There is no doubt that voting can lead to changes in policies, which can be a good thing as far as it goes. But such policies are formulated and implemented within the authoritarian framework of the hierarchical capitalist state — a framework which itself is never open to challenge by voting. To the contrary, voting legitimates the state framework, ensuring that social change will be mild, gradual, and reformist rather than rapid and radical. Indeed, the "democratic" process has always resulted in (and will always result in) all successful political parties becoming committed to "more of the same" or tinkering with the details at best (which is usually the limits of any policy changes).

However, given the need for radical systemic changes as soon as possible due to the exponentially accelerating crises of modern civilisation, working for gradual reforms within the electoral system must be seen as a potentially deadly tactical error. In addition, it can never get to the root causes of our problems. Anarchists reject the idea that our problems can be solved by the very institutions that cause them in the first place! What happens in our communities, workplaces and environment is too important to be left to politicians - or the ruling elite who control governments.

Because of this anarchists reject political parties and electioneering. Electioneering has always been the death of radicalism. Political parties are only radical when they don't stand a chance of election. However, many social activists continue to try to use elections, so participating in the system which disempowers the majority and so helps create the social problems they are protesting against.

"It should be a truism that elections empower the politicians and not the voters," Brian Martin writes, "yet many social movements continually are drawn into electoral politics." There are a number of reasons for this. "One is the involvement of party members in social movements. Another is the aspirations for power and influence by leaders in movements. Having the ear of a government minister is a heady sensation for many; getting elected to parliament oneself is even more of an ego boost. What is forgotten in all this 'politics of influence' is the effect on ordinary activists." ["Democracy without Elections", Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.),p. 125]

Rudoph Bahro gives an example of how working "within the system" disempowered grassroots Green activists in Germany during the early eighties, pointing out that the coalitions into which the Greens entered with Social Democrats in the German legislature often had the effect of strengthening the status quo by co-opting those whose energies might otherwise have gone into more radical and effective forms of activism [Building the Green Movement, New Society Publishers, 1986].

No doubt the state is more complicated than the simple "executive committee of the ruling class" pictured by Marxists. There are continual struggles both within and without the state bureaucracies, struggles that influence policies and empower different groups of people. Because of this, many radical parties believe that it makes sense to work within the state — for example, to obtain labour, consumer, and environmental protection laws. However, this reasoning ignores the fact that the organisational structure of the state is not neutral.

To quote Martin again, the "basic anarchist insight is that the structure of the state, as a centralised administrative apparatus, is inherently flawed from the point of view of human freedom and equality. Even though the state can be used occasionally for valuable ends, as a means the state is flawed and impossible to reform. The nonreformable aspects of the state include, centrally, its monopoly over 'legitimate' violence and its consequent power to coerce for the purpose of war, internal control, taxation and the protection of property and bureaucratic privilege.

"The problem with voting is that the basic premises of the state are never considered open for debate, much less challenge. The state's monopoly over the use of violence for war is never at issue. Neither is the state's use of violence against revolt from within. The state's right to extract economic resources from the population is never questioned. Neither is the state's guarantee of either private property (under capitalism) or bureaucratic prerogative (under state socialism) — or both" [Op. Cit., p. 127]

But, it may be said, if a new political group is radical enough, it will be able to use state power for good purposes. While we discuss this in more detail later in section J.2.6, let us consider a specific case: that of the Greens, many of whom believe that the best way to achieve their aims is to work within the representative political system.

By pledging to use the electoral system to achieve change, Green parties necessarily commit themselves to formulating their proposals as legislative agendas. But once legislation is passed, the coercive mechanisms of the state will be needed to enforce it. Therefore, Green parties are committed to upholding state power. However, our analysis in section B.2 indicated that the state is a set of hierarchical institutions through which a ruling elite dominates society and individuals. And, as we have seen in the introduction to section E, ecologists, feminists, and peace activists — who are key constituencies of the Green movement — all need to dismantle hierarchies and domination in order to achieve their respective aims. Therefore, since the state is not only the largest and most powerful hierarchy but also serves to maintain the hierarchical form of all major institutions in society (since this form is the most suitable for achieving ruling-class interests), the state itself is the main obstacle to the success of key constituencies of the Green movement. Hence it is impossible in principle for a parliamentary Green party to achieve essential objectives of the Green movement. A similar argument would apply to any radical party whose main emphasis was social justice, which like the goals of feminists, radical ecologists, and peace activists, depends on dismantling hierarchies.

And surely no one who even is remotely familiar with history will suggest that 'radical' politicians, even if by some miracle they were to obtain a majority in the national legislature, might dismantle the state. It should be axiomatic by now that when a 'radical' politician (e.g. a Lenin) says to voters, "Give me and my party state power and we will 'wither away'" it's just more campaign rhetoric (in Lenin's case, the ultimate campaign promise), and hence not to be taken seriously. And, as we argued in the previous section, radical parties are under pressure from economic and state bureaucracies that ensure that even a sincere radical party would be powerless to introduce significant reforms.

The only real response to the problems of representative democracy is to urge people not to vote. This can be a valuable way of making others aware of the limitations of the current system, which is a necessary condition for their seriously considering the anarchist alternative, as we have outlined in this FAQ. The implications of abstentionism are discussed in the next section.