I should've written this way earlier, but I hadn't felt the frustration with electoral politics keenly enough. Election day in Canada and it's come to a head. I'm friggin sick of all this "Vote! It's your voice!" ideology. I could - and indeed, I will, rant at length about what a useless, hollow exercise voting is. But here are two examples - 1:

This poster was on the wall at the local Elections Canada office. It encourages Inuktitut aboriginal people to get out and vote. But most native people in Canada don't vote, because to them, the Canadian state isn't legitimate. It's an occupying power that stole their land and suppressed their culture. The shiny 'we're all Canadians together, come out and show it!' rhetoric has a sinister undertone: getting oppressed people to forget their historical grievances and participate in their own oppression. Voting for the Canadian state legitimizes it.

2: Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) leader Buzz Hargrove got so scared of the Conservatives, he suggested Quebeckers vote for the Bloc Quebecois instead. This is hardly radical, considering they're going to vote for the Bloc anyway, in record numbers. Conservative leader Stephen Harper responded by lambasting Prime Minister Martin, who Hargrove supports this election:

"This is beyond the pale, without precedent that a party leader would stand there while one of his prominent spokespeople suggests that people actually vote for the separatists, and he'd say absolutely nothing about it and nothing to distance himself from those comments," Harper said.

You can't just disagree with Quebec nationalism. You're not even allowed to talk about. To suggest that people support the Bloc - who, by the way, are well to the left of the NDP on many issues - is "beyond the pale".

What leftists look like in Quebec - a scence from 2005's student strike. Quebec has the most militant student movement in the country and is staunchly nationalist

Like First Nations people, the Quebecois have also never accepted the Canadian state. They were conquered militarily by the English, forcibly incorporated into the Dominion and assimilated - until the Quiet Revolution of the 60s. In return for asserting national aspirations, they've been threatened with invasion, subjected to humiliating mass rallies of Canadian chauvinism and accused of being anti-native (funny that Quebecois racism only comes up when Quebec tries to separate.) When Quebeckers come to the logical conclusion that, therefore, they need a nationalist party, even to acknowledge it is to be a traitor.

This is the project of electoral politics. It's not about choice: it's about choosing which party will impose the Canadian state on its subjugated minorities. Those minorities either don't vote for it, or they vote for parties that will break it. But the rest of us are supposed to submit meekly. As the slick website www.rushthevote.ca puts it:

Is your voice being heard? One of the most effective ways to ensure that it is, is to vote! YOU ultimately determine what kind of society you live in…

... so for god's sakes just shut up and vote

The best response is from our good friend Karl:


Voting normalizes a system where corporations make obscene profits on the backs of workers; where military force is used to brutalize and kill poor people at home and abroad; and where workers have no say in the daily decisions that affect their lives. YOU don't determine what type of society we live in: the capitalist class does, and in return it lets you shuffle its leaders around.

(And you know what? They care so little about our opinion, they'll even fuck workers over on election day. Ford just announced 30,000 jobs are being cut in North America. We don't get to vote on that, even though the decision affects the futures of 1000s of people. You can't vote on whether to keep your job; capital's rights are sacrosanct.)


Of course, the wily social democrats, always searching for ways to prop up the system, have tried for the past 100 years to change it from within. I don't have time to go into this sorry history, but suffice it to say that, if a fraction of that effort had gone into tearing down capitalist rule instead of propping it up, we'd have a much kinder, gentler world right now. Instead we have the 'left' alternative, the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Despite what my tone may suggest, I actually would vote for a social democratic party. Electoral parties just provide cover for capitalism. But socdems are parties set up by workers to represent, even in a partial way, workers' interests. They represent a break from capitalist consciousness. However, today I'd argue the NDP is no longer social democratic. It's changed from a workers' party with capitalist ideology, into a purely capitalist party.

The NDP will help you manage - your money.

The most common argument on the left is that it's the best we've got. This is, once again, the old 'it could be worse' argument. And it ignores how the NDP has shifted decisively to the right. For example, my local candidate is the chief economist of a bank. This isn't some muddle-headed social worker: he's an ideologue (who's pro-Israel, apparently - go figure.) The NDP presents him as the tough, new face of the party: as one of his endorsements reads, "His finance background gives him great grounding in how the real world works. To me, Paul is the future of an NDP preparing to govern." This is no longer a workers' party with illusions in capitalism; it's a workers' party that actively embraces 'the real world' i.e. capitalism, in all its neo-liberal glory. I can't vote for a guy who's spent his life screwing over workers in other countries.

Real socialism is socialism from below: mobilizing everywhere to fight for real change - not waiting for parliamentary reps to sell us out. The NDP likes to take credit for public health care. But it wasn't the folksy charm of Tommy Douglas that brought us Medicare, it was battles by working Canadians for a social wage. Parliament responded to that pressure, it didn't create it. In fact, history shows quite the opposite: parties like the NDP come to power to make cutbacks, not ease them. The Socialists in France and Spain, the Labour Party in England, the NDP in Ontario - they're the friendly face of neo-liberalism. They put the labour movement off its guard; unions let their 'friends' in office make cutbacks, in ways they wouldn't let their traditional enemies.

The best friend capitalism could ever have - former NDP premier Bob Rae

By contrast, socialism from below has a long, rich tradition in Canada, from the Winnipeg General Strike to the Front Commun of 1972 to the Oka Crisis. Workers and oppressed people of Canada have mobilized directly to challenge capitalist power and built their own democratic forms in the process.



Does this mean socialists ignore elections and never run candidates? No. Socialists aren't anarchists. The right to vote was fought for, just like public healthcare. It's a victory that should be defended. Which doesn't mean active support for a bourgeois party, however. Socialists support elections because they're a chance to talk politics with people we don't normally speak with. If socialists elect candidates, they use parliament to denounce capitalism, and do as much damage to the profit system as possible - for example, by ending military funding, or voting massive increases in social housing. But, most importantly, we start from the knowledge that electoral politics are a sham. Every time the capitalist parties resist social spending and curbs on profits, it just supports the argument that, for real change to happen, we need a revolution.

Just don't rock the boat

Today, there are no socialist candidates running with any hope of winning. The capitalist parties pass off their strangehold on politics as cool. The shrill cry "Don't forget to vote!" becomes a cacaphony (and it's a stupid argument: no one forgets anything important to them.) Meanwhile the scope of democratic power grows smaller, and people grow apathetic as a result.

Here's my prescription: instead banging your head against a system that doesn't work, don't vote. (Or go ahead and vote if you must, it won't make a difference.) Put your energies where real political power lies: in the unions, in community groups, in the streets. Build campaigns to win real gains where you live and work. Force politicians to notice you; don't wait for years hoping they notice you. And rather than building illusions in a broken system, build a group that works to overthrow the whole rotting edifice.

Socialism from below - Bolivian tin miners celebrate after their protests bring down the president, 2003