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What is your stance on reformist and 'democracy'?

 
  • What is your stance on reformist and 'democracy'?

    Well basically my idea for this topic was to discuss reformism and what stance to take towards it and the voting system of capitalistic states.

    In our last (Swedish) election I chose to vote for the Vänsterpartiet (leftparty) the political party furthest to the left amongst the parties that got a chance to get into our parliament. They were, thought I, the party with the greatest prospect of changing out national politics in a leftish direction.

    However I later on had some seconds thoughts on my choice of party. As a revolutionary socialist wouldn’t it be better to vote for a party with closer resemble to my political believes even thou they had no chance of getting into the parliament? Or simply refuse to take part in the hypocritical voting system put up by the capitalistic state to prolong its existence? Or maybe even one should vote for the most radical right party available in an attempt to create a better growth for the revolution?


    An other point, what are your stance toward reformist parties like for example our Social Demokraterna and similarly? Are they to be viewed as the enemies dividing and unradicalising the workers movement? Maybe a far worse enemy then the openly capitalistic parties like new liberals and neo-conservatives? Or should they be supported for their attempts to make society a little better while waiting for the revolution?

    Yea, just post your thoughts and maybe tell us how you acted in your last election.

    lo /wave
  • hmm...

    Well I am an anarchist, so I don't believe in voting. I believe that revolutionary change will be built in our workplaces and neighbourhoods, and will make voting irrelevant.

    I think it's a waste of your time to vote for anyone, for the following reasons:

    a) Which candidate ever won by one vote anyway?!
    b) 'If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal' - real power lies with those who have money. They decide what happens with the economy. And the military always stands behind the most right wing elements.
    c) The 'centre left' politicians might not sound as bad as the 'centre right' politicians when they are in opposition, but when they get power they become at least as bad. Look at the British Labour Party under Blair/Brown, the US Democrats under Clinton, and the German Social Democrats under Schroeder. All of them slashed social programs (with the Greens' help in Schroeder's case).

    In many ways it's like what would happen if you could vote for your boss at work. They might sound different before they have the power, but as soon as they get it, they need to make a profit for the company.

    Read this selection from the comic writer Douglas Adams about voting: http://wso.williams.edu/~rcarson/lizards.html

    • [Deleted user] said...
    • User
    • 10 Jul 2007, 07:30
    i don't really get why some anarchists don't vote.

    Overthrowing the capitalist system takes allot of organisation and propaganda, one of the simplest thing to do is to advocate revolution, and still try and force reforms out of state.

    Victonic - It depends what party is closer to your politics, what I think is important in choosing reformist parties is the one that provides the least resistance to class struggle, or the most propaganda along similar lines to your politics.

    Sometimes self called communist parties that put no propaganda punch below their weight compared to greens parties - in that case sometimes liberal greens may be the best choice. In Australia - the communist party was conservative, despite their Stalinist rhetoric.

    I don't know much about parties in Sweden yet, so I don't know any specifics - in Australia, we have a preferential system so its easy to list parties numbered from left to right.

    Even social-democrats still have to be argued strongly against, look at how they orientated when the whites attacked Helsinki from the north in 1917 for one example, or Allende in south America in the 70s, or the populist governments in South America today..

  • Im left wing and British, the problem often lies with in party factions, in the labour party there are three Labour Left (havn't had power for years), Brownites (mid left taking power) and Blairites (centre left ending power), i personally beleive that anarchists, socalists and anyone left wing should unite under the Labour Left who are voting against labour party and may split off if given enough support from the masses

    • tilllt said...
    • User
    • 13 Mar 2008, 07:49
    any significant change can not come from a party participating in the system, thus can't be voted for. but it doesnt hurt either to go voting until things will really change, which is: never. i am forced to vote ultra left next time just to show the motherfuckers of the green party & socialdemocrats that they are wrong moving to the political center.

    was sich durchsetzt ist nicht richtig
  • I agree with Ad Nauseam.
    Reformist change has never been more than a temporary and partial fix, which only serves put distance between the people and the problem. It allows for the system and upper class to adjust to the social tension. In the end nothing really changes.
    The largest example is the 8-hour workday. Yeah, modern labor laws disallow committing workers to work longer than 8 hour per day, but in reality how many people work longer than that? It is a unwritten rule that if you want to climb the career ladder or just want to get better pay, you have to work overtime. I don't know what the situation in richer countries is, but in eastern Europe you have to do it just to feed your family. Meh, even the shops are open from 7 to 23 or longer for the poor working class. The poor drones ofcourse think that this is natural and normal, but it's not.
    Another solution that reformist labor laws have allowed the upper class to devise is globalisation. Now the developing world makes 12 to 16 hour work shifts for us. Aint that nice of them?
    One can argue that those were essential social changes, but in reality it just shows how overdue revolutionary action is.

