The difference between mutual aid and charity is that mutual aid seeks to abolish the conditions that necessitate it. While charities do provide relief for those in poverty, the structure of their organizations requires deference to the ruling class, and some will voluntarily align themselves with poverty’s architects. In this way, the people running the charity ensure a perpetual livelihood for themselves, both donor and owner experience a similar effect on their conscience as nobility that purchased indulgences from the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
Meanwhile, the recipients of the charity do receive temporary aid, but collectively cannot expect a positive, transformative change in their circumstances. That lack of transformation creates a self-serving feedback loop where the priority is to maintain one’s status as the leader/executive of the charity/non-profit.
Since the money will come from government grants or require a special tax status to receive donations, they cannot meaningfully challenge any capitalist without failing their first priority, as the capitalists install their preferred government officials via campaign financing and effectively draft legislation themselves via lobbyists. In the charity/non-profit model, that leaves only the people that need the services that organization provides as the expendable party.
By contrast, mutual aid organizations seek to create a society that can guarantee what the Michigan Mutual Aid Coalition (MIMAC) considers the seven material rights of all people: water, food, shelter, healthcare, education, communication and public transportation.
To ensure careerist aspirations do not take root, MIMAC rejects any collaborative status, such as a 501c3 designation, and takes the harder road by self-financing via its membership along with personal donations from the broader community. It is far better to be beholden exclusively to the people MIMAC aids and works with, than have to pay fealty to a cabal of genocidal child traffickers.
There’s no way to profit from the program, and the “no faces” photo policy removes the ability to farm clout, so self-interested parties tend to stay away. Instead, the program’s structure reinforces good faith dealings with all relevant parties. To get food for free from suppliers, members must pick up on a consistent basis, which reduces labor and disposal costs on the part of the supplier. In turn, the food must be distributed to the people, as it would otherwise rot, requiring more disposal and clean-up on the part of the members. Thanks to open communication with recipients, and multiple checks on supply, attempts to hoard food and short-change the community would be discovered and shut down quickly, and there’s no possibility of receiving extra grant money through inflated food pick-up and delivery statistics.
However, this program only covers one material right out of seven, and while there’s no collaboration with the cabal of genocidal child traffickers, that cabal still runs the US empire and NATO. Much more is needed to stem the tide of blood, and deliver justice to those doing most of the bleeding.
What if auto-workers or longshoremen wanted to strike, but specifically in a way that stopped production and transportation of military equipment being used to commit genocide in Palestine and Sudan, or regime change operations in Venezuela and Iran? They wouldn’t get support from their union, as the Taft-Hartley Act made solidarity strikes illegal. To actually accomplish the goal of halting production, those workers would not only have to forego strike pay and union amenities, they would also have to prevent scabs from entering the premises, which means stopping a police escort for the scabs or police directly attacking the strike to break it.
Mutual aid networks are the only entity that can provide support in that situation. Collaborative aid models would pull out at the same time as the unions, as they’re both beholden to the source of the problem. With sufficient volunteer and supply capacity, a delivery program like MIMAC’s can ensure those striking families stay well-stocked on food, clothing, school supplies and hygiene products without having to spend anything themselves. This maximizes workers’ savings and allows it to be used exclusively for housing and utilities. Sympathetic parties in the broader network could also donate directly to ease those costs.
The power of this network increases when fostering productive relationships with housing advocates like Detroit Tenants Union. Should enough striking workers live in units owned by a particular landlord firm, it may be viable to launch a simultaneous rent strike to alleviate what is typically a worker’s greatest monthly expense. This can also create friction between the landlord and factory owner. The landlord can only collect rent if the worker has money to pay it, and the worker can only get paid by the factory owner. If their attempts at violent oppression fail, there is immediate material incentive to meet either the worker or tenant demand. Once one demand is met, the worker and tenant is now in a stronger position to fight for the second demand. Should the employment strike succeed first, they’re now back to work without blood on their hands and making enough money to move out, providing leverage against the landlord. Should the tenant strike succeed instead, they now have the capacity to hold out longer on their employment strike.
Should these actions catch the attention of plumbers, electricians and building tradespeople, that can open up avenues to create alternatives to utility costs or restore service following shut-off attempts.
