I really like the idea of randomly elected representatives. Sure, they will try to better their situation for afterwards but with enough corruption control (which is probably easier to implement), this will only ensure that they support their kind of workers a bit more than the rest.
Seeing CA propositions get rigged with misinformation and tricky language suggests to me that direct democracy might also not work without proper safeguards.
Seeing how many selfish and uneducated people there are, I think we’d be beat off if the majority of people doesn’t get a say, and the (communist) party just takes the decisions for the greater good of the people.
In bourgeois ‘democracy’, electoralism serves to legitimize and perpetuate the interests of the ruling class. Should laborers become the ruling class, I don’t have a problem with it doing the same.
Liberals mocked Antifa for not voting, saying left extremists turn right eventually
I hate liberals man.
keep in mind that Socrates might not have been as nice as you think, his students ended up doing a coup and their government collapsed in 8 months, their reign was so violent that ended in about the death of 10% of Athens. The tyrants run away amd they put Socrates on trial, and in his defense, Socrates refused to denounce his disciplines and just said it was a whitch hunt because they are mad that he is smarter than everyone else.
So, Socrates might have been more of a Reactionary grifter like Peterson than a wise kind humble man.
The great lie of liberal democracy is the idealist notion that literally anything can be voted in if enough people vote for it, and that this will have political supremacy over those in power. This analysis puts the state outside of class struggle, above it, and not as the mutually reinforcing superstructural aspect of society. The role of the state is to reinforce the base, ie the mode of production, and it does so through propagating ruling class ideology (ie, liberalism), and through a monopoly of violence.
Electoralism is a sham. The lessons of the failures of electoralism scar the global south, the coup against comrade Allende taught us all too well. The state is not outside or above class struggle, but is mired in it. Without replacing the bourgeois state with a socialist, proletarian one, the ready-made levers for reinforcing the bourgeois mode of production will cause a reversion. The Paris Commune was the first such example of this failure in action, and it has happened again, such as with the coup against Allende and the installment of Pinochet.
What is there to do, then? Organize. Build up parallel structures that take the place of existing capitalist mechanisms. Join a party, read theory, and solidify the politically advanced of the working class under one united banner. Build a dedication to the people, defend and platform the indigenous, colonized, queer, disabled, marginalized communities, and unite the broad working class. It is through organization and revolution that we can actually move on into a better world.
If anyone reading wants a place to start with theory, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, aimed at absolute beginners. Give it a look!
Without replacing the bourgeois state with a socialist, proletarian one, the ready-made levers for reinforcing the bourgeois mode of production will cause a reversion. The Paris Commune was the first such example of this failure in action.
The Soviet Union was one of the latest. Yeltsin taking office, failing to get his way, and then shelling parliament into surrender being the most prominent example of the failures of electoralism, even in an ostensibly proletarian state.
Gaza also a great instance of the wages of strict electoralism. You rally your people behind a more militant political body (Hamas in 2006) and the end result is your heavily armed neighbors using the results of an election as causa belli. Hell, the American Civil War is another great example, what with a Southern coup government rising up after a Presidential election defeat.
It is through organization and revolution that we can actually move on into a better world.
It gives us a fighting chance, at least. But it is also hard, painful, and requiring enormous self-sacrifice particularly among the early adopters.
ngl I do hate this kind of nhilism in terms of democracy. Like I agree with that one quote from that greek guy which says that a democracy needs smart people, but democracy is the best system we’ve come up with that to a small extent, makes politicians meet the peoples needs.
The problem isn’t democracy, it’s democracy under capitalism, and the idea that we can actually transition to socialism via electoralist means.
But its about working with the system we have. We can always advocate for the system being not broken, but intentionally taking advantage of minorities and increasing wealth for the rich whilst doing the opposite for the poor.
Even though I agree that any democracy in the west isn’t truly democratic, with outright bribery in the form of lobbyist, and a two party duopoly. Even though I acknowledge this, everyone must vote for the less bad party, whilst also spreading the word for what they would truly want.
Even if the system is inevitably going downhill, slowing it down and pushing every means, through voting for the less evil option, and protesting, spreading word about socialism is the best option.
No, the best option is to organize directly and agitate against the system. This historically has protected marginalized groups far better, it’s how the Civil Rights movement passed. Simply “spreading the word” about socialism does absolutely nothing about the existing levers of power we can and cannot pull, we must do so in the context of broader organizing.
Electoralism =\= Democracy
The world and society have explicitly gotten far better since and because of the advent of serious representative democracy.
The US and Britain genocided entire continents using representative “democracy” (IE capitalist dictatorship).
You don’t know what a dictatorship is. So far there isn’t a form of government that hasn’t. But unlike a dictatorship, the democracies improved
Very few modern states are settler states based on native eviction: only the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel.
The major colonialist powers of the last few hundred years were a tiny number of european nations.
But unlike a dictatorship, the democracies improved
The US and other capitalist states based on representative democracy aren’t democracies, and you’d be hard-pressed to find ppl saying they’re improving.
Russia too. To some extent Sweden and China too.
Also plenty of settler states out there but they didn’t evict indigenous people as much.
Things got better after unified monarchies ordained by God superceded quarreling petty kingdoms. Things got better with constitutional monarchies with aristocrat parliaments. Things got better with suffrage and classic liberal democracy.
Each system has its limitations and contradictions, and each of them were superceded when those became incompatible with the current reality.
Yup. Capitalist liberal democracy is the best system we’ve ever had at scale. It’s shite for numerous reasons, but it’s better than what came before. We can acknowledge the benefits while simultaneously acknowledging that we can do better.
Arrested Development was literally a satire of the Bush family/administration, whom are now being rehabilitated by usonian liberals.
