The U.S. electoral system is all about what the system deems possible. During each election season we are given the choice between a few politicians who promise change; we vote and then things remain the same.
Elections in this society provide a democratic façade for a system that remains fundamentally undemocratic because fundamentally bound by a false notion of what is possible and what is not. A candidate can support abortion-rights, support gay marriage, or propose to close tax loopholes. Our current political system deems these changes possible – and indeed, they would be steps forward in the struggle for justice. Yet elections cannot usher in a new social order that places the needs of all before the profits of a few. This change is considered impossible.
Now is the time for us to practice the politics of the impossible. Gay rights, access to abortion, and the eight-hour work-day were all once considered impossible. These reforms were won only because brave activists dared to practice the politics of the impossible.
Another past example that we should seek to learn from is the Paris Commune of 1871. During the Commune, workers who were previously excluded from politics burst onto the scene and seized control to provide for their own needs. The Commune did not hold private property inviolable or rely on the system’s mechanisms for change. This established a new possibility of politics. Even after its defeat, that possibility still remained open. We need a repeat the gesture of the Commune today by suspending the existing coordinates of political possibilities and building something new.
Instead of accepting the parameters of possibility which the system gives us, people within the Occupy Movement are questioning them. Within Occupy, discussions range from capitalism to the nature of work to the future we want to build. This flowering of truly open, critical discussion challenges the politics of the possible.
This upsurge of ideas naturally has many asking and debating what to do next. How should Occupy help to establish a society that prioritizes the needs of all before the profits of a few as we have vowed to do?
Some argue that the goal of providing for all can be achieved, or at least promoted, through becoming involved in the U.S. electoral system. According to this argument, reforms will come if we use the possibilities that the system allows. Take the example of President Obama’s financial sector reform. This reform sought to provide standards and supervision to protect the economy and consumers, investors and businesses, and to end taxpayer funded bailouts of financial institutions. Yet capitalism cannot be rendered rational or restrained. Capitalism is compelled to constantly seek profit or die.
Obama and many Democrats believe that the system can be reformed to become better, more balanced and stable, more fair (at least for some). And that is not true. Capitalism is fundamentally exploitative and its whole structure continually produces a stark inequality between the rich and poor in the United States and abroad. The 1% are rich by exploiting the 99% and keeping them poor.
But what if we argue for domestic concessions and giving critical support to Barack Obama, despite the imperialist wars he has launched? Perhaps we could push Obama in an antiwar direction. That process has a certain logic. Those who take it urge us to be patient while they supporting the empire with its enforcers, and its illusions. Domestic concessions become more important than opposing murder overseas.
Is that the possibility we should accept?
What should we do instead?
We need to break with the politics of the possible and practice those of the impossible.
Our current system makes it impossible for the 99% to determine their own destiny. Yet, many of us within Occupy insist that the 99% can build a new world. We can emancipate themselves from capitalism’s politics of the possible. This is what philosopher Alain Badiou might call the “Truth” of Occupy. This is the Truth that Occupy must pledge fidelity to and carry through to the end: We, the 99%, can remake the world on new foundations.
Occupy, in Badiou’s terms, is the site of the Event, which is a rupture with reality and the creation of new possibilities. The organization of a new Truth is coming to birth within Occupy. The people at Occupy are taking hold of their lives, building new organizations and remaking themselves and the world through struggle. This is no easy task, and it has no ultimate guarantee of success. However, to return to the politics as usual now, by focusing our energies on the electoral realm, and thus to pour our precious emancipatory energies into supporting the corrupt order in the form of any of the major parties, would be a betrayal of the Truth that has made Occupy worth working for.
We need to be radical and to accelerate the break with the system, rather than settling for reforming it. We must build Occupy as genuine people’s power that overthrows the rule of the 1%. We need to discover new strategies and experiment in order to radically change society.
I agree with Doug that voting for Obama and the Democrats is just putting the stamp of approval on all the betrayals we’ve suffered in recent years. But if we don’t have the courage to occupy the voting booths, then we are abandoning the most critical element of real democracy: elections. We need to begin the process of taking our democracy back. In this regard, there is one vote that everyone should make sure they cast in November, and that’s a vote for Jill Stein, who we expect to be the Green Party candidate for President of the United States. When you vote for Jill, you’re voting to end the wars, forgive student debt, get big money out of politics, stop the infringements on our civil liberties, and shift power to the grassroots. As a minimum, we should aim for a six million person protest on November 6 as people go to the polls and vote Green. That would be a clear call for a change in direction, and could add to the momentum for change over the following four years.
It is not the democratic system that creates a false notion of what is possible; rather it is the limited vision of those who use it. There is more to electoral politics than supporting or not particular candidates. Greene mentions the Paris Commune and spouts against capitalism yet per fails to give an opinion on the electoral road European anti-capitalists have taken today. Andrews correctly brings up the possibility of supporting a third party. Neither say anything about supporting a constitutional amendment that would give third parties a chance by actually changing the electoral system to allow for more voices to be heard–a key Occupy value.
The time for vague generalizations is past. Just “calling for” economic justice and railing against capitalism is not enough. Committing to concrete political objectives that express our values will give Occupy an identity. Without an identity built from concrete political objectives, we don’t know who we are or where we’re headed. The idea that such an identity gives the opposition and edge (by giving them something on which to focus) is an example of thinking like a loser. If you imagine such an identity as something powerful and righteous and assume, correctly, that we are going to win, then the best path is to claim that identity as soon as possible. Right now Occupy has an identity a kin to someone you know who is very charismatic and throws great parties–but what does that person really stand for? We need to keep “throwing great parties” because putting people in the street is the tactic that works, but we also have to show those people what we stand for, why they are here, who we “are”.
Here are two personality traits that I’d love to see Occupy claim through the electoral system: fairness in the form of parliamentary democracy and self-care in the form of a nationalized healthcare system.
power to the people,
Aria L.
Occupy Boston/Occupy JP
Democratic Socialists of America
How about a 99% party separate and opposed to the two parties who together represent the 1%? No lobbyists, no politicians, just Occupiers. They’re doing it in Maine:
http://www.mainecleanelections.org/index.html