So, You Vote? (2017)

From the January 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do you vote for Labour, the LibDems, the Tories? Maybe you don’t vote at all. Maybe you think voting is a waste of time because it doesn't change anything.

Politics seems to be about endless arguments over the same problems without anyone ever getting nearer to solutions. That is why a lot of people think that political activity is a waste of time, that politicians are liars and cheats whose first concern is to look after their own interests.

Voting is a waste, particularly, if you leave it there, at the voting, at the nose counting, and take no further part until the next election. Democracy means much more than a cross on a bit of paper: it means organising, debating, discussing and examining the world around us to work out how to change it for our benefit. Democracy is too important to be left to the professionals.

But even then democracy is not up to much unless you see that inequality of wealth means inequality of power. That as long as a minority own society, it must be run in their interest. Labour, the LibDems, the Tories, none of them want to do anything about that.

But there is another way.

At present we live under an economic system which can't help but produce wars, crises, pollution, overwork, stress, alienation . . . None of these is necessary. The world could be run on different lines which could get it out of the mess it is in.

That is why we campaign for common and democratic ownership and control of the wealth of the world, and we're asking you to join us in that campaign. If we do that, we can make democracy and equality mean something, and change the world so that it is run for our benefit, not the tiny minority's.

Capitalism will not collapse or breakdown of its own accord. It has to be consciously done to death by political action by the class of wage and salary workers. Until the working class are moved to do this capitalism will continue to stagger from boom to slump and back again.

Socialists urge that it is futile to try to reform capitalism – the whole system needs to be scrapped and replaced by something better.

The world could be run on different lines which could get it out of the mess it is in. People could organise their affairs so that everyone has free access to the things they need to lead a decent and satisfying life. If the waste and artificial shortages of capitalism were eliminated we could easily produce enough to go over to getting what we need on the basis of the principle from each according to our abilities to each according to our needs. In other words, free access to what we need without having to hand over coloured pieces of paper or to use cards or vouchers of any kind.