Don’t Vote – Organize
Two weeks from today a political spectacle will take place in America. Thousands of people will register preferences for how the ruling system will be run, in the culmination of millions of dollars being spent for political influence that could have been put to vastly more productive uses.
I choose to boycott the ballot. The miniscule influence that my vote would have will be instead counted as a vote against the system, a firm “no” to the collective that my allegiance is supposed to be reserved for.
To those who would call me apathetic I say that I care too much about liberty to care which tyrant presumes the title of our leader. I will not be lead. Leaders ultimately lead to leaders, and the system of suppressing humanity leads inevitably to crisis, collapse, or mass death.
What is needed are not leaders, and not working within the system. When you play a game with the system as rulemaker and referee, the winner is predictable. What is needed is anti-establishment organization to empower the people against the state – market against politics. Call it counter-economic, counter-cultural, mutual aid, co-op, underground, networking, contacts, or whatever else you want, but build now. Rulers only care about you so far as they can insure your allegiance or acquiescence. Voting will not change this. Free market action has the ability to displace the state, making it crumble as people withdraw their dependence and allegiance.
I don’t consider myself a moral non-voter, but a strategic non-voter. The marginal influence that each vote has is not enough to count as moral complicity in the actions of government. It is simply more useful to use that miniscule influence against the system.
The objection could be raised that not voting will simply be read as apathy, not as activity. It could be, but that is still better than casting a vote against McCain-Palin that is read as a vote in support of Obama-Biden, which is how such a vote will be read. A vote for a “third party” will be read as support for the idea that your voice is represented in elections, when in reality the game is rigged so one of the big guys will win. Essays like this one will hopefully change the perception of apathy to a perception of anti-state activity, and the only way to start down a road is to begin. Boycotting the ballot can be used as a springboard for further rhetorical attacks on the system when questioned about it, which will happen if you broadcast your intentions.
My experiences in activism and political science studies have convinced me that electoral strategy is rarely useful for lasting positive change. There is a political system in place that is deliberately and explicitly designed to perpetuate itself, satisfy the lust for power of its administrators, and ensure the stability of its benefactors’ fortunes. Whatever political-class candidates say, they are inextricably part of the political class, their first allegiance is to the political class, and their first duty is to work for the dominance of their faction of the political class and drive the tanks and bulldozers of public policy to their faction’s benefit.
Whatever usefulness the Libertarian Party ever had, it is now clearly counter-productive to the libertarian cause. It now promotes candidates who advocate taxation, national language law, militarized borders, government schools, drug regulation, government control of social services, and “state’s rights” over individual rights. Clear opposition to the United States military empire, the most powerful violator of liberty in the world, is not seen as too important either. This result should have been predictable for an organization dedicated to being let into the system to make government operate better. The political means of ballot access, campaigns, meetings, leader costumes, and the inner workings of governance became the political ends, and radicals (those who are consistent in thought) were either driven out or wasted their efforts trying to explain why they didn’t really support the status quo that they were desperately trying to become a part of. The joke was on us all along.
It is also important to remember the vast superiority of creative expression to political action in influencing the world. That which is supplied by politics is demanded by the dominant culture. When libertarians make the dominant culture ungovernable or smash the idea of dominating culture entirely, we will have greater success than if we controlled all the voting machines in the world. Drawing a cartoon or uploading a video can be a vastly more influential act than voting. A person who scorns creative expression in favor of immediate power gains demonstrates his level of apathy for a better future. Such a person would do well to drop his plans for other peoples’ lives and realize that individuals are not resources for his dream collective.
I don’t have a grand plan for society, and that is what makes my political philosophy humane and rational. Society is after all just a large number of individuals who can usually best make their own plans. I am an individualist, I am an anarchist, and I am a libertarian. Voting will not bring about any result I will be content with and it is therefore a useless strategy. The most productive thing I can do with my ballot is to discard it. I urge everyone to do the same.
