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...
Love the conversation that's come out of this and I think it's really valuable. It's definitely true that we can't make insulin in bathtubs - we need social change on a level that's higher than just basic community service. But that doesn't mean we need to toss out mutual aid as worthless. The more you divorce material conditions from the control of the state, the more viable revolutionary action becomes. It's a hell of a thing to tell a person they need to go on strike despite knowing that without wages soon their family will starve. It's another thing entirely to tell them "go on strike and you and your family will be fed, clothed, and housed no matter what happens." Mutual aid is more than outreach. It's the creation of non-state material support systems that can be tapped during times of resistance.
Can't say it better than the man himself :kropotkin-shining:
spoiler
A Government, composed of men more or less honest, was formed and undertook to organize — the Republic in 1793, Labour in 1848, and the Free Commune in 1871. Imbued with Jacobin ideas, this Government occupied itself first of all with political questions, such as the reorganization of the machinery of government, the purifying of the administration, the separation of Church and State, civic liberty, and such matters. It is true the workmen’s clubs kept an eye on the members of the new Government, and often imposed their ideas on them. But even in these clubs, whether the leaders belonged to the middle or to the working classes, it was always middle-class ideas which prevailed. They discussed various political questions at great length, but forgot to discuss the question of bread. Great ideas sprang up at such times, ideas that have moved the world; words were spoken which still stir our hearts, at the interval of a century. But the people were starving in the slums.
. . .
The idea of the people will be to provide bread for all. And while middle-class citizens, and workmen infested with middle-class ideas admire their own rhetoric in the “Talking Shops,” and “practical people” are engaged in endless discussions on forms of government, we, the “Utopian dreamers” — we shall have to consider the question of daily bread. We have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that there is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of Bread for All the Revolution will triumph.
It’s definitely true that we can’t make insulin in bathtubs
You might be able to make it in your garage, actually. There’s a group I’ve been following called Open Insulin Project that’s working on this, and has made quite a bit of progress so far.
Love the conversation that's come out of this and I think it's really valuable. It's definitely true that we can't make insulin in bathtubs - we need social change on a level that's higher than just basic community service. But that doesn't mean we need to toss out mutual aid as worthless. The more you divorce material conditions from the control of the state, the more viable revolutionary action becomes. It's a hell of a thing to tell a person they need to go on strike despite knowing that without wages soon their family will starve. It's another thing entirely to tell them "go on strike and you and your family will be fed, clothed, and housed no matter what happens." Mutual aid is more than outreach. It's the creation of non-state material support systems that can be tapped during times of resistance.
Can't say it better than the man himself :kropotkin-shining:
spoiler
A Government, composed of men more or less honest, was formed and undertook to organize — the Republic in 1793, Labour in 1848, and the Free Commune in 1871. Imbued with Jacobin ideas, this Government occupied itself first of all with political questions, such as the reorganization of the machinery of government, the purifying of the administration, the separation of Church and State, civic liberty, and such matters. It is true the workmen’s clubs kept an eye on the members of the new Government, and often imposed their ideas on them. But even in these clubs, whether the leaders belonged to the middle or to the working classes, it was always middle-class ideas which prevailed. They discussed various political questions at great length, but forgot to discuss the question of bread. Great ideas sprang up at such times, ideas that have moved the world; words were spoken which still stir our hearts, at the interval of a century. But the people were starving in the slums.
. . .
The idea of the people will be to provide bread for all. And while middle-class citizens, and workmen infested with middle-class ideas admire their own rhetoric in the “Talking Shops,” and “practical people” are engaged in endless discussions on forms of government, we, the “Utopian dreamers” — we shall have to consider the question of daily bread. We have the temerity to declare that all have a right to bread, that there is bread enough for all, and that with this watchword of Bread for All the Revolution will triumph.
You might be able to make it in your garage, actually. There’s a group I’ve been following called Open Insulin Project that’s working on this, and has made quite a bit of progress so far.
That's super cool - glad to be wrong