You do realize that ranked choice voting is one of the simplest and least violent ways to push forward progressive candidates right? Because it makes people comfortable with voting options that with first past the post would be throw away votes
That makes sense, and then you look at Europe and realise the issues at hand are systemic, caused by material conditions and bourgeois democratic electoralism is never going to fix those issues.
Much of Europe already uses ranked choice or proportional voting, yet remains austerity-ridden and sliding toward the far right because it is still under the dictatorship of capital. The voting mechanism is secondary to the concrete material conditions: capital’s imperative to accumulate, the commodification of labor, and the state’s role as an instrument of class rule. Until that dictatorship is overthrown, electoral reform is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.
The core contradictions at hand are:
Socialized production versus private appropriation:workers collectively create value, but capitalists expropriate the surplus
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall: as organic composition of capital rises, profitability declines, forcing capital to seek new fixes
Overaccumulation and underconsumption: capital produces more than can be profitably sold, leading to crisis, layoffs, and austerity
The contradiction between capital’s global mobility and labor’s relative immobility, which fuels a race to the bottom in wages and protections.
As imperialism declines (neocolonial extraction becomes costlier, interimperialist rivalry intensifies, and the Global South resists outright plunder) capital can no longer rely on external superprofits to offset domestic falling rates of profit. The response is internal repression: austerity to slash social wages, union-busting to weaken labor power, surveillance to preempt dissent, and the normalization of authoritarian governance. This is capital’s logical reaction to crisis.
This dynamic mirrors Weimar Germany: economic crisis, delegitimized liberal parties, and a bourgeoisie that ultimately backed fascism to crush the organized working class and restore “order” for capital. Today’s far-right surge is the same phenomenon: capital’s emergency management when consent can no longer be manufactured through bourgeois democracy alone.
Voting under these conditions is not a path to liberation; it is a ritual that legitimizes the managers of decline. For voting to matter, you must overthrow the dictatorship of capital and reach the synthesis of these contradictions: a revolutionary transformation that socializes production, abolishes exploitation, and builds a state that serves human need, not profit. Only then does political power and thereby voting become meaningful.
Ranked choice and proportional voting are 2 very different concepts. You are falsely pretending they’re similar when they’re wildly different concepts. Only Ireland presently uses it from the eu, because they as well have an establishment, and ranked choice voting is anti establishment at its core.
Why are you trying to pretend they’re the same concept?
How do you expect to have a revolution if 90% of people don’t agree with your viewpoint? And I say that as a socialist. Pushing forward the agenda over the course of decades is more likely to be successful than a single revolution, in my opinion.
Yes, they are different, but the point at the core of my argument is that it’s irrelevant as they serve the same purpose at their core.
Whether it’s s RCV or MMP, the outcome remains austerity, imperialist foreign policy, and rising far-right influence because the state remains an instrument of capital. Ballot mechanics don’t override class power. RCV isn’t “anti-establishment at its core”; it’s a procedural tweak that can just as easily stabilize bourgeois legitimacy.
How do you expect to have a revolution if 90% of people don’t agree with your viewpoint?
In my country the revolution has already happened. We now conduct class struggle through party debate and socialist democracy, not bourgeois elections.
Also revolutionary consciousness isn’t a precondition you wait for, it is forged through struggle. The 90% figure is wrong for a start, even in the US communist sympathys are quickly growing, you also assumes static opinions under static conditions, but material crises radicalize people faster than decades of electoral gradualism. Reformism doesn’t build toward socialism, it manages capitalism more palatably and demobilizes movements by channeling energy into cycles of hope and disappointment.
Pushing forward the agenda over the course of decades is more likely to be successful than a single revolution, in my opinion.
History suggests otherwise. Social democracy produced the welfare state only under the unique pressure of postwar reconstruction and Soviet competition, then dismantled it once those pressures faded (and even that was built off massive exploitation and imperialism in the periphery). Capital concedes reforms only when forced and retracts them the moment profitability demands it. Waiting for electoral consensus while the climate burns, fascism rises, and imperialism massacres isn’t a strategy. Bourgeois democracy won’t let you vote through its own abolition. The task for those still under bourgeois democracy is to build dual power: organs of working-class authority that can confront and replace the dictatorship of capital. That’s how you can make voting matter.
You say “socialist democracy” as distinct from bourgeois elections but socialism describes an economic ideology, not a system of voting. It’s not a meaningful differentiator to show how your system is different. That alone makes me get the feeling you’re kinda just tossing word salads here. But, I would like you to explain what you mean before I dismiss it as such— perhaps it has a meaning I’m unfamiliar with.
precondition you wait for, it is forged through struggle. The 90% figure is wrong for a start, even in the US communist sympathys are quickly growing
Rapidly growing, part of why I’m optimistic in a peaceful solution. But I would say that’s much more for socialism than communism.
Bourgeois democracy won’t let you vote through its own abolition.
