Surely voting for radical parties will be effective?
There is no doubt that voting can lead to changes in policies, which can be a good thing as far as it goes. But such policies are formulated and implemented within the authoritarian framework of the hierarchical capitalist state — a framework which itself is never open to challenge by voting. To the contrary, voting legitimates the state framework, ensuring that social change will be mild, gradual, and reformist rather than rapid and radical. Indeed, the “democratic” process will (and has) resulted in all successful political parties becoming committed to “more of the same” or tinkering with the details at best (which is usually the limits of any policy changes). Therefore, given the need for radical systemic changes as soon as possible due to the exponentially accelerating crises of modern civilisation, working for gradual reforms within the electoral system must be seen as a potentially deadly tactical error. In addition, it can never get to the root causes of our problems. Anarchis
