5.4.1 Mutual Aid

A good illustration is Kropotkin’s notion of mutual aid and its modern forms. It is helpful to use these as a foil—as a way to sharpen the present argument for coöperation by differentiating it from some dimensions of mutual aid.

The theory of mutual aid can sometimes elide the structural failures that are the root cause of the problems that give rise to the very need for mutual aid. At other times, the concept of mutual aid comes too close to charitable work. It is problematic, for instance, that some proponents glorify mutual aid, arguing that it works better than state or top-down measures, and as a result (1) ignore the fact that the problems are the product of indifference and structural racism, poverty, classism, and gender discrimination, and (2) suggest that we would all be better off with no state interventions. Dean Spade gets to this in his essay, “Solidarity, Not Charity,” when he argues that most of the media stories about recent mutual aid efforts elide the structural causes of the problems; and when he argues that they feed into the rhetoric of small government.³¹²

Another concern with mutual aid is that it only really addresses one small or tiny segment of coöperation, the sector that relates to charitable works, non-profit service, or what might be called public service—altruistic projects aimed at relieving the immediate effects of poverty and hunger and sickness. This raises several problems.

First, it has an anarchist bent that may be detrimental to coöperation: the impetus and force of coöperatives and mutuals may well be that the individual workers and members drive the enterprise, and in this sense, many of these initiatives are bottom-up or grass-roots; but that does not signify in any way that there is no need for an organizational mechanism or regulatory framework to administer and ensure the smooth functioning of these initiatives. Coöperationism is not anarchism. It may devalue the dirigiste elements of the state (by, among other things, placing ultimate decision-making in the hands of elected members of coöperatives), but it does not do away with the state necessarily.

Second, it takes a part for the whole: mutual aid is just one type of coöperationist enterprise, and it fits alongside housing and worker coöperatives, credit unions, mutuals, etc. Each one of these types of enterprise will have their own unique features. Mutual aid may appear to require less state intervention than worker coöperatives, but that is only because state regulation is often so hidden. It is pervasive in the mutual aid context: the state licenses food services and has OSHA regulations for the groceries where Invisible Hands’ Elkind shopped (Fairway Markets), as well as all kinds of worker and other regulations, FDA etc. And these differ from the kinds of regulations that would be necessary for banking through credit unions. Each one of these will need their own conceptualization, and we could never say that “mutual aid” governs those other areas—that makes far too many assumptions and simplifications about coöperationism.

Third, mutual aid does not really address root causes, despite its oft-repeated claims: these mutual aid projects are more temporary remedies, than solutions to the problems. They are valiant forms of self-help, but they depend on some of us having enough money to volunteer and shop for others, for instance in the Invisible Hands initiative. They build solidarity and reorient our moral compass—all good—but do not resolve the structural problems that give rise to capitalist exploitation. When Tolentino writes in the New Yorker that “Both mutual aid and charity address the effects of inequality, but mutual aid is aimed at root causes—at the structures that created inequality in the first place,”³¹³ I have to disagree. Other forms of coöperation will get at the root causes, but not the mutual aid projects. Tolentino links in the article to the Big Door Brigade.³¹⁴ The Big Door Brigade is a project that Dean Spade has been involved with.³¹⁵ On its website, built by and maintained by him, Dean Spade explains:

Mutual aid is when people get together to meet each other’s basic survival needs with a shared understanding that the systems we live under are not going to meet our needs and we can do it together RIGHT NOW! Mutual aid projects are a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government, but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable. Most mutual aid projects are volunteer-based, with people jumping in to participate because they want to change what is going on right now, not wait to convince corporations or politicians to do the right thing.³¹⁶

To be sure, mutual aid embraces a notion of people building new social relations and taking matters in their own hands and taking responsibility; but that is not the equivalent, I would argue, to addressing the structural problems of capitalist exploitation (unless, backing up to the first point, you are an anarchist). So again, more needs to be added to really address the root problems.

This is not to impugn mutual aid in any way. There is a long and admirable history to mutual aid that goes back to the Black Panther Party’s free-breakfast program in the United States in the 1960s and well before; and that extends to ongoing initiatives like the groups that leave water in the desert for immigrants crossing the border (the No More Deaths collective).³¹⁷ There is a strong parallel between mutual aid and Occupy Wall Street: the idea of prefiguring another form of democracy. Kaba talks about the practice of mutual aid as “prefiguring the world in which we want to live.”³¹⁸ That was, as you will recall, a constant refrain of Occupy and of Judith Butler’s work on assembly.³¹⁹

But mutual aid is only one small dimension of a society built on coöperation, one dimension which has its own peculiarities. It should not be built up to represent the whole. For one thing, it simply does not constitute a viable economic system for production and growth. Contemporary coöperationist enterprises do.