The beautiful part of democracy, even flawed ones, is that it can’t stop you once you gather enough support, it will bend to your will
It does have a meaning you’re unfamiliar with, and it’s not word salad. Through a materialist analysis, looking at the concrete material conditions of history and the present, you see that superstructures like voting systems are subordinate to the mode of production. That is my entire point. Changing the ballot mechanism is irrelevant so long as the mode of production that maintains the current superstructure remains intact.
In capitalist countries under the dictatorship of capital, you have bourgeois democracy. Your vote is limited to those who work for capital, who will never permit a challenge to private ownership or imperialist power. Under a socialist mode of production, where the means of production are socially owned, your vote carries real weight over the direction of society. That is what I call socialist democracy. As it flows from the different class content of the state.
Socialism is the transitionary period towards communism, not a stable endpoint. Contradictions remain, but now under the dictatorship of the proletariat they can be analyzed and synthesized through collective practice, not hidden behind the fiction of neutral institutions.
The beautiful part of democracy, even flawed ones, is that it can’t stop you once you gather enough support, it will bend to your will
Democracy as a form cannot stop you, but the capitalist superstructure absolutely can and will. Look at how even centrist Bernie was contained and defeated within the US party machine. Look at what was done to Mossadeq in Iran, Lumumba in Congo, Allende in Chile. All democratically elected, all pursuing reforms within the system, all removed by coups, assassinations, or imperial sabotage the moment they threatened capital’s core interests. The ballot box does not disarm the ruling class. They hold the state, the media, the courts, the police, and the economy. When votes threaten those, the mask comes off.
Peaceful transition is a hopeful thought, but it assumes capital will accept its own expropriation if enough people ask nicely. History shows the opposite. Capital concedes only when forced, and takes back when it can. Growing communist sympathy in the imperial core is great, but the question is whether that energy will be channeled into building independent working-class power or diluted into electoral cycles that change faces, not foundations.
Alas, I fear the US might be too far gone for ranked choice to have an effect.
The problem is quality of candidates. Since Citizen’s United opened the door for unlimited corporate money in elections, literally 90% of candidates are on someone’s payroll. “Grassroots” is a thing of the past. Mass media and name recognition are everything.
It’s quite possible it’s too late for the usa, but I still do want other democracies to push for it. Only 4 odd countries have it worldwide.
Worth saying, while grassroots is less common, it is not gone. Kat in il-9 is somewhat a good example of this though she failed community engagement and came from out of town so she’s unlikely to win. Though it is arguable how grassroots she is. Of course the top priority is revoking citizens united.
It’s one of the simplest ways of helping push countries to the left, because it allows you to have people vote for the leftist politicians without worrying about boosting a right wing politician or party, as first past the post forces, and also not forcing people to vote for parties, which lock out leftist candidates from being able to gain traction as easily such as in proportional voting systems.
You do realize that ranked choice voting is one of the simplest and least violent ways to push forward progressive candidates right? Because it makes people comfortable with voting options that with first past the post would be throw away votes
That makes sense, and then you look at Europe and realise the issues at hand are systemic, caused by material conditions and bourgeois democratic electoralism is never going to fix those issues.
Much of Europe already uses ranked choice or proportional voting, yet remains austerity-ridden and sliding toward the far right because it is still under the dictatorship of capital. The voting mechanism is secondary to the concrete material conditions: capital’s imperative to accumulate, the commodification of labor, and the state’s role as an instrument of class rule. Until that dictatorship is overthrown, electoral reform is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.
The core contradictions at hand are:
Socialized production versus private appropriation:workers collectively create value, but capitalists expropriate the surplus
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall: as organic composition of capital rises, profitability declines, forcing capital to seek new fixes
Overaccumulation and underconsumption: capital produces more than can be profitably sold, leading to crisis, layoffs, and austerity
The contradiction between capital’s global mobility and labor’s relative immobility, which fuels a race to the bottom in wages and protections.
As imperialism declines (neocolonial extraction becomes costlier, interimperialist rivalry intensifies, and the Global South resists outright plunder) capital can no longer rely on external superprofits to offset domestic falling rates of profit. The response is internal repression: austerity to slash social wages, union-busting to weaken labor power, surveillance to preempt dissent, and the normalization of authoritarian governance. This is capital’s logical reaction to crisis.
This dynamic mirrors Weimar Germany: economic crisis, delegitimized liberal parties, and a bourgeoisie that ultimately backed fascism to crush the organized working class and restore “order” for capital. Today’s far-right surge is the same phenomenon: capital’s emergency management when consent can no longer be manufactured through bourgeois democracy alone.
Voting under these conditions is not a path to liberation; it is a ritual that legitimizes the managers of decline. For voting to matter, you must overthrow the dictatorship of capital and reach the synthesis of these contradictions: a revolutionary transformation that socializes production, abolishes exploitation, and builds a state that serves human need, not profit. Only then does political power and thereby voting become meaningful.
Ranked choice and proportional voting are 2 very different concepts. You are falsely pretending they’re similar when they’re wildly different concepts. Only Ireland presently uses it from the eu, because they as well have an establishment, and ranked choice voting is anti establishment at its core.
