07/06/2021
Let's talk about mutual aid!
For us, mutual aid is a free, decentralized and voluntary redistribution of resources to others in a shared community with the expectation that the entire community benefits from the well-being of each of its members. It is help that is freely given without the expectation that participants will join an organization, comply with orders, or exchange anything at all.
Mutual aid by necessity promotes egalitarian relationships between individuals and group, rather than recreating hierarchical relationships of dependence. The goal is to transform communities into robust inter-communal networks of free exchange. It is a system of sharing for sharing's sake.
This directly conflicts with the conditional charity of the State, NGOs, churches, non-profits, especially in a crisis. In a report on Hurricane Katrina, FEMA summarized the logic of charity: "All aid should be used strategically. The use of sustainable supplies must be administered in such a way to maximize compliance with the emergency plan." Charities often have donors and leadership who, like capitalists, exploit the labor of volunteers, enjoy massive tax write-offs, and reaffirm the systems of domination that are capitalism and the State.
By actively engaging in the solidarity of mutual aid, we are supporting self-governed groups, whether they be a houseless encampment, a neighborhood, or a local tenants union. We resist the State's ability to determine who gets aid and when. We promote an ideology of free-exchange that has the potential to redistribute resources, undermine our oppressors, and hopefully, someday, restructure the racist iniquities of capitalism.
