Hello everyone.
It's just me James again today and I'm joined by Ruth Kinner who's going to introduce herself shortly. And we're discussing the concept of mutual aid and trying to sort of cast that in a broader perspective. We talk a lot about mutual aid, but we don't talk often about what it is and what it means and how it's been happening for a very long time. So Ruth, would you like to introduce yourself and tell it tone that you think it's relevant.
Yeah, thank you, James.
So my name is Ruth Kinner and i work at Lufber University in the UK. Lufber's halfway between Nottingham and Leicester in the East Midlands, and I'm a political theorist and historian of ideas and I specialize in anarchist political thought. And one of the people I've spent probably most time looking at is Peter Cropotkin, and I've written about crop
Popkins's life and work. I'm also the editor of the journal Anarchist Studies and I'm a member love for University of the Anarchism Research Group I lovely.
Yeah, that's a very very appropriate TV for this.
And so can we start off by explaining because I think people hear mutual aids sort of thrown about a lot, and they know that it's people helping people, But what would you define it as.
What would be a useful definition for people to work of.
So mutual aid is about people helping people. But I think crop Popkin's argument, or you know, the way that anarchists tend to think about mutual aid is that it's a way of describing a relationship that can be encouraged or discouraged according to the ways in which we organize our social relationships. So mutual aid is a kind of a response that we all have two people when it's
based on empathy, I guess. But it's something that we can dampen, I suppose if we divorce ourselves from from other people in our everyday lives, and particularly if we tend to think that people's well being is the concern of others rather than something which is a collective concern of all of us.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that it's really excellent because it's very easy, especially if you're living under sort of capitalism as it exists today, to divorce yourself from your empathy or I don't know responsibility is the right word, but to help other people.
Can we see that all the time? And I think one area where we've seen that increasingly, certainly in the two countries that we're sitting in, is with this like just bizarre.
I don't want to like pathologize it, but this just deeply untasteful lack of empathy for refugees and people seeking asilum. So I wanted to sort of start with the example of the lifeboats in the UK, because I think they're great. They pop up in a potkin, They've been around for very long time, and they were, at least when I was living in the UK, very charity institution that people supported. And can you explain a little bit about how they operate within that sort of mutual aid lens.
Yeah.
So the Lifeboat Association was prompted by it's called an Appeal to.
The British Nation.
It was published in eighteen twenty five by this guy called William Hillary, and what Hillary wanted to do was to support the foundation of a kind of national institution that was going to help the victims of shipwrecks. And he couched this project actually as quite a sort of nationalistic terms I suppose were in patriotic terms, as sort of part of the duty that British people would have
as one of the great seafaring nations. But what it did was that it established the skeleton, if you like, or it produced the sort of the foundation for the Lifeboat Association, which is what we know now, which is basically a voluntary organization run by volunteers, funded by the public, with a remit to help anybody who is in distress at sea. And I guess although it was sort of the original idea of the Lifeboat Association came from this
sort of rather patriotic seafaring tradition. Hillary's idea was that once you set up these organizations locally on the coast, then actually they could be replicated. So he did have a sort of internationalist perspective. He thought that these things would be would mushroom, you know, across the globe, and that we would have lifebreat associations everywhere. I'm not sure if that's true, but certainly the Lifeboat Association is still alive and well in the UK and it does exactly
what he wanted it to do. It looks after people in distress at sea, without fear or favor, And it's an example of mutual aid, I guess, because the people who do this as volunteers are always putting themselves at risk of peril or drowning, if you like, in order to try and preserve the lives of others.
Yeah, and it's a very at least from my memory an institution. I've never really heard of anyone having negative opinions about lifeboats until relatively recently. Like there was always a lifeboat shaped thing that you could put money in, like a donation box, and people just.
Put money in it, and no one was like, oh, I don't like the lifeboats. But recently, I suppose I've come under fire from Britain. First for.
I think they would phrase it as like encouraging people to take the risk of traveling on small boats to the United Kingdom to claim asylum. And can you characterize I don't want you to characterize that attack because it's relatively easy to characterize and it's you know, it doesn't need much explaining.
It's stupid.
