#3,265 in History books
Use arrows to jump to the previous/next product

Reddit mentions of If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It

Sentiment score: 1
Reddit mentions: 1

We found 1 Reddit mentions of If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It. Here are the top ones.

If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It
Buying options
View on Amazon.com
or
Specs:
Number of items1
Weight0.58642961692 Pounds

idea-bulb Interested in what Redditors like? Check out our Shuffle feature

Shuffle: random products popular on Reddit

Found 1 comment on If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It:

u/cruyff8 ยท 7 pointsr/DebateaCommunist

There was a book, If Voting Changed Anything, They'd Abolish It, by Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London. The thesis of this book, is pretty much given in the title. I'll summarise my own thesis below and let the rest of you lot comment on it.

In every election, you can either vote for the existing policies or against them. You have to compromise. And the parties know this. So, there's a consolidation about the centre of politics. Because, the right wing voters won't be voting for the left wing parties, and vice versa. The more extreme elements of the body politic are taken for granted.

So, you have a choice between two cheeks of the same backside. The extremes on either side are taken for granted. The only way to achieve a massive amount of change (e.g. what turning a country communist entails) is not achievable through the ballot box, because if it was, the powers-that-be (e.g. those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo) would be to have a massive revolution and ensure the right people come to power in its aftermath.

However, history has shown several times that what follows the fall of a dictator is a period of chaos, followed by an extreme reaction to the old guard, followed by a return to the old guard, eventually it slowly creeps to a happier medium.

What came before communism dictates whether communists can come to power peacefully or not. In most places that communism did come to rule, there were no free elections. Therefore, you had to have a revolution and I'm not aware of any exceptions.