Protecting
communities and aiding vulnerable members of communities becomes a high
priority in times of conflict and disaster. Some even say that the duties of
protection and aid for the vulnerable are the highest priorities for political bodies,
such as governments, local neighborhoods, and grassroots organizations. Yet few elected democracies and organizations
make this their highest priority.
Benefit organizations often make equality possible in
practice that is impossible under electoral democracy and other political structures
that promise equality but rarely deliver. In exchanging equal say in decisions, what some call horizontalism, for shared resources distributed according to need, benefit societies produce more equal social outcomes for those in need. They also educate
their communities about how to put equality into practice. Easy to
form when many people work together with shared interests and goals, mutual
aid and mutual benefit organizations have a long history and an active presence
today.
As modern
governmentality has come to emphasize the surveillance and enforcement of behavioral
norms over care for the population during the past several centuries, governments
often lose sight of what many see as their primary purpose: protection and aid
for citizens. As enclosure and industrialization forced people off the land
where they could care for their own basic needs and displaced them into urban
settings, people turned to each other when employers and governments did not
ensure their safety and welfare. As governments come under the sway of the
wealthy and of other narrow interests, then they put profits
before people.
These
changes over past centuries have meant that many governments take their own
self-preservation as a higher priority. As a result, some governments put
protecting the leaders and administrators of nation-states before protecting
the common person and before ensuring the care of vulnerable populations. This priority
reversal can be seen when government leaders enter conflicts unnecessarily where
many citizens die, especially conflicts without direct threats to the nation-state.
It can also be seen when disaster strikes and the government
does not care effectively for those affected or, worse, takes advantage of disasters
to implement policies opposed by its citizens.
In times of disaster and conflict,
those social sectors that have not found governments reliable turn to other
means to protect and care for their community members. As governments fail to
serve all members of their populations, communities may seek out other ways to
manage their own affairs. Some of those other means include benefit
organizations and mutual aid societies, organizations that practice a specific
form of democratic self-governance known as democracy from below or direct democracy.
Benefit societies and mutual aid
organizations are often seen as a type of communalism,
long-established practices that experiment with attempts to find better ways to
live while providing concrete benefits to participants. By sharing not only
resources but also conviviality, these organizations provide an ethics that is
missing from capitalism and electoral democracy. In educating their members and
encouraging shared social norms, they may provide a sense of community that prioritizes
sharing over private gain. By practicing reciprocity rather than charity, they
provide important sources of belonging and mutual care that differs from the benevolence
found in twentieth-century charities and twenty-first century non-profits and
non-governmental organizations. While less functionally specific than
cooperatives, communal
movement have often been a resource for those who wished to escape
oppressive conditions and find liberation.
What are today called “benefit
organizations” are a very old type of organization, perhaps as old as
government itself. They generally form when social networks take action to care
for a population, whether an occupational group, an ethnic or religious group
(often under attack from other social sectors), a town or regional community, or
other social groups that determine it is time to act to care for their shared
interests. In this sense, “benefit organization” or “mutual aid” are more
general terms for self-government
or for autonomy
or even for what many refer to as “sovereignty”
or “politics.”
While some associate mutual aid with
European organizations, this type of collective care has a long history in
other regions, such as Asia and Africa. While some schools of thought and economic practice, such as libertarianism,
anarchism, and some schools of socialism, have tried to claim mutualism as
their own, others find the practice of caring for the vulnerable in society to
be broader than any specific sectarian interest. Organizations
from communities using approaches as varied as Indigenous
autonomy and cultural revitalization movements,
landless workers, slum dwellers, and other
urban
subalterns have worked collectively to protect and care for their community
members.
Benefit orders and mutual aid
societies were commonplace in much of the world until the modern
welfare state and for-profit corporations and nation-states began to
compete for their members. Many of their features have been taken over by
for-profit entities, such as insurance companies and health-care companies, and
by non-profit organizations like credit unions and religious charities, so some
modern benefit societies now take these forms. The penetration of the modern,
centralized nation-state into local governmental affairs was another major
competitor for benefit organizations, and their failure
to effectively care for the basic needs of all may be seen in the
flourishing of organizations like Reclaim Our Homes and Habitat for Humanity, two of the best-known
benefit organizations in the United States. The transnational donor structures
of civil society organizations and international non-governmental organizations
like the Red Cross and Red Crescent are a distorted form of benefit societies
on a global scale, often transforming private resources into mechanisms that
care for vulnerable populations based on a charity model rather than by
building reciprocal relations. The continuing presence of mutual aid
organizations is also seen strongly in Europe, where they still supplement health care for many.
Today these organizations go by
many other names, many of which are familiar: labor or trade unions; credit
unions; immigrant hometown societies; friendly societies and secret societies; self-help
groups; coworking communities, and many others. Rural communities in the Global
South and pre-capitalist guilds and neighborhoods have long put mutual benefit practices
into place as a way to engage community members. In urban communities where the
unemployed and others
abandoned by the nation-state have come together to serve their own needs also
practice
mutual aid and benefit in such forms as social centers and unions of the
unemployed.
Mutual aid community organizing
often emerges
in post-disaster circumstances, and the current corona virus pandemic has
inspired many to suggest mutual aid as an important resource. These spontaneous
organizations have emerged also in times of political struggle, as in resistance
to slavery, the Tienanmen Square Protests of 1989, and the Los Angeles
uprising of 1992. Already established benefit organizations, such as the Village
Movement in the Untied States, have already
begun to respond to the corona virus, for example. New mutual organizations
have also emerged in response to the pandemic in the United States and other locations.
Benefit societies can also be
formalized through charters, incorporation, and other modes of communal or governmental recognition.
Many benefit societies currently active were established a century or more ago,
and have incorporated to carry out their activities, including Woodmen of the World, the Knights of
Columbus, and Teachers Life. While some
of these groups have very long roots, they remain a significant
force in the twenty-first century with some 9 million members and about $400
billion dollars (US) in assets in the United States alone.
While the
language of benefit societies and mutual aid may not be familiar to all in our
day, that is because the nation-state and for-profit and non-profit
organizations have eclipsed them in public awareness. When the European
health-care industry and the American Association of Retired People and other
mainstream organizations advocate joining or starting
your own mutual aid group, however, then what might seem like an antiquated
organizational model has clearly entered the mainstream.
If you
wish to practice equality, it is as easy as volunteering with the Village
Movement or Habitat for Humanity, participating in a hometown organization, becoming
a union or credit union member, or joining other mutual
aid groups near you. When the inequality of centralized hierarchies like
private corporations, non-profit organizations, or nation-states are recognized
as generators of the inequality they disavow but cannot avoid, then perhaps
more people will form benefit organizations to meet their basic needs and
protect themselves and vulnerable groups. It would be easier to find ways to practice equality
when not impacted by major threats like natural disasters, wars, and pandemics,
but times of stress and high risk for many is precisely when mutual aid
organizing takes off.
