Why don't anarchists vote?

This is the reason I'd never advocate someone to vote. But it's also the reason I don't give the slightest shit if someone votes or not.

My personal reason for not voting is it's a waste of time, and isn't going to change owt. But I genuinely don't see it as a principled thing.

Those nefacers are some sorry ass anarchists.

I agree with Jeremy. Especially when he says this:

in fact no I agree with all of it. I was going to bring this up on a nationalism thread where you used anarchist parliamentary abstentionism as a parrellel with left communist errr national liberation abstentionism.

Its a question of pragmatics. Based on a materialist analysis how do we help our class advance from here. I'm not that interested in 'principles'.

Also disagree with this:

Once again, decadence theory is full of shit.

Good post Terry.

Nothing is permanent - why is something not being permanent a criticism of achieving it? Obviously any reforms that really happen are, in the most obvious sense of the term... real. What different definition of 'real' is at work here? If reforms (however temporarily) ameliorate the suffering of the class, or increase its opportunities to organise, these are real gains (unless, obviously, one cares nothing about the suffering or organisation of the class).

And I'm not sure what 'progressive' means here...

I imagine what you’re saying is that it is the position of the communists that the working class should demand ‘permanent, real’ reforms – i.e. a revolution. But it’s unclear why not voting will make a revolution less likely, or imminent, especially in the present climate. Or even why you think it’s impossible to adopt a subject-position which is in favour of both voting and social revolution. (i.e. I don't think point (1) in Terry's Anarchist argument need hold at all for voting, and possibly doesn't even necessarily hold for organisations which seek votes as part of a broader political strategy. After all, I vote, and I believe in no Shining White Knights who'll save us from on high. And if I can believe this, I assume others are capable of it too.)

I would - though as we all know, I'm not an anarchist. And plenty of other people when the discussion came up. Lazy Riser systematically votes Labour, IIRC, on the grouds that it's likely to leave his area better off. If I lived in Hackney, I'd vote Hackney Independent.

It seems to me that the Left Communists are the best anarchists…

Why though? I think New Labour (let alone the Tories) have at least as tough a stance on immigration etc., they've encouraged segregated schooling etc. etc., and they're actually in power and carrying these out whereas the BNP at best gets a bit of media attention. AFAIK most BNP councillors, when elected, haven't lasted long due to generally having no interest in day-to-day council activities. So all that tactical voting against them (would you vote Tory if that was the choice?) does is give another anti-working class, nationalist party a bigger majority.

Well I helped out with Hackney Independent for about a year, and I wouldn't - I think they've done some good things but running for elections is at best a distraction from that and at worst undermines it.

pretty much my thoughts

I have never written here, or anywhere else that "there was a time in history that the bourgeoisie was 'progressive'".

If you had actually read anything that I had written on this issue, you would know that I have deep reservations about this idea.

Devrim

Yes, I do take it seriously. You may feel that it is ridiculous. I think that it is a coherent system. I don't agree with it though, and have certainly never talked about "there [being a time in history that the bourgeoisie was 'progressive'".

Devrim

New Labour may be bad, but as tough a stance on immigration as the BNP? I just don't think that's true. I think that Labour/Tory/BNP, whatever the rhetoric, do still represent very different political tendencies... I think you'd struggle to compare BNP and Laboru immigration policies and identify them. Not least because the BNP's immigration policies are driven by a critique of the status quo. Margaret hodge may be a scumbag. her housing comments were endorsed by the BNP - but they were reviled and condemned by the large part of the parliamentary Labour Party.

Are you sure that New Labour have encouraged segregated schooling? I don't know, but this recent article tends to suggest that it's been driven by racist parents' "white flight": http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2089190,00.html

I would not vote Tory to keep the BNP out. Though I would consider it convenient for potential BNP voters to vote Tory instead, in such a situation. About Labour actually being in power... yes, but the whole question is whether your vote would be part of an effort to keep the BNP out of power. Also, in giving an individual candidate a bigger majority, you don't give the government as a whole as a bigger majority (though in general I am in favour of MPs having small majorities, because it keeps 'em on their toes).

