this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Making it difficult to vote is a reason it's designed to fail, but it's very possibly the least impactful.
Even if everyone participates, there are still dozens of ways in which capital restricts the options/neuters governance against the interests of the working class. Historically, it has almost never been turnout that drives progress, but dedicated, persistent, and quite often violent action by a relatively small number of actors. Nearly all of our basic labor rights came not from the working-class voter turnout but by armed protest and seizure of capital and infrastructure. Even when representation overwhelmingly 'supports' reform, the pressures of capital dis-incentivize regulation if they can avoid it (else they catch the blowback from unhappy capitalists, who quite literally control the nation's productive capacity and resources) - it isn't until the working class shows their willingness to disrupt the flow of profit that true progress is made.
I understood your whole comment, but my point isn't event just that our system is designed to prevent participation, it's also designed to prevent populist movements from making progress to begin with. "The system doesn't want you to participate" is only a very small part of the story - it also does not need to listen to the popular will unless it's backed by an implicit threat of violence.
I'm not even telling you not to vote, just that voting alone will never be enough, not even with total participation - especially when we have already reached the point in capitalist decay where fascism has taken control of governance. You cannot vote your way out of fascism, and the sooner people realize this the sooner people will stop being content with merely voting.
None of that takes anything away from my original point that participating more can make things less bad. I never even said that violent action was distinct from participation, just that it's not the easiest form of participation to convince people to do, and that attempting a revolution (which is a huge step up from bombing a few factories and assassinating a few CEOs) won't go well if it's not got broad popular support or police and military backing. I've had enough arguments with tankies who insisted that it was easy to overthrow a capitalist state with twelve guys who believed hard enough in communism to magically generate an army, and there was no point in any other form of participation, that the thread looked to me like it might be about to summon the never vote, just wait for a revolutionary communist army to form people.
I don't know a single anarchist that has ever advocated for an organized revolution, i'm not sure why you're harping on that. Violent disruption of capitalist systems is the violence I'm talking about, and it requires far fewer people to pose that very real threat to liberal democracy than it does for "complete participation" in the democratic process (wtf does this even mean if not voting? if democracy fails if even a single person doesn't 'participate' then democracy itself is a failed concept). When the democratic system fails to produce representation for working-class interests, it is the only form of participation left.
The liberals here who keep saying shit like "well if everyone voted we wouldn't be in this situation" have completely missed the point. If the opposition party had offered any real representation of working class interests to begin with then you wouldn't have had to be here in the replies defending them at all.
It's fine, though. As always, civil activists will drag the democratic party kicking and screaming toward progress, regardless of the constant whinging from liberals.