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These liberals really need to read Lenin before commenting. A certain OP may have even read it aloud for them so they can just listen to it if reading is too hard.
https://www.marxists.org/audiobooks/archive/lenin/1917/staterev/index.htm https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0-IkmzWbjoatUez9-2vaAvB78afoKNRC
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.
I imagine Greek Democracy was something as nonsensical yet consequential as crypto, commoners just being like, ‘there goes that wealthy mechant Tsimikas family doing their bullshit song and dance again. Just be governor no one cares’
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.
For many liberals having elections is the highest political priority.
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.
Obviously, the problem is with the voters, not the system
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.
Liberals believe electoralism doesn’t work because not enough people believe in it and we can fix it by voting harder.
Actually existing electoralism
Real electoralism has never been tried before
0·1 month agoWe 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
Two more quirks of Athenian democracy: Only males were allowed to vote, and soldiers, mostly lower class salarymen, couldn’t vote if they were in service.
I struggle to find the points in your posts. Yes capitalism has a great many problems. I agree about doing something about it, but are you also suggesting democracy is bad?
Liberal democracy isn’t democratic, and electoralism as a means of systemic change doesn’t work. Socialist democracy does work, and delivers far higher rates of approval and perceptions of democracy being effective.
I think I agree with you, but your messaging could use some work. I feel like most people who aren’t already in the same groups as you might struggle with the terms you use. It might be simpler to say “capitalism corrupts democracy” because my original read of the post made it seem like its anti democracy.
It’s not really that capitalism “corrupts” democracy, it’s that all states serve the ruling class, and the political formation reinforces that. Capitalist democracy is democracy for capitalists, dictatorship for workers. In a socialist state, the political power is held by the workers, it becomes democracy for the working class and dictatorship for capitalists, landlords, etc.
i suspect that “messaging” only works if you’re sufficiently conservative.
liberals and leftists alike agree (to different levels) that conservatives; especially maga; are less educated and entitled and that’s why easy messaging slogans like “stop the steal” and “there are only 2 genders” works so well for them since it doesn’t require them to get off their asses to do sufficientlyvigorous research to educate themselves on how that messaging oversimplifies the issue.
also, liberals complain that the democratic party needs to improve it’s messaging to broaden their appeal to american voters. the problem with this seems to be that that american voters share some degree of academic laziness when it comes to understanding the issues, but they’re still generally more educated than maga so slogans don’t work as well. you can see examples of this over and over again on social media when people complain that nobody “reads beyond the headlines.”
i’m learning that one of the key differences between leftists and liberals is the effort to self-educate with ANY kind of academic rigor (ie more than google searches) and doing so enables them to see past any sort of messaging and that most of the messaging that has been successfully adopted has been created by people with with a political agenda in mind.
i think that pushing the democrats to improve their messaging is a misdirection because any messaging for liberals is going to automatically contradict the education any better educated crowd (compared to maga) has received.
i also think that the biggest barrier for any liberal to understand why they’re stuck in neo-liberal fascist late-stage capitalist world is doing their own research with SOME kind of academic rigor since it take A LOT of effort to not only change the way most of us have been taught to live, but also been educated and inculcated since birth.
I would argue the core issue is more fundamental. Liberalism holds the rights of private property as inviolable, thereby placing them beyond public debate. It’s a system that establishes an economic structure where the critical decisions over resources and labor are made by the few who own the means of production. Such an arrangement is irreconcilable with any meaningful definition of democracy.
Absolutely. It’s democracy for the few, dictatorship for the many.
Bourgeios “democracy” isn’t actually a people’s democracy, even though its sold as one. Its really an oligarchy/aristocracy/capitalist dictatorship.
We shouldn’t allow capitalists to define democracy as bourgeios parliamentarism, especially when that form of government works against the interests of the vast majority of people.
What alternative do you propose to “bourgeois parliamentarianism”?
Socialist / people’s democracy. It takes different forms in different countries, and many countries in the global south that are currently capitalist are starting on that socialist road.
And what is the difference that makes it invulnerable to the weaknesses encountered in bourgeois parliamentarianism?
The fact that there are not two classes in communism is the primary reason. When you don’t have a powerful minority with opposed interests to those of the powerless majority, the majority becomes powerful.
