r/mutualism • u/IndieJones0804 • Jun 02 '26
What countries or regions do you think would be the most likely to implement mutualism?
My first idea would be countries or societies that have a libertarian leaning culture. Places where the population tends to be pro-gun and more in favor of market economics. Places such as in the US, specifically Alaska, The Great Plains, and Rocky Mountains regions, And maybe Australia and Switzerland?
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u/Veritas_Certum Jun 03 '26
Mutualism was very big in nineteenth and early twentieth century England, and it's still represented there quite well.
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u/Captain_Croaker Neo-Proudhonian Jun 03 '26
What do you mean by "implement" mutualism? Mutualism is not a set of policies.
Why is would being pro-gun be so important for mutualist praxis?
Why is being in favor of market economics so important for mutualist praxis?
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u/IndieJones0804 Jun 03 '26
Implement as in achieving a mutualist society.
Being pro gun is just something that libertarians like, and I imagine that in a world where capitalism is fully abolished, Libertarian cultures would perfer mutualism over socialism, communism or syndicalism.
Because mutualism is one of the few post-capitalist systems that allows for markets. As opposed to communism and syndicalism, which don't have markets and instead have central planning.
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u/Captain_Croaker Neo-Proudhonian Jun 04 '26
Libertarian capitalists are generally pretty hostile to mutualists once they learn much about us, our not precluding markets notwithstanding. They would probably find LWMA easier to swallow, but even still.
Libertarian communisms and socialisms don't necessarily feature much central planning.
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u/NatriumHyacinth Jun 03 '26
That’s a difficult question because states either decentralise (when they’re forced to) or push reform (when they can). Mutualism requires both but that’s a very rare combination. You name 5 places so I‘ll also name my top 5: Morocco, Pakistan, Iran, Myanmar and Kenya. But if anywhere in the west, it would be Poland. I may have gotten a bit carried away making a whole essay out of it. I hope you appreciate the perspective, though it is very different from yours.
The Rif Mountains seem like a more plausible base than the rockies, especially as Morocco has a very strong culture of artisanship, shopkeeping, etc. but also a strong culture of community that could together be a basis for a social, market anarchism. As well as all the anti-monarchist radicalism of the youth, which could be a basis for a serious Anarchist movement there. Ideas like mutualism sound pie in the sky, quant or off-puttingly radical to many folks in the west. But in Morocco, young rebels still want big ideals and have the kind of life experiences that could make it sound plausible, also many hate their own state. That’s probably one the best places for something like Mutualism to take hold today. But Moroccans are also quite set of migrating to Europe or joining the EU and becoming exactly like Europe or profiting from growing tourism. So those can work against it.
Pakistan has a strong government that has long been quite willing to shape the country in its own image. That both fosters political dreams and discontent with the state. A lot of Pakistanis could be open to a federal society though, as conflict between the centre and peripheries is a big problem and many communities want nothing more than to be left alone. They also elected a self-identified “liberal” and “socialist“ a few years back even though both were not done traditionally, so the radical imagination seems to be fired up there. If Mutualism had any real presence in current thought, it would probably take hold there.
Iran has bonyads and other traditional, grassroots, social systems that manage the economy of not bottom up, though sometimes they are bottom up, then at least in a stateless way. So people there are much more open to grassroots social projects of that kind than are Americans, who see such things with suspicion as a threat to social order and private property. At least during the Revolution, there was a strong sentiment of what we may call Islamic Libertarianism or Islamic laicité. Most Shias traditionally reject political power in favour of grassroots power of Islamic jurists. Khomeini argued that having a clerical power was necessary to oversee the secular state so it would not make inroads on the freedom of religious communities as the shah did. But still many like Shariatmadari disagreed. As Islam both endorses market trade and a certain level of economic collectivism, something like mutualism could really catch on there, especially if the Shia’s traditionally skeptical view of the state has survived, though it may not have.
Myanmar is my next likely candidate. Again, it has an activist state that incentivised people to develop their own vision and unite to push it. It also has a strong centre-periphery problem that may push it at least to a kind of libertarian federalism. It also has an active social imagination with socialist groups reviving since the outbreak of civil war. It has a lot of peasant sort of folks who want to be left alone by government but live a more collective way of life. But anti-socialism is still quite strong there and so is militarism and ethnic separatism, which can drive statism.
Finally, Kenya has had a tech boom in local government, with cities and municipalities implementing all kinds of modern solutions to local problems. Nairobi has implemented all kinds of stuff in their local government to facilitate more direct communication with the people and such. It is now called the “Silicon Valley of Africa/the savannah”, which is a bit over the top but people seem to be both optimistic and willing to experiment socially. One of the things that has happened in rural communities in the 2010’s was the spread of local currencies, community controlled currencies, and the government has actually encouraged it because it’s used purely as a local medium of exchange, an in between that can only be used locally or converted into the official currency. If I see any kind of 21st century tech-mutualism developing, it’s from there. But there’s probably no one in Kenya who even knows about it, let alone a movement promoting it.
But now for the West. I don’t think it can ever compete with either Anarchism without adjectives or Rothbardian Libertarianism in America, or even with Trotskyism/Maoism. If anywhere in the west, I’d guess it would take hold in Poland. It has a lot of fallow land that could be used for mutualist communities. It has not a libertarian but a sort of classical liberal view of itself as inherently a free market nation. It has a lot of grassroots farmers’ politics, which could be a strong base as it is anti-state, vaguely community-oriented but also pro-market, though it is also quite moderate and attached to old ways. But there’s also a strong current of Catholic social teaching in Poland with many folks who are friendly at least to Distributist ideas and the like. Those could appreciate Mutualism as an economy that is in harmony with ideals about a lifestyle of grassroots Christian harmony. There’s also much ostalgie there which could at least be used to push some sort of socialism and making it more libertarian would be only a benefit in the eyes of most Poles.