But the response to that, like, because I think it has been quite it's easy for people in America to see Britain as like a parochial island full of turfs. But I think actually those people were still like most people were pretty I guess, offended by the thought that we'd allow people to drown rather than coming to our country rate to claim asylum. Is that fair statement, Yeah, I think so.
I mean I think it was astonishing actually, or I think it astonished people that the Lifeboat Association would be politicized in the way that that was attempted by the right.
The whole idea of.
Of of of picking and choosing who one would rescue at sea is simply preposterous. And as you say, I mean, you know, the Lifeboat Association is widely supported. I mean you tend to see offices of the Lifeboat Association at seasides, so you know, this is a you know, the environment is the holiday environment, it's the beach environment.
It's part of being together.
In a place which is enjoyed by people together, but which also has its risks. And I mean, the first time I think, you know, I came across the Lifeboat Association was was actually through an appeal that was made through a very popular and well known BBC television program for children, which was called Blue Peter. And you know, they funded a boat by asking kids to send in milk bottle tops which could be melted down and turned into anyuminium or whatever it was. And then you know,
this is how they funded a lifeboat. I mean, so this you know, lifeboats aren't deeply routed I think, I mean, the support for lifeboats are deeply rooted in people's psyche in this country.
And as I say, I think it was it was interesting.
I guess that these calls from the rights that the Lifeboat Association was somehow doing wrong in looking after migrant boats. I mean, the small boats, really vulnerable dinghies that were being sailed across the Channel. I just think the the it gained absolutely no traction because it simply didn't speak to people's public perceptor or deeply held perceptions if you like, of the role of this association.
Yeah, and there's been a really significant campaign to dehumanize migrants in the UK, even perhaps to a degree greater than we've seen in much of the US, although there's complete bipartisan consensus that we should criminalize people coming here in the United States too. And I spent people will have heard that I spent like the last week driving along the border seeing little children forced to be held in the desert with no shade and no water like
it's it's also very brutal here. But I think it says something that that's an institution that looks like that was a line that wasn't crossable, I guess by the right and this demonization of migrants. So we're having established that this is a very cherished and important institution. Can we talk about how mutual aid is something that because I think it can seem understandably to people who have
been educated in the sort of neoliberal consent. Certainly it is very common in schools and universities in both of our countries. How this has in fact been like part of human history for as long as as people have been living in societies, and how it's a natural human response to want to do this.
Yeah.
So I mean, I think this takes us back to kropotkins theorization, if you like, of mutual aid. So I mean talking about sort of you know, our neoliberal culture. I mean, Cropotkin's writing in a time where you have a similar kind of individualism being stoked, and it's being
stoked particularly through a notion of social Darwinism. So the idea that fitness is linked to or that the survival is linked to individual fitness, and that competition is the basic rule of life, and that therefore not only individuals, but states as well should be, you know, pitting themselves against each other in order to gain advantage and to secure their own well being. And Kropotkin wanted to sort of challenge this argument, and so the way he did
it was to say two things. One that biological fitness is not linked to competition. It's actually linked to cooperation. So individuals in any species cannot survive unless they have support from others in their species. I mean, it's simply, you know, that's that's how biology works. So whatever advantage that individuals might might you know, acquire, actually their well being depends on the cooperation or the collective practices that
they have with others. So he recognized that there was into species competition, but he said basically, within species, survivalist based in corporation. And from that he then said, you know, one of the things that we can learn from this, from this sort of re under or from this sort of review of social Darwinism, is to think about how we can encourage cooperation as a moral value, and he said, you know, the way then we because that's a good thing.
Surely it's you know, if we're biologically attuned to cooperate, then why don't we make this a principle of our lives.
And he said that the way that we should do this is by configuring our social arrangements or our environments, if you like, in ways that enabled us to see that we were we were affected by the same sorts of problems, that we had affinities with each other, that there was a basic relationship that we had with each other, not only with family members and friends, but with strangers too, and that once we could understand that, then actually we could sort of organize our social lives in ways that
were supportive of others when they were in positions of need or when they're in situation of need.
