Tomorrow, on May 3rd, Londoners will have their occasional ration of democracy with the opportunity to vote for a member of the Assembly and for the Mayor. At every election, we are told that if we don't vote for Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dumber will be elected so we should vote for Tweedle Dum. We tend to forget that the lesser evil is still an evil. Supporting the lesser evil has rarely been an effective strategy. This politics of fear in the end has delivered everything that we were originally afraid of.
Elections aren't necessarily the be all and end all, but they do matter. Political parties are associations of individuals and groups organised to defend specific class interests. They seek political power to best defend and advance these interests. Elections pose the question as to which class will run the system. The aim is to convince the electorate that the result would be "change", a relief from the present misery and a path to a better future. Socialists counter that the better life offered by the ruling class’s standard-bearers cannot be achieved in the framework of capitalism. And, in fact, all the injustices that so many recognise as a reality in today’s world - racism, poverty, endless war, climate change, sexism, cuts in health care, education, pensions and jobs - are inherent in the capitalist system itself. For all its democratic claims, this election campaign serves mainly to obscure the truths about our unequal society. Its important feature is the absence of real choice.
It's all very well having a vote - but are you normally given any real options? Let's face it, if it wasn't for the politician's photo on the front of the election leaflet, could you tell which party was which? It's tempting, in the absence of any real alternative, to get drawn into the phoney war that is political debate today. Whether Labour, Tory, Lib Dem or UKIP they all spout the same promises. But it always amounts to the same thing - they offer no alternative to the present way of running society. Do you really think who wins an election makes any difference to how you live? And do politicians (whether left-wing or right-wing) actually have much real power anyway? Okay, they get to open a new supermarket or factory, but it's capitalism and the market system which closes them down.
Do any of the political parties address any of the real issues: Why is there world hunger in a world of food surpluses? Why are there unemployed nurses, alongside closed-down hospital wards and longer waiting lists? Why are there homeless people in the streets and empty houses with "for sale" signs? Why do some people suffer stress from working long hours of employment while others get stressed from the boredom of their long days of unemployment?
What is voting? It’s a chance to tell the country and the world what your vision of government and society really is. If you can't vote for what you believe in or don't believe in what you vote for, then, voting means nothing. An unprincipled vote is a wasted vote. You aren’t standing up for what you believe in by voting “the lesser of two evils.” You have have sold out your personal beliefs. We vote to tell everyone else which choice we think best represents the direction which we want the country to go. When you vote, you gain a certain power that a non-voter doesn’t have; the power to change the status quo. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. In other words, if you want change, then create change. So rather than waste your vote on what you consider the lesser evil, Labour or Tory, cast a meaningful ballot that clearly says what you believe. If the difference between Conservative and Labour is that one party truthfully promises evil, and the other deceitfully promises good, surely the right thing to do is to judge the difference too small to be worth calculating, and walk away from that Hobson's choice.
Challenging capitalism demands a political struggle that starts with the realisation that the Labour Party are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The future of humanity depends on building a class movement that once and for all ends the rule of a tiny elite and replaces it with the rule of the majority. The task of socialists is to break illusions in the capitalist system and its politicians - not to strengthen those illusions. It follows that the first task of socialists today should be to reject any support for the capitalist party candidates, no matter how “left” their rhetoric sounds. But once socialists reject the Labour Party, they must pose a clear socialist alternative. For revolutionary socialists the issue in capitalist elections is not campaign promises or the individual personality of candidates or the character of candidates they run against. There is but one issue that concerns us when it comes to electoral politics and that is working-class independence. Change from below is the only change we can believe in. Socialists, therefore, whenever possible in the electoral arena, and in everyday practice, pose a working-class alternative to the rule of the minority capitalist elite. We are advocates of real majority rule, rule by the people themselves in their own name and in their own interests, for a socialist society free from oppression and exploitation.
History shows that the given state of a person's consciousness is not a static and non-changing thing. Class consciousness is steadily influenced by experience and by the way people see themselves - that is, whether as isolated individuals as most now do, or as a social class with common interests that are in diametrical opposition to the interests of the capitalist class. The big question is what will change people thinking, and therefore, how they act, and what they fight for? Indications suggest that today’s deteriorating global economy and the various struggles now unfolding in the world are having their impact and causing a transformation in consciousness in London and elsewhere. In order to know what must be done next, we should know what happened before. That’s always the way, lessons from the past serve as a guide for the present and the future. The task of the Socialist Party is to do everything it can to facilitate and accelerate this part of the historic process, but yet realising that for the moment, we are limited to that largely educational function.
The Socialist Party will have the only candidates standing in these London Assembly elections who will be saying to the electorate "We do not want your vote unless you understand what our positions are and fully agree with them"! If you want to vote for our party we're delighted. But we don't really want votes based on a misreading of what we are about. We are not promising to deliver socialism to you. We are not putting ourselves forward as leaders. This new society can only be achieved if we join together to strive for it. If you want it, then it is something you have to bring about yourselves along with others in concerted co-operation and action.
For us socialism means a world community without any frontiers. About wealth being produced to meet people's needs and not for sale on a market or for profit. About everyone having access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money. A society where people freely contribute their skills and experience to produce what is needed, without the compulsion of a wage or salary. If you don't like present-day society... if you are fed up with the way you are forced to live...if you think the root cause of most social problems is the market system, then your ideas echo closely with ours.
