[Marxism] Stan Goff, Bill Fletcher and the 2-party system

[Louis Proyect]

This post was originally meant as a response to Stan Goff’s call for voting 
for the Democrats in the midterm elections, but it will focus mainly on 
Bill Fletcher’s article “Race, the Democratic Party and electoral 
strategy“–originally a speech given at Columbia University.

Stan cites this article in his blog entry as “giving the elections some 
historical context” which it does. Unfortunately, it is not quite broad 
enough and is content to stick within the framework of US politics and 
particularly the rivalry between the Democrats and the Republicans. I have 
a different take on this rivalry, but before presenting my views, I want to 
take a step back and examine the classical Marxist understanding of elections.

During the rise of socialism in the late 1800s, there was absolutely no 
support for bourgeois parties. There is no need to look for chapter and 
verse in the Marxist classics to find support for such a proposition–even 
though it exists. It makes far better sense just to look at what our 
predecessors did since actions speak louder than words. The record is clear 
that they built Socialist parties that ran candidates for various offices 
against capitalist parties. The most outstanding of these was the German 
Social Democratic party that enjoyed the support of millions of workers and 
that created a wide range of class-based institutions, from publishing 
houses to insurance companies.

full: 
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2006/10/27/stan-goff-bill-fletcher-and-the-2-party-system/

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