The European elections: only struggle pays!

From June 4th to 7th, European voters are called to the polls to choose who will "represent" them in the European Parliament.
As anarchist communists, we do not think elections can bring any real change, as we prefer direct democracy to representative democracy. In other words, we prefer decisions affecting all workers to be discussed and made by those workers themselves, collectively.

The European Union's functioning and goals are opposed to this self-managing model and thus to the interests of the workers and the people. Its leaders despise the people so much that, although they may ask for our opinion, the only answer allowed is one which accepts the EU's political line which has already been decided eslewhere. The EU's attitude to the rejection by referendum of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe exemplifies this fact.

The European elections: only struggle pays!

From June 4th to 7th, European voters are called to the polls to choose who will "represent" them in the European Parliament.

As anarchist communists, we do not think elections can bring any real change, as we prefer direct democracy to representative democracy. In other words, we prefer decisions affecting all workers to be discussed and made by those workers themselves, collectively.

The European Union's functioning and goals are opposed to this self-managing model and thus to the interests of the workers and the people. Its leaders despise the people so much that, although they may ask for our opinion, the only answer allowed is one which accepts the EU's political line which has already been decided eslewhere. The EU's attitude to the rejection by referendum of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe exemplifies this fact.

The role of MEPs is to be part of the system which defends the interests of the capitalist class. On top of that, the actual leaders of the EU (the European Commission, the chair of the European Central Bank, etc.) are not subject to any democratic control and so they are even freer to defend those interests against the interests of the working class. This can be seen in the outrageous liberalization and privatization policies that have been enacted, and in the budgetary and monetary austerity (launched with Maastricht). In the current period of crisis, such policies only cause suffering for working-class people. There has been hardly any relaxation of the strict effects of the Stability Pact, which imposes very low public deficit levels. And while the European Central Bank did agree to relax monetary austerity, it has done so only in a very limited way that will only contribute to deepening the European crisis.

The European Union is a war machine to be used against social rights and workers, especially migrant workers: social dumping, cutting "labour costs", "free and undistorted competition", the hunt for migrants, border closures, police co-operation, and so on.

So the European Union is not a neutral institution whose policies should be "reshaped" - it is the institutional fulfilment of a capitalist power dedicated to serving the bosses and the bankers.

The election of new MEPs will not change this situation in any way. Only joint social struggles by all workers in a Europe-wide social movement can halt those policies and encourage the growth of a revolutionary force against capitalism and its institutions, for another society. A society based on the truly internationalist ideals of freedom, equality and solidarity.

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Comments (1 of 1)

by ajohnstone - socialist party of great britainWed Jun 03, 2009 12:23

Unlike the article the SPGB does not so easily dismiss the electoral process

Whats the SPGB case in the Euro elections:
We don't want your vote. We don't want your vote IF you think socialism means nationalisation, higher taxation, welfare state, national liberation, legalising marijuana or whatever. In short, we don't want your vote if you think we need to keep and act within existing capitalism.
We tell you we can't do anything for you. We don't promise you anything. We say that if you want socialism you've got to act for yourselves. We can't establish it for you.
We're not making any promises, if you vote for us, you're the one making the promise to work towards abolishing capitalism and the wages system
Whether Britain is in or out of Europe, or whether we use the £ or the euro, doesn't make any difference to workers daily lives. Europe is remote, just like the Westminster parliament, and people know they have no control of what happens. Neither have the politicians. Nobody controls or can control the way capitalism works.
The SPGB stand to enable any and all who would join the struggle to abolish capitalism to be able to signal to their fellow workers that that is what they want to do. We stand for the sole purpose of emancipating the working class, not soft-padding the chains of capital. We only want the votes of those who understand what socialism is, and actually want it and are prepared to do something about it. We're not leaders, we're not looking for followers, we're only standard bearers.
A vote for the SPGB is a vote that says you are ready to signal to your fellow socialists that they are not alone. A signal to your fellow workers that some people take the actual idea of socialism seriously, rather than relegating it to some bedtime fairytale never-never land once the work of running capitalism is supposedly done.

The article raises some interesting points on democracy

Democracy under capitalism is reduced to people voting for competing groups of professional politicians, to giving the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down to the governing or opposition party. Political analysts call this the ‘elite theory of democracy’ because all that the people get to choose is which elite should exercise government power. This contrasts with the original theory of democracy, which envisages popular participation in the running of affairs and which political analysts call ‘participatory democracy’.

