fuck wages as a concept entirely. I want to do things because they need to be done, because they help the people around me, and because I enjoy them
I don’t want people to tell me I’m better than someone else just because I decided to focus on my special interest or fix something that was annoying me or some shit
I don’t want to exist anywhere near any system or ideology where they try and measure and pay “hard work”, I want to freely do shit I want to do without people trying to measure and dissect it and apply it to their own idea of “value”.
I hate it when people refuse to accept help because they feel like they don’t “deserve” it. That just wastes everyone’s time, so stop calling people leeches. The point of mutual aid is building structures that help everyone involved, and if you did that right people “using it” and not “giving back” don’t exist, because using it is “giving back”. Every bit of dependence any of us rip away from the capitalists undermines their power for all of us.
what I’m talking about is mutual aid networks, and so how I interact among my friends and polycule and such. We produce more than we could ever possibly consume, so much has to be thrown away just to force us to keep working.
This is a video on that second bit I like here: https://youtu.be/ESp5IgjR6r0
This is within our grasp today.
Mutual air networks is just another way to say community networks, which itself is just a label for how small communities with limited means act organically.
The small (often rural but not always) communities I have lived in know that help isn’t coming and that individuals cannot survive on their own. Hence pot luck dinners, beer “fix’em” crews, church fundraisers for someone in need, cajun navy, etc.
i hope it is but if it’s got any kind of momentum it would be stamped out by the elite by force if necessary. It’s happened before when churches started moving in that direction just look up the National Association of Manufacturers and James William Fifield Jr at the turn of the last century to see what I mean.
I love mutual aid. I’ve started organizations, and participated in others, including orgs that have faced extreme repression in the past, and/or have other chapters currently experiencing repression.
But one of the orgs, which has faced significant repression in the past (before my time), is still going strong. Not at the level it would have been if there had been no repression, but still strong.
However, these mutual aid organizations do accomplish what they set out to do, whether it is feeding their communities, keeping them warm or cool, providing hygenic supplies, harm reduction, and so on. Sure, if they had more resources, they’d accomplish more, but it’s surprising what can be done with what can be taken solely from donation, or surplus produce that will go bad if not used immediately.
I think saying “look what happened last time” in the sense that you should not do something because reactionaries reacted in a specific way is stupid, since you can learn from what went wrong, and build more resilient movements.
Mutual aid probably won’t overthrow capitalism (alone), but it is critical for providing the ability to build a better world under capitalism, and after it. And the solidarity fostered by participating in these movements? Priceless.
they have tried to stamp us out for generations. Attacking us consumes resources on their end too, and unlike us they need to maintain an arbitrary level of resources (profit) or they collapse. We just need to build enough mutual aid and protect it well enough to win.