Abstentionism vs electoralism

[twc]

Robbo, it’s not a matter of what I think about reducing the rate of exploitation, i.e. profits.It’s what the ruling class of capitalists think, i.e. those whose representatives dominate the parliament in which Socialists are a minority.But deeper still, it’s what the dynamic capitalist system will allow.  We don't have as much of a free hand in it as you imagine.Anyone can “support” a reduction in profits as much as he likes, but an adaptive capitalist class simply retaliates by seeking profit elsewhere,  e.g., as Marx showed, reinvesting in technology rather than labour.The consequential “benefit to the working class” is that unemployment in affected sectors skyrockets.Capital moves faster than parliamentary legislation, which is a disappointing laggard.In response to any legislative act against capital, and so a legislative act gainst exploitation, capital never fails to find a way out. It always squeezes you, and so the harder you squeeze it, you give it no choice but to squeeze you harder back.Futility of supporting capitalist reforms…Society daily reproduces itself entirely through working class exploitation—the sole motive of daily renewal being capital expansion.Reformists of all stripes vainly try to deny, ignore, or mitigate this process which “operates with the inexorability of a law of nature”.  Capital outsmarts them every time.  It survives and thrives long after its antagonists are gone and forgotten.Final thoughtsMy considered thoughts are given in the previous post.This issue is dangerous and hypothetical and requires more thought.  For these, and for independent external reasons, I hereby close my keyboard on it.

[twc]

I appreciate the greatness of the reply to WB of Upton Park.  But I also acknowledge that this reply is just the first word on a fraught matter.  It is by no means the last. Many more words are needed to carefully flesh out its implications.A capitalist parliament is a Socialist minefieldBear in mindAll parliamentary measures will be capitalist political measures.Capitalist political measures, as now, will be tainted by being framed to work under capitalism.Capitalist political measures, as now, “must succeed” under capitalist conditions.Capital seeks freedom. It outsmarts all capitalist political measures aimed at controlling it.Capitalist political measures, to block capital functioning somewhere nasty, simply drive capital to function somewhere else, possibly even nastier.Capitalist political measures demand due diligence—for us possibly more so than the cursory glance they regularly receive from parliamentarians and their staffers today.Capitalist political measures make serious demands on Socialist Party delegate and staffer time, effort and resources, diverting them indirectly from our direct Object.Capitalist political measures that sabotage the system will, under capitalism, always operate at the expense of the working class or, at least, sections of it.A Socialist in a capitalist dominated parliament perpetually faces the dilemma—the contradiction of opposites—whether to undermine capitalism and harm the working class or to support capitalism and “benefit the working class”. A savvy capitalist opponent susses out the Socialist Party’s reformist Achilles heel, and pursues a deliberate counter strategy of perpetually bogging it down in tantalising contentious legislation after legislation after legislation…These fraught considerations, which seem almost fatal to me, can be annulled if the Socialist Party never swerves from its direct Object. The Risk of Never SwervingFrom countless apocalyptic scenarios and sob stories told by others above, the alternative strategy of “never swerving” is seen as taking an unacceptable political risk.But political risk “comes with the territory” from the moment a Socialist enters a capitalist parliament.A Socialist delegate must learn to harness risk. Risk brings out the unexpected, unlocks the unforeseen and, in the overcoming, stuns the naysayer.For me, the calculated risk of “never swerving” is the only Socialist path to glorious victory.

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