The most we will get under capitalism is the right to vote, under more or less fair conditions, for who shall control political power - a minimalist form of democracy, but one not to be so easily dismissed, since at least it provides a mechanism whereby a socialist majority could vote in socialist delegates instead of capitalist politicians.

Bourgeois democracy is the best we can hope for under capitalism, but it is not the ideal model possible for the revolutionary. Capitalist democracy is not a participatory democracy, which a genuine democracy has to be. In practice, the people generally elect professional politicians, who they merely vote for, and then let them get on with the job.

In other words, the electors abdicate their responsibility to keep an eye on their representatives, giving them a free hand to do what the operation of capitalism demands. But that’s as much the fault of the electors as their representatives - or rather it is a reflection of their low level of democratic consciousness. It cannot be blamed on the principle of representation as such.

There is no reason in principle why, with a heightened democratic consciousness (such as would accompany the spread of socialist ideas), even representatives sent to state bodies could not be subject, while the state lasts, to democratic control by those who sent them there.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has never held that a merely formal majority at the polls will give the workers power to achieve socialism. We have always emphasised that such a majority must be educated in the essentials of socialist principles. It is the quality of the voters behind the vote that, in the revolutionary struggle, will be decisive. The institution of parliament is not at fault. It is just that people’s ideas have not yet developed beyond belief in leaders and dependence on a political elite.

What the SPGB propose is that people should use the vote in the course of the social revolution from capitalism to socialism and vote capitalism out of office. To do this they will need to stand mandated delegates at elections, but these will just be ‘messenger boys and girls’, sent to formally take over and dismantle ‘the state’, not leaders or government minister wannabes.

The vote is merely the legitimate stamp that will allow for the dismantling of the repressive apparatus of the state and the end of bourgeois democracy and the establishment of real democracy. This should not be understood as simply putting an X on a ballot paper and letting the SPGB and its MPs establish socialism for workers. There must also be that ‘conscious’ and active socialist majority outside parliament, democratically organised both in a mass socialist political party and at work in various forms of ex-trade union type organisations ready to keep production going during and immediately after the winning of political control.

The SPGB is a political party that has a membership who don’t require a leadership to make its decisions, that has an executive council which doesn’t determine policies, that has a general secretary whose role is to administer and not to control. As a matter of political principle, the SPGB holds no secret meetings, with all its meetings, including those of its executive committee, being open to the public. Thus reflecting the society it seeks to establish.

This blog has been updated again, collecting materials on strikes, union education, a recent "anarchist survey," the Spanish and Russian Revolutions, and race/ class in South Africa. The overall aim of the page is to collect my my writings on political economy, policy, unions and class struggles. These are are written from a red-and-black anarchist/ syndicalist perspective, and go back to the 1990s.

Let us approach from the side of the struggle of working class and poor for freedom, and that means the struggle against all oppression and exploitation. From that side, be against imperialism, unconditionally, including whatever outrages the French state will now justify. But also be against reactionary anti-imperialists with reactionary programmes, and for a progressive anti-imperialism, like that of PKK in Rojava. The working class and left must lead anti-imperialist struggles, and work with progressive movements, including progressive anti-imperialists, to make a better world, pushing those struggles towards anarchist-communism.

As working class activists, we should share experiences with – and learn from – working class struggles in other places. The ruling class organises worldwide to exploit and dominate our class. So we need to organise resistance to defend our interests everywhere. And we can only benefit from arming ourselves with lessons from different working class movements.

It is clear that the multi-level direct democracy of the world commune will be based on the grassroots communities, in whose members' assemblies the decisions will be arrived at and from where the delegates to the higher levels of organizations will be nominated. However, the details that the whole is combined from have been gone into mainly in fiction literature only.

All that was needed was a profound economic crisis and a little discontent among the people for Europe's democracies to abandon their liberal facade and show themselves for what they really are: the dictatorship of large Capital. It doesn't matter what the citizens think, the coup d'état in Greece, the nomination of technocrats to the government in Italy and the government in Ireland radio-controlled from Brussels, these are the best proof of the fact that not even in Europe will they hesitate to put aside their democratic formalism is the interests of the 1% are in danger. While the general discontent and popular mobilization grows, what will happen next? [Italiano] [Castellano]