On Thu, Oct 3, 2024 at 03:55 PM, Mark Baugher wrote: But as long as we are talking about only two parties, it's not clear to me that any US electoral reform won't fall victim to their undemocratic machinations.
On Thu, Oct 3, 2024 at 01:59 PM, Mark Lause wrote: It is one of the eighteenth century Constitutional features designed to keep power from reflecting the will of the people. ...an ongoing mechanism of power, so it's even less likely to be abolished. The electoral college doesn’t seem to me to be as integral to the system as you both suggest. Fourteen blue states and the District of Columbia on the east and west coast as well as Illinois, New Mexico and Colorado in the. interior have all adopted the plan. I know you both don't believe that the Democrats are naive or uninterested about maintaining class power. In fact, the split between the Democrats and Republicans on this question is about who gets to exercise it. It would not undermine class rule. Every advanced capitalist democracy has first past the post electoral systems which reward the party amassing the majority of votes cast or proportional representation schemes which are based on the same principle. The US electoral system is more undemocratic than most but it can fall into line. The capitalist state has an array of more effective economic, ideological, political and, if necessary, military means “designed to keep power from reflecting the will of the people." That doesn’t mean we don’t support and participate in mass struggles for democratic rights which have often converged with the class interests of the bourgeoisie at a particular historical juncture. We always have, from the early struggles for universal suffrage, the shorter work, access to health care and education, the legalization of trade unions, unemployment and old age insurance to contemporary struggles for equal rights for blacks, women, gays, and other oppressed groups. The two governing parties will always try to shape these gains to conform to the needs of the ruling class, as they might well seek to do with respect to evident popular demand for an end to the electoral college, but that does not mean US Marxists should abstain from popular campaigns designed to achieve that end on that account, which I’m inferring from your comments, perhaps incorrectly. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#32701): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/32701 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/108801645/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