Why are you trying to pretend they’re the same concept?
How do you expect to have a revolution if 90% of people don’t agree with your viewpoint? And I say that as a socialist. Pushing forward the agenda over the course of decades is more likely to be successful than a single revolution, in my opinion.
Yes, they are different, but the point at the core of my argument is that it’s irrelevant as they serve the same purpose at their core.
Whether it’s s RCV or MMP, the outcome remains austerity, imperialist foreign policy, and rising far-right influence because the state remains an instrument of capital. Ballot mechanics don’t override class power. RCV isn’t “anti-establishment at its core”; it’s a procedural tweak that can just as easily stabilize bourgeois legitimacy.
In my country the revolution has already happened. We now conduct class struggle through party debate and socialist democracy, not bourgeois elections.
Also revolutionary consciousness isn’t a precondition you wait for, it is forged through struggle. The 90% figure is wrong for a start, even in the US communist sympathys are quickly growing, you also assumes static opinions under static conditions, but material crises radicalize people faster than decades of electoral gradualism. Reformism doesn’t build toward socialism, it manages capitalism more palatably and demobilizes movements by channeling energy into cycles of hope and disappointment.
History suggests otherwise. Social democracy produced the welfare state only under the unique pressure of postwar reconstruction and Soviet competition, then dismantled it once those pressures faded (and even that was built off massive exploitation and imperialism in the periphery). Capital concedes reforms only when forced and retracts them the moment profitability demands it. Waiting for electoral consensus while the climate burns, fascism rises, and imperialism massacres isn’t a strategy. Bourgeois democracy won’t let you vote through its own abolition. The task for those still under bourgeois democracy is to build dual power: organs of working-class authority that can confront and replace the dictatorship of capital. That’s how you can make voting matter.
You say “socialist democracy” as distinct from bourgeois elections but socialism describes an economic ideology, not a system of voting. It’s not a meaningful differentiator to show how your system is different. That alone makes me get the feeling you’re kinda just tossing word salads here. But, I would like you to explain what you mean before I dismiss it as such— perhaps it has a meaning I’m unfamiliar with.
Rapidly growing, part of why I’m optimistic in a peaceful solution. But I would say that’s much more for socialism than communism.
The beautiful part of democracy, even flawed ones, is that it can’t stop you once you gather enough support, it will bend to your will
It does have a meaning you’re unfamiliar with, and it’s not word salad. Through a materialist analysis, looking at the concrete material conditions of history and the present, you see that superstructures like voting systems are subordinate to the mode of production. That is my entire point. Changing the ballot mechanism is irrelevant so long as the mode of production that maintains the current superstructure remains intact.
In capitalist countries under the dictatorship of capital, you have bourgeois democracy. Your vote is limited to those who work for capital, who will never permit a challenge to private ownership or imperialist power. Under a socialist mode of production, where the means of production are socially owned, your vote carries real weight over the direction of society. That is what I call socialist democracy. As it flows from the different class content of the state.
Socialism is the transitionary period towards communism, not a stable endpoint. Contradictions remain, but now under the dictatorship of the proletariat they can be analyzed and synthesized through collective practice, not hidden behind the fiction of neutral institutions.
Democracy as a form cannot stop you, but the capitalist superstructure absolutely can and will. Look at how even centrist Bernie was contained and defeated within the US party machine. Look at what was done to Mossadeq in Iran, Lumumba in Congo, Allende in Chile. All democratically elected, all pursuing reforms within the system, all removed by coups, assassinations, or imperial sabotage the moment they threatened capital’s core interests. The ballot box does not disarm the ruling class. They hold the state, the media, the courts, the police, and the economy. When votes threaten those, the mask comes off.
Peaceful transition is a hopeful thought, but it assumes capital will accept its own expropriation if enough people ask nicely. History shows the opposite. Capital concedes only when forced, and takes back when it can. Growing communist sympathy in the imperial core is great, but the question is whether that energy will be channeled into building independent working-class power or diluted into electoral cycles that change faces, not foundations.
Haha, you think the epstein class will allow you to vote away their fascism
It’s an important reform no matter what, even if we have to resort to other methods to take out the class first.
Alas, I fear the US might be too far gone for ranked choice to have an effect.
The problem is quality of candidates. Since Citizen’s United opened the door for unlimited corporate money in elections, literally 90% of candidates are on someone’s payroll. “Grassroots” is a thing of the past. Mass media and name recognition are everything.
It’s quite possible it’s too late for the usa, but I still do want other democracies to push for it. Only 4 odd countries have it worldwide.
Worth saying, while grassroots is less common, it is not gone. Kat in il-9 is somewhat a good example of this though she failed community engagement and came from out of town so she’s unlikely to win. Though it is arguable how grassroots she is. Of course the top priority is revoking citizens united.
It’s one of the simplest ways of helping push countries to the left, because it allows you to have people vote for the leftist politicians without worrying about boosting a right wing politician or party, as first past the post forces, and also not forcing people to vote for parties, which lock out leftist candidates from being able to gain traction as easily such as in proportional voting systems.