As Wolfgang Streeck puts it in “Citizens as Consumers,” US electoral programs are “opportunistically compiled lists of themes and promises, controlled by pollsters rather than party members and put together shortly before an election, only to be dispensed with immediately after.”

Yet elections have bolstered the socialist cause in recent years. The Democratic Socialists of America has seen its membership nearly quintuple in two years, and many of its growth spurts were tied to electoral results: Bernie Sanders’s primary run in the Democratic presidential primary, the shock around Donald Trump’s win in the general election, and most recently, the congressional primary victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Electoral work can be frustrating. Campaigns force still-marginal socialist organizations to dedicate energy to candidates who very well might lose. Even those who enter office provide little guarantee they’ll successfully advance our agenda.