'Mutual aid' has suddenly entered the collective consciousness as we seek ways to support our friends and neighbours amidst a global pandemic. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has tweeted about it, The New York Times has discussed "so called mutual-aid" networks in major cities, and mutual aid workshops have spread throughout the United States.
But often the term is used without ever addressing the question – what is mutual aid? "Social solidarity - not charity," might be the slogan response, but conceptualizing the difference is not easy. Fundamentally, mutual aid is about building "bottom-up" structures of cooperation, rather than relying on the state or wealthy philanthropists to address our needs. It emphasizes horizontal networks of solidarity rather than "top down" solutions, networks that flow in both directions and sustain the life of a community.
In this way, mutual aid represents a particular kind of politics, rooted in ideas around direct democracy, self-management and decentralization. But where do these ideas and practices come from? To answer this question we must go all the way back to the turn of the century, and to its origin in nineteenth century naturalist debates and early theories of anarchist socialism.
