On The Jacobin Show, Amber Frost offers a critique of some of the intellectual arguments for mutual aid, debunks the myth that the Black Panther Party's free...
Most of those points I’d agree with except the following:
People are smart enough to figure out what you’re doing if your leftist organization plans on using mutual aid as a recruitment tool (and this is true even if you don’t condition your efforts on listening to a speech or something). This can easily backfire and cause resentment.
This makes it sound like mutual aid as a recruitment tool is something nefarious which is nonsense. So what if people know it’s partially to help recruitment and spread a message? I don’t agree at all there is “backfire” potential here.
I help run a mutual aid org. The most radical thing to people when they encounter us is that we don't means test. That alone is a crazy idea for people to find in a neolib hellscape.
We're trying to start some political education stuff, I'm not sure how that will go, but we'll see. Even if it's not going to bring about socialism over night, organizing feels good and gets me involved in real ways offline.
Most of those points I’d agree with except the following:
This makes it sound like mutual aid as a recruitment tool is something nefarious which is nonsense. So what if people know it’s partially to help recruitment and spread a message? I don’t agree at all there is “backfire” potential here.
I help run a mutual aid org. The most radical thing to people when they encounter us is that we don't means test. That alone is a crazy idea for people to find in a neolib hellscape.
We're trying to start some political education stuff, I'm not sure how that will go, but we'll see. Even if it's not going to bring about socialism over night, organizing feels good and gets me involved in real ways offline.
Using mutual aid as a proof-of-concept definitely has some potential.