tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17759756.post1315766257136247087..comments2023-10-30T02:03:56.081+13:00Comments on Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty: What I actually think about votingMaiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17212711843307060731noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17759756.post-48266486404779489182007-05-06T15:42:00.000+12:002007-05-06T15:42:00.000+12:00Interesting discussion. I agree with your comments...Interesting discussion. I agree with your comments, but not many other peope would - and that's an important point to consider, I think. <BR/><BR/>Most folks in NZ, I think, see elections and political action as one and the same. If they don't like something, they use their vote to try to change it. They'll only do something else when they feel their vote has been betrayed.<BR/>Protesting for or against something is a sort of extraordinary measure.<BR/><BR/>For these reasons, I don't think the far left can really avoid the question 'Who should I vote for?'<BR/>Of course, if we're going to be perfectly consistent and principled, we're going to have to answer the question with 'no one' or 'the Workers Party' or some other small far left group. <BR/><BR/>I wouldn't give that sort of answer because I don't think it has any effect. I think that the vast majority of the people that have the potential to effect progressive change in this country support the Labour Party. This was shown very dramatically last election, when maps of voting patterns showed vast tracts of National blue frustrated by small red dots in urban working class areas like South Auckland. <BR/><BR/>I wish that most people in South Auckland supported a far left party, or even a left social democratic party like the Alliance, rather than Labour, but I don't think I can change their minds with a few leaflets or blogposts or flea market conversations. People have trying that for a long time, without a great deal of success. I think that, by and large, people have to learn through their own experiences. <BR/><BR/>In particular, they need to learn that Labour is no real alternative to National, and that its programme of continued neo-liberalism and support for the broad outlines of US foreign policy abroad runs directly counter to their own interests.<BR/>A new party that generally represents them has to come into being. <BR/><BR/>I hope you can see, then, why I'd rather have Labour in power than the Nats. As long as the Nats are around, Labour can pose as the workers' champion, without having to make any hard calls. They need to be put in the hotseat and made to squirm, as their supporters make demands they can't meet. <BR/><BR/>The argument I'm making goes back to Lenin, who said in the early '20s that the new Communist Party of Great Britain should support the Labour Party 'like a rope supports a hanged man'. <BR/><BR/>I think that the period from 1984-95, when Labour was split and almost destroyed as a result of Rogernomics, shows the potential for exposing the party by putting it in government and campaigning against its policies when they betray Labour voters. More recently, I think the massive split from the German Social Democrats and the establishment of a new mass left party in that country also counts for the 'hanged man' argument. <BR/><BR/>A critic of the argument might point out that Labour has been in power for nearly eight years, and hasn't lost much support from its base. I think that'd be a fair point, but in response I'd say that the party has lost a good chunk of its Maori vote (though whether that vote has gone in the best direction is another question), and that the economic upturn that has ballasted relations with the unions looks like ending soon. <BR/><BR/>The situation in the US is complicated by the fact that the Democrats are not, and never have been, a 'bourgeois workers party' (Lenin's terminology again), like the Labour Parties of Britain and New Zealand were and (probably) still are. <BR/><BR/>The Democrats attract union support and appeal to working class voters, but they have their foundations in a liberal section of the bourgeoisie and they are not dependent on the muscle power and membership of the unions. The unions can't throw the party into crisis by revolting against anti-worker policies, in the way that the British and Kiwi unions could probably still do to their Labour Parties (in Britain, the union bloc vote is still extremely important to eladership outcomes and conference decisions; in New Zealands, unions do much of the legwork for the Labour Party at election time).<BR/>(Maps)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com