Yeah, So how would one go about doing that because it can seem look where I live, thousands of people live on the street, right and I can watch people every day walk past people who just need a little bit of help and not give it to them, and it can be very disheartening. And so how do we begin to organize in a way that recognizes our sort of mutual dependence.
So I mean, part of the arguments, I think is that people will fill the gaps when they see that others are in need. And that's exactly what the Lifeboat Association does, and that's exactly what happened during the pandemic for example. So you know, not surprisingly, one of the things that happened in the first weeks of the pandemic was the mushrooming of groups that call themselves mutual aid societies,
mutual aid associations, and they were networked. I mean, somebody set up a website so that you know, people could see exactly where these groups were. They were networked in the UK. I think there were some relationships that were even transatlantic. Part of the argument is that you don't have to plan this, and in fact, mutual aid is an unplanned is best thought of as an unplanned response.
But I guess the other thing is, or the question that mutual aid begs is that, you know, if people get together in times to fill the gaps, if you like to provide support for people who are in need, then how do they sustain those organizations over periods of time without suffering burnout and all the rest of it?
And I think that really then depends on.
You know, sort of establishing I guess, I mean, you know, that's again why we should take some heart. I think from the Lifeboat Association, it's been going a long time.
It is possible to do these things, but it's difficult, and it does require that you learn how to cooperate with people who you might not otherwise work with, you might not otherwise think you have anything in common with, but where you find that common ground in order to undertake practical activities in collaboration with each other.
Yeah, I think that's very question. I'm always like.
In twenty eighteen, I don't know if you were familiar with it's been in the southern border of the United States. We had a large group of migrants coming here from Central America who became like a sort of talking point in the midterms through no fault of their own right, and they were held at the US border and then tear gas from the sort of Tommy Hilfiger gist out
store in San Diego. And I was really impressed with, Like I was there trying to help with my friends and sort of trying to do anarchist things, but also there were people who were older ladies from churches and people from mosques and people from synagogues, and very very much willing to work together, and you know, like you know, we'd go to Costco together and spend thousands of thousands
on water and nappies for babies and such. But I think getting past that initial sort of I'm not a person who worked for people who go to church too, like what this person wants to help and so do I was what allowed that to happen? Can you perhaps think of other examples that people I'm interested in things like the lifeboats, which people might not see through the lens of mutual aid because there's such established institutions that
they there's an assumption. I think a lot of people probably think that there's some kind of state involvement with the lifeboats, right, and the same with lots of sort of the societies that exist to prevent cruelty to animals and children and that kind of thing. Those aren't state funded either in the UK. Can you think of other examples of mutual aid that people might have sort of not realized are entirely driven by society and not the state.
Well, I suppose I mean the best or one of the best examples recently in the US context is the establishment of the Common Ground Collective after Hurricane Katrina. So the aid that first went into the people who were stricken by Katrina was not provided by the state. In fact, you know, that came a lot later, but it was provided by people who, you know, by by groups of people who who thought that they, you know, they could offer medical support or set up systems of you or help.
Set up systems of of of.
Basic supply and rescue, and and and that's exactly what happened, and the Common Ground Collective was established as a result of it. I mean, you find this sort of thing, I mean, I mean, it's it's fairly usual in times of you know, sudden emergency and crisis that actually the people who who do the hands on work of actually taking people off off you know, the how the roofs of flooded houses and all the rest of it.
These are local people. Typically, they're they're not the agencies who often you know, take a lot of time to get there. I mean.
The other examples, I think in the American context, again which are often rooted around church groups, but certainly a lot of black people's organizations which you know, who couldn't you know, where they couldn't access support services, set up mutual aid societies because that was the if you like, the only alternative that they would have in order to provide you know, sort of clubs for their kids and breakfast clubs and any kind of welfare at all. That
that was the that was the root of it. The other example, I mean Kropotkin looks at I mean these are nineteenth cent nineteenth century example which is sort of something that's later absorbed by the state. Are the uh the the the the insurance arrangements that were that were made by miners uh to to look after those who were injured down the mines and their families in the
event of their death. So you know, they were setting up their own systems of contribution to ensure sure that those families would be provided for if the worst came to the worst. And you know, eventually this gets taken up by the station, it's sold back to you as national insurance. But these systems are you know, they're established essentially by local people for their own benefits.