    Not only did Hitler become to power through the "democratic" process, but both of the world's biggest dictators(Hitler and Stalin) held periodic election to justify their rule. My abstention is my personal way to say "f'ck you!" to all those bastards behind this idiosity.

  • yeah but hitler had anyone who tried to vote against him arrested and sent to labour camps
    not justifying his position, as people were only really aloud to vote for one person

  • Electorialism and Reformism

    This is a great discussion to have.
    I'm a revolutionary socialist from the United States, I subscribe to the politics of the International Socialist Organization, so these thoughts come from that tendency.

    I have really wanted to abstain from voting in the past few elections in hopes that the high rate of nonvoters would worry someone and that it would be a protest of the two-party system. However, I came to think this year that probably no one is listening and I should vote.

    I ended up voting after some arguments and discussions with people. This year I voted for Obama partially out of support and partially out of weakness. I think it's pretty important to vote for a 3rd party, perhaps the most leftleaning/revolutionary party you can find. I don't think any of the 3rd parties in the United States are actually revolutionary, but the point is that by voting for them you're protesting in another way, saying that you prefer politics that aren't available here (since the two parties will always win). So I think it's useful to vote as a protest, more than it's useful to NOT vote as a protest.

    At the same time, revolutionary socialists don't believe that Socialism can be won through the ballot box, so voting in elections should not be our main form of activism, and as some other people are saying in this thread, spending time trying to get someone elected can be very bad for the movement. The Democratic party in the US has always been a "graveyard of social movements", and many revolutionary groups (Socialist Party, Communist Party, etc) have fizzled and died because of their move towards reformism.

    The ISO is also in support of struggles for reforms, because some changes can come through reforms (and many have) and the struggle gives us experience and potentially a class consciousness that allows us to overcome prejudices such as racism and sexism as we work together to demand change. Ultimately though, the goal is revolution and a society where people are valued over profit.

  • Democracy? and hierarchy...

    My stance on democracy is that first one has to differentiate representative democracy from direct democracy,,,representative democracy is when someone the "majority" of people support is put into a office to create and reform "laws"......this is also called the tyranny of the majority.....the problem with this of course is that the minority are alienated and there ideas can't grow and merge with the majority's ideas... direct democracy is when each person is part of the government and votes for each law... Like.a Utopian society without class's and when everyone votes it would always be a consensus

    • almo123 said...
    • User
    • 4 Dec 2008, 23:22
    The real problem with democracy and voting is that politics, such as conservatism are only followed by those who are selfish and want to keep their current state of being. The global truth is that conservative capitalism is making 80% of the world suffer for the sake of 20%. Therefore, surely, if we are all to think on the behalf of others and not ourselves, politics are unimportant since anything apart from absolute left wing society is based upon selfishness and is not what is best for mankind. Therefore, people must learn themselves to give up their conservative and capitalist values, and render the democratic system irrelevant.

    • DJ_STFU said...
    • User
    • 5 Feb 2009, 22:25

    Reform is Unacceptable

    I'm a socialist from the United States that believes that voting is an exercise in futility. Who are the candidates? They are player and money makers for their particular brand of bullshit. Not much difference in our "two-party" system. Both parties push the same classist agenda using different words and American reform just means that the party may change, but the ideas don't.
    I would like to see us take back our country street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, state by state, etc.

    With one last thrust, your task is complete -
    I am bloody, injured and content.
    You dress my wound and send me off;
    I can't wait to do it again.
  • DJ_STFU knows what is up. Reform? What reform? Nothing changes besides the mask. It's all the same bourgeois agenda year after year, decade after decade, century after century... Take back the streets, reclaim your community. Democracy can only be effective from the bottom up, not as a futile ritual...

    Being more involved in local government is more effective than national politics because you bring more awareness to your communities and thusly in the long run this will help effect national politics. Either way, reform is generally a waste of time. Don't cooperate with terrorists, ie. the state.

  • [spam]

    [spam]

    Edited by hjbardenhagen on 19 Dec 2010, 08:47
    • aibom said...
    • User
    • 26 Oct 2009, 23:59

    Re: Electorialism and Reformism

    obifferson said:
    I think it's useful to vote as a protest, more than it's useful to NOT vote as a protest.

    Pretty much this.

    Also, it's not like everybody is equally a bad vote. Ralph Nader is who he is and will not waver in the slightest. The same goes for Dennis Kucinich and he's in the mainstream Democratic party.



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