BNP councillors, ratchet up local working class division along ethnic lines a whole big step further than Labour.

Umm, actually, I think the question of the BNP is a marginal distraction from the real debate - they aren't a significant issue in most places. In the absence of a left alternative (not including RESPECT) I'd vote Labour to keep Tories out (unless it was a particularly disgusting Labour person). I'd vote, for instance, for the SP if I got the chance. Crude as they are, it's good for Labour to see votes bleeding to its left.

That would not be a reason not to vote for them. It would be a reason to encourage them to, or yourself only, focus on other stuff.

I take the point, but in that case what was the function of the word 'permanent' in his sentence - you don't give an alternate explanation? And I thought that Devrim didn't believe in decadence theory - he's EKS not ICC? Anyway, I'm sure he'll resolve that one!

It should probably be mentioned, just for balance's sake, that the local NEFAC group that includes the member who put his wondering about electoralism in writing actually did a big anti-electoralist campaign this past year...

Right, I am only guessing at the meaning of the last sentence, I've never heard that before. But look, just because liberal governance has prepared the terrain for fascists doesn't at all imply that there's nothing worse about the fascists than the liberals... it doesn't imply that the development from liberalism to fascism is inevitable, or that we shouldn't seek to oppose the murmurings of any move in that direction. You don't deny my claim;

... you're just implying (but not actually saying - that would sound too implausible) that there's no important difference between fascists and liberals in terms of impact upon working class welfare and organisation. That's the question - is there such a difference? Yes!

no i'm not, but where the BNP have got councillors i haven't seen jackboots and gas chambers. meanwhile the home secretary suspends haebus corpus, pushes through a mandatory internal passport, threatens a state of emergency etc etc. even in terms of lesser evilism its pretty mental to rank the BNP as more anti-working class than Blairs government, given as they are absolutely nowhere near any actual power

why?? because 'the falling rate of profit' hasn't worked out? I certainly don't theink rediculous is the right word, and its use shows a hint of dogmatism.

fwiw, i don't vote because i can't be bothered/was not really raised to care about politics beyond newspapers.

thought it may not be my place to say, i think that this demonstrates that communism is clearly understandable by people in their daily living as different to "politics".

This has gone a long way from a discussion of elections....oh well no harm in that I suppose.

Yeah only partially because I think he used that term in a certain way that carries more meaning than it would if said by someone who was not a left communist sympathetic (albeit critically) to decadence theory.

Yeah I think you're right here but its important not to see these reforms as being insignificant. Or as reforms to a monolothic transhistorical social form. Capital is a social relation only insofar as it is reproduced, and its reproduction involves the mutually antagonistic development of the bourgeosie and the proletariat. So although yes universal suffrage is a prerequisite to stable, advanced capitalism, at least as it exists in the west, and, in a manner, is not a threat to capital. However, in another manner it is, in that it is a 'prerequisite to stable, advanced capitalism', and is therefore a restraint of the development of the bourgeosie's interests, i.e. the bourgeois state is dependent on the acquiescence of the proletariat in a manner which was not the case prior to this reform.

Essentially what I'm getting at is that although these 'reforms' can obviously be lost, to treat them as insignificant is absurd. Capital today, viewed as a totalizing social form, is very different to what it was in 1500, in 1600, in 1700, in 1800, and in 1900. And to simple dismiss the significant improvement and empowering of proletarians over that time is absurd and only makes sense in the bizarre ideology of left communist cultism.

I suppose you are right, but left communist on these forums refers to the IBRT, the ICC, EKS and a few other indivduals. Indeed left communism in the anglo-phone world refers to both a significant noble and heroic movement in the history of the working class's struggle for anarchist communism and to those who claim the legacy of those struggles who are almost invariably quacks. So in the above quote I am referring not to gorter, ruhle, pannekoek or even bordiga, but rather to left-communism as it exists today.