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?

  • merde alors@sh.itjust.works
    21·
    11 months ago

    One big problem with this concept is that you cannot create a new separate economics whilst living in wider society.

    i’ve met people and communities where people did exactly that. They, of course, start by “quitting their shitty jobs” and spending what they were able to put aside on a piece of land away from the gluttonous metropolises. They don’t cut all their ties with the society that’s around them, but they create a network that survives autonomously. They negotiate their “harmless” little space in the greater state controlled territory.

    • BrightFadedDog@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      11 months ago

      Oh, of course. Poor people just need to get enough money to own property and build everything required to create an autonomous society.

      You have a wildly different definition of poverty to me.

      • merde alors@sh.itjust.works
        11·
        11 months ago

        it’s not my idea. Like i wrote, i’ve met some people in different places, different networks who did exactly that.