Communication is another underrated aspect of the delivery model. As companies like Palantir seek total surveillance of the working class for the purposes of perversion, control and punishment via the Internet, non-electronic communication becomes much more important. In the above example, specific strike plans could be distributed via the delivery program and recipients can act as a local information hub for supporters in the neighborhood. There’s also downtime to manage, and larger, better supported distribution hubs create options for both walk-in and deliverable community libraries for both education and entertainment. It can all be done via talking to each other and writing things down on paper, no phone or PC needed.
In the same way the combination of a factory and rent strike pits different aspects of the ruling class against each other, this creates friction between the tech-based capitalists and the old money. The ruling class has effectively turned the entire economy over to Silicon Valley on the promise of total surveillance and control over working people. Will the old money continue investing if they can’t easily monitor the communication of their class enemies?
One can reasonably assume the empire will expend considerable effort to disrupt, if not outright destroy, networks like this. However, they have a finite capacity to do so. If their AI surveillance gambit fails because people revert to non-electronic communication, that means they’ll have to pay more agents to surveil directly. If they’re paying more agents directly, will they have enough shock troops to break the strike and evict the tenants? Should they have enough, will they be diminishing their capacity for their regular terror patrols? The empire has limits. The more workers, neighborhoods, and cities rise and organize, the less the empire can concentrate its reserve forces for maximum oppression. The cabal also seems hell-bent on starting a war on every continent simultaneously, exhausting options to recall their stormtroopers to combat domestic upheaval. Stretched thin enough, it will snap.
Should the empire be defeated, there will be an immediate need to fill that power vacuum. How fortuitous it is that mutual aid networks were built to provide all seven material rights to the people from the outset! There’s a lot more to that than just the logistics, but that’s for other aspects of the vanguard to address, preferably offline.
Said aspects will often involve public-facing and/or covert, high-risk activity. One of the most common points of failure in community organizing is when an organization or coalition places its trust in specific actors without proper vetting and an observational period. This results in being left hanging in a critical moment, having their resources stolen, or being snitched on. When combining all the social and economic crises with the climate crisis, the stakes are too high to simply take a person at their word regarding intentions.
This is another benefit of making mutual aid work the base entry point. If someone wants to join revolutionary organizing with genuine good intentions, it will not be beneath their dignity to spend several months helping put food on the table (or organizing clothing, hygiene supplies, books etc.) for the people facing the greatest threat from the empire. It also allows a lot of time to assess a person’s character, how they react to different types of adversity, how accurately they assess their own and others’ capabilities, and how knowledgeable they are about the struggle. That last point is an excellent opportunity to build up a person’s perception and revolutionary commitment through education, because mutual aid organizers routinely see the theory play out in the material conditions imperial subjects are forced to endure. Out with the identical MacBooks, Discord servers, and Zoom calls! In with the pantries, clothes closets and clinics!
The alternative is claiming to oppose genocide and colonial policing, while promoting people that said voting for a candidate who would put “no restrictions on Israel” and create “a stronger border than Trump” is fighting fascism. That’s the mildest consequence, the infiltration of Turtle Island Liberation Front is a more severe example.
It is critical to understand that “less risk” does not mean “no risk”. The empire will target aid workers just as they will overt militants, often branding the former as the latter for justification. One essential commitment to mutual aid work is not selling out the militant wing of the revolutionary vanguard through behaviors like “peace policing” or trying to cut deals with the empire. All parties will be sent to the same concentration camps if captured, and history shows fascists will revoke any deal they can control once it benefits them to do so. The only way to remove the risk is to achieve total victory, a path that must be walked together, in good faith, or not at all.
Should that victory be achieved, a program like MIMAC’s would slot in as a regular day job. Instead of combatting food waste being an optional issue left for non-profits and mutual aid organizations to address, it will become a basic function of society. No more wasting 25-33% of the total food supply to maintain scarcity for capitalist pricing machinations. Production will decrease, easing the burdens of farmworkers and the toll on the ecosystem, and food that can’t be sold will be given for free at distribution hubs. Those struggling with disability will have food delivered regularly, and the people performing this labor will have their livelihood guaranteed in kind. That’s a world that’s worth the struggle!
A better world is waiting for those willing to learn, work, and fight for it!
