Participating in bourgeois democracy

Don't you need both, though? Voting seems like a third- or fourth-order thing. You still do it, but it's all the other stuff that matters.

Where I think I agree is that people spend way too much time on electoral politics. Or they spend so much time blah blah blahing about elections instead of other matters. But voting isn't really a big deal whether you do it or not. Show up and vote and then call it a day and do other things that are more useful and productive.

I will say that electoral campaigns can be useful for learning various skills. Volunteer for a local campaign, local politician – it doesn't really matter who – just to learn how the whole thing functions.

You can go and vote, no one's stopping you. All I'm saying is that it's pretty pointless. How can you look back on the last 70 years of western "democracy" and not conclude that voting is a farce? The fact that I have to state this on a "leftist" board.

They did it through both means. Do you seriously think that every socdem in parliament was a secret porky just playing 4D chess? You can maybe say that about some politicians like FDR or Bismark, but its pretty clear that workers have exercised genuine representation to a degree through voting.
I wouldn't comment as to the exact degree, but its definitely there. France and the UK both have much stronger social democratic parties, which do represent a certain level of consciousness among the workers. They also have much stronger unions.
You're conflating two different issues here. I'm not talking about social democracy versus socialism. I'm talking about whether or not workers are capable of exercising any political power through bourgeois democracy.
That doesn't make any sense. Fascists abolish liberal democracy because its a threat to the complete domination of the bourgeoisie. It is a tool that facilitates worker power.
I'm not shilling for social democracy. I'm saying that electoralism is a tool in the hands of communists, and this isn't an uncommon take. It was supported by Marx, Lenin, and the Commintern. You keep asserting that workers can't exercise power through voting, but you never say precisely why, you just keep re-stating your position. Why is it impossible that workers exercise power through voting? What stops a pro-worker candidate from getting elected and passing reforms that improve their lives? Describe the precise mechanism by which this is prevented. This has happened plenty of times, and yet you are just dismissing literally every instance of it as 4D bourgeois chess without any proof.

Ummm, 99% of socdems are in support of "porkies" and have a vest interest in maintaining the current bourgoies system. Is that a conspiracy now?

I thought you said you were british before? Guess you're whatever is convenient at the time eh. Labor is a bourgoies party that has eviscarated worker rights as hard as the tories. There was no "old labor" and we can't just throw out support behind them because they say nice things WHILE OUT OF POWER. You'll bemoan that this is "besides the point", but the "stronger unions" here operate like they do in the US. They break up strikes and rat out potential threats to respective companies. They have been FULLY co-opted. Look at france with their protests, the unions there tried to coralle them to be more in line with what macron wanted.

I bring up social democracy because that's the system that IS the most "democractic" under capitalism. I'm being charitable to you, and even under social democracy do we still see policies workers voted for NOT going through 99% of the time.

Look this is a complex issue where I'll be reciting Gramsci, yet you'll be deliberately obtuse and disingenious all the same. Capitalism can vacilate between liberal democracy and fascism given the threat of socialism. It's actually quite easy to do so because all the bourgoies still remain, it's just the politicians who get changed out. If by "workers power", you mean crumbs and a pathetic welfare system then yeah, I guess. You should hold yourself to higher standards though.

Look, there is more evidence that voting DOESN'T matter than for. You point out exceptions, they only prove the rule. The last 70 years of bourgoies democracy has PROVEN that the demands of workers are not answered through voting.

The bourgoeis goes to war without the workers permission.
The bourgoies institute autsterity without the workers permission.
The bourgoies can restrict right of movement without the workers permission.
The bourgoies can reduce your ability to spend without workers permission.
The bourgoies can defund public services (austerity) without the workers permission.
The bourgoies can make redundant whole swathes of workers without the workers permission.

All of the above has never been voted upon, or has never had a popular vote overturn.

Also relevant video to labor:

youtube.com/watch?v=rNfFd1pSIuI

That doesn't contradict what I said. Socdems support a bouregois system yes, but that doesn't mean that workers dont exercise power through them within that system.
I'm a leaf. You must have me confused with another catposter.
Again, you are conflating a lack of radicalism with a lack of power. I never said that bourgeois democracy is a real democracy, just that workers are capable of exercising SOME power under it. Unions and socdem parties absolutely have limits to their effectiveness, and will shut down anything too radical. Even still, they have served as a means of workers exercising power within certain limits.
Not sure where you get that statistic m8, but the fact is if there are policies that workers are voting for, and they are going through, then workers are exercising political power.
Funny, because Gramsci literally describes bourgeois rule as hegemonic, meaning that they occupy a dominant position, but do not rule without opposition, even within their own system.
Of course, but you're missing the reason WHY that happens. Pinochet wouldn't have toppled Allende if his government didn't threaten bourgeois interests. Hitler wouldn't have abolished parliament if it wasn't capable of threatening bourgeois interests. On the flip side, the KPD and Bolsheviks wouldn't have participated in bourgeois parliaments if they weren't capable of seeing to the interests of workers to at least some degree.
Just downplaying the gains workers made through social democracy won't change what they represent. Workers fought for them, both within the legislature and outside of it, and they won. They exercised political power.
I do. I'm not endorsing social democracy or even democratic socialism here. I'm just saying that the position of the bourgeoisie under liberal democracy is hegemonic, not dictatorial. I'm also saying that electoralism is a tool in the communist arsenal, one that can help us make real gains and which we cannot afford to ignore.
Except all of that was undoing gains made by workers. They were successful because the bourgeoisie succeeded in breaking the institutions that allowed workers to exercise power under liberalism. Not because its impossible for workers to exercise power under liberalism.

I don't even know what you mean with the amorphous "some". Could mean literally anything, a worker could have broke into some MPs house and change his decision on some important policy the next morning. That's demonstrating power right? Though in a very round about way. Maybe one politician says he listens to workers and introduces a wage rise of 0.01%, that's SOME power demonstrated by workers right?

Amoprhous nonsense. You can keep voting, just know that you have observable reality working against you and 70 years of a neutered westrn workers movement. Do whatever makes you happy.

Most of your reply is deflecting away from voting however, you're saying that workers exercised political power through demonstrations/protests, not voting.

Yeah because the degree to which they exercise power is impossible to quantify. However the term “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie” implies that porkies have a total monopoly on legitimate, legal power, which isn’t the case. That’s why I use the term “bourgeois hegemony” since it’s a more accurate description.
Make a materialist analysis m8. The failure f the workers movement in the west is rooted in the absence of objective revolutionary conditions, not a failure of tactics. Revolutionary organizations fail in the west because the economic conditions necessary for revolution don’t exist, not because socdems exist.
I’m saying they do both, and both are evidence that liberal societies aren’t bourgeois dictatorships, but bourgeois hegemonies. Fascism is an actual bourgeois dictatorship.

Actually it could be argued that revolutionary potential isn't there PRECISELY because socdems exist. Imperialist socdems placate domestic workers so that they don't revolt.

Also I don't know about your country, but porkies do indeed have total monopoly on "legitimate, legal power". If you're pointing to some tiny bit of pushback from the working class, then that exists in outright dictatorships/fascism too. Even in Nazi Germany there was dissent and arguments over policies.