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Mutual Aid is a guiding factor behind anarchist
practice, and an essential framework for understanding

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anarchist views on social organization more
broadly.

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So... what is it, exactly?

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Well... in its simplest form, mutual aid is
the motivation at play any time two or more

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people work together to solve a problem for
the shared benefit of everyone involved.

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In other words, it means co-operation for
the sake of the common good.

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Understood in this way, mutual aid is obviously
not a new idea, nor is it exclusive to anarchists.

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In fact, the very earliest human societies
practised mutual aid as a matter of survival,

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and to this day there are countless examples
of its logic found within the plant and animal kingdoms

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To understand anarchists’ specific embrace
of mutual aid, we need to go back over

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100 years, to the writings of the famous Russian
anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin, who in addition

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to sporting one of the most prolific beards
of all time, just so happened to also be an

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accomplished zoologist and evolutionary biologist.

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Back in Kropotkin's day, the field of evolutionary
biology was heavily dominated by the ideas

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of Social Darwinists such as Thomas H. Huxley.

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By ruthlessly applying Charles Darwin's famous
dictum “survival of the fittest”

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to human societies, Huxley and his peers had concluded
that existing social hierarchies were the

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result of natural selection, or competition
between free sovereign individuals, and were

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thus an important and inevitable factor in
human evolution.

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Not too surprisingly, these ideas were particularly
popular among rich and politically powerful

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white men, as it offered them a pseudo-scientific
justification for their privileged positions

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in society, in addition to providing a racist
rationalization of the European colonization

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of Asia, Africa and the Americas.

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Kropotkin attacked this conventional wisdom,
when in 1902 he published a book called Mutual

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Aid: A Factor in Evolution, in which he proved
that there was something beyond blind, individual

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competition at work in evolution.

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Kropotkin demonstrated that species that were
able to work together, or who formed symbiotic

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arrangements with other species based on mutual
benefit, were able to better adapt to their

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environment, and were granted a competitive
edge over those species who didn't, or couldn't.

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In today’s metropolitan societies, people
are socialized to see themselves as independent,

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self-sufficient individuals, equipped with
our own condos, bank accounts, smartphones

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and facebook profiles.

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However, this notion of human independence
is a myth, promoted by corporations and states

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seeking to mould us into atomized, and easily
controlled consumers, concerned primarily

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with our own short-term well-being.

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The truth is that human beings are incredibly
interdependent.

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In fact, that’s the key to our success as
a species.

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Do you ever spend time thinking about where
the food you eat, or the clothes you wear

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come from?

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What about the labour and materials that went
into building your house, or your car?

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Left to fend for ourselves without the comforts
of civilization, few among us would survive

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a week, let alone be able to produce a fraction
of the myriad commodities we consume every

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day.

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From the great pyramids commissioned by the
Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, to today’s globe-spanning

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production and supply chains, the primary
function of the ruling class has always been

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to organize human activity.

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And everywhere that they have done so, they
have relied on coercion.

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Under capitalism, this activity is organized
through either direct violence, or the internalized

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threat of starvation created by a system based
on private ownership of wealth and property.

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Capitalism can inspire people to do many amazing
things, as long as there is a profit to be

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made.

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But in the absence of a profit motive, there
are many important tasks that it will not

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and cannot ever accomplish, from eradicating
global poverty and preventable diseases, to

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removing toxic plastics from the oceans.

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In order to carry out these monumental tasks,
we require a change in the ethos that connects

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us to one another, and to the world that sustains
us.

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A shift away from capitalism... towards mutual
aid.

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Glimpses of the Anarchist ideal of mutual
aid can be seen today in communities of open

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source software developers, and in programmers
coming up with new forms of encryption to

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thwart NSA surveillance.

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They can be seen in neighbours coming together
to organize a daycare collective, and in the

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aftermath of disasters such as Hurricanes
Katrina and Sandy, when in the absence of

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state institutions, perfect strangers rush
to one another’s aid.

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It can be seen in the bravery of the white
helmets of Aleppo, who risk their lives to

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pull children from the collapsed ruins of
buildings hit by Assad’s barrel bombs.

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Imagine a world in which human activity was
not organized on the basis of ceaseless competition

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over artificially scarce resources, but the
pursuit of the satisfaction of human needs…

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and you will understand a vision of the world
that anarchists seek to create.