The right to complain is considered an essential part of any democratic society. It is esteemed incredibly highly, higher even than the right to vote. In fact, you might claim the act of complaining is not only a right – it is a democratic responsibility.

Complaining has so permeated our political society that it is replacing the vote. After all, we only vote once a year, or once every four years, or once every time the government feels like calling an election. But the opportunities to complain are endless.

The economy is in shambles. Gang violence is turning the Lower Mainland into a violent video game-esque battleground. Tuition rises more every year. AIG plans to use government bailout money for executive bonuses. Despite the plummeting price of oil, drivers are getting gouged at the gas pumps. The Trinity Western University Student Association budgeted $3,000 for their staff dinner.

A key pillar of democracy is the political ability of citizens to keep their government accountable. Traditionally this was done through voting, journalism and the media, political activism, protesting and, in extreme cases, revolution. As progress has brought the political age of complaining upon us, it is now important to ask whether complaining truly will enable us to perform our democratic responsibility to keep our governments accountable.

Before answering this question, let us examine how complaining rose to its place of prominence.
Complaining is hardly new on the scene but likely owes its new place in the spotlight to the fading into obscurity of the other means of democratic participation.

One telling indicator is voter turnout. In the 2008 Canadian Federal election, voter turnout was at an all-time low of 59 per cent. In the 2009 TWUSA election, a mere 425 students voted, or 16 per cent of the undergraduate student population.

There are many hypotheses for the downward trend in voter turnout. It may be that people feel their vote is ineffective or meaningless, since so many others will vote anyway. Or, in the case of TWUSA, voting may be seen as a waste of time since there’s rarely competition. Or perhaps potential voters are simply too lazy to bother voting.

In any case, an increasing number of people are forfeiting the passé institution of voting, in favour of the in vogue institution of complaining.

“New Media” journalism allows citizens everywhere to exercise the right to complain as freely and often as they choose. Blogs, Twitter, YouTube videos, Flikr photos and Facebook notes are the new modes of democratic participation.

So, does this shifting trend help us keep our governments accountable? To keep governments accountable would necessitate that potential office holders have a vested interest in the complainers. If the complainers cease to vote, then they do not have more of an impact on the ways of the government but less; by ceasing to vote they become irrelevant, and their complaints with them.

Complaining, popular pastime as it may be, cannot stand alone as a political mechanism for accountability at this point in time. Until the entire political system is reorganized to accommodate lazy expressions of discontent, plain old-fashioned voting it is. As in the past citizens have fought for the right to vote and the right to free speech. If the right to complain is to become the new voting, it logically follows that it must be fought for as well.

Unfortunately, complaining as a passive pursuit seems contrary to the active involvement required to fight for something. Complaining inherently cannot provide the necessary prerequisite for political change.

Until a way is found to bring complaining to the prominent place assumed by its adherents, voting remains the foundation of accountability. The right to complain has yet to be earned by any other means.