I haven’t thought about mutual aid like this, in getting people to collectivize being able to mutually meet each others needs in the gaps left by capitalism is important.
I found this very insightful, but I think a missing aspect is the relationships that are formed, valued, or sought in mutual aid beyond the meeting of discrete needs. From some people I’ve talked to, this is very important to them and an invaluable aspect that they see as different than the centralized, alienated, and capitalist/imperialist social ecologies that are both arbiters of conditions where’s experience need and alienation and also the nonprofit/“charitable” spaces and elements which serve as non-mutual bandaids to conditions.
In this sense, the concern of mutual-aid is not the Left, but people. It seems to me that if there is a Left worth advocating for, the concern is organically, ever-strivingly, listeningly the same—and only ever analytically as a consequence of the former things—: what serves and truly unbinds (liberates) what is possible in our relationships with each other and with resources.
I think this would free us from temptations of material reductions that inclines us to forget about the person sitting next to us as a matter of Leftist praxis as well.
I don't work within any MA organizations. I contribute with direct aid to a couple individuals. Is it OK to set boundaries in terms of financial limitations? I'm currently burnt out
I haven’t thought about mutual aid like this, in getting people to collectivize being able to mutually meet each others needs in the gaps left by capitalism is important.
I found this very insightful, but I think a missing aspect is the relationships that are formed, valued, or sought in mutual aid beyond the meeting of discrete needs. From some people I’ve talked to, this is very important to them and an invaluable aspect that they see as different than the centralized, alienated, and capitalist/imperialist social ecologies that are both arbiters of conditions where’s experience need and alienation and also the nonprofit/“charitable” spaces and elements which serve as non-mutual bandaids to conditions.
In this sense, the concern of mutual-aid is not the Left, but people. It seems to me that if there is a Left worth advocating for, the concern is organically, ever-strivingly, listeningly the same—and only ever analytically as a consequence of the former things—: what serves and truly unbinds (liberates) what is possible in our relationships with each other and with resources.
I think this would free us from temptations of material reductions that inclines us to forget about the person sitting next to us as a matter of Leftist praxis as well.
I agree, and I tried to touch on these in my brief discussion of “prefigurative social dynamics.” It certainly could use more fleshing out though
I don't work within any MA organizations. I contribute with direct aid to a couple individuals. Is it OK to set boundaries in terms of financial limitations? I'm currently burnt out
Great article and analysis - I'd add on the disaster bit that it is such an opportunity that it will be seized - question is by whom and with what intentions/worldviews, check this article for what I mean https://grist.org/extreme-weather/boots-on-the-ground-fema-oath-keepers-natural-disaster/
That’s a great point and a perfect example, strongly agree