Politics in Britain has become a cult of the personality. We do not issue photographs or biographical details of our candidates. The birthplace, background, work history and physical features of our candidate are a complete irrelevance. We have a policy that it is the Socialist Party's case not the candidate's face you vote for. It is the politics not the personality. We want you to vote for the Socialist Party and what it stands for, not the man.
Elections aren't necessarily the be all and end all, but they do matter. Political parties are associations of individuals and groups organised to defend specific class interests. They seek political power to best defend and advance these interests. Elections pose the question as to which class will run the system. The aim is to convince the electorate that the result would be "change", a relief from the present misery and a path to a better future. Socialists counter that the better life offered by the ruling class’s standard-bearers cannot be achieved in the framework of capitalism. And, in fact, all the injustices that so many recognise as a reality in today’s world - racism, poverty, endless war, climate change, sexism, cuts in health care, education, pensions and jobs - are inherent in the capitalist system itself. For all its democratic claims, this election campaign serves mainly to obscure the truths about our unequal society. Its important feature is the absence of real choice.
It's all very well having a vote - but are you normally given any real options? Let's face it, if it wasn't for the politician's photo on the front of the election leaflet, could you tell which party was which? It's tempting, in the absence of any real alternative, to get drawn into the phoney war that is political debate today. Whether Labour, Tory, Lib Dem or UKIP they all spout the same promises. But it always amounts to the same thing - they offer no alternative to the present way of running society. Do you really think who wins an election makes any difference to how you live? And do politicians (whether left-wing or right-wing) actually have much real power anyway? Okay, they get to open a new supermarket or factory, but it's capitalism and the market system which closes them down.
Do any of the political parties address any of the real issues: Why is there world hunger in a world of food surpluses? Why are there unemployed nurses, alongside closed-down hospital wards and longer waiting lists? Why are there homeless people in the streets and empty houses with "for sale" signs? Why do some people suffer stress from working long hours of employment while others get stressed from the boredom of their long days of unemployment?
What is voting? It’s a chance to tell the country and the world what your vision of government and society really is. If you can't vote for what you believe in or don't believe in what you vote for, then, voting means nothing. An unprincipled vote is a wasted vote. You aren’t standing up for what you believe in by voting “the lesser of two evils.” You have have sold out your personal beliefs. We vote to tell everyone else which choice we think best represents the direction which we want the country to go. When you vote, you gain a certain power that a non-voter doesn’t have; the power to change the status quo. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. In other words, if you want change, then create change. So rather than waste your vote on what you consider the lesser evil, Labour or Tory, cast a meaningful ballot that clearly says what you believe. If the difference between Conservative and Labour is that one party truthfully promises evil, and the other deceitfully promises good, surely the right thing to do is to judge the difference too small to be worth calculating, and walk away from that Hobson's choice.
Challenging capitalism demands a political struggle that starts with the realisation that the Labour Party are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The future of humanity depends on building a class movement that once and for all ends the rule of a tiny elite and replaces it with the rule of the majority. The task of socialists is to break illusions in the capitalist system and its politicians - not to strengthen those illusions. It follows that the first task of socialists today should be to reject any support for the capitalist party candidates, no matter how “left” their rhetoric sounds. But once socialists reject the Labour Party, they must pose a clear socialist alternative. For revolutionary socialists the issue in capitalist elections is not campaign promises or the individual personality of candidates or the character of candidates they run against. There is but one issue that concerns us when it comes to electoral politics and that is working-class independence. Change from below is the only change we can believe in. Socialists, therefore, whenever possible in the electoral arena, and in everyday practice, pose a working-class alternative to the rule of the minority capitalist elite. We are advocates of real majority rule, rule by the people themselves in their own name and in their own interests, for a socialist society free from oppression and exploitation.
History shows that the given state of a person's consciousness is not a static and non-changing thing. Class consciousness is steadily influenced by experience and by the way people see themselves - that is, whether as isolated individuals as most now do, or as a social class with common interests that are in diametrical opposition to the interests of the capitalist class. The big question is what will change people thinking, and therefore, how they act, and what they fight for? Indications suggest that today’s deteriorating global economy and the various struggles now unfolding in the world are having their impact and causing a transformation in consciousness in London and elsewhere. In order to know what must be done next, we should know what happened before. That’s always the way, lessons from the past serve as a guide for the present and the future. The task of the Socialist Party is to do everything it can to facilitate and accelerate this part of the historic process, but yet realising that for the moment, we are limited to that largely educational function.
The Socialist Party will have the only candidates standing in these London Assembly elections who will be saying to the electorate "We do not want your vote unless you understand what our positions are and fully agree with them"! If you want to vote for our party we're delighted. But we don't really want votes based on a misreading of what we are about. We are not promising to deliver socialism to you. We are not putting ourselves forward as leaders. This new society can only be achieved if we join together to strive for it. If you want it, then it is something you have to bring about yourselves along with others in concerted co-operation and action.
For us socialism means a world community without any frontiers. About wealth being produced to meet people's needs and not for sale on a market or for profit. About everyone having access to what they require to satisfy their needs, without the rationing system that is money. A society where people freely contribute their skills and experience to produce what is needed, without the compulsion of a wage or salary. If you don't like present-day society... if you are fed up with the way you are forced to live...if you think the root cause of most social problems is the market system, then your ideas echo closely with ours.
Politics in Britain has become a cult of the personality. We do not issue photographs or biographical details of our candidates. The birthplace, background, work history and physical features of our candidate are a complete irrelevance. We have a policy that it is the Socialist Party's case not the candidate's face you vote for. It is the politics not the personality. We want you to vote for the Socialist Party and what it stands for, not the man.
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