The same old same or something completely different

Election day in the Vassall ward of Lambeth has rolled around, and conscientious voters are busy weighing up the merits of the candidates.  How can they evaluate the claims and counter-claims? What credence should be given to their political promises, seeing how often they are made cynically with never an intention (nor even the possibility) of making good on them?

Many voters will be  discouraged and skeptical of the possibility that voting can have any real influence on the way our lives are run, that they will turn their backs on the whole electoral process and agree with some that it is a fraud. Others will vote with no real expectation of improving things, settling for the “lesser evil” in the hope of keeping the worst scoundrels out of public office. And they will feel that they have thereby made a realistic compromise.

Since Russell Brand’s criticism of voting the news media has resulted in the sanctimonious litany that “good citizens”  should support the party of his or her choice. and use his or her vote, and not waste it, even if it does strengthen the “two-party system”. Politicians throughout the country are resorting to all kinds of tactics and attention-getting gimmicks intended to demonstrate to the electorate that they are thoroughly honest and free of improper influence.

In Vassall the options will be to go with the flow and elect the guaranteed-to-win Labour Party candidate, or stay home, believing your vote will make no difference to the outcome.

But there remains another way.

Granted that politicians are corrupt; that the cost of campaigning favours the rich and the influential and that many of the important decisions are made not in council chambers but in corporation board-rooms but our votes need not endorse such a situation but challenge it. While some well-intentioned people will reject the electoral process and try other means, like lobbying, demonstrations and community-level activism, our candidate differs for we do not offer a cure for the ills of capitalism. We do not claim that legislative tinkering with capitalism can remedy the mess we’re in. Because the mess is the direct result of capitalism and cannot be cured by reforms, no matter who applies them.

 Unemployment, poverty, racial discrimination, urban decay and  pollution will continue not because the people don’t care but because the capitalists don’t care, or rather, they care more about their profits. These problems that make living so difficult today have been with us for a very long time and are not peculiar to this neighbourhood. They exist in varying degrees in every part of the city, country and the world.  Recall the politicians promises made 5, 10 or 20 years ago and ask yourself — Has the general quality of living improved since then? Or has it worsened? Are the streets safer? Is there less crime? Is the air we breathe less polluted? Are our jobs more secure? Has poverty diminished? Has racism been eliminated? On the contrary, hasn't every one of these grown worse? Few, if any, will deny that workers, whatever their race or ethnic origin, are being subjected to more discomfort, more over-crowding, more inconvenience, more exploitation, greater insecurity and physical danger than ever before. The politicians blame each other. These social evils have been present and worsening for years and years and the political parties have always promised to do something about it. Some have even tried. Reform after reform has been enacted in efforts to alleviate them but conditions have gone right on getting worse and worse. All of which demonstrates that even with the best of intentions no politician or set of politicians could prevent conditions for workers from worsening. WHY?  Politicians persist in dealing with effects and ignoring the cause. The cause must be something that exists in every city. After all, the politicians who hold office in Lambeth do not administer the affairs of the other cities in the nation. Yet the other cities have the same problems we have. The basic cause of our problems is the capitalist system under which we live.  Consequently, the solution to our problems is not to be found in politicians, but in a whole new concept of society— a society for which the material basis exists right now.

Your choices boil down to two.

1. Support capitalism either by voting for the Labour Party or simply not voting.

2. Vote Danny Lambert and work for socialism which is nothing short of actual day-to-day popular control of the decision-making process that determines your life. The struggle for freedom requires building a political party of socialism to contest the power of the capitalist class on the political field, and to educate the majority of workers about the need for socialism.

Your vote can be used to demand a socialist democracy by casting them for the only candidate who makes that demand, the Socialist Party (GB) candidate.