To elect a master or many, for a long or short time, is to
resign one's liberty.
Call it an absolute monarch, a constitutional king, or a
simple M.P., the candidate that you raise to the throne, to the seat, or to the
easy chair, he will always be your master. They are persons that you put
"above" the law, since they have the power of making the laws, and
because it is their mission to see that they are obeyed.
For the first time in my life, my right wing conservative
father and I have decided neither of us are voting for Obama or Romney.
"Who should we vote for then," he asked. Never been asked that of my
father, I had a suggestion, "Let's just not vote".
Bad Leaders or Bad System?
The Democratic party bemoaned the fact that Obama
"immediately made huge concessions to forces
to the right of him." Rather than
place this action in an institutional context,
the forces placed on the elected person by the state machinery and
pressures from big business, the Republicans portray these decisions are the
failings of an individual. They argue we "need to keep up the pressure to
demand Obama listens to ordinary workers and not to business."
As well as economic pressures from capitalists resulting
from capital flight, withdrawal of support, and so on, representatives also
face pressures within the state itself due to the bureaucracy that comes with
centralism. There is a difference between the state and government. The state
is the permanent collection of institutions that have entrenched power
structures and interests. The government is made up of various politicians. It
is the institutions that have power in the state due to their permanence, not
the representatives who come and go. We cannot expect different politicians to
act in different ways to the same pressures. However, this is all ignored by
the Democrats in favour of wishing Obama was more a liberal and could ignore
the demands of the dominant class in society while in charge of one part of its
protector and creation, the state.
They also argue that the low level of turn out in the
elections indicate "a sign of deep alienation that millions of people feel
from the whole political system, one which does not reflect their views or give
them a voice." Presumably, the
Democrats seek to give these people "a voice," to involve them in the
political system by getting them to vote on various social issues. They can
only do that by overcoming the alienation people feel towards the capitalist
system by ensuring that it does "reflect their views." If that is the
case then surely this implies that the Democrats will be working within the
capitalist system, trying to influence it from within and, by necessity,
subject to the same institutional pressures that generated reformist, unless,
of course, they argue that it is the ideas of the party leaders that are the
decisive factor rather than the social environment in which they operate?
What is significant, however, than Lenin's arguments were
fundamentally idealist in nature, looking to the intentions and will-power of
the individuals involved rather than a materialist analysis based on the nature
of the capitalist state, the way it is structured to protect and enforce
bourgeois rule, the influences and pressures of the permanent state apparatus
on the elected representatives, the economic pressure exerted by capital, and
so on.
Parties and Power
The use of electioneering has a centralising effect on the
movements that use it. Political actions become considered as parliamentary
activities made for the population by their representatives, with the 'rank and
file' left with no other role than that of passive support. Only the leaders
are actively involved and the main emphasis falls upon the leaders. It soon
becomes taken for granted that they should determine policy (even ignoring
conference decisions when required -- how many times have politicians turned round
and done the exact opposite of what they promised or introduced the exact
opposite of party policy?). In the end, party conferences become simply like
parliamentary elections, with party members supporting this leader against
another.
Soon the party reflects the division between manual and
mental labour so necessary for the capitalist system. Instead of working class
self-activity and self-determination, there is a substitution and a non working
class leadership acting for people replaces self-management in social struggle
and within the party itself takes shape. Electioneering strengthens the leaders
dominance over the party and the party over the people it claims to represent.
And, of course, the real causes and solutions to the problems we face are mystified
by the leadership and rarely discussed in order to concentrate on the popular
issues that will get them elected.
Working in the state ensures a statist perspective becomes
dominant. Everything is seen in terms of state intervention, following the
decisions of the leaders and quickly results in radicals "instead of
weakening the false and enslaving belief in law and government . . . actually
work[ing] to strengthen the people's faith in forcible authority and
government." [A. Berkman, Op. Cit., p. 84] Which has always proved deadly
to encouraging a spirit of revolt, self-management and self-help -- the very
keys to creating change in a society.
Thus the 1870 resolution of the Spanish section of the First
International seems to have been proven to be totally correct:
"Any participation of the working class in the middle
class political government would merely consolidate the present state of
affairs and necessarily paralyse the socialist revolutionary action of the
proletariat. The Federation [of unions making up the Spanish section of the
International] is the true representative of labour, and should work outside
the political system." [quoted by Jose Pierats, Anarchists in the Spanish
Revolution, p. 169]
Instead of trying to gain control of the state, for whatever
reasons, anarchists try to promote a culture of resistance within society that
makes the state subject to pressure from without. Or, to quote Proudhon, we see
the"problem before the labouring classes . . . [as] consist[ing of] not in
capturing, but in subduing both power and monopoly, -- that is, in generating
from the bowels of the people, from the depths of labour, a greater authority,
a more potent fact, which shall envelop capital and the state and subjugate
them." For, "to combat and reduce power, to put it in its proper
place in society, it is of no use to change the holders of power or introduce
some variation into its workings: an agricultural and industrial combination
must be found by means of which power, today the ruler of society, shall become
its slave."[System of Economical Contradictions, p. 398 and p. 397] Direct
action is the key way of doing this and the means of creating such a
"combination."