Yeah, perhaps we ought to talk about that because there's a lot of these spontaneous societal things, especially in the UK that are corupted by the state and then sold back to us and then gradually stripped away of the very essence of what they're supposed to be. You're at
the National Health Service being another example. Can you talk about the danger of that kind of state maybe dangers who are on word, But there can be a state capture of mutual aid efforts, which can sometimes one might argue, always like strip them of the essence of what they are.
Is that fair to say?
Well, it certainly changes. I mean, so state welfare changes the relationships that people have to those institutions, and and so in one sense it it alleviates the burden of of of running those institutions.
But in the on the.
Other hand, it it does two things. I think one is that it tends to encourage the idea that looking after each other is somebody else's responsibility. So actually it diminishes, or it disincentivizes the sort of the.
That that.
Stimulus to help each other directly. So mutual aid is a kind of direct action, if you like. Whereas you know, once we give these these processes over to the state, then actually we start to see people in different in different ways. So we do start to get the language of scrounging or of you know, idleness, deserving, undeserving poor. All of those things come from the idea that we're paying into an institution and not necessarily being guaranteed that
we're getting value money. So we start to see the institution slightly differently. And I think the other thing is that the I mean, the worry I guess of of that sort of co optation is that it's it conceals
the other things that that the state does. So welfare is the last thing, if you like, that that states assume as a responsibility, and it and it provides a gloss, if you like, on the law and order function that the state serves and and somehow sort of makes the state look a bit friendlier than.
Perhaps we should think it is.
And I mean this, you know, when the I suppose that, I mean, the term that was used in the in the British context, in the in the immediate post war period was not the welfare state. It was the warfare state. Because the idea was that the introduction of welfare, which starts really after the after the Second World War, concealed the violence that the state was otherwise perpetuating elsewhere.
Yeah, I think that's very It's something we should consider very strongly when we're looking at these things, right. I think it also strips the like the person to person aspect of mutual aid from mutual aid like the certainly the most common sort of mutual A responses I've been part of to health crises and then to along the border.
And part of what makes that very meaningful is people saying, like, you know, this is a this is a line between two states, but it's not a line between two people or two communities, right, And you are welcome because I am of this community and I want you to come here, which you do not get when you know there's a man in green combat pants throwing MRIs from the back of a pickup truck, like that doesn't.
That's right, But equally I suppose, I mean that's the other thing. I mean, that's that's kind of what I was trying to get at.
That.
You know, once you have once you have state welfare, you have concepts of access through citizenship, and that really informed is the idea that there's a there's a right of access and then there's a there's an exclusion that necessarily follows from that, and so you know, the relationship becomes much more transactional rather than which is the way that the mutual aid is couched in in.
The anarchist lexicon.
You know, it's it's it's it's driven by by altruism and and and giving without without the expectation of reward.
Yes, yeah, I think that's very important. It's it doesn't imply a power or an expectation of sort of reciprocity.
It's it.
I forget exactly where I read this. Terrible at these things, but like I guess you don't do it in a selfish sense, but it benefits you as well as a person. You are giving to look in because those people are part of your community.
Is that fair?
And like you shouldn't be complete if people are suffering, like right next to you.
Yeah, so I suppose there's a sort of there's a there's an argument to say that.
I mean that that comes from the from the.
Notion of of of recasting what it is to be an individual. So you know, you're your your personal enrichment actually relies on the relationships that you can cultivate with other people. So you know, the the quality of those relationships is actually something that of course benefits you.
But I think the I mean, one of the things. Can tells this story about.
A child drowning in a river, and he imagines three people standing on the river bank. One of them is a religious believer, the second one is he calls an ordinary bourgeois a utilitarian, and the third one he doesn't describe at all. And he says, you know what what happens when they see this child in the river. And he says, well, the religious person is wondering, you know, I should go and save the child because I'll reap
my reward in heaven. And the utilitarian is thinking, you know, if I if I save this child, then I'm going to feel really good about myself, and so therefore I should do it. And while they're while they're sort of going through that process of reasoning, the third person has just jumped in and saved the child.
