Don't vote! (II)

In Sweden, politicians often say (at least during election campaigns) that "the most important thing is that you vote, even if you vote for our opponents". I have not been following election campaigns in any other country close enough, but I'd be surprised if this is a Swedish phenomena.*

There is a simple reason. To keep the legitimacy of the system, the state (i.e. the politicians) needs the sanction of the victim** (i.e. the subjects, or the so-called "citizens", of the state).

In the last EU parliament election, less than half of the Swedish voters actually bothered to vote (and the same thing happened in 1999, in the previous EU parliament election). This terrified Swedish politicians.

I believe this illustrates my point: politicians need the sanction of the victim**. Not voting is probably the most threatening "act" you can commit against the democratic state (I will not discuss the meaning of democracy in this post). The only thing that comes close to not voting is to not pay taxes. However, not voting is probably worse, because someone who doesn't pay taxes but still votes recognizes the legitimacy of the state apparatus, and thus indirectly also recognizes that not paying taxes "is a crime".

Therefore, don't vote!

*I did read about "Rock the vote" in the US, however, which proves that this is a democratic phenomena.

**An expression I've "stolen" from the name of a chapter of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, although I'm pretty sure she would disapprove of my use of it.