by Alex K.
Many of the arguments I have heard against the Participatory Democracy proposal boil down to one simple phrase: “What if I can’t participate?”. Often a theoretical member who works the night shift, or is taking care of family members, or cannot attend these meetings for a myriad of reasons is given as to why Participatory Democracy is not only unfair, but akin to a poll tax or a literacy test. I would ask why the Cleveland DSA is required to replicate Liberal voting structures in an organization that looks to create a system outside of the current oligarchy built upon centuries of white supremacy, misogyny, and outdated Enlightenment ideals.
Voting should be the end process of a long period of conversation, deliberation, and, most importantly, organizing. I dare those reading this to try and think outside of the individualist society that so many of us have grown up in to think of voting not as a question of “What happens if I cannot vote?”, but as a question of “Am I organizing effectively enough to trust my comrades who can?”. While the title of this article, “You Aren’t Special – And Neither Am I” is meant to be inflammatory, I challenge the reader to think of Cleveland DSA not as an organization made up of individuals, but as an organized mass that is anchored in the idea that the collective is always stronger than the sum of its parts–of which voting is only one minor part.
As a Marxist, and a part of the Marxist Unity Group (MUG), I am interested in theories of Democracy and the ways that we can make our structures more Democratic, and I reject the idea that the ultimate form of Democracy is casting a ballot. Patricia Springborg notes that Marx sees the “positive case for democracy as bearing a peculiar and intimate relation to politics and its emergence as a historically specific cultural complex–a uniquely intimate relationship that is not shared by other regimes such as monarchies and aristocracies.”(1) Though this may seem complex at first, the crux of Marx’s argument is simple: Democracy is more than existing under a political system, it is about being able to have a true, meaningful relationship to the way that a person interacts with and shapes their own political system. While this point may seem to express, at the very least, sympathy towards One Member One Vote, Springborg expands on this basis to show that there is more to Democracy than the simple act of voting.
There are two additional points that Springborg makes about Marx’s views on democracy: one is that “democracy does not require the participation of all members of society as individuals in the decision-making process and that, therefore, the debate over the relative merits of direct or representative democracy is misdirected.”(2) This goes hand-in-hand with the final argument Springborg describes–“political participation turns not on the function of deputies or representatives but rather on political suffrage,” and in quoting Marx, reiterates that “Voting, ‘considered philosophically … is the immediate, the direct, the existing and not simply imagined relation of civil society to the political state.’”(3) Together, these arguments paint a picture of Democracy based on a foundation of universalism, rather than individualism. Democracy does not come about through giving everyone a day off to cast a ballot. Rather, it is essential that everyone can cast a ballot, but that casting a ballot comes about through people having a deep connection to what they are voting on, understanding that part of democracy is that not everyone who is able to participate does participate, and that voting is a political act–not the political act.
Marx clearly states that if members of the state–or perhaps Cleveland DSA if you are so inclined–“are an integral part of the state, then it is obvious that their social existence is already their actual participation in it. They are not only integral parts of the state, but the state is their integral part.”(4) Those who choose to be in Cleveland DSA are an integral part of it, and it is notable that being part of Cleveland DSA is a unique choice that exists outside of, though not independent from, the larger American political sphere. Springborg expands on Marx’s rejection of the separation between the self and the state in how focusing on individual political actions as “all” or “not all” “falsely presumes the political to be constituted by single political acts performed by individuals, focusing exclusively on the legislature as the locus of popular participation.”(5) Voting is the ultimate realization of a single political act performed by an individual. I challenge all persons in Cleveland DSA to think beyond themselves to a politic based on all of us, together, regardless of a single person’s circumstances.
In writing this, I look to challenge ideas of what it means to vote as a member of Cleveland DSA, outside of the historical understanding of what Democracy can, and should, look like. What does it mean to be Democratic as the systems made to suppress and silence political engagement are potentially replicated in Cleveland DSA? In an organization whose program clearly states that “[The Democratic Socialists of America] are workers fighting to transform society: to win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic,”(6) it is essential to look beyond American individualism and the idea that the ultimate form of Democracy is exemplified through a ballot. I do not believe that replicating the same systems that have not only failed us, but were designed to oppress and suppress, will create the future we all look towards. It is only through meaningful, powerful organizing that the systems we look to transform can truly change: not through the vote of a single individual.
Footnotes
1 Patricia Springborg, “Karl Marx on Democracy, Participation, Voting, and Equality,” Political Theory 12, no.4 (1984): 538: http://www.jstor.com/stable/191498
2 Springborg, “Karl Marx on Democracy,” 538.
3 Springborg, “Karl Marx on Democracy,” 538.
4 Karl Marx, “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” §§ 308 Civil Society and the Estates, Marxist Internet Archive, accessed August 19, 2026, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/ch06.htm
5 Springborg, “Karl Marx on Democracy,” 542.
6 Democratic Socialists of America, “Our Program,” section “Our Perspective” paragraph 5, accessed August 19, 2026, https://program.dsausa.org/