“Authoritarianism” is meaningless because all it means is “uses state power.” It doesn’t acknowledge which class controls the state and who it uses state power against. In China, the working classes control the state, and use state power against bad actors and capitalists more than anything else. China is oppressive to capitalists and liberating to workers.
You ain’t wrong about the social credit thing! There was only one municipality that tried to implement it in any way that even vaguely resembles how mainstream media hysterics portray, and that city’s administration was punished for it on the national stage.
The only thing the “social credit” system was meant to do is make major public figures accountable for corruption. It was never aimed at REGULAR people!
But yeah nah fuck anyone and anything that opposed democracy especially the two faced single political party of the United States of America. If they actually gave a shit about democracy for real instead of just consuming lives to pay for their pedophilia addictions, we’d have ranked choice voting by now.
Unfortunately I don’t think ranked choice voting will save you. You need to clear the board so to speak and get some options that actually represent people over corporate interests.
You do realize that ranked choice voting is one of the simplest and least violent ways to push forward progressive candidates right? Because it makes people comfortable with voting options that with first past the post would be throw away votes
That makes sense, and then you look at Europe and realise the issues at hand are systemic, caused by material conditions and bourgeois democratic electoralism is never going to fix those issues.
Much of Europe already uses ranked choice or proportional voting, yet remains austerity-ridden and sliding toward the far right because it is still under the dictatorship of capital. The voting mechanism is secondary to the concrete material conditions: capital’s imperative to accumulate, the commodification of labor, and the state’s role as an instrument of class rule. Until that dictatorship is overthrown, electoral reform is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.
The core contradictions at hand are:
Socialized production versus private appropriation:workers collectively create value, but capitalists expropriate the surplus
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall: as organic composition of capital rises, profitability declines, forcing capital to seek new fixes
Overaccumulation and underconsumption: capital produces more than can be profitably sold, leading to crisis, layoffs, and austerity
The contradiction between capital’s global mobility and labor’s relative immobility, which fuels a race to the bottom in wages and protections.
As imperialism declines (neocolonial extraction becomes costlier, interimperialist rivalry intensifies, and the Global South resists outright plunder) capital can no longer rely on external superprofits to offset domestic falling rates of profit. The response is internal repression: austerity to slash social wages, union-busting to weaken labor power, surveillance to preempt dissent, and the normalization of authoritarian governance. This is capital’s logical reaction to crisis.
This dynamic mirrors Weimar Germany: economic crisis, delegitimized liberal parties, and a bourgeoisie that ultimately backed fascism to crush the organized working class and restore “order” for capital. Today’s far-right surge is the same phenomenon: capital’s emergency management when consent can no longer be manufactured through bourgeois democracy alone.
Voting under these conditions is not a path to liberation; it is a ritual that legitimizes the managers of decline. For voting to matter, you must overthrow the dictatorship of capital and reach the synthesis of these contradictions: a revolutionary transformation that socializes production, abolishes exploitation, and builds a state that serves human need, not profit. Only then does political power and thereby voting become meaningful.
Many far right countries (australia, japan, south korea) use ranked choice voting… it doesn’t make a bit of difference. If capitalists control the political system, then they will stack candidates and fund the campaigns that support their interests, and the “democracy” there is nothing but political theatre.
Outside of Marxists, even the ancient greeks knew that representative government is just another name for plutocracy, because only wealthy / landed family have the money and prestige to fund campaigns to get themselves elected. Liberals still haven’t learned this simple lesson.
Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative.
The social credit score isn’t real.
Everybody disliked that
You can dislike it all you want doesn’t make it less true.
Re: authoritarianism— your opinion.
Some of us aren’t in favour of oppressive regimes that aren’t transparent, surveil, and censor.
“Authoritarianism” is meaningless because all it means is “uses state power.” It doesn’t acknowledge which class controls the state and who it uses state power against. In China, the working classes control the state, and use state power against bad actors and capitalists more than anything else. China is oppressive to capitalists and liberating to workers.
You ain’t wrong about the social credit thing! There was only one municipality that tried to implement it in any way that even vaguely resembles how mainstream media hysterics portray, and that city’s administration was punished for it on the national stage.
The only thing the “social credit” system was meant to do is make major public figures accountable for corruption. It was never aimed at REGULAR people!
But yeah nah fuck anyone and anything that opposed democracy especially the two faced single political party of the United States of America. If they actually gave a shit about democracy for real instead of just consuming lives to pay for their pedophilia addictions, we’d have ranked choice voting by now.
Unfortunately I don’t think ranked choice voting will save you. You need to clear the board so to speak and get some options that actually represent people over corporate interests.
You do realize that ranked choice voting is one of the simplest and least violent ways to push forward progressive candidates right? Because it makes people comfortable with voting options that with first past the post would be throw away votes
That makes sense, and then you look at Europe and realise the issues at hand are systemic, caused by material conditions and bourgeois democratic electoralism is never going to fix those issues.
Much of Europe already uses ranked choice or proportional voting, yet remains austerity-ridden and sliding toward the far right because it is still under the dictatorship of capital. The voting mechanism is secondary to the concrete material conditions: capital’s imperative to accumulate, the commodification of labor, and the state’s role as an instrument of class rule. Until that dictatorship is overthrown, electoral reform is rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.
The core contradictions at hand are:
Socialized production versus private appropriation:workers collectively create value, but capitalists expropriate the surplus
The tendency of the rate of profit to fall: as organic composition of capital rises, profitability declines, forcing capital to seek new fixes
Overaccumulation and underconsumption: capital produces more than can be profitably sold, leading to crisis, layoffs, and austerity
The contradiction between capital’s global mobility and labor’s relative immobility, which fuels a race to the bottom in wages and protections.
As imperialism declines (neocolonial extraction becomes costlier, interimperialist rivalry intensifies, and the Global South resists outright plunder) capital can no longer rely on external superprofits to offset domestic falling rates of profit. The response is internal repression: austerity to slash social wages, union-busting to weaken labor power, surveillance to preempt dissent, and the normalization of authoritarian governance. This is capital’s logical reaction to crisis.
This dynamic mirrors Weimar Germany: economic crisis, delegitimized liberal parties, and a bourgeoisie that ultimately backed fascism to crush the organized working class and restore “order” for capital. Today’s far-right surge is the same phenomenon: capital’s emergency management when consent can no longer be manufactured through bourgeois democracy alone.
Voting under these conditions is not a path to liberation; it is a ritual that legitimizes the managers of decline. For voting to matter, you must overthrow the dictatorship of capital and reach the synthesis of these contradictions: a revolutionary transformation that socializes production, abolishes exploitation, and builds a state that serves human need, not profit. Only then does political power and thereby voting become meaningful.
As good as preferential/ranked voting is. Compulsory voting would have a much larger positive impact on US’ democracy
Ideally both
Neither can fix the systemic problems caused by capitalism though, democracy in capitalism is democracy for capitalists.
Many far right countries (australia, japan, south korea) use ranked choice voting… it doesn’t make a bit of difference. If capitalists control the political system, then they will stack candidates and fund the campaigns that support their interests, and the “democracy” there is nothing but political theatre.
Outside of Marxists, even the ancient greeks knew that representative government is just another name for plutocracy, because only wealthy / landed family have the money and prestige to fund campaigns to get themselves elected. Liberals still haven’t learned this simple lesson.
In what world is Australia far right? Center right/neoliberal today maybe. But not far fight, especially compared to other countries
Also I recommend compulsory voting.
In this world, the world where open support for genocide is bipartisan in Australian politics
I do not and will not dispute that either.