this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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i told you bro
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
Karl Marx
So, no elections or no masters? Marx wasn't an anarchist
What Marx says that the government represents the ruling class, and under capitalism it's the capitalist minority.
We can’t vote for a human or the wrong lizard might win.
No shit.
One party represents just what is good for them and theirs with no consideration for long term function and stability of the country. The other represents just what is good for them and theirs but realize they need the country to consider relatively stably for their own long term good.
Eh, I see it this way:
- Republicans - desperate to hold on to relevance, so they're going for short-term wins
- Democrats - desperate to appeal to younger generations, and promoting the wants and needs of minorities seems to be working
I don't see either as caring too much for longer term stability. Democrats want to raise/eliminate the debt limit (i.e. more social programs), and Republicans want to use the debt limit for political concessions (i.e. appeal to base with lip-service to fiscal responsibility), neither seems particularly worried about balancing the budget.
democrats would allow taxes to be collected to not borrow much. Republicans would get rid of any taxes that are not straight out fee for service. Debt arises from not paying bills.
Last year, the US spent $1.7T more than it has received, and the controversial tax plan Biden put out in 2021 would rate revenue by $140-340B depending on the year. That's the most significant tax increase since 1951, and most have been less than a third that for the past 50 years. There have been a lot of Democrats in power in that time, and nobody took the deficit seriously.
You can blame Republicans all you want, but the point is that Democrats haven't been serious about raising taxes to cut the deficit. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans haven't been serious about cutting spending either. I find both major parties wholly disappointing, because even when they have a majority, neither actually does anything to really fix our fiscal problems.
What makes you think the democracts have any interest in the "younger generation?" The average age of democrat leadership is OLDER then republicans. Voter turn out among the younger generation is also abysmal because the dem do not appeal to the younger generation at all.
I didn't say they're successful at it, just that seems to be who they're trying to appeal to, at least in their public statements, such as:
- LGBTQ+ support
- minimum wage increases - I hope this mostly impacts younger voters
- free education/student loan forgiveness
- abortion
Those are things young people care about. Whether they're successful is another issue.
Obviously true, but I initially read it as the shitpost title "Neither Mario Party in the US [etc]"
Thanks, no shit reporting. Super valid article
The specific combination of factors in the historical formation of U.S. society—dominant “biblical” religious ideology and absence of a workers’ party—has resulted in government by a de facto single party, the party of capital. The two segments that make up this single party share the same fundamental liberalism. Both focus their attention solely on the minority who “participate” in the truncated and powerless democratic life on offer. Each has its supporters in the middle classes, since the working classes seldom vote, and has adapted its language to them. Each encapsulates a conglomerate of segmentary capitalist interests (the “lobbies”) and supporters from various “communities.”
American democracy is today the advanced model of what I call “low-intensity democracy.” It operates on the basis of a complete separation between the management of political life, grounded on the practice of electoral democracy, and the management of economic life, governed by the laws of capital accumulation. Moreover, this separation is not questioned in any substantial way, but is, rather, part of what is called the general consensus. Yet that separation eliminates all the creative potential found in political democracy. It emasculates the representative institutions (parliaments and others), which are made powerless in the face of the “market” whose dictates must be accepted.
Marx thought that the construction of a “pure” capitalism in the United States, without any pre-capitalist antecedent, was an advantage for the socialist struggle. I think, on the contrary, that the devastating effects of this “pure” capitalism are the most serious obstacles imaginable.
Thank you, captain obvious.
But one works much harder than the other at supporting them.
Most countries don't have a 1 party system for this reason
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. The US doesn't have a 1 party system. If you meant 2 party system, that's not really true of any specific arrangement of political party spectrums across the world. No system covers most countries. Wikipedia lists 15 countries, many among the most powerful and influential globally that are effectively 2 party systems.
There are so many reasons why the working class lack representation in America and I don't think a single one of those reasons is the 2 party system. In fact, on paper, the US has no limit on how many political parties there can be. The reason we have a 2 party system has more to do with our voting system and the spoiler effect that happens over time in all First-Past-The-Post voting systems.
I think the reason the working class lack representation has so much more to do with the money in our politics. The politicians are more concerned with continuing their political careers and earning more money for themselves than they are with helping the working and poor classes.
Its a one party system because the US Democratic and Republican parties have the same policies on everything that actually matters to people's quality of life. Both provide endless funding to the military. Neither will defund the police. Neither will tax carbon or stop pipelines from being built. Neither will provide single payer healthcare. Neither will invest in building sustainable transportation infrastructure (high speed rail, interstate public busses). Neither will tax carbon or animal consumption. Neither will make universities free and get rid of student loan debt. Neither will provide housing to homeless people. Neither will comply with international laws related to war crimes or refugees. Neither will establish data privacy laws or break up the big tech industry. Neither will shutdown the NSA and illegal government mass surveillance infrastructure.
In the US it's a one party system with an illusion of choice.
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