In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered.. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say. If a voter organizes or advocates a real third-party movement, he may be accused of seeking to overthrow this government by “force and violence.” Anything he advocates by way of significant reform will be called “Communist” and will of necessity be Communist in the sense that it must advocate such things as government ownership of the means of production; government in business; the limitation of private profit; social medicine, government housing and federal aid to education; the total abolition of race bias; and the welfare state. These things are on every Communist program…
-W.E.B. Du Bois from “Why I Won’t Vote” (1956)
This article is an excerpt from Voting the Big Con, a pamphlet written in 1996 during the Clinton and Dole presidential campaign. Today in 2024, the ruling class is holding another one of its every four years election circuses. This time their system is buried deeper in crisis and Holocaust Harris is being presented as the lesser evil fascist option next to revoltingly racist Trump.
Democracy - Heads they win, tails we lose!
Under capitalism, the government and elections are controlled by the capitalist class, the rich rulers who control the factories, mines, mills, and offices. They use all electoral parties, Democratic, Republican and other parties, to maintain their profit system. Their interests are directly opposed to our interests, the well being of the working class. Our labor produces all goods and services, all value, and creates the profit they steal. No matter who we vote for, they still own everything and control what we produce. To change this we need communist revolution, then we make these decisions. It's either us or them.
Who's really in charge?
If the elected officials are just front men for the ruling class, who is really in charge? The richest and most powerful industrialists and bankers run capitalist countries. In the U.S. they rule through two powerful committees, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission (TLC). The CFR is headed by a billionaire Zionist named David Rubenstein. The CFR makes major decisions on the use of the U.S. military and economic power. They set policy on the U.S. entry into World War II, Vietnam and other conflicts. They decide U.S. policy on the Middle East, China, Europe, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Sharp differences may very well break out in the CFR, but eventually one group of capitalists and their henchmen dominate. Right now the main wing rulers that dominate the CFR are facing a challenge by domestic capitalists that back Donald Trump and by China and Russia.
Why do capitalists hold elections?
If the bosses control both parties and the whole election process, why do they have them? Why spend millions and even billions on elections when the outcome is predictable: bosses win, workers lose? There are two main reasons. 1) Elections are held to distract us and make us think we have a say in what goes on, that we can reform capitalism or improve our lives by voting. 2) The bosses use elections to settle their own disagreements.
Elections push the illusion that Capitalism can be reformed
Elections are a diversion for workers who desperately want to fight for a better world. Instead of taking militant or armed action against the system, workers are suckered into trying to reform capitalism by voting for "better" candidates. They try to convince workers that the Democratic party or black, latin, or other politicians from marginalized groups will save them. If we recruit just 10% of these workers to the communist Progressive Labor Party, the world will be a very different place.
Democratic party - not the lesser of two evils, the greater evil
In the U.S., the bosses advertise the Democratic Party as the workers' representatives and contrast them to the ultra-right Republicans. Many think they are the lesser of two evils, but democrats the greater evil and danger to the working class (see editorial page 2). One only has to look at the last 4 years to see that their only accomplishment has been enabling and bankrolling a genocide.
Black and Latin politicians serve bosses, not workers
Historically, Black politicians, virtually all Democrats, have supported policies which increased the jailing and police murder of young black men. This is the job of all elected officials under capitalism. In New York City, Top Cop and current NYC Mayor Eric Adams gave $11 billion to his killer kkkops in the New York Police Department (NYPD).
Fascist Dictatorship is born from the womb of capitalist democracy
Many of the economic problems which exist in the U.S. today prevailed in 1933 Germany. A "free election" was held. Over 13 million voted for the communists and social democrats. Eleven million voted for Hitler. The German president von Hindenburg then handed over the government to Hitler and his "minority" Nazi party. You know the rest; the Nazis established the most terrorist bosses' dictatorship the world had seen up until that time.
When it appears that workers have elected an anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist government, the bosses simply nullify the elections with armed force and install fascism. In Iran in 1953, in Guatemala in 1954 and in Chile in 1973, the U.S. CIA directed the violent overthrow of elected governments and helped install fascist dictatorship.
Finally, when workers ignore their elected officials and take direct action, the bosses combine the force of the police and army with elections to divert their struggle back within capitalism's rules. In France in 1968, ten million industrial and government workers organized a general strike and shut down the country. After appealing to the German bosses to prepare to send in the German tank corps, the bosses' president DeGaulle made a deal with the fake Communist Party to convince the workers to end the strike in favor of a new election.
PLP has never and will never encourage workers to vote for the lesser of two evils. We have confidence in the working class and we know that the leaders of communist society will come from those ranks.
All capitalist parties lead to war
The bosses are always having peace talks but when their profits are threatened they will resort to war. When workers refuse to make sacrifices for profits the bosses use cops, scabs, injunctions, the National Guard and the Army to whip the working class back into line. They also use force to force weaker bosses to go along with the most powerful.
World Wars I and II were both caused by different capitalists who wanted a bigger piece of world markets. In Vietnam, first the French and later the U.S. wanted to maintain Southeast Asia as their turf. In Panama, the Gulf War and in Somalia, U.S. rulers wanted to maintain control over a strategic area or resource like oil.
The revolutionary communist PLP, the only party the workers need
Workers don't need a "two-party" system which serves only the bosses. Workers need only one party, the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party which serves the needs and aspirations of our class, the working class. PLP is organizing in ten countries on four continents to destroy the bosses and their profit system. We will establish a communist society, led by our class's communist party - composed of hundreds of millions of workers, students, soldiers and sailors - eventually everyone on the planet.
Communist revolution means that the working class, led by its communist party, takes power from the capitalist class. We will run society for the benefit of all workers. The working class will own everything and decide through its communist party what and how much to produce and distribute it according to need. The needs of the working class around the world will be the basis for these decisions. We will end racism, sexism, and imperialist war which the bosses create and use to divide and control us to maximize their profits. In communist society there won't be elections to choose leaders. There will be only one party, because workers everywhere (unlike the bosses) all have a common interest. This party will make and carry out all policy decisions collectively, in a centralized way.
Build PLP and fight for communist revolution
The bosses will tell us that they are all-powerful; that capitalism is "human nature"; that they can't be overthrown. Every worker and youth who becomes a communist, who joins the PLP , proves that this is a lie. When you join and build PLP you are planting the seeds of our communist future. The more seeds, the sooner the flower of revolution will destroy the rotting profit system and encircle the globe with communist liberation.
