cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/4134651
American bourgeois democracy
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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I've decided to abstain from voting, this time.
Granted, it may be because I'm nowhere near the U.S.
If you are, though, do pick your poison. You have this system, make use of it. And none of that "but it won't change anything" nonsense!
Electoralism is a bullshit. Only a revolution will change things
Revolutions, on average, make things worse. Seriously, the outcome of the median revolution is pretty terrible. Things need to be incredibly bad before it's an improvement in expected value to do a revolution, instead of trying to improve the existing system.
Do you genuinely believe you can vote Socialism into place in the first world?
Seems to be working for the Nordic countries. I genuinely think that if you try a revolution in America, what you get will not be socialism. If you're lucky, you will fail and get violent government rerribution. If you aren't lucky, you'll get full on authoritarianism, with mass bloody purges of undesirables of all shades. The rate of revolutions leading to good outcomes sucks. Mostly you get various flavors of dictatorships. Often with state sponsored mass murder.
Nordic countries are not Socialist, they are Capitalist with ever-eroding safety nets that still depend on Imperialism to subsidize their safety nets. Their disparity is rising as Capitalism decays.
Revolution, ie siezing control of the state, does not need to be violent.
You should read Reform or Revolition.
How would you do so nonviolently? Would you get your people into office? That seems like the nonviolent way to seize control of the state, but if there is another, I'm interested to hear it.
Syndicalism is another method. The vast majority of Leftists don't believe you can simply use a Capitalist state for Socialism.
Wasn't familiar with that term, looked it up. That looks like reform within the system rather than seizing the state. To do "through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership," you need to not get shot when you strike. Trump would absolutely hire the Pinkertons of old to kill strikers and union leaders. Biden has been an outlier in how good he has been for unions, and capital is trying to use the captured supreme Court against him in that. So, I'd prefer that he stay in office and keep doing that, while yes, absolutely, 1000%, organize and do strikes and generally fight harder from within the system than just casting a vote every four years. Just don't flip the table or encourage others to rather than do these things, is my perspective, and that's what revolution means in my understanding.
Syndicalism is literally siezing the means, it isn't reform. What do you think Revolution is? Bombing everyone?
Biden being less terrible doesn't make him a force for good.
No, but him being adequate to not dragging leftists out behind the barn and having them shot is a necessary basis for any sort of improvement.
Bombing everyone seems inefficient to the goal, which in a revolution is overthrow of the existing order. I'm not aware of any peaceful overthrowings of existing orders, can you point to some?
Depends on what you consider peaceful, I suppose.
What would you say was the least violent revolution that succeeded, by whatever metrics you use for those words?
Depends. The Russian Revolution was fairly bloodless, and overthrew the Monarchy. The USSR obviously had a whole slew of different issues, but was dramatically better than the Monarchy.
How do you think Electoralism could achieve genuine change?
Sure the country needs to be turned off and on again, but clearly the median isn't interested in that. So what remains? The system.