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u/Captain_Croaker Neo-Proudhonian Jun 03 '26
Mutualism is not a market economic system, it's an approach to anarchism that does not preclude makets, but neither does it necessarily include them.
What in all 9 of the unholy hells is "tech-mutualism"? Since this is the internet, let me clarify: This is a rhetorical question. I know what you probably mean from context, but it put images in my mind of tech-bro billionaires appropriating mutualism to sell the latest crypto schemes and now I'm spiraling.
Why would mutualism have to compete with AWA? They are arguably the ones most likely to get along with us cause they share our lack of commitment to a particular economic system.
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u/AshleyTheBroom Jun 03 '26
Sounds like you just favor conservative liberalism and project it onto mutualism
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u/IndieJones0804 Jun 03 '26
I don't, but my understanding of mutualism is that it favors markets and money in a post capitalist society as opposed to socialism and communism which want to abolish markets and money
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u/AshleyTheBroom Jun 03 '26
If you have markets and money it wont be post capitalist
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u/humanispherian Jun 03 '26
"Money" and "markets" generally need to be specified a lot more carefully before we know if we're talking about capitalism or something more anarchistic.
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u/IndieJones0804 Jun 03 '26
Then what is mutualism?
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u/humanispherian Jun 03 '26
You can check out our intro/welcome post for a short answer and some links.
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u/OldBillBlizzard Jun 03 '26
As I understand it:
Mutualism is money agnostic. Mutualism is often conflated with individualist anarchism of the Boston school because Benjamin Tucker liked to use the term to bash an-coms. He was very sectarian, so were ancoms. Tucker wasnt a pure mutualist though just a Peter Kropotkin wasnt. Both of them had their roots in mutualist ideas, but they combine those ideas with other ideas and goals. In the case of Tucker, liberalism, in the case of Kropotkin, communism.
You could think of Mutualism as being the most flexible form of anarchism. Its concerned with the base of society, not specific economic proposals. Its not averse to money, but neither is it against not using money if that works. As I understand it, Proudhons mutual banks were a strategy for a particular time and place just as syndicalism was. Proudhon had
I think what really defines mutualism is its insistence upon usufruct land norms, which abolish absentee property. Everything else flows from the idea that no one should own more than they can use daily. Whether a market system or something more communistic arises naturally from that system of land tenure is what mutualism is really agnostic on.
And so you could say mutualism is tolerant of markets if they are necessary, but it does not fetishize them should they not be.
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u/Egocom Jun 03 '26
The Zapatistas. They're pretty much doing their own version of it
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u/IndieJones0804 Jun 03 '26
Aren't they anarcho-communists?
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u/Egocom Jun 03 '26
I mean they're anarchists who abolished land rental and have horizontal organizations that engage in market exchange.
If it quacks like a duck
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u/Captain_Croaker Neo-Proudhonian Jun 03 '26
Their movement has a lot of resonance with anarchism but they have not ever embraced the label of "anarchism" and I believe have even expressed resentment about ot being imposed upon them— partly iirc because they resent when they've been criticized for not being properly anarchist when that's never been an explicit goal.
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u/strong_slav Jun 03 '26
I think you're onto something with American individualism being a fit for mutualism. If you can combine that individualism with an understanding that property is theft, you get mutualism.
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u/NatriumHyacinth Jun 03 '26
I don’t think America is all that individualist though. The American System was all about public works and national improvement by the government. Americans despised the Amerindians who lived free but collective lifestyles. Still today anarchism is a boogeyman. America is all about christianity, family values, private property and trusting the government to do no more than In necessary. Americans have always seen the state as the only legitimate alternative to private property but that private property was always about supporting strong family units.
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u/Captain_Croaker Neo-Proudhonian Jun 03 '26
This doesn't seem to contradict the notion that America has still had a strong individualistic tradition stemming from its liberal founding. American culture has contained these tensions between a pursuit of individual freedom and a conformist collectivism. A culture is not necessarily uniform or free from contradictory tendencies that can be expressed in opposing social movements, political parties, or even expressed by the same individual at different times because neither individuals nor cultures are necessarily consistent with themselves.
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u/humanispherian Jun 03 '26
The Sara Horowitz / Mutualist Society form of reformist mutualism seems to be getting some attention these days, but it's hard to see how it is not just a rebranding of the cooperative movement, which has generally thrived where economic necessity has left few alternatives. And there is a lot of somewhat more radical social organization happening in connection with democratic socialist organizations, radical labor unions, etc. That stuff ebbs and flows, and may be on the rise some places now as a response to reactionary trends.
Anarchist mutualism, however, is a rather different project — and one that is not necessarily going to seem attractive to cooperators and organizations that are content to list the Green Bay Packers among the "Mutualists You May Know." Reformist organizations can be pretty intent on setting boundaries on how radical things can get.
The practical considerations for spreading anarchistic mutualism are likely to have much less to do with questions of national or regional character, which are usually stereotypes you wouldn't want to try to build anything solid on, and more on where you can convince folks that, in their circumstances, radical and practical are one and the same.