Right, you say that, and that’s a lovely aspiration, but how is it implemented? I don’t have a magic wand here that eliminates class, but even if I did, how do you prevent demagogues from influencing the majority? Erasing established power at one point in time does not prevent it from rising again in a new form. You’re just trading capital interest for charismatic manipulation.
Now you have a system with class interests + charismatic manipulation. I want to move to a system with only charismatic manipulation. That would already be significantly better, and I have no answer as to how to remove charismatic manipulation politically
Erasing established power at one point in time does not prevent it from rising again in a new form
By changing the material and historical conditions you can change that, though. Europe has spent centuries without slavery or absolutist monarchy within its borders, because the material conditions that favored such regimes have expired. The material conditions enabling capitalism class society are also expiring.
You’ll need to educate yourself on the history of socialist states yourself, I can’t do that for you.
A good place to start is the PRC’s five dont’s, a list of things to avoid at all costs from bourgeois democracy.
You’ll need to educate yourself on the history of socialist states yourself, I can’t do that for you.
I asked because you said there were multiple variations.
I ask because the qualifications seem to be more idealistic and aspirational than mechanistic. None of the descriptions I’ve seen present significant obstacles to the corruption that plagues our current system. A “solemn declaration” doesn’t do much against emergent behavior. The founding fathers were against political parties too, that didn’t prevent them.
Every system is corruptible. The form of corruption changes to suit the underlying system, but given enough time every system can be compromised. Even pure direct democracy can be manipulated by popular demagogues.
I’m asking, specifically, what part of whichever variation of a “people’s democracy” you specifically have in mind makes that democracy invulnerable to corruption and manipulation? Not intentions, but actual structural features.
That’s not smug or rhetorical, I’m legitimately curious. If I’m mistaken, and there is some fundamental property that achieves what I’m asking, I’d like nothing more than to know what it is.
You’re asking a question with a loaded premise, no system is immune to problems like corruption. At the same time, the various systems of socialist democracy have been far better than capitalist democracy, and the reasoning common to all is that the working class is in control, rather than capitalists. Structure varies from state to state, but having a system where the input and direction of the working class is paramount is far superior to capitalist democracy.
In capitalism, it’s democracy for the capitalists, dictatorship for the workers, in socialism it’s democracy for the workers, dictatorship for the capitalists.
There’s a lot of research and reading you can do on how socialist states function, and a lot we can learn from them.
Real liberal democracy has never been tried
Bonapartists look good only next to modern day liberals, at least they’re honest.
It’s just the outside forces that have made it fail. In theory it’s perfect system
It depends what you mean by “work”. While he certainly didn’t see it as sufficient, Marx wasn’t categorically against involvement in electoral politics, so he must’ve seen some “work” in it.
Participation in the electoral pulpit as a platform for agitation is a larger topic, but Marx advocated for the revolutionary overthrow of bourgeios republics his entire adult life.
I agree. That’s a different position though than “never do electorlaism”
At the end of the day, the electoral system is a contest of strength between 2 or more cults of personality. This is more prevalent in some countries than other, but the very basic aspect of representative “democracy”, aka elections (selecting a person to rule) basically boils down to giving a few people the power to make decisions for everybody else. It’s dictatorial by nature.
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.
No, you’re on the side of genocide
What a joke, are you 15?
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.
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.
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.
I think I may have BLUE myself
The world and society have explicitly gotten far better since and because of the advent of serious representative democracy.
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.
Capitalism was in many ways progressive as compared to feudalism, but came with new devastation and greater imperialism on a massive scale. Socialism has been far better for the people than capitalism has been, though, and as imperialism crumbles and socialist countries are rising this is becoming clearer and clearer.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
pfffft
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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.
Even off the top of my head, there’s japan as well. So your first statement is explicitly wrong. I’m sure I can find numerous more examples if I care to start digging.
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.
Improved. I didn’t use the present tense. Backslides happen. They’re alarming and need to be stopped. So, you’re advocating for pure democracy. Do you believe every rule and regulation should be decided by majority vote? Personally, I believe some form of representative democracy is the only practical way to run a country/collective. Otherwise, constant votes will prevent people from paying attention
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.
im gonna voooooote!!!