And that's mutual aid.
Yeah, yes, I think that's very good. Yeah, it comes from Yeah, it doesn't need to be like overly theorized to suppose. Yeah, and it really doesn't, like I've never I think the construction of mutual aid is important because it allows us to join the dots across the world and across time and to see the relationship with the state.
But it doesn't need you don't need to have read Cropotkin to like, I know, a big it's sprung up here a lot in the pandemic too, right, like free shops and certainly for older people or people who are compromised. I remember breaking thousands of loaves of bread from the pizza shop down the street wasn't able to open, so they would bring me flower and I would make bread and we would take it to people, and things like that were very spontaneous and didn't particularly need like theorizing
in terms of crow Popkin. But sadly they sort of we lost a lot of that with the you know, with the reduction in the severity of the pandemic, I guess, and I think it's important to remember that that was a natural response on one that we should cultivate.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I mean, you know, I mean there were all sorts of things that were going on here. I mean there were people who were sewing up scrubs for health workers, delivering lunches to health workers, you know, as well as just you know, the checking on the neighbors making sure
that people were okay. So yeah, I mean it took you know, multiple different forms, and yeah, I mean it is difficult because you know, once real life as it were sort of returned and the and the lockdowns were relaxed, you know, people have all kinds of other demands on their time, and again we sort of then get used to thinking that, you know, somebody else is going to pick up the pieces now.
Yeah, yeah, I do think that that's part of that lock down nostalgia, which is bizarrely already occurring three years.
Down the line.
But people look back and think, oh, well, it wasn't that bad, and obviously thousands of people died that we shouldn't overlook that. But part of what people looking back on is that sense of community, which I think so many of us lack. The alienation is very real for a lot of us, and so those mutual A groups or watchapp groups and things gave people a real sense
of belonging. I think that's the same A lot of people felt that way in twenty twenty, for obviously, there was an uprising in the United States which gave people a sense of purpose which maybe they they're not feeling anymore if people are interested in I guess there's learning and there's doing, and that they can be distinct or they can be done at the same time, and we can learn by doing. And where would people start they
want to start their reading? Are their texts that you'd recommend, that you know, are not the size of a breeze block that people might approachable, Well.
You can get I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm I mean Potkin's book Mutual Aid is quite long. I mean, it's the last two chapters really that are the ones to read, and that's freely available online.
It's I mean, it's a very nineteenth century kind of argument. I mean.
The other I mean, the other one that I really like is Cindy Milstein's Anarchism and Its Aspirations, and that's short, it's very accessible, and she has this discussion of mutual aid where she she links it to what she calls the ethical Compass, and I think that speaks really nicely to the to the you know, the principles and the sentiments, if you like, of mutual aid, that it is this kind of thick relationship that people cultivate but not necessarily
a not necessarily with a view to living in sort of permanently in community with each other, but actually to change the dynamics of the the kind of the cities we live in and the detachments that we not only have but also sometimes kind of value. We don't necessarily want to live in each other's pockets. But actually that doesn't mean to say that we can't practice much live with each other.
Yeah, I think that'd be a great, great place for people to start if they want to read a tiny bio of Cropotkin. Dog Section Press has an excellent, excellent I'm a big fan of their great Anarchist book.
I think it's very approachable for.
Yeah, they're also they're also available.
Online, Yes they are.
Yeah.
Yeah, and they're illustrated.
Yeah, they're very beautifully illustrated.
It's been a good one for me to assign to students and have them approach anarchism from a non prejudice perspective, I suppose, which is which can be hard? Like I always remember coming to the US for the first time when I was twenty one, and like, I don't think I presented in a way that was particularly affable to the Transport Security Administration. But what are you doing here? I'm pH d student, what are you studying political violence
and the anarchist unions? I was immediately sent to the little room that you go to, UH and I had
some more questions to answer. But I think it's it's really important to present anarchism, I think through the lens of mut because I think so often it's viewed through the lens of like a predilection for chaos and violence, which is the opposite of what you're doing when you know you're giving someone a blanket or something like it's and so I think if people listening will at least be familiar with the concept of anarchism and mutual aid
and not see it in that prejudicial way. But I think if we can present it to other people, you know, you're doing anarchism everyone was doing getting start the pandemic when they were sewing masks like you say, or home brewing hand sanitizer.
