To many in the West, democracy requires the existence of multiple parties capable of containing within them different visions for the future of society and giving expression to different opinions. In this view, the state is a neutral arbiter and the principle of “one person, one vote” guarantees equality of democratic participation.

This is a nice ideal, but it obfuscates the role of class power. In such a system, it is very easy for the dominant class — the class with the most financial and organizational power — to determine political outcomes in its own interests, capture the state, and prevent any democratic challenges to its rule. Indeed this is precisely what occurs under capitalism. The result is that the state serves as an instrument of capitalist class rule. Its institutional arrangements and political customs serve to advance and secure the domination by one class over another. “Order” and “stability” moderate class conflict in the interests of preserving the power of capital and preventing the emergence of a political system that serves working people.3 In effect, liberal democracy facilitates the consolidation and operation of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Impressive showing in the Speedrun Lenin in Two Paragraphs Challenge