Don't vote! (I)

I don't vote. The short reason for why I don't vote is because voting means legitimating the state - giving it the sanction of the victim.

I have voted before. I've even been active in party politics. (I did, however, not vote in the two last elections of which I belonged to the electorate - the EU parliament election of 2004 and the Swedish riksdag ("parliament") election of 2006.) I have, however, realized that voting will not take me from "here" to "there", from a statist welfare-warfare state to an anarchist society.

There are simple reasons for this. One is that voting will be interpreted as demand for politics, for leaders, for someone or someones to tell us what to do, to take our money and control our lives. No matter if you vote for a "socialist", "liberal", "conservative", "nationalist", "green", or whatever there is, this will be seen as a recognition of the state. It will be seen as a recognition of the legitimacy of the statist order.* There's a point in this. After all, if you don't recognize the state as your rightful ruler - why participate in the voting act?

That's why I don't vote.

*Per Bylund is commenting on this on Lew Rockwell.com.

Party politics will not lead to anarchy

I have been a libertarian/market anarchist since the spring of 2001, when I was 23 years old. Back then, I was active in Moderata Ungdomsförbundet, the youth organization of Sweden's conservative party, Moderata samlingspartiet.

I then believed that anarchy could evolve from political reforms, i.e. that politicians (that is, the right politicians), would eventually make themselves unnecessary by deregulating society, selling or handing out government property into private hands, and more or less abolishing the state through a legislative act of parliament.

I was wrong. I spent eight years (1995-2003), being active in party politics. Someone might call this a waste of time. I would not go that far. Granted, trying to persuade people to vote for Moderata samlingspartiet, and trying to recruit new members was a waste of time. But my activism in youth politics also exposed me to libertarianism/anarchism and it exposed me to libertarians (both minarchists and anarchists). It gave me ideological input, and I had interesting discussions with many libertarians and others.

However, on the issue of whether anarchy can be declared by an act of parliament, I eventually realized that it is naïve to think so. That is for a simple reason. Party politics attracts people who seek power, and for those people, power goes before principles. Those active in party politics who are not power freaks are not interested in positions, and in a way, they serve as useful idiots for the power freaks (I was a useful idiot).

Political parties are, in a way, supplying opinions and politics on a market. This market is different from other markets, though, because there is a limit, which is the same as the number of seats available in the governing bodies. This means that parties will assume popular opinions, rather than challenging them. This tendency will effect all political parties who gain power. Some examples of this is the Swedish Moderata samlingspartiet, British Labour Party, Republican Party (US), and recently also the British Conservative Party.

As long as a party is a small movement, it can stand firmly by its principles. But when it gains support and thereby power, it starts to attract power freaks, and, as mentioned above, they care less for principles and more for power. If they notice that their ideas (in case they have any) are not well enough by the voters, they will modify, or change, their message in order to attract more support and gain more power.* Sweden's new prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, is a master of this art.

Parliament will never give us anarchy, because the power freaks want to keep their power.

*This point was made by David D. Friedman in "Machinery of Freedom", where he predicted what now has happened to the Libertarian Party (US).