Thursday, January 27, 2022

50 Years Ago: The Use of the Vote (1989)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whether votes are a power or not depends upon the type of men who cast them. If the voters are shiftless persons who only live by the favour of the rich, or wage-earners whose mentality is such that they regard the capitalists as "bread-givers", such workers will certainly not capture political power through the vote they cast. So far as they possess the vote at all. they will rather be inclined to sell the political power which it represents to the highest bidder.

The case is different with workers in a society which they sustain, and which would collapse without them. When the workers form a majority and are conscious of their importance to society, their voting for the Socialist Party signifies that they have recognised their strength and are determined to make use of it.

Kautsky's The Labour Revolution (Allen & Unwin. 1925. page 30).

[From the Socialist Standard, January 1939.]

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