5.2 A Recent Revival of Interest

Coöperationism is a topic of continued, if not increasing interest. Mutual aid especially has become a hot topic and focus of attention during the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis that has ensued.

Jia Tolentino of the New Yorker recently chronicled the different mutual aid projects that have arisen organically throughout the United States in response to the pandemic.²⁸⁵ Tolentino details, in inspiring ways, local mutual aid efforts, some of which have grown nationwide—offering, for instance, free home delivery of groceries by mutual aid volunteers to the elderly and infirm who are stuck at home and at greatest risk of contagion. One of the associations, “Invisible Hands”—note the ironic reference to Adam Smith! —was set in motion by a college junior, Liam Elkind, and attracted over 1,200 volunteers in its first 96 hours in early March.²⁸⁶ It spawned chapters around the country, delivering groceries to those in need.²⁸⁷ By mid-April, Invisible Hands had over 12,000 volunteers and had served about 4,000 requests for aid.²⁸⁸

Others who are deeply involved in the mutual aid movement during this pandemic include the abolitionist Mariame Kaba, who is a devoted advocate of mutual aid and perhaps most closely associated with the method; Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has worked with Kaba to promote mutual aid during the pandemic; and Dean Spade as well, who is both a lawyer and critical theorist, who recently wrote a piece in Social Text about all this called “Solidarity, Not Charity.”²⁸⁹

Looking around the world today, the anthropologist David Graeber—who sadly passed away suddenly in September 2020—argues that mutual aid is more relevant today than ever.²⁹⁰ Graeber identifies ongoing mutual aid projects in the Democratic Federation of Northeast Syria (Rojava), the Occupy movements, the migrant solidarity mobilizations in Greece, the Zapatista in Chiapas, and most recently, the various solidarity aid projects addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, just discussed. For this reason, Graeber penned, along with his co-author Andrej Grubačić, a new introduction to Kropotkin’s book for a forthcoming edition.²⁹¹ Few young activists have read Kropotkin—which is in part why Graeber co-authored the new preface—but their actions reflect the very core of mutual aid. As Graeber wrote, “this book is being released in the belief that there is a new, radicalized generation, many of whom have never been exposed to these ideas directly, but who show all signs of being able to make a more clear-minded assessment of the global situation than their parents and grandparents, if only because they know that if they don’t, the world in store for them will soon become an absolute hellscape.”²⁹² These are some of the last words that Graeber left us:²⁹³

We write this introduction during a wave of global popular revolt against racism and state violence, as public authorities spew venom against “anarchists” in much the way they did in Kropotkin’s time. It seems a peculiarly fitting moment to raise a glass to that old “despiser of law and private property” who changed the face of science in ways that continue to affect us today. Pyotr Kropotkin’s scholarship was careful and colorful, insightful and revolutionary. It has also aged unusually well. Kropotkin’s rejection of both capitalism and bureaucratic socialism, his predictions of where the latter might lead, have been vindicated time and time again. Looking back at most of the arguments that raged in his day, there’s really no question about who was actually right.²⁹⁴