Defining Mutual Aid
- How do you define mutual aid?
- Does your definition match with Joel Izlar’s?
- Do you agree that mutual aid occurs within a community?
History of Mutual Aid
- Freemasonry, with its principles of Brotherly Love, Relief, and truth developed in North America in the early 1700s, prior to many of systems of charity and aid, and prior to the birth of the nation itself.
- Masonic bodies placed value on relief through the support of widows and orphans, particularly those related to Master Masons.
- The 1800s saw an explosion of other racially homogenous fraternal orders, each providing new, useful benefits, such as paid sick leave and life insurance.
- Perhaps due to changing attitudes, technology advancements, theological shifts, and social stratification, fraternal orders fell, and so did emphasis on mutual aid.
- In the 1900s, the notion of community service prevailed, as did service clubs.
- The mutual aid services offered by fraternal orders folded into private insurance, state welfare, and peer-to-peer and small group efforts.
Mutual Aid Practices Today
- Food pantries
- Career closets
- Free libraries & book swaps
- Potluck meals
- Sidewalk gardens/edible forests
- Homeschool co-ops
- Rent parties
- GoFundMe/Crowdfunding
- Teach-ins/skill sharing
- Susu/savings clubs
- Neighborhood watch/safe walks/rides
What systems are failing that necessitate mutual aid practices?
- Food insecurity
- Housing insecurity
- Public safety
- Others?
Developing Mutual Aid in a Quaker Meeting
- Define the community politically and culturally
- Listen to the community by reading the newspaper, attending civic meetings, distributing surveys, and hosting listening sessions/Quaker Briefings
- Assess the communities most pressing needs that the meeting can reasonably address
- Determine the mutuality of the aid. Is it truly mutual aid, or is it reparations, charity, community service, or social justice/social action?
Resources
- From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967, David T. Beito (A small percentage of Amazon purchases made from this site will go back to OldGoldSoul Press.)
- Mutual Aid Hub
- Mutual Aid (Solidarity Economy Association)