The case against voting

How voting disempowers you

Nov 26, 2024

If you vote for what you perceive as the “lesser evil” of a false dichotomy, then fine… as long as you don’t confuse a “lesser” evil with good.

I get it: you feel like you’re cornered, that you only have two options: one evil, and another eviler (or at least that’s what you perceive). The reality is that both are identical, since all political sides obey the same lobbying masters. And most lobbying takes place under the table (you won’t see it in lobbying disclosures).

In any case, I understand… you choose your lesser evil… But in your desperation, you confuse the lesser evil for good; something you idolize, and on which you rest false hope that renders you delusional, manipulable, and undignified. This becomes a problem.

Why I don’t vote

Me? I don’t vote, out of and on principle: Voting is consent and intent to use the state’s centralized violence to impose what I think is right on people who might disagree. Voting is hubris because it presumes I am so certain of my self-righteousness that I am willing to impose it through the threat of violence, instead of incentivizing people to voluntarily do what I want, if they choose to do it. Voting is threat of violence. The act of voting is an explicit threat.

The definition of voting

Sure, you might say that you have no option but to vote, like gladiators in the arena have no option but to fight, right? Yet, if gladiators choose to fight their oppressors instead, they’d bring an end to the practice of forced fighting. One bout of mass non-conformity would end the practice, even if that bout ended in bloodshed. I mean, how worse can it get for gladiators forced to kill each other in the arena? The problem is assuming that conforming is the lesser struggle, when it’s not.

This is what the state and the ruling class do to us: they pit us against each other with a political false dichotomy or trichotomy, and then propagandize us to presume that we must fight against one another, otherwise “the other side” wins… no mention of incentives, no mention of free-market solutions to public goods. The true reality is that the other side - your true enemy - is the group that forces you to “fight or else” in the first place.

For the truly naive out there, voting is neither a “right” nor a “duty.” No perceived “majority” has the right to impose its whims on a minority or a silent majority. This is why democracy is evil: it assumes that a majority (or a greatest minority) can impose on others things that are morally not up for a vote, regardless of numbers. For example, a majority of rapists cannot possibly have any moral right to vote to make rape legal. Majority tyranny (democracy) is immoral. Still, this is what we do: we vote to forcibly take people’s labour and dignity away from them, and to spend that on whatever we deem righteous. How is this violation not legalized rape?

It’s not my “duty” to vote because never signed up for this system of governance. Nobody has asked me, nor anyone else reluctantly and subserviently participating in it. I don’t vote, so I can have a right to complain. Why? Because when you vote, it means you accept any outcome of the game, and any action taken thereafter by the (s)elected candidates. You participated in the gamble, so you must accept the result.

When you dance with the devil, you don’t get to complain when he steps on your feet.

I also believe that the perceived “authority” of government is incompatible with civilized intercourse. I write entire essays on voluntaryism - on how we can have an orderly society without any state “authority” - so I won’t go off on a tangent here.

Voting to make your preferences known?

Despite logic refuting the delusional need for government, most people are emotional, thus they still falsely believe that government is a “necessary” evil for a civilized society… Quite the opposite is true.

Regardless, since we do have government (and can’t seem to shake off this persistent superstition of government), a valid argument for voting is this: “If you don’t vote, then how do you expect to make your preferences known to those in power?”

I agree: it’s good to show your preferences to those in power, because even a monopoly still needs to keep its customers somewhat satisfied. In the case of government, the state holds a monopoly of public goods and of violence. But even an absolute monopoly competes with its alternatives, or the customers’ option to simply not buy what it sells, and just do without it And, if a monopoly still has some incentive to satisfy its customers, then imagine competing businesses in a free market…

In the case of state monopoly, if government is too harsh compared to the tolerances of its population, then the population revolts, or it simply stops complying. State authority disappears, since no one takes it seriously anymore. The state’s house of cards topples soon after, as was the case in the fall of the Soviet Union. The problem is that, after a government falls, people’s knee-jerk reaction is to look to and sanctify a different flavor of government, since they don’t know any better. And the cycle of state violence continues. Note: I use the term ‘state’ and ‘government’ interchangeable here: I won’t have my case eroded by deliberately deceptive semantics.

So, how will you make your preferences known, if you don’t vote?

This is a straw-man question: it assumes that voting makes your preferences known more than when not voting.

Here’s the thing: it you vote, it means they don’t have to honor your preferences - for them, you’re a sure thing, easy to satisfy, with very low standards. They don’t care what you think. Guaranteed loyal customers are fine with what they already get. In reality, the ruling class care what the dissenters think more than the easily swayed overly loyal voters.

The truth is that you make your preferences known when you don’t vote. This is why, with each election cycle, candidates tend to touch on non-voter pain points, just to bring non-voters back into the fold - to restore their lost false trust in the system.

Let’s take the US as an example. Look at how, in recent years, the rhetoric of politicians resembles more and more what the non-voters want to hear. The right quacks the things it assumes many non-voters value: libertarianism, smaller government, decentralization, non-interventionism, ethnic identity, etc. Similarly, the left quacks the things that other groups of non-voters want to hear, such as taxing the rich, more welfare handouts, “progressivist” immorality, climate alarmism, radical Marxism, feminism, transgenderism, medical enforcement, etc.

The only reason politicians bring up these issues is that they considered what the non-voters wanted, not what their guaranteed voters wanted. If anything, if you vote, then it means you’re already satisfied with the system you have. It’s the dissatisfied they pay more attention to. It’s the 1- & 2-star reviews that hold the most insight.

Think about it: the prominent talking points of all candidates are on the bottom of the list of their guaranteed loyal voters, those who’d vote for them no matter what. But nobody values a sure thing. As the horrid story of the prodigal son teaches us, we tend to value disloyal people more than the loyal. Why? Because the disloyal are scarce, and they thus have more perceived value to us.

This is what it is. If you want to make your preferences known to the ruling class, you’d better not vote. They hire market researchers to tell them what you want, don’t worry. They know more from that than from a generic ballot, in which case they don’t know which one of their generic campaign promises you fell for.

Make no mistake: the ruling class fear low election turnouts; this is why they literally beg you to vote…. Because, if the vast majority of people became disillusioned enough to stop voting, then perhaps we’d all look each other in the eyes and wonder why the hell we comply with a government that almost no one wants. And that would topple their house of cards, their bluff of authority.

Voting is complicity in every evil committed on the altar of statism.

Deep down, you know that voting is immoral, just like a gladiator knows that “they made me do it!” is no moral justification for slaughtering others in the arena. The gladiator knows that his subservient compliance perpetuates the system of forced infighting. You know your conformity makes you partially responsible for every state atrocity, from tax extortion and police brutality, to state propaganda and the legal mass murder of war.

Does this make you feel empowered? Does every (s)election cycle makes you feel heard?

Useful reading

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