State and Structure
The simple fact is that the bourgeois state has been
developed to enforce minority rule. Its structure is no more an accident than
the structure of a bird's wing. The wing has evolved to enable flight. The
state has evolved a structure based upon minority, top-down rule that ensures
the continence and protection of that rule. And as Kropotkin argued, anarchists
"maintain that the State organisation, having been the force to which
minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the
masses, cannot be the force which will serve to destroy these privileges."
[Peter Kropotkin, Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 170]
The same means cannot be used to serve different ends as
there is an intrinsic relationship between the instruments used and the results
obtained -- that is why the bourgeoisie do not encourage participatory
democracy in the state or the workplace! Just as the capitalist workplace is
organised to produce proletarians and capital along with cloth and steel, the
capitalist state is organised to protect and reinforce minority power. The
state and the capitalist workplace are not simply means or neutral instruments.
Rather they are social structures which generate, reinforce and protect
specific social relations. These social relations are based on delegating power
to others, letting leaders act for you, letting others fight for you. These
have an impact on those who use these tactics, both the individuals and the
organisations.
The "essence" of state is, to use Luigi Frabbi's
words, "centralised power" and "hierarchical despotism." It
is based on delegating power into the hands of a few -- in a democracy, elected
representatives and the state bureaucracy. It should be a truism that elections
empower the politicians and not the voters. Parliamentarianism focuses the
fight for change into the hands of leaders by its very nature. Rather than
those involved doing the fighting, the organising, the decision making, that
power rests in the hands of the representative. The importance of the leaders
is stressed, as it must be in a centralised system.
Not voting? Not Enough!
As part and parcel of anarchist support on direct action is
abstentionism. This signifies the rejection of voting. However, there is more
than one kind of abstentionism. There is passive and active abstentionism. Passive
abstentionism is that associated with alienation, apathy and a-politicalism.
The one which bases itself on a "cannot be bothered," cynical
attitude and little else. This form of abstentionism easily leads to rejecting
all forms of struggle and politics, including direct action and anarchism.
Anarchists are against this just as much as any socialist voter.
Rather, anarchists see abstentionism as a positive
statement, a means of turning the natural negative reaction to an unjust system
into positive activity (i.e. direct action, solidarity, self-activity and
self-organisation). So, anarchist opposition to electioneering has deep
political implications which Luigi Galleani addressed when he wrote: "anarchists' electoral abstentionism implies not only a
conception that is opposed to the principle of representation (which is totally
rejected by anarchism), it implies above all an absolute lack of confidence in
the State. . . Furthermore, anarchist abstentionism has consequences which are
much less superficial than the inert apathy ascribed to it by the sneering
careerists of 'scientific socialism' [i.e. Marxism]. It strips the State of the
constitutional fraud with which it presents itself to the gullible as the true
representative of the whole nation, and, in so doing, exposes its essential
character as representative, procurer and policeman of the ruling classes.
"Distrust off reforms, of public power and of delegated
authority, can lead to direct action [in the class struggle]. . . It can
determine the revolutionary character of this . . . action; and, accordingly,
anarchists regard it as the best available means for preparing the masses to
manage their own personal and collective interests; and, besides, anarchists
feel that even now the working people are fully capable of handling their own
political and administrative interests." [The End of Anarchism?, pp.
13-14]
I reject the view that society is static and that people's
consciousness, values, ideas and ideals cannot be changed. Far from it and
anarchists support direct action because it actively encourages the
transformation of those who use it. Direct action is the means of creating a
new consciousness, a means of self-liberation from the chains placed around our
minds, emotions and spirits by hierarchy and oppression. Therefore, anarchists urge abstentionism in order to
encourage activity, not apathy. The reasons why people abstain is more
important than the act. The idea that the USA is closer to anarchy because
around 50% of people do not vote is nonsense.
Abstentionism in this case is the product of apathy and
cynicism, not political ideas. So anarchists recognise that apathetic
abstentionism is not revolutionary or an indication of anarchist sympathies. It
is produced by apathy and a general level of cynicism at all forms of political
ideas and the possibility of change.
Not voting is not enough, and anarchists urge people
to organise and resist as well. Abstentionism must be the political counterpart
of class struggle, self-activity and self-management in order to be effective.Source
