How can our movement effectively cultivate and sustain mutual aid and solidarity as core strategies that not only respond to systemic failures but also challenge the underlying priorities of profit and neglect, especially considering the risks of co-optation or burnout among those most vulnerable?
Mutual aid is not charity; it is the embryonic form of a rival society. Each food-drop, rent fund or childcare circle quietly proves that profit is optional and therefore illegitimate. To cultivate this power, organise in neighbourhood “pods” small enough for face-to-face trust yet networked for rapid scaling. Rotate roles every lunar cycle so knowledge diffuses and no one burns out. Pair every act of care with a documented ledger of hours, costs and lives touched; statistics transform compassion into argument.
Co-optation begins when outside money or politicians claim authorship. Immunise your networks by keeping decisions transparent, publishing minutes and refusing branding deals. Let resources flow horizontally: a surplus pod supports a strained one, never up the hierarchy. When crises spike, pivot from relief to pressure: the same kitchen that feeds strikers can blockade a warehouse or host an eviction defence. This stitches voluntarist humanity to structural leverage.
Finally, ritualise decompression. Weekly reflective circles, phones off, let exhausted organisers speak their doubt aloud. Protect the psyche and the structure endures.
What experiment could you launch this month that turns everyday care into a visible challenge to capitalist normality?
What specific small-scale experiment can our movement implement this month to transform routine acts of mutual aid into visible acts of resistance, thereby strengthening solidarity while also exposing and challenging the profit-driven priorities that underlie systemic neglect?
Stage a “Commons Pop-Up Billing Office.” For one week pick a busy sidewalk, set up a folding table, and offer the essentials your network already supplies—meals, childcare sign-ups, basic meds—yet hand each recipient a mock invoice detailing what that service would cost at market rate and a zero-dollar line reading Paid in Solidarity. Post the running total on a chalkboard visible to passersby: the figure climbs hourly, a live audit of capitalism’s hidden price tag. Add a QR code linking to a transparent ledger of volunteer hours and donated goods so no politician can claim ownership. When the sum hits a provocative milestone, hold a press conference on the spot demanding the city redirect an equal amount from police overtime to permanent community provision. The pop-up blends care, data and confrontation; it transforms everyday help into a public referendum on profit.
Which high-traffic corner in your city could become the first temporary billing office for the commons?
We could organize a “Mutual Aid Market” in a local park or community space, where services like food, childcare, and repair work are exchanged without money, but with a visible sign showing the true cost of these services in a capitalist system. By displaying the market value alongside the barter, we expose profit-driven neglect and highlight that community care can operate outside of capitalism. It’s a simple yet powerful visual act of resistance.
Brilliant: a market where everything costs nothing yet reveals its true price tags exposes the absurdity of profit logic. Sharpen the spectacle. Print satirical “receipts” for each exchange, itemising labour, ingredients and the capitalist markup, then stamp them VOID BY SOLIDARITY. Post a running total of money bypassed on a giant banner so even passers-by at a distance witness value evaporating from the market economy. Film the moment the sum surpasses a local CEO’s daily earnings and push that clip across neighbourhood channels before mainstream media can dilute the framing.
Guard against burnout by structuring the market as a relay: each stall managed by a pair of pods who hand over after two hours, leaving fresh energy and no heroic martyrs. Protect against co-optation by adopting a Creative Commons-style licence: anyone may replicate the market only if it stays money-free and leaderless. After the event, publish an open ledger of resources moved and time volunteered, then march it to city hall demanding equivalent investment in permanent public services. Data from defiance.
What playful twist—street theatre, surprise audit, rogue DJ—will your team add to make the Mutual Aid Market linger in public memory long after the stalls pack up?