(For Statists): Mutual Aid Works

[Havet]

Interesting story from a blog:



I live in an area dominated by farming. We are no where near civilization. If a fire starts, government will not be there to put it out, and fire is devastating to a farmer. Tens of thousands of dollars can be burnt up in a matter of minutes. “How could poor backwoods people possibly handle their own fire fighting without the government???” cries the statist.

Nearly everyone has a some kind of fire fighting equipment. Ours is a beat up 1971 Ford F250 with a tank and pump strapped to the back. It couldn’t even get into a government inspection let alone pass one. Now this pickup alone could only handle the smallest of fires. But if there were a group of them…

The other day there was smoke on the horizon. We got in our “clunker,” and sped down to the scene. Before long, there were probably twenty-five fire trucks. We put out a fire in twenty mph gusts in about an hour.
Why did so many help? Four possible reasons I can think of:


Reciprocity. If I protect you today I hope you will do the same for me tomorrow.
Charity. Promotion of goodwill between neighbors.
Fear of Ostracism.
Protection of Property. Neighbors immediately adjacent to the fire may have reacted to protect their own property.

The fourth one can only account for three or four of those fighting the fire. No money is exchanged (sometimes thank you cards or small gifts are though) but market forces move actors to protect property and people nonetheless.

Mutual Aid works. Smash the (welfare) state!

From here (http://sumofallvirtues.wordpress.com/)

[yuon]

Any sensible person understands that mutual aid works, that's one example. Neighbourhood Watch is another example.

But yeah, this is a good example.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It's a bit of a stretch to make your political point from this example. You mean people who don't live near a fire station don't just sit around as fires spread? Gasp!

What does the market have to do with a community response to a threat. If I go camping, I make sure I put out any campfires properly even though I don't own the woods and I'm just leaving the next day. I rent rather than own my apartment and yet if a house was on fire on my street I'd call 911 and do what I could to make sure everyone was safe and use a garden hose to spray surrounding areas to try and prevent it from spreading.

Unlike sparsely populated rural areas, urban areas do need some kind of organized emergency response - it is true under capitalism (either private companies or municipal) it would be true under socialism and communism. Much like municipal fire departments now, I think socialist and communist societies would come up with some kind of rotating schedule for trained firefighters and paramedics.

[Conquer or Die]

LoL is all that need be said. Firefighting is THE institution which is benefitted by socialism. It's also the institution which many libertarians assume to be a necessary government evil.

L o fucking L.

Ed: How about slaves putting out fires on their plantations? Mutual Aid in practice, my friend.

[Havet]

LoL is all that need be said. Firefighting is THE institution which is benefitted by socialism. It's also the institution which many libertarians assume to be a necessary government evil.


Most (right)libertarians quickly respond with something along the lines of: "there could be private firefighting companies" without realizing mutual aid is more effective and less costly.

edit: if they are slaves then its not "their" plantations, is it? They would likely be forced by the slave-owners to take out the fire, much like they are forced to work in the first place

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

No one in my neighborhood owns a fire truck.

[Havet]

No one in my neighborhood owns a fire truck.

Neither do the people in my example. I'm assuming they got excited after watching "Pimp My Ride" and projected car modding onto firefighting.

[trivas7]

All unrestricted members of RevLeft are de facto statists.

[Havet]

All unrestricted members of RevLeft are de facto statists.

Come on trivas7...even members like Genecosta, Wolves of Paris, Eviglidelse and sedrox, who are mutualists?

[trivas7]

Come on trivas7...even members like Genecosta, Wolves of Paris, Eviglidelse and sedrox, who are mutualists?
Indeed; it takes a state to suppress money and capital.

[Havet]

Indeed; it takes a state to suppress money and capital.

It takes a state to force people into accepting "money" which has no value except what the state claims what is worth. Fiat Money anyone?

When we'll achieve a free society, let free men flourish and develop the most effective ways to interact, whether or not that involves money and whether or not it involves capital, and especially without exploiting, enslaving, stealing and killing anyone.

[trivas7]

When we'll achieve a free society, let free men flourish and develop the most effective ways to interact, whether or not that involves money and whether or not it involves capital, and especially without exploiting, enslaving, stealing and killing anyone.
History and praxis tells us that money is how men flourish and develop; no society that suppresses it is free.

[narcomprom]

1.Please give me five hundred dollars ($500) now. Expect reciprocity. I have even a big bucket to put out the occassional fire.

2. Reciprocity does work when there is goodwill to make it work. Sure thing; Kropotkin gave examples how it worked like a fairy tale without any in the tundra - Chinese commuters, local natives and Russian geologists would help one another out without even knowing who you are and knowing they would never see you again. Does Kropotkin lie? If he does, so does Vladimir Arsenyev in his famous Dersu Uzala. Point taken, do-gooders exist.

