On 2012-03-12, at 4:25 PM, // ravi wrote:
> On Mar 12, 2012, at 3:46 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
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>> This analysis is faulty on both counts.
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>> a) All bourgeois-democratic political systems are duopolies - control of the state apparatus alternating between liberal parties supported by the trade unions, minorities, and social movements, and the conservative parties strongly opposed to them. They have been duopolies since the demise of the CP's as mass organizations and the abandonment by the social democrats of even a nominal commitment to placing the commanding heights of the economy under public ownership.
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> India just had a large regional election last week in which a third party (relative to the two dominant ones) just won the election. Pretty significant win. This is nothing new. Indian democracy to a greater or lesser degree in the last four decades has been a multi-party system.
Hardly. Indian politics have been dominated by the two major parties, the liberal Congress and conservative BJP who have alternated governing the nation. The fact that there are other parties with varying strength in different regions does not negate the duopolistic nature of Indian politics any more than the existence of many small firms negates the duopolistic nature of an industry dominated by the two largest ones.
>> b) By your standard, the US working class would have to be considered the most politically advanced in the West since its abstention rate is the highest - far higher than the European, Latin American, and Asian working classes, who turn out in large numbers to vote for parties whose liberal domestic and foreign policies are, with rare exceptions, virtually indistinguishable from those of the US Democrats. That is, to say the least, a highly questionable proposition.
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> “Politically advanced” suggests an advanced political consciousness and a decision based on that. This is also implied in the term “radical” used in the post Shane was responding to. But, in his response Shane explicitly noted that the point is not that the non-voters are a “radical-thinking constituency”. To see no difference between two corporate parties does not need politically advanced views, yes?
This is special pleading on behalf of Shane, Carrol, Joseph Catron and others who regard those who sit out elections as having more political intelligence and insight than those poor besotted rubes who are conned into voting for the Democrats every couple of years. This fits with their schema that people can only defend their interests in the streets, and that electoral politics is at best irrelevant and at worst in contradiction to building a mass movement. Doug has referred to Pew studies showing there is no correlation between political abstention and political belief. My own sense is that there is some correlation, but the obverse of that offered by Shane et al - that the least inclined to vote are typically the most oppressed, atomized, and least politically conscious sectors of the population, what Marxists used to refer to as the "lumpenproletariat".