socialists hereabouts like to sat that they stand for freedom and such. Your honesty that socialism is about telling people what to do is a breath of fresh air.

[Communist Pear]

Np parliamentary route to socialism? At least you are being honest as to the nature of socialism. most socialists hereabouts like to sat that they stand for freedom and such. Your honesty that socialism is about telling people what to do is a breath of fresh air.

Parliamentary "democracy" isn't freedom nor democracy, so being anti-parlementary doesn't mean being anti-freedom. Do you honestly think that you have a voice right now? The Western countries are run by capitalists, they control the means of production, they control the money, they control the politics.

tl;dr: Non-revolutionary socialists are social-democrats, not socialists.

[#FF0000]

Np parliamentary route to socialism? At least you are being honest as to the nature of socialism. most socialists hereabouts like to sat that they stand for freedom and such. Your honesty that socialism is about telling people what to do is a breath of fresh air.

1) Liberal revolutionaries in France and America used force and violence to push through their political agenda
2) Therefore classical liberalism is about telling people what to do and is a totalitarian ideology.

the logic of green dragon.

[Demogorgon]

A bit of my writing discussing the general area:

Criticisms of the system as undemocratic will often be met with incredulity, with people pointing out that Governments are elected through systems varying in their degrees of fairness, but in some cases at least producing accurate and representative reflections of the people’s wishes. Surely such a system must be democratic? Surely the socialist criticising such a system is bending terminology to her own ends to make it fit the argument?

In truth the socialist is quite right. A problem we have with our contemporary analysis of Government is that we focus too narrowly on what we might call “Constitutional Organs”, that is the official branches of Government designated as such by our legal constitutions or their equivalents. Other sources of authority are seen as separate and not relevant to the question of governance; we are asked to draw a clear line of distinction.

It is an artificial distinction though. The source of any authority that imposes upon an individual a requirement to act in a way other than he or she might wish to hardly matters to the one being so directed. An organ of Government, an employer or even an entity of organised crime can all force us to follow a certain set of rules or carry out a certain form of tasks. In capitalist society there are multiple entities-that we might describe as “centres of power”-all co-existing with one another, both acting as a check on each others power and sometimes acting to enhance the power of one another.

The most obvious of these centres of power are easy to identify: elected politicians, Government bureaucrats, corporate power, the media, and in more corrupt systems organised crime and essentially independent military leaders. Each group has their own field of influence where they exercise said influence either directly or indirectly and are also able to influence one another due to their overlapping areas of concern.

This means that modern capitalist society is in fact a form of coalition between several different powerful groups. Such groups influence and are in turn influenced by each other, limit and in turn are limited by one another. Each group has its own areas where it is most likely to get its way and certain areas where it will be all but impossible to do so, but when it comes to the most fundamental issues facing any society, firm opposition by any major centre of power can generally halt or at least severely slow down any action.

This means that in contemporary Western Capitalism, the public is able to exercise some control through elected politicians. The extent of this control will depend upon how democratic the electoral system is, how much choice there is in terms of whom to vote for, how much politicians can influence the other centres of power and in turn to what extent other centres influence them. This is a limited level of influence indeed of course, but it is there and it provides an important point of connection between the ruling elite and ordinary people and acts as a democratic safety valve meaning the entire system remains within certain limits of acceptability.

This can be seen in the manner that public policy is typically made and in the way that unelected centres of power are forced to abide by certain rules. Governments can make laws regarding the behaviour of other centres. These laws must not harm these centres too much or they will use their own influence to force elected politicians to back down, but at the same time the unelected centres are unable to completely get their own way because the elected politicians have enough power to make at least some impact. The outcome is that policy is not so much a manifestation of what the public wants as a set of policies that do not go so far as to completely outrage it.

In liberal capitalism thus, people do not really have democratic control in the sense that they can decide how society will develop, but they can exert their influence enough that those with power must exercise it within certain bounds. In a system where there is no centre of power answerable to the people, then power will rapidly become a lot more oppressive. For this reason socialists who advocate refusing to participate in the electoral system on the grounds that it is part of the “bourgeoisie structure” or that it is not sufficiently democratic are missing the point. The electoral system is not there to allow the people to direct public policy but rather to act as a check on power as a whole. We should not vote in the expectation that by changing individuals in political office we can make a substantial difference, but because in doing so we impose a limit on the actions of all sources of power and prevent the system from becoming tyrannical.

[Sleeper]

If we are talking about the US, then voting is simply a waste of time, since there are no real options.

That's only true when it comes to National elections/positions. While I do agree that many state/county/city elections are mostly a, "Lesser of the two evils," sort of thing, the vote at least has some point.

In my town there was a Senior Services levy, for example, it passed by 7 votes. (It had only passed by 3 votes prior to the automatic recount) If you were to assume that there are ten true leftists in my city and all of them decided not to vote because it is a sham, then the Senior Services levy would have failed.

That would have resulted in Seniors who are more or less self-sufficient to either have to become entirely self-sufficient or go to nursing homes because there would have no longer been any money for the Assisted Living people to come to their houses.

I couldn't imagine how I would feel had that measure failed by one vote as a result of me not going to the polls.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Should leftists opposed to the current "system" vote? Is it better to vote for a lesser evil or should leftists not vote at all?

Leftists should not vote for the lesser-evil on principle but also for the practical reasons that it does not actually end up pushing politics in your direction. The right-wing populists know this and look what's happeneing now - they lost the election, publically hated the Republican candidate last time and call the Republican establishment gutless and guess what - who's giving the concessions!? The moderate republicans and the Democrats in power!

Voting for Obama has disoriented the anti-war liberals because they already ended up giving support to someone who always said he was going to continue the war and so they have nothing to threaten the Democrats with because the DNC knows it doesn't need to actually pass progressive reforms to please the progressive populists, it just needs to be "not-Bush".

On the other hand, I do think that voting should be taken on a case by case basis. If there was a high-profile left-wing challenge against Nancy Pelosi on the basis of exposing the Democrats as pro-corporate phony friends of the workers and poor and minorities and labor and rural people, then I think supporting this run would be beneficial as long as radicals are honest in the reasons for their support and don't hide or water-down their politics.

As in individual, should leftists vote? I don't think voting as an individual achieves much in systems like the one we have in the US, but I often vote to oppose reactionary propositions or corporate tax-cuts and so on. I generally don't vote for candidates.