The path of Mutual Aid builds on the relevance of Peter Kropotkin in contemporary social mess and political struggles. To move on with this, we need parallels between his time and our own to emphasize the importance of radical paths in challenging dominant thinking on power. Peter Kropotkin was a Russian geographer, biologist, and anarchist who published Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution in 1902. In this book, Kropotkin challenged the social Darwinist path, that human progress was pushed by competition and “survival of the fittest.” Instead, he argued that cooperation and mutual aid were fundamental to both humane societies and the natural world. This idea was radical at the time, as it went against capitalist and nationalist ideologies that were, as now, deeply ingrained in the scientific and social thought.
As then, as now, little changes, ‘s ideas were dismissed by contemporaries, who pushed #capitalism, nationalism, and state authority as the “natural” path of human society. #Kropotkin, however, saw these as they are, artificial and contrary, to the cooperative tendencies that are easy to see in both human and animal behaviour. By advocating for “stateless socialism” rooted in mutual aid, Kropotkin proposed an alternative social path based on voluntary cooperation rather than coercion and competition.
This path is still a hard one to take, public authorities continue to demonize #anarchists as radicals, as they have throughout the 20th century. This is relevant in the context of global movements against racism, state violence, and other right-wing paths. Now more than ever, mutual aid and cooperative social structures offer a vision of a world beyond capitalist exploitation and state control. Seeds already present in the existing society, not just historical curiosities but relevant to today’s social movements. By “rediscovering what is and has always been right before our eyes,” we can encourage people and communities to look beyond the surface of the current mess and glimpse the possibilities for radical change that already exist.
A call to action, that radical ideas, science, politics and social organization are paths to challenging the status quo and taking a more just and equitable path. A powerful reminder of the transformative potential of mutual aid and cooperative action, especially in times of social mess. It challenges us to think beyond the limits of capitalist “common sense” and only building from the state. To imagine new paths of organizing society that are balanced by solidarity and mutual support.