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Title: On Social Democracy and Elections
Author: Anonymous
Date: 2016, Spring / Summer
Language: en
Topics: editorial, AJODA, AJODA #77, democracy
Source: Retrieved on June 2nd, 2016 from source

Anonymous

On Social Democracy and Elections

It’s that time again, when after four (or eight) years, the presidential

election becomes “the most important of our time.” The clowns might be

different, but the circus remains the same: filling vacancies on the

Supreme Court, a rollback of abortion rights, foreign wars and targeted

assassinations, the growing prison population, the expansion of the

surveillance state... The campaigns of Trump and Sanders will surely be

remembered as footnotes; the former is so buffoonish that even other

Republicans can’t help making fun of him, while the latter, a Socialist

Jew, is obviously unelectable to the Executive Branch. Sure to be

forgotten as well (at least until the next time) is the excitement of a

certain group of self-described anarchists who, every so often, throw

aside what might generously be characterized as a half-hearted adherence

to anarchist principles, and proudly embrace and exercise their rights

as American citizens. To vote. Over the years, plenty of these part-time

anarchists have chosen to engage in electoralism, but they have usually

done so privately, not daring to try to convince anyone that such

engagement furthers any anarchist vision or project.

It was bad enough that there was a Hope Bloc to greet Obama’s 2009

inauguration; this time around we have to stomach the spectacle of

anarchists being shills for a Social Democrat Surprisingly — or not! —

pro-Sanders anarchists have something of an actual history to draw on.

Murray Bookchin (when he was still pretending to be an anarchist) was a

Sanders booster from the days when the current senator was the mayor of

Burlington, Vermont; Sanders’ tenure as an elected official may have

been part of a real-world experience that contributed to Bookchin’s

municipal, and state-level pro-Green Party electoralist deviation.

A quick reminder: when anarchists use the term direct action, we mean

any activity undertaken individually and/or collectively

outside/against/without the use of elected or self-appointed

representatives, especially those in government. Like all principles are

supposed to be, the anarchist promotion of direct action is

non-negotiable. One of the contributing factors to the definitive

dissolution of the First International was a split over the electoralist

strategy of Socialists; anarchists embraced direct action as an explicit

rejection of legal politics. It doesn’t necessarily mean breaking shit

(although that can be part of it), but it doesn’t mean volunteering to

get arrested, and it certainly doesn’t ever mean petitioning politicians

to change policies or laws.

From the 1870s, most anarchists have not considered legality and

parliamentarianism to be worthwhile strategic or tactical principles;

when Socialists — who do — set up their Second International in 1889,

they almost automatically excluded and/or ejected anarchists from it.

Social Democracy, the ideology originating in the Second International,

has different wings, from the electoral-fetishist, right-wing,

non-Marxists all the way to the left-wing, insurrectionary, Marxist

state capitalists (who eventually rejected the gradualism embodied in

the Second and set up a Third International in 1919) more commonly known

as Leninists. It's Important to recall that all Leninists (and their

various sectarian subgroups who worship Trotsky, Mao, Che, Ho, Stalin,

ad nauseam) have showed themselves to be among the most implacable

enemies of authentically radical social change. For the last 100 years,

from Mexico to Russia, from Germany to Spain, from Vietnam to Hungary

and Cuba, social democrats have proudly presided over the slaughter of

anarchists and other radicals who have promoted the non- hierarchical

self-organization — aka, direct action — of working class and poor

people.

There’s no reason to think that Bernie Sanders would be any different.

A presidential election year could be a time to point out and decry the

many deliberate inadequacies of what constitutes American-style

democracy: the near-total focus on religious issues; self-appointed

Super Delegates; the pro-slavery origins of the Electoral College; the

continual erosion of the provisions in the Voting Rights Act; the

inordinate focus on Swing States; the Citizens United decision; to say

nothing of the absurdity of having a two-party system that refuses

proportional representation... Instead, pro-Sanders anarchists acquiesce

to the junior high school level, lowest common denominator, internally

contradictory, mythology of one- person-one-vote majority rule, and the

average citizen’s (alleged) full participation in political decision

making. That’ll show the state!

Regular readers of this journal may find the observation unduly trite,

but it bears repeating that most of what’s wrong with American

anarchists, especially the activist subcategory, is that a sizable

segment remains committed to some form of Leftism. From being immersed

in projects championing some vague notion of Social Justice” to acting

as unpaid social workers, too many American anarchists continue to

wallow in the strategic mire of defacto social democracy, constantly

working to ameliorate the worst aspects of neoliberal post-industrial

capitalism. This was seen most clearly in the various Occupy camps

around the country; horizontally organized charities are still

charities; eviction/foreclosure defense is predicated on the idea of

private property; representation (with or without the famous mandated

delegates) remains unchallenged. It’s not that projects that provide

food and shelter are useless or unhelpful; plenty of people otherwise

unable to squeeze out a basic level of survival at the bottom of the

capitalist pyramid certainly appreciate the help. But to pretend that

these activities are the seeds of the new inside the shell of the old is

a delusion. Like voting. Most of the organizational structures and

decision-making processes in such projects tend to mirror the worst

aspects of virtually all varieties of the Left, like paternalism,

bureaucratism, and institutionalized authoritarianism.

Electoralism, as an integral aspect of good citizenship, can’t be

separated from this. Perhaps there’s some alluring residue of the

patriotism left over from those junior high school civics classes, some

form of loyalty to the whole “right of petition for the redress of

grievances” thing. For whatever reason(s), too many anarchists continue

to harbor illusions about the responsiveness of the duly elected legal

representatives of the citizens of the United States; that’s why they

still organize and participate in demand-based protest, justified by

rights-based discourse. Shamefully, too many anarchists can’t seem to

resist the temptation of propping up political parties espousing

moderate progress within the bounds of the law. @