I mean maybe it’s a tactical error for me to bring my “conspiracy theory” into it, sure.
Voting or not voting is a fiercly debates topic in anarchist circles and not even close to being settled.
I just did a little reading on it, since I don’t really know. I feel like I must be missing something. Doing what you can to build a great society aside from voting seems great. Just claiming you’re doing your part because you’re voting and nothing else is clearly wrong. But… can you break down for me the side of the debate that says abstaining from voting (in cases you see a difference between the candidates) is a good thing? Or a reference, if you don’t want to take the time to lay it out?
I have an interesting argument to not vote if the election results are “clear” - you don’t give any information this way. If the side you are closer to wins without your vote, it’s more likely that your bigger enemy will spend resources to try to beat them, and then only if you vote you can make them lose resources on electoralism without any gain for them, because they thought that they had a chance when they didn’t. You want your opponents to play games that they cannot win - even capitalists do that with suggesting workers that they too can become capitalists if they work hard enough - then workers start playing the game they are structurally meant to lose, from this the capitalist class keeps it’s advantage.
I mean maybe it’s a tactical error for me to bring my “conspiracy theory” into it, sure.
I just did a little reading on it, since I don’t really know. I feel like I must be missing something. Doing what you can to build a great society aside from voting seems great. Just claiming you’re doing your part because you’re voting and nothing else is clearly wrong. But… can you break down for me the side of the debate that says abstaining from voting (in cases you see a difference between the candidates) is a good thing? Or a reference, if you don’t want to take the time to lay it out?
Anarchism isn’t a cohesive project (though most agree on some basic tenets) so it’s actually cool google gave that rather accurate response.
One reason I hear quite a bit is that most democratic political systems (theoretically at least) are designed so that voting gives a mandate to rulers. A sort of signal of consent and support of its actions. Here’s a paper on it if you’re bored and interested:
https://moscow.sci-hub.se/2959/c850720e581c4054f784bfdf2fdfadd6/bendix1976.pdf?download=true
I have an interesting argument to not vote if the election results are “clear” - you don’t give any information this way. If the side you are closer to wins without your vote, it’s more likely that your bigger enemy will spend resources to try to beat them, and then only if you vote you can make them lose resources on electoralism without any gain for them, because they thought that they had a chance when they didn’t. You want your opponents to play games that they cannot win - even capitalists do that with suggesting workers that they too can become capitalists if they work hard enough - then workers start playing the game they are structurally meant to lose, from this the capitalist class keeps it’s advantage.