Collective action

Elections are part of a bigger picture

Elections are a way to build power, but they come at a cost. Election campaigns suck up resources, energy and enthusiasm and look like collective action, but they do not build class power so much as they expend it in the hope of winning access to state power.

And winning elections is not a guarantee of success: politicians are not always accountable to the people who elected them, other parties can also win elections to run the state and reverse reforms, and the state is not always a force for good — for example when it is used to suppress working class power through austerity, the police, courts and prisons.

If elections are won, they can help us build power by transferring money, resources and assets back to local control for democratic deliberation.

Branches can help members get active and collectively organise

Members' time and energy can also be used to build power "from below" — for example, by building trusting relationships in workplaces, neighbourhoods and communities — and by building our own well-resourced organisations like trade unions, tenants unions, community kitchens and so on.

Structures like member sections can help members get active in different ways:

• Working groups that organise in workplaces through rank-and-file organising or trade union campaigning
• Working groups that focus in social movement organising like setting up an Apartheid Free Zone, an Anti-Raids Group, or a tenants union
• Working groups that collect grievances on the doorstep, via stalls or at assemblies so that we can build campaigns that help them out

Focusing branch meetings on collective action, rather than just administration or election campaigning, can also keep members engaged and active.