• VoxAliorum@lemmy.ml
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    1 hour ago

    I really like the idea of randomly elected representatives. Sure, they will try to better their situation for afterwards but with enough corruption control (which is probably easier to implement), this will only ensure that they support their kind of workers a bit more than the rest.

  • PearOfJudes@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    ngl I do hate this kind of nhilism in terms of democracy. Like I agree with that one quote from that greek guy which says that a democracy needs smart people, but democracy is the best system we’ve come up with that to a small extent, makes politicians meet the peoples needs.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 hours ago

    Democracy has as a necessary precondition that people are intelligent enough to differentiate good candidates from bad candidates.

    The real question therefore is whether the people are intelligent enough. That decides their fate.

    • narwhal@mander.xyz
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      4 hours ago

      I think your capacity to think is irrelevant or even played against you when the elites pour obscene amounts of money to change your perception of reality. Even the greatest minds can’t escape this.

  • RindoGang@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 hours ago

    Liberals mocked Antifa for not voting, saying left extremists turn right eventually

    I hate liberals man.

  • stinky@redlemmy.com
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    14 hours ago

    Which greek philosophers said that? and what did they say? do you have any sources to confirm?

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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      10 hours ago

      Both plato and aristotle, but aristotle thought that any election-based state turned out in practice, to be an oligarchy or aristocracy, not a democracy (which he define as rule by the poor, with random selection by lot).

      Aristotle’s politics books 4-6 talk a lot about this:

      http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.4.four.html

      In other words, what today we call “representative democracy”, the ancient greeks correctly identified as oligarchy.

      • jaxxed@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Did the greeks suggest any replacement?

        I see electoralism weaknesses, but what other systems are less prone to power capture and then raw authoritarianism?

        If people don’t choose their representation, then who does? Or is representation the flaw?

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          4 hours ago

          Socialist democracy. The political structure is a way to reinforce the economic base, so by moving onto socialism, the working class is in control of the state. The issue isn’t with voting, period, but the idea that we can escape capitalism just by doing so.

      • stinky@redlemmy.com
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        9 hours ago

        Your response is rational, informational, based in fact, and measurable.

        The original image is uncited incendiary garbage. This is not a time where we need more division and infighting. If you can’t be nice, please just stick to the facts.

  • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    You’re giving the liberals too much credit by saying they admit that electoralism has never worked.

    The liberal position is not only that electoralism works but that it is the only thing that works.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOP
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      23 hours ago

      True. After years of letdowns, some might accept that electoralism is a rigged game, but then the next generation completely forgets everything.

      And for all of them, the socialist road is demonized and kept hidden, so no alternative seems possible.

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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      24 hours ago

      Liberals believe electoralism doesn’t work because not enough people believe in it and we can fix it by voting harder.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      23 hours ago

      There’s a split in liberalism, between true believers and those disillusioned but who can’t see a way out. I believe the latter are more common these days, and are the target of the meme. The cure is organizing and reading theory, becoming a leftist in the process, but right now they still cling to faux-progressivism and electoralism.

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    19 hours ago

    Communal society: Electoralism is cringe.

    Slave society: Electoralism is cringe.

    Feudal society: Electoralism is cringe.

    Liberal society: noooooo, electoral democracy portents the end of history elections are based nooooo

    Socialist society: Electoralism is cringe.

    Communist society: Electoralism is cringe.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    23 hours ago

    The great lie of liberal democracy is the idealist notion that literally anything can be voted in if enough people vote for it, and that this will have political supremacy over those in power. This analysis puts the state outside of class struggle, above it, and not as the mutually reinforcing superstructural aspect of society. The role of the state is to reinforce the base, ie the mode of production, and it does so through propagating ruling class ideology (ie, liberalism), and through a monopoly of violence.

    Electoralism is a sham. The lessons of the failures of electoralism scar the global south, the coup against comrade Allende taught us all too well. The state is not outside or above class struggle, but is mired in it. Without replacing the bourgeois state with a socialist, proletarian one, the ready-made levers for reinforcing the bourgeois mode of production will cause a reversion. The Paris Commune was the first such example of this failure in action, and it has happened again, such as with the coup against Allende and the installment of Pinochet.

    What is there to do, then? Organize. Build up parallel structures that take the place of existing capitalist mechanisms. Join a party, read theory, and solidify the politically advanced of the working class under one united banner. Build a dedication to the people, defend and platform the indigenous, colonized, queer, disabled, marginalized communities, and unite the broad working class. It is through organization and revolution that we can actually move on into a better world.

    If anyone reading wants a place to start with theory, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, aimed at absolute beginners. Give it a look!

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      Without replacing the bourgeois state with a socialist, proletarian one, the ready-made levers for reinforcing the bourgeois mode of production will cause a reversion. The Paris Commune was the first such example of this failure in action.

      The Soviet Union was one of the latest. Yeltsin taking office, failing to get his way, and then shelling parliament into surrender being the most prominent example of the failures of electoralism, even in an ostensibly proletarian state.

      Gaza also a great instance of the wages of strict electoralism. You rally your people behind a more militant political body (Hamas in 2006) and the end result is your heavily armed neighbors using the results of an election as causa belli. Hell, the American Civil War is another great example, what with a Southern coup government rising up after a Presidential election defeat.

      It is through organization and revolution that we can actually move on into a better world.

      It gives us a fighting chance, at least. But it is also hard, painful, and requiring enormous self-sacrifice particularly among the early adopters.

  • adrianmalacoda@lemmy.ml
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    19 hours ago

    Arrested Development was literally a satire of the Bush family/administration, whom are now being rehabilitated by usonian liberals.