this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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Alternative voting systems haven't proven to be even the slightest obstacle to capitalist rule. Japan and Australia have alternative voting systems, and they're still on the same far right path, still evict indigenous peoples, and still act as US military bases.
Its impossible to have a government that represents the people, if capital stands above the political system.
You fix that by seizing the means of production, generally with unions.
You protect union rights by both voting for candidates that will protect unions, and also fighting to unionize your own workplace.
While your proposition is still better than the neoliberal merry-go-round, unions can only serve as a base for vanguard worker's party. Unions by themselves never once seized the means of production and ultimately most of them turned into tools of class collaboration.
What's wrong with Marxism? Why do you advocate for Syndicalism, does it just sound good to you, or is there a materialist reason for it?
First off, nobody takes Marxism by itself. If it's accepted, it's always with extra things attached and other parts removed.
Second, my issue in this case is the Lennist part. A vanguard party degrades into cult-like behavior, and this is very consistent with ML groups big and small.
What on Earth do you mean? What do people remove?
What do you mean "cult-like behavior?" Why do you believe this "cult-like behavior" arises? Where does Lenin deviate from Marx?
Why do you advocate for Syndicalism, because it sounds good to you? You aren't making any analysis nor points, you just seem to be contrarion. Surely you have some reason for wanting syndicalism, no?
I think you’re confusing two different tendencies.
Small parties that do not have a social base can become insular. If they do not realize that their limitations are set by external factors they can turn inwards and become cult like. You see that a lot in Maoist groups in western countries where there is no peasant class their brand of politics can mobilize.
On the other hand successful socialist parties that come to take power end up having to defend it from various reactionary forces, both external and internal. Being put on the defensive causes these parties to seek resiliency through centralized decision making.
That said, I don’t think either of these tendencies are unique to Marxist parties. Also, Marxism is meant to be scientific so learning from past experiences is key to avoiding the mistakes of other Marxists.
Then do it. Try to test your ideas against reality. You'll find that RCV
Will only be allowed in small amounts as a show of feasibility, without affecting major change
Will be gutted if it ever does get implemented and stands chance of changing anything.
The path forward is revolution, not a giant prayer for RCV to be implemented magically.
Capitalism is not a tool that pays for social services. Its a system that allows private individuals to own the means of production (and along with those, the political systems, laws, and media of their domiciled countries) with the goal of extracting a profit from the sale of commodities produced by wage workers they employ.
Capitalists only apportion some of the surplus value stolen from workers to public services, when forced to by political agitation from below.
These proposals for ranked choice voting are a dead-end, because they already exist in many capitalist countries, and it doesn't fix anything. They just stack any number of candidates they like, and have their media push the most friendly ones.
If you allow capitalists to own production, then the political system will always be subservient to them, and be nothing but puppets to serve their interests. Anyways here's some more resources:
In Poland we currently have 17 political parties and 42 independents on 460 seats in sejm. Yes, that's potentially 59 different political stances... but every single one is still neoliberal.
Supposed to but doesn't really. I'm Australian and our governments at both state and federal levels have been slowly eroding the ability for smaller parties and independents to even join the race by restricting funding and labelling it a win for electoral fairness.
The voting system doesn't matter when fascists get control, they won't let it go not matter what.
Why yes, let perfect be the enemy of good.
While yes, Australia's voting system still is not great (single member electorates), and inequality is still bad, and we're capitalist like the US, it's sure as hell no where near as bad here, and I would argue, partially due to our better elections (it's not even close).
We have pretty good worker protections, healthcare that's not ridiculously expensive (though, we're working on it...), and overall much better social programs.
I would be surprised if our voting system had nothing to do with that.
FPTP is trash, it's basically only gets bette for any other system (hyperbole, but not by much).
That's because Australia is using the seat system, which is like a supercharged electoral college. Australia needs proportional representation.
But then you would be more likely to have counties voting for other parties. The electoral college would actually make more sense with ranked voting.