this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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No, I absolutely show up, to protests, organizing, and other real-life methods of gaining real change and growing organizational power. It's not that voting doesn't work because Marxists don't vote, it's that Marxists don't emphasize voting because we know it doesn't work.
Very nice that you are an outlier, but that does not change my point in the slightest.
Consider this. Installing Linux is rather easy, but you do have to make an installer. Most people won't and that becomes a filter. If you can't get people to care enough to vote they are very likely not going to do anything else.
enjoy losing out on more influence at the discussion table.
To the contrary, this is the mainstream Marxist opinion. You're fighting strawmen.
We don't need everyone to join the communist party. Instead, we need the party to gain the trust of the people and become the people's chosen party.
This method is tried and true.
You haven't proven this, and are more proving my point. If you personally are not organizing in real life, and instead just voting and hoping other people do all of the hard work for you, then you aren't doing anything at all.
What proof do you need that a massive and visible movement will have influence? That group being able to coordinate to show up for an election is also a demonstration that they can show up for other events like protests and strikes. It also shows the movement that they do infact have the strength. It shows the opposition that you do in fact have to be taken seriously. Like I have said all along, elections help build credibility. Not sure what proof you need on such an obvious statement.
You haven't proven that electoralism is a viable way to do so. Strikes, protests, unionizing, and agitating all show strength, and PSL as an example does try to run candidates specifically to prove electoralism does not work.
If you personally are not organizing in real life, and instead just voting and hoping other people do all of the hard work for you, then you aren’t doing anything at all.
I didn't say its the only way. We should be doing more than one thing at a time you know?
You've been arguing against Marxists for not doing enough, though, because we correctly recognize that voting will not bring change. If you personally are not organizing in real life, and instead just voting and hoping other people do all of the hard work for you, then you aren’t doing anything at all.
I am saying that they don't help contribute much to overall leftist movements and their lack of willingness to at least vote helps minimize our overall impacts as well. Like you said it happens ever 2years and you can't spare an evening for it? Are you that busy... and still have not much to show for it?
We can do more than one thing at a time and it is foolish to ignore elections completely.
How so? The overwhelming majority of groups that have succeeded in establishing socialism have been Marxists. No electoralist progressives have been capable of establishing socialism and solidifying it, ever.
Marxists do vote, though. As I already proved, PSL runs campaigns. Marxists do not think it is useful for anything other than exposure, however, which is why Marxists stress how important it is to actually do stuff like organizing.
If someone can't, there's no reason to scold them for it, as it doesn't make a practical difference.
I don't know what you mean by this, Marxists have established socialism in numerous countries and control the largest economy in the world by PPP. This is far more than any electoralist has achieved.
Nobody is saying to, though, just that electione cannot bring positive change.
If you personally are not organizing in real life, and instead just voting and hoping other people do all of the hard work for you, then you aren’t doing anything at all.
And yet we have individuals like you asking people to just skip out and being counter productive to our overall movements. Show up anyway bud, its only an evening every 2 years (if you are american, but that doesn't change my point)
Show me exactly where I say we should skip out entirely. Show me exactly how I am being counter-productive.
And you won't get the results you want because you don't show up to vote. Aka, you are being counter productive to your own ends.
I did not say we should skip out on voting there, I said voting is not emphasized by Marxists due to not being capable of delivering results. I don't know why you think that after centuries of reformists trying to vote for positive change that it will finally happen. Look at Allende, he was voted in and then immediately coup'd for it by Pinochet and the US Empire. Revolution is necessary.
Please show me one example of electoralism resulting in socialists taking power and being able to solidify it. Just one. Please also explain why you believe that this time it will be different and finally work.
A revolution could also be coup'ed therefore we should not make one by your own logic.
No? The point is that taking the system over on a strictly legal basis leaves the institutions intact that can revert it to capitalism. We learned this back at the Paris Commune, and learned it again with Allende. Revolution is necessary because we must smash the state and replace it with a socialist one, we cannot merely take hold of a capitalist state and morph it into a socialist one.
You can't because you don't vote.
You can't otherwise because your movement can't even coordinate (or is to apathetic) to vote; much less to storm the capital.
I did vote in the last election, and do vote. You're insistent on lying about the position of others even after we tell you. Further, you cannot take over the system legally and resist reversion, I'd love for you to give a single counter-example to what I already explained with the Paris Commune, Allende, etc.
That's like saying the Marxist movement is apathetic to building the world's largest sand castle. Storming the capital isn't going to do anything at the moment because there isn't a clear vanguard party and the revolutionary moment isn't yet here, and even if everyone voted Marxist it still wouldn't change the system.
Are you allergic to addressing this?
So your saying that MLs care so much they can't spare an afternoon?
No, and the fact that you keep making the same false accusation speaks volumes. Do you know how many days MLs give up organizing, year round?
Its not an accusation if you are putting this much energy into telling me why elections don't matter. At least do the minimum there and encourage your fellow MLs to do so.
Picking between two bourgeois parties is when the election doesn't really matter. I'm an anarchist and I'd rather vote for the MLs running in the margins than waste my vote on some capitalist
The minimum is to encourage everyone to actually organize, voting is secondary at best to that.