Mutual Aid

This book was really frustrating to listen to. It's very clear that the author wants people to embrace the concept of mutual aid and in in the last third of the book or so actually goes into a lot of strategies for running mutual aid groups and looking after your emotional well-being more generally and all of those things were really good actually.

Unfortunately the whole beginning of the book spends a lot of time vilifying any kind of aid that's done through mutual aid, talks about mutual aid as if it's The Solution, and pretty consistently has awkward undertones of ableism? I'm actually somewhat incredulous over the majority of the book was spent saying the same thing over and over again in very black and white terms, when social movement anything is definitely not black and white, and just being arrogantly pedantic for the majority of the book. The vilification of basically any kind of support that isn't done through mutual aid and assumptive attitudes regarding how and why people volunteer through organizations that aren't run with mutual aid principles was really grating, especially considering immediately after all of that, The author basically outlines that all of the same problems can happen with mutual aid groups. Also the pretty consistent badmouthing of people with specialized skills.

Kind of a waste since under all the superficial explanations, there was information of real value, especially when it came to offering suggestions on how to effectively be involved in mutual aid organizations and organize yourselves through cooperative leadership. The book just feels like it was really sloppily done, and I recognize that it's not long, but given that at least half of the book was one thing being said over and over again, I'm sure there was room to speak with more nuance if that had been what was desired.

I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about mutual aid unless they already had a pretty solid foundation in the basics of social movements.

This book swings wildly from idealizing failed movements (Occupy, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, etc) to having really solid advice for group dynamics and holding meetings.

I'm sure all of the good bits can be found in other books, but this book is short enough to just deal with the junk.

As I've struggled as a mutual aid organizer, I will sometimes wonder if I've done any good. But this book is the kind of manual and manifesto that will keep the fire alive while providing guidance to grow and refine the social movements this time of crises demands.