Electoralism Doesn’t Work
March 13th, 2016
Elections are not an opportunity to use the state machine against itself; they are part of the propaganda machine and participating means it has duped you. Even when genuine radicals are elected they are not permitted to carry out their campaign promises but must serve capital.
The bourgeoisie controls the means of production; if someone they don't like that threatens their profits gets elected they will withdraw their investments and crash the economy. Since they own the economy they can shut it down whenever they want. This will result in high unemployment and deprive the state of tax revenue. This will prevent the radical from implementing their program, and put the radical in a position where they has to either do the bidding of capital or not get reelected. In practice most will cave and do the bidding of capital rather than let the right win the next election.
In addition, the heads of government agencies, the military, police, and intelligence services, etc. are not elected and will engage in obstruction and covert activity to undermine the radical politician. In extreme cases they can remove him/her through coup or other means. SYRIZA in Greece was more radical than any of the socialist politicians in the U.S. but after they won the January 2015 elections they abandoned their radicalism and instituted austerity instead. That sort of thing has happened again and again throughout modern history; it would be foolish to expect future radical electoral victories to result in something different.
Participating in elections actually harms our ability to improve things. Elections divert energy and resources away from direct action and into pointless political action. Many unions waste large amounts of money and time trying to elect politicians; time and money that could be better spent organizing. Many people who are unhappy with the status quo express their discontent by "voting the bums out" rather than rioting or engaging in other direct action.
Elections also coopt potential dissident leaders & organizers. Someone like Bernie Sanders or Alexis Tsipras would probably be organizing some sort of radical direct action if he were not allowed to run for office, but by giving him a political career it insures he doesn't try to stir up riots, strikes, etc. Radical politicians are often better at selling regressive policies than right-wing politicians. Since people think the radical politician is, at the very least, the lesser of two evils they are more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt and listen with an open mind when he tries to sell austerity or other awful things. That was the case in Greece with SYRIZA. It was also the case in the U.S. when Obama was elected - the anti-war movement imploded, even though Obama continued most of Bush's militaristic policies, because Obama was (incorrectly) seen as being less of a warmonger and could more effectively sell imperialism.