Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next)

by Dean Spade

Part of the reason our dream of a savior government is so compelling is that it is hard for us to imagine a world where we meet core human needs through systems that are based on principles of collective self-determination rather than coercion. We are accustomed to a situation where the choice is between a government that either denies the disaster’s significance and abandons people to its devastations or a government that responds with inadequate aid that comes with enhanced policing, surveillance, militarization, and wealth transfers to the top. This is no choice at all. Because of how capitalism controls the means for getting by—food, health, housing, communications, transportation—and how dependent we are on systems we do not control, it can be hard to imagine that we could survive another way. But for most of human history, we did, and mutual aid projects let us relearn that it’s possible and emancipatory. Mutual aid projects let us practice meeting our own and each other’s needs, based in shared commitments to dignity, care, and justice. They let us practice coordinating our actions together with the belief that all of us matter and that we should all get to participate in the solutions to our problems. They let us realize that we know best how to address the crises we face.