Reply #73: Why is winning national elections so important?

[murdoch]

If we look at the history of continental Western Europe from 1945 to 1990, the left parties never won an election, yet they held a massive sway over Europe. Of course, the left parties in continental Western Europe were the communist parties - in 1956, the communist party was the largest party in France, and the Italian communist party almost won the elections there as late as 1976 (and had it stolen from them really, although not as much as 1948). Of course, Spain was a dictatorship, and in West Germany the KPD was banned.

These parties never won an election (well, if you ignore all the fraud in Italy anyway), yet look at how workers in Western Europe have it compared to us - unemployment insurance can last for years, mandatory month (or more) of vacation every year and so forth. And the EU's GDP is larger than the US's, and French workers are more productive per hour (Germany into 15 years of restructuring has not caught up yet, I believe).

Winning national elections isn't everything. There are labor unions, independent (and the fight over mainstream) media, cooperatives and so forth. The base of the Democratic party has been weakened for running to the middle forever. The last time an opposition party arose in the US, it was to abolish slavery. German workers started the SPD in 1863, English workers start the Labor Party in 1900. American workers never started their political party - there was the Democratic party, then an anti-slavery party started in 1854. US labour never started its own party. Eugene Debs won 6% of the vote in 1912. In 1920 he came in 3rd with 3.44% of the vote - in jail. His location during the election gives one a good idea of why a US labor party never formed - there's just a lot more oppression in the US. This can be overcome though.