The Left and Electoral Participation Edward Herman is Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is a regular contributer to Z Magazine and co-author with Noam Chomsky of Manufacturing Consent. Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda . The fact that there is always such vigorous dispute on this subject, with people of solid left credentials coming to sharply different conclusions, results in part from the extremely marginal position of the left. Its members never have the option of voting for candidates who support left positions and who also have any serious chance of attaining high office.
Leftists are always in the position of having to participate, if at all, as outsiders.
This produces one strand of argument as regards voting that says that if the system will not allow anybody who represents our basic values and policy positions to make a serious electoral bid for power, we should reject the entire enterprise by refusing to participate. To vote is to give some kind of approval to this process, suggesting that this is really democracy in action and that change can be effected through electoral participation. This also distracts people from thinking about organizing and acting to do something that would really facilitate change. This team is also guilty of other serious crimes, in Colombia, Serbia, Kosovo, East Timor, and elsewhere. At home, its support of the 1996 Personal Responsibility act, ending the US commitment to assist poor people, and its crime and terrorism legislation, have been serious betrayals of principle and elementary decency and attacks on human rights and civil liberties.