But are do-gooders the rule? I was never to the far east the Russian Empire - and where I live the answer is clearly "No.". Ask your relatives who lived through times of hardship! Mine would have to learn to act like a ****, for altruism was the way do serfdom. Everyone would gladly accept your mutualism but none would give anything in return. Everone had his children, parents, brothers and sisters to feed.

The trick is, I agree, to make people accept you as their brother and sister. The Anarchist philosopher and pedagogue Landauer suggest that kind of universalist indoctrination. To make mutualism work, you'd have to swallow a phase of a pro-mutualist totalitarian state for a few generations. Havenmill would you accept that?

Point 3 - fear of ostracism. Not helping your neighbour to kill the gypsy would be considered bad taste in Romania of the thirties. If you call "conformism" "mutualism", then humanity ,indeed, has a rich experience to learn from of very practical mutualism between the power elite and it's cynical suckups.

Point 4 you quoted worked indeed! Landowners would eradicate whole families of anarchists and communists in unison during the Russian civil war to protect their property. They'd even help one another to weed out the occasional democrat. That was called "white terror.";)

[Jack]

Come on trivas7...even members like Genecosta, Wolves of Paris, Eviglidelse and sedrox, who are mutualists?

Sedrox is a Left Communist, and I'm pretty sure that WoP is one of those without adjectives people, I have no clue who Eviglidelse is.

[RGacky3]

Indeed; it takes a state to suppress money and capital.

No it does'nt it takes a state to enforce property.


Unlike sparsely populated rural areas, urban areas do need some kind of organized emergency response - it is true under capitalism (either private companies or municipal) it would be true under socialism and communism. Much like municipal fire departments now, I think socialist and communist societies would come up with some kind of rotating schedule for trained firefighters and paramedics.

Thats mutual aid, mutual aid can be organized.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

All unrestricted members of RevLeft are de facto statists.

So I take it you interviewed each and every unrestricted member concerning their politics? No? Then shut the fuck up.

[Durruti's Ghost]

All unrestricted members of RevLeft are de facto statists.

Groundless generalization is groundless.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Indeed; it takes a state to suppress money and capital.

Suppress money and capital? What la hell?

[Conquer or Die]

History and praxis tells us that money is how men flourish and develop; no society that suppresses it is free.

History tells us that military action and imperialism is how society expands. Free or not, that is how the Spanish and British empire got rich. How America got rich. How the USSR became rich.

Your liberfraudianism is based on the false composition of the idea of property and exchange when you sit on conquered lands and trade for the smallest price outside of your country which is connected with the same imperialist action which you claim is not free. No, your philosophy (not science or history) is grounded in the historical fact of expansionism and military conquest.

[Conquer or Die]

Most (right)libertarians quickly respond with something along the lines of: "there could be private firefighting companies" without realizing mutual aid is more effective and less costly.

Right Libertarians are typically fascist utopians. Libertarianism as a political movement usually understands some government as necessary. I think the editor of Reason magazine has said that he thinks large scale government works projects and roads and some services are within the realm of a "proper" government.


edit: if they are slaves then its not "their" plantations, is it? They would likely be forced by the slave-owners to take out the fire, much like they are forced to work in the first place

It was their plantation because they did the work on it. They would be denied food and shelter if they just stood by and did nothing. People act to put out fires because it fucks with civilization and nature. Nobody is saying people shouldn't fight fires if necessary but it's plain stupid to suggest that an isolated example of people putting out fires becuase they lack a proper fire department is indicative of how "statist" or "capitalist" institutions can be done away with.

[trivas7]

Right Libertarians are typically fascist utopians.
So are left libertarians, if history is any guide. :(

[Conquer or Die]

So are left libertarians, if history is any guide. :(

Cool; so you admit that the entire imperialist perversion of libertarianism is in fact fascist propertyship. Welcome to revolution, comrade :)

[Jimmie Higgins]

Indeed; it takes a state to suppress money and capital.Well most communists and anarchists would disagree. In fact history shows us that a state was needed by capitalists in order to promote a system based on laws (through a state) rather than the feudal system. All contracts are meaningless pieces of paper without force to back them up - so capitalists have always used force to create and secure trade routes and resources and open markets and keep the working class and others in line.

A state was needed to enclose the peasantry at the beginnings of capitalism.

The American ruling class needed a strong state to enforce common trade between the new states after the American revolution and so they replaced the articles of confederation with the constitution.

The rising American industrialists needed a state first to replace the salveocracy with regular capitalism during the civil war, then they needed the state to clear lands of natives and to grant land and money to the rail roads and then to open and secure trade routes with a navy. American capitalism needed a state to build infrastructure and a military and to put down worker uprisings and strikes.

The rise of capitalism comes with the rise of nation-states and it is no coincidence. In the case of the US, the power of the state was increased as the capitalists needed it; in Japan and Germany in the late 1800s, capitalists used the power of the state to create conditions necissary for industry in these countries to catch up with England - they created modern schools, transportation, and modern industry.

To believe the things you do about capitalism it would take a complete lack of historical knowledge and no lived experience under capitalim. Or just willful ignorance.