Use your vote for socialism

Does your vote matter? Not in the slightest if you don’t use it to challenge capitalism. Why do the poor vote and act against their own economic and political interests? The Socialist Party does not accept that participating in elections is wrong. We do not divorce electoral politics from other strategies for basic change. There’s no contradiction at all between voting and civil protest, they are both democratic. It would be a mistake to assume that they are substitutes for one another. People want a voice in all the areas that affect their lives. The way to build support for socialism at the polls is to present clear principled, anti-capitalist positions. The creation of a powerful socialist movement is the first step to creating a real party of the 99% that not only criticises capitalism but contends to replace it. We need a movement explaining and de-stigmatising socialism. Your support for socialist candidates sends a positive message of solidarity that you reject the charade of capitalism.  With the political will, we can create a world where goods and services will be used to provide the needs of humanity rather than accumulating even more wealth for an economically redundant class of parasites.

No matter what the outcome of the election no matter who wins, the continued existence of capitalism is guaranteed. The problems of capitalist society have been described by journalists, novelists, historians, economists, sociologists, and even many politicians. But only socialists recognise that these problems cannot be solved until capitalism is replaced by a social system in which people throughout the world will work harmoniously together to produce and distribute wealth to satisfy society’s needs. The working class needs a political alternative, a socialist party dedicated to overthrowing both the capitalist economic system and the state that defends it.

“Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.” - 17th-century Spanish philosopher Baltasar Gracián y Morales

Politicians knowingly market themselves to lesser evil voters by constructing phony sales pitches, making themselves look more progressive than they really are. But what lesser evilism is about is supping with the devil, but with a longer spoon. Too often the media appraises candidates on the basis of what they say about themselves, not by their actual deeds and real class role. For any organisation claiming to be socialist to endorse a capitalist party is a shameful betrayal of principles they allegedly stand for. The reason real socialists never support candidates of capitalist parties is that there is nothing more dangerous for the workers than endorsing a class enemy. The Socialist Party seeks that fellow workers become conscious of themselves as a class and of their power in society. Genuine socialists understand that political consciousness begins with the recognition of the fundamental class division: the working class versus the ruling capitalist class. Success demands the working-class to be independence from all capitalist parties.

The Socialist Party is convinced that workers' cannot be defended by an adoption of the 'lesser evil', that is, a policy of concessions to and compromise with elements of capitalism. We do not unite with non-socialist organisations which claim to be defending our fellow-workers. A worker that has been robbed is like a cow that has been milked. The poor dumb animal is incapable of worrying about what becomes of the milk, but the so-called “intelligent” worker takes sides in the quarrel which goes on over that which has been taken from him. When sections of the capitalists, who exploit the working-class milch-cow squabble over their share of the surplus value, workers who line up and take sides in this quarrel are in the same position as the worker who has been robbed by thieves who then later fight over the division of the booty. It would be funny if it were not so sad and tragic to see the workers take sides, as they often do, with one gang of robbers that have plundered him or her as against the bunch of thieves.