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
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.
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.
It would be a disaster but a funny disaster ngl.
At least you don’t have people who do politics as a job and no one is incentivised to constantly increase pay for them.
There are studies on the topic of random election https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1224
Iceland tried it for their constitution: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/09/iceland-crowdsourcing-constitution-facebook
If Mamdani wins and keeps his mandate strong to the point that opposition to him is career suicide, he can implement some amazing improvements.
Bernie’s success in Burlington was never going to translate to broader America, but NYC is hard to ignore.
The real test will be what Democrats do nationwide in response to a Mayor Mamdani administration. If they do the same old New Democrat/Third Way bullshit they’ve been doing since Bill Clinton won* in 1992, they’ll continue to be irrelevant in the face of populist hucksters like Trump.
Ie this take sometimes but I don’t know what the alternatives are. When you win your revolution, what system will you put in place?
ITT I’ve seen “random elections”, and plenty of people saying “socialism”, plus someone (I hope) is thinking “anarchism”, but how is it managed? What takes the place of elections for public office?
OK, it’s been about a week with no replies. I am starting to suspect that perhaps there is no plan.
We need a digital liquid democracy platform. We have the technology and infrastructure for it now, and it’s time for the people to rule themselves.
Let’s not muddy the waters…the orange turd we can’t name is the type of ism we don’t want ever again. We also don’t want George Bush or another repeat of any of the political families currently in power or their friends. We want direct vote not college vote. WTF is an electoral college doing now that we have communication technology? Its an old and stupid idea.
Removed by mod
I have never heard the word electoralism in real life.
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.
I don’t follow, do you mean that goverment jobs should be like a civil duty? Randomly select people to goverment posts or something like that?
.worlder, can’t see your comment.
Oh yea, always forget that.
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.
Electoralism =\= Democracy
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.
The ancient greeks did not consider electoralism to be democracy. They used a combination of direct democracy and sortition. And it should be apparent now that they were right, and we’ve been played for fools for 200 years by the capitalist class who holds all of the true power in our states.
The ancient Greeks are by no means someone to look for in terms of democracy. Aristotle believed slaves were naturally less human and needed masters, and they didn’t let women, or those who didn’t own land vote.
You could say this about all western “democracies”
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.
Actually existing electoralism
Real electoralism has never been tried before
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.
For many liberals having elections is the highest political priority.
So electoralism working is a tautology for them.
Obviously, the problem is with the voters, not the system
Real liberal democracy has never been tried
It’s just the outside forces that have made it fail. In theory it’s perfect system
Bonapartists look good only next to modern day liberals, at least they’re honest.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
