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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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I have an issue with comparing direct action and mutual aid to charity. In the imperial core it might be more difficult and even impossible to organize the masses, but any level of organization weakens the imperial powers.
Organized workers are much harder to exploit and can demand concessions on their way that their labour is used (I.E. not handling Israeli goods)
Direct action, if done correctly, attacks and weakens capital and showcases the contradictions in our society which helps workplace and community organizers to convince people to change their minds and/or join their cause.
Mutual aid is essential because the working class is out under immense strain constantly and in order to make it possible for people to become organizers it is important to together work to make our lives a little bit easier so we have time to organize and have a community to fall back on when we are individually met with punishment from the capital class for our organizing. It lessens the risk of organizing and thus makes it easier to convince others to join.
I basically agree with everything here. The comparison is just that it can't be the structural approach or goal. Obviously it can and should be done, but with recognition the real goal is to (in the case of charity) make it obsolete. I suppose it's almost the reverse with mutual aid (a 'withered state'), but in that case I think it's because at least as long as imperial forces are driving society no amount of mutual aid is "enough". Even well intentioned direct action, absent a mass movement, won't stop it.
However as you note, connected to a workers org makes these things more powerful and useful strategies of resistance. However they aren't the be all end all, and in the near term I want state distribution of resources. I think
's take at the end of bullshit jobs is instructive here where he frames ubi as a way to expand the state to allow for more flourishing of creativity and mutual aid. Ubi, a jobs guarantee, healthcare, housing and food would make for a world where further mutual aid can be celebrated and cultivated, but I want a world where those things are ensured by some state apparatus
Then I’m curious what your suggestion is for what we should do to move forward and to reach that goal. As in your previous comment you said that we can’t win from the great satan through direct action. It might be unintentional but to me it reads a bit dismissive of direct action.
My opinion is that, before society collapse, the interconnection between workplace and community organizing, direct action and mutual aid is the best way to work towards defeating capitalism. These things should always be done as a means to create a mass movement.
I don't want to dismiss it - direct action and mutual aid build org cohesion, preserve our members, and allow for us to produce meaningful changes on a small scale.
But the only way that change happens at scale is when those smaller pegs cohere into the mass movement that can go beyond just shutting down one node in the system of death. And that's going to require the takeover of current institutions of power (e.g. the military, police, etc) to both push the movement further and/or preserve it.
I'm sure electoralists might chime in here, and I don't want to entirely dismiss it but electoralism should be aiming to take over and use those institutions of power as well (e.g. the chapo take about using ICE to arrest and try everyone involved in the trump admin).
Needless to say, the only way we survive as a movement or species is through solidarity. But these are tactics for survival, and without an eventual turn to usurp the state monopoly on violence I sadly feel that's all they'll ever be.
A general strike is obviously a great goal but even that, absent inaction from the military or a revolutionary vanguard, would just eventually lead to the use of police/state forces to compel work through violence, no?
I understand where you’re coming from now, thanks for explaining. This is a subject I’m not well read on yet so I can’t comment too much on it, but I appreciate your perspective.
No worries. I'm mostly influenced by the account of more anarchist led movements in Brazil from Vincent Bevins' If We Burn. Basically, I really appreciate the local efforts and ways that direct action can foster change, but in Bevins' account at least, those protests and actions, without a turn to more structured ML approaches, basically just opened the door for Bolsanarism. Now, this is just a journalistic account so YMMV but it really feels like there's certain hinge points in movements where you need to use representation, authority, and for lack of a better word, power and violence to both continue to achieve goals and prevent cooption.
Again, I have tons of respect for anarchist approaches and have nothing against them as tactics and even a strategy in local contexts. However, (and this is just me vibing, I have less theory for it), it feels like there's a point where a movement gets to a size where you can't just rely on mutual aid and decentralized approaches without opening yourself up to wreckers in a really dangerous way.