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Why don't more poor people join mutual aid groups instead of using charities? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2258784

I've been looking through some US and EU labor data and I have started to wonder why don't more of the working poor join local mutual aid groups instead of staying at their likely shitty jobs or relying on charities?

This is a study on the labour distribution in the US among the working poor

On table 4 it shows that there are about 5,812,000 people that are classified as working poor ( Its says number in thousands so I multiplied the number given by 1000) and that alot of those jobs are in essential services like making food or providing support to others.

Similar diversity is show in the EU as well

So if most of these people decided to stop working at their current job and instead bring that those skills to a mutual aid network wouldn't they still get most of the resources they need because other specialists would be there to help them and also live a generally more happy life?

Also the reason why I am saying instead of charities is because charities become less effective the more people request from them because they have limited resources to share and also mainly supported by wealthy people that can unilaterally give and take away support.

Whilst mutual aid networks can take the diversity that more people joining the network gives them and use it to offer more services to other people in that community.

This seems like a no brainer so what am I missing?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, I live in the U.S. and I've never heard of mutual aid, nor have I ever heard anyone I know mention it. So it may be partly that folks like myself just don't know about it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Australia here. Also never heard of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

There arn't really specific mutual aid programs here in aus but a lot our community services are built on mutual aid principles. Our egalitarian values actually sort of go well with mutual aid as well i think. But technically our community legal centres are a form of mutual aid, even though they're government funded. So are community centres that do community pantries and stuff like that. Certain communities were also somewhat forced into mutual aid set ups during recent flooding and bushfire events.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Exactly. You are not alone!
I really don't know what a mutual aid group is.
How do I find them?
What are some examples?
How would they help?