Yeah, And I think that's I think that's really important actually to the to the argument that the mutual aid is for everyone, so you know, you're not anarchists are not trying to change people's heads or get them to think in particular ways when they talk about mutual aid. What they're doing is tapping into a propensity that exists
within all of us. And what an anarchists are saying is that if you, you know, if you push organizations in particular directions and actually you've got a better way or a better means of a better sort of environment within which you can sustain those practices. But mutual aid itself is not about being an anarchist. It's about being a human being.
Yeah, I wonder so if people want to sort of build ways of taking care of each other without the state where they are, maybe they can see a problem, right that hasn't been addressed by the state, like one of those holes that you spoke about, or a problem that the state is addressing inadequately or in an undesirable way. How would they go about? Like, do you have advice people looking to start? It can be especially if you're not on social media, which I know we've had people email,
but like, I'm not on Facebook or Twitter? And how do I organize mutual aid? Do you have any suggestions for that?
Yeah?
So, I mean there are, I mean there are normally sort of in any I mean certainly where I live, which is a small market town. I mean there is a community center there. I mean there are churches too, but I mean there is a sort of a local civic center, if you like, which has all kinds of adverts for local groups and activities. There's a I mean, we're a town of sanctuary, so we're one of the places that migrants are sent to in order to register.
And the people who are involved in the Town of Sanctuary, they meet them, greet them, try and give them information that's useful to them. They run English language classes, They try and get the kids into swimming pools.
I mean, they're all sorts of things activities that they're doing.
So I think it's a matter of sort of seeing what's there yea, and then sort of try. I mean often I think people don't realize the skills they have. So for example, you know, if they speak more in one language, it's often really helpful to people who are arriving in a foreign land or a land that they don't they're they're not speakers of the native language, you know, to help translate, to share information, just to point people in the direction where they can get help from from
other agencies. So I don't think I mean, it seems to me that you know, mutual aid is not necessarily trying to sort of say you're not going to enable people to access support services that are provided. I mean, even if they're paltry services provided by the state. What you're trying to do is to meet people's needs.
And there are.
Existing groups and associations which are which will enable you to do that. I mean, you could go if you live at the seaside, you could go down to your local lifeboat association and see if they need a volunteer to run the office. You know, there are that these are the sorts of things things that keep these institutions running.
That's the kind of thing that you can do.
Yeah. I think that's a very good, very good suggest for people.
And we don't we don't need to be like turn our noses up at support for the state where what little is available, we should avail ourselves and are the people who need.
It and empower other people to get to Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely, And certainly we can't. We can't act as if the state doesn't exist at a time where it does. It's powerful and it can hurt run more people.
Yeah.
I think that's Is there anything.
Else you'd like to say before we finish up on the topic of mutual aid.
No, I think we've covered Yeah, I think we've we've sort of covered it. I mean, I just I guess it's a you know, mutual aid is a is The important thing for me is that mutual aid is a It's an easy thing and it's and it and it can build and that's the the and it can be sustained. That's the joy of it. And I think that's the brilliant thing about the example of the life but association. Yeah, we can set up all kinds of things and run them.
We don't need to be told to do it. We don't need to be told how to do it.
Yeah. I remember.
One of the things that always gives me like a little spark of joy for such a venerable British institution with Royal in its name, is that they celebrate for Hopkins's birthday apparently, Yeah, exactly. They'll post on all their social media like pictures of cropopkin like a little birthday cake and the celebrations, which, yeah, I think people should, you know, take a little moment of joy to celebrate.
These things that we've already achieved. And I guess trying to be better.
Is there is there any way people can find you on the internet. I don't know if you have social media or website.
Not on social media, but I'm easily you can find me at the university at luf for University.
It's lo ugh b O r g H.
It's one some of my colleagues have struggled with.
It's not easy.
Yeah, so that's the easiest post to find me in. My contact information is there, and if anyone wants to write to me, then I'm happy to write back.
Wonderful, Thank you so much pleasure.
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