Democracy can and will work once a simple rule is implemented. Namely: no one who wants the power to rule should ever be allowed anywhere near power. Of course the rich won’t allow such a law to be passed, and enforcing it is the stuff of thought crime dystopic nightmares, but I’m sure we can overcome those small issues.
Communal society: Electoralism is cringe.
Slave society: Electoralism is cringe.
Feudal society: Electoralism is cringe.
Liberal society: noooooo, electoral democracy portents the end of history elections are based nooooo
Socialist society: Electoralism is cringe.
Communist society: Electoralism is cringe.
We are sometimes inclined, I think unwisely, to treat democracy and dictatorship as two mutually exclusive terms, when in actual fact they may often represent two aspects of the same system of government. For example, if we turn to the Encyclopedia Britannica, to the article dealing with “Democracy,” we read: “Democracy is that form of government in which the people rules itself, either directly, as in the small city-states of Greece, or through representatives.”
But the same writer goes on to say this: “All the people in the city-state did not have the right to participate in government, but only those who were citizens, in the legal and original sense. Outside this charmed circle of the privileged were the slaves, who had no voice whatever in the making of the laws under which they toiled. They had no political and hardly any civil rights; they were not ‘people.’ Thus the democracy of the Greek city-state was in the strict sense no democracy at all.”
The Greek city-state has been cited time and again by historians as the birthplace of democracy. And yet, on reading the Encyclopedia Britannica, we find that in fact this was a democracy only for a “charmed circle of the privileged,” while the slaves, who did the work of the community, “had no voice whatever in the making of the laws under which they toiled.”
The classical example of democracy was, then, a democracy only for certain people. For others, for those who did the hard work of the community, it was a dictatorship. At the very birthplace of democracy itself we find that democracy and dictatorship went hand in hand as two aspects of the same political system. To refer to the “democracy” of the Greek city-state without saying for whom this democracy existed is misleading. To describe the democracy of the Greek city-state without pointing out that it could only exist as a result of the toil of the slaves who “had no political and hardly any civil rights” falsifies the real history of the origin of democracy.
Democracy, then, from its origin, has not precluded the simultaneous existence of dictatorship. The essential question which must be asked, when social systems appear to include elements both of democracy and dictatorship, is, “for whom is there democracy?” and “over whom is there a dictatorship?”—Pat Sloan, in the Introduction to Soviet Democracy
I remember being so excited to vote my first time. I’ve now concluded that it’s a complete waste of time.
On the contrary, voting helps install your enemy of choice. I’d rather fight Democrats than Republicans, and I vote accordingly. Actual progress requires non-electoral action, but electoral action makes that fight more favorable.
You wanna pick and choose between all the different flavors of suck go right ahead. I’m not wasting my time voting for these idiots.
I wish you’d reconsider, you’re just making things harder for the rest of us. We’re on the same side here.
Oh yeah, I’m totally making things harder for everybody else 🙄
“We’re on the same side” my ass. Fuck the Democrats.
Yes, because everything is easier for the left when Republicans are in power 🙄. I swear, it’s going to be easier to radicalize liberals than to convince you lot to stop shooting yourselves in the foot. Have fun circle jerking over your ideological purity, I guess. We’ll be over here actually trying to make things better, if you feel like helping.
Sure, whatever you say 🤡
Uh, are you feeling okay? What you just posted is devastating to your point. I’m saying to try to keep the ratchet on the stationary stage line enough to actually push left, you’re saying “Lol just let it spin right”. This is so incredibly stupid, what idiot thought that the ratchet effect supports such a stupid argument? I feel like I’m in a room full of toddlers shouting nonsense catchphrases.
There’s no actual evidence that the DNC treats leftists any differently. Both parties did the Red Scare, both parties root out communists, both parties bomb and sanction socialist countries.
Your use of “work” is doing a lot of heavy lifting and is very reductive. I’d recommend reading theory until you properly understand the issue, Dessalines.
Which liberal theory do you recommend? Star wars, or Harry Potter?
Is your “theory” originating from three letter organisations or have you never actually read it yourself?
See, the problem with Dessalines’ meme is that it uses “work” as a binary category. As in, something either has no effect or it completely restructures society. It is absolutely true that electoralism can’t completely restructure society, and there are many valid explanations for why that is in communist theory. However, Dessalines reveals his lack of understanding by equating completely restructuring society with “working”.
If we were to construct a true binary between working and not working, it would be between having zero effect, and having any effect, no matter how small. The beating of a butterfly’s wings has some effect on the world, and could theoretically contribute towards a tornado that sucks up all the bourgeoisie and allows the workers to democratise the means of production. So obviously voting has some tiny effect, since it’s stronger than a butterfly’s wings. Voting works, in other words. But that’s a virtually meaningless statement if we’re constructing a binary as Dessalines did.
The correct approach is to ask “how much can voting accomplish”, and with that question we can actually arrive at an answer with some nuance and a justification from within the theory. But the binary question Dessalines asks can afford no nuance, and is obviously not supported by theory or anything else. Which proves that even if Dessalines read theory, he didn’t understand much of it.
You’re giving the liberals too much credit by saying they admit that electoralism has never worked.
The liberal position is not only that electoralism works but that it is the only thing that works.
Liberals believe electoralism doesn’t work because not enough people believe in it and we can fix it by voting harder.
True. After years of letdowns, some might accept that electoralism is a rigged game, but then the next generation completely forgets everything.
And for all of them, the socialist road is demonized and kept hidden, so no alternative seems possible.
There’s a split in liberalism, between true believers and those disillusioned but who can’t see a way out. I believe the latter are more common these days, and are the target of the meme. The cure is organizing and reading theory, becoming a leftist in the process, but right now they still cling to faux-progressivism and electoralism.
