I don’t vote for the lesser of two evils!

I don’t vote for the lesser of two evils!

@midtsveen maybe this questions are too personal in which case I respect getting no answer, but would you ever partake in burgeois elections? Given that usually no anarchist nor syndicalist participate as a party.

What would your opinion be of a party of anarcho-syndicalists participating in this elections? Would you vote them, or would you consider them as collaborators to the burgeois system?

@luckychronic I do not think the question is too personal. It gets at a real fault line in anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist politics.

From an anarchist perspective, participation in bourgeois elections is not just a neutral tactic. It reflects a deeper acceptance of the state as a legitimate arena of struggle. Once political activity is framed around elections, representation, and parliamentary outcomes, the center of gravity shifts away from autonomous organizing and toward institutions designed to preserve hierarchy and class power.

Electoral participation consistently pulls time, energy, and legitimacy away from grassroots struggle. Instead of building power through workplace organization, direct action, mutual aid, and federated unions, movements are encouraged to channel their efforts into campaigns, messaging, and compromise. This is not accidental. Electoral systems are structured to absorb opposition and neutralize it.

An anarcho-syndicalist party participating in bourgeois elections would be deeply contradictory. Even with the best intentions, the logic of electoral politics pushes organizations toward moderation, vote-seeking, and strategic compromise. Over time, this transforms revolutionary movements into parliamentary actors whose role is to manage discontent rather than abolish the structures that produce it.

Anarcho-syndicalism historically rejects parliamentary politics precisely because it aims to replace the state and capitalism with worker-controlled, federated forms of organization. Running candidates reverses that relationship by treating the state as a vehicle for change instead of something to be dismantled through collective self-activity.

Would voting for such a party be collaboration? Well voting for an anarcho-syndicalist party in bourgeois elections would reasonably be seen as collaboration with the system which I inherently oppose, and this is not a moral judgment about individual voters, but a political assessment of what voting represents. It reinforces the idea that liberation comes through representation and legislation rather than through building counter-power from below.

Even when the rhetoric is radical, participation in elections legitimizes the state and its mechanisms. It signals that anarchism is willing to operate within the framework of bourgeois politics, which weakens its ability to pose a real challenge to hierarchy, capitalism, and state power.

And if anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism are serious about abolishing capitalism and the state like me, then their priority must remain on autonomous organization, workplace struggle, direct action, and the construction of alternative institutions. In my vire bourgeois elections do not build that power. At the very best they distract from it, and at worst they integrate revolutionary movements into the very system they claim to oppose.

In my view, participation in electoral politics is not a step toward liberation, but a step toward containment.

Many members of @nsf_iaa do not vote in elections, and many others abstain as a matter of principle.

#Anarchism #Syndicalism

@luckychronic I do not think the question is too personal. It gets at a real fault line in anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist politics.

From an anarchist perspective, participation in bourgeois elections is not just a neutral tactic. It reflects a deeper acceptance of the state as a legitimate arena of struggle. Once political activity is framed around elections, representation, and parliamentary outcomes, the center of gravity shifts away from autonomous organizing and toward institutions designed to preserve hierarchy and class power.

Electoral participation consistently pulls time, energy, and legitimacy away from grassroots struggle. Instead of building power through workplace organization, direct action, mutual aid, and federated unions, movements are encouraged to channel their efforts into campaigns, messaging, and compromise. This is not accidental. Electoral systems are structured to absorb opposition and neutralize it.

An anarcho-syndicalist party participating in bourgeois elections would be deeply contradictory. Even with the best intentions, the logic of electoral politics pushes organizations toward moderation, vote-seeking, and strategic compromise. Over time, this transforms revolutionary movements into parliamentary actors whose role is to manage discontent rather than abolish the structures that produce it.

Anarcho-syndicalism historically rejects parliamentary politics precisely because it aims to replace the state and capitalism with worker-controlled, federated forms of organization. Running candidates reverses that relationship by treating the state as a vehicle for change instead of something to be dismantled through collective self-activity.

Would voting for such a party be collaboration? Well voting for an anarcho-syndicalist party in bourgeois elections would reasonably be seen as collaboration with the system which I inherently oppose, and this is not a moral judgment about individual voters, but a political assessment of what voting represents. It reinforces the idea that liberation comes through representation and legislation rather than through building counter-power from below.

Even when the rhetoric is radical, participation in elections legitimizes the state and its mechanisms. It signals that anarchism is willing to operate within the framework of bourgeois politics, which weakens its ability to pose a real challenge to hierarchy, capitalism, and state power.

And if anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism are serious about abolishing capitalism and the state like me, then their priority must remain on autonomous organization, workplace struggle, direct action, and the construction of alternative institutions. In my vire bourgeois elections do not build that power. At the very best they distract from it, and at worst they integrate revolutionary movements into the very system they claim to oppose.

In my view, participation in electoral politics is not a step toward liberation, but a step toward containment.

Many members of @nsf_iaa do not vote in elections, and many others abstain as a matter of principle.

#Anarchism #Syndicalism

@midtsveen @luckychronic @nsf_iaa you can just do both. Hard line ideology is masturbatory and delusional when it gets in the way of liberation. Electoral politics is like dumpster diving, one tool in the kit of an adapting and evolving human living in radical agency. Use it when it would help, don't when it wouldn't.

@siv @midtsveen @nsf_iaa for example, in the trump vs harris elections many people from the left did not vote kamala, which I completely respect since it's still a very bad choice. But, given what trump has done (and it was easily implied the horror he would create) sometimes I think voting D would have been justified to avoid such unnecessary deaths and pain.

In the case of my home state spain I think the ultra right might as well partake in this heavy oppression and a vote could help. UK also

@midtsveen @luckychronic @nsf_iaa you can just do both. Hard line ideology is masturbatory and delusional when it gets in the way of liberation. Electoral politics is like dumpster diving, one tool in the kit of an adapting and evolving human living in radical agency. Use it when it would help, don't when it wouldn't.

@siv @midtsveen @nsf_iaa nonetheless I don't think I'll ever define a solid position in this matter bc I think it heavily depends on the social, political factors around it. I agree with you both simultaneously even though it might be contradictory at the same time.

@siv @luckychronic @nsf_iaa I have to disagreed, but i won't elaborate either!

@midtsveen @luckychronic @nsf_iaa that's okay. I've been organizing and building community for 40 years and am used to people disagreeing with me. If you want to discuss more you know where to find me.

@siv I just don't have time nor energy, lol! ️ 🫣