Is Mutualism Possible?
Beatrice Institute, one of our sponsoring organizations, just released this exciting podcast episode. The episode asks: how can we help locally, but in a way that works economically? This is the challenge that thwarts many solidaristic startups.
Luckily, Sara Horowitz has picked up the gauntlet. Sara Horowitz has been both the chair of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the founder of the Freelancers Union and the Freelancers Insurance Company and talks eloquently on mutualism.
Join Grant Martsolf and Sara for a discussion on mutualism, in which they expound on friendly societies and the history of mutual aid societies and ask the questions: what should be the current strategy of protecting laborers? Why do local movements seem invisible to the public eye? And, what is necessary to make mutualism successful?
1:18 - The three essentials of mutualism are:
A solidaristic community
An economic mechanism
A long-term view.
5:36 - Food and shelter are problems especially amenable to a mutualist solution.
7:55 - A mutualist organization is people gathering because they share a common goal and can generate revenue from their community.
10:06 - “I think that culture matters for everything. It's not only for good but for ill. What we teach about how to be humans on this earth is probably what we learn from our institutions and the institutions that we create.”
11:31 - 19th century mutual aid societies and friendly societies were killed when we began to think that it was solely the government’s role to solve these problems.
23:05 - The reserve requirement, although not a catchy headline, is a major inhibition to the success of mutual insurance.
28:40 - Is mutualism in health care possible? “The risk is real. That's not manufactured. It's how do you manage that risk?”
32:34 - People crave authenticity and human warmth.
35:12 - Solidarity engenders answerability and a good stewardship of goods.
36:50 - “The reason I've always loved the labor movement is that the labor movement is really a movement about human beings who work, who build what they need at the time.” Strategies for supporting workers have changed through history; we should be open to creativity beyond partisan structures.
39:45 - “To me, the labor movement and civil rights go hand in hand, but like, as we were saying in the beginning of this conversation, there's complexity. We're talking about human beings. These aren't all angels. But they had a North Star, they had an ability to get things done, many of them were genius organizers, and I think we have to take inspiration from that, and we have to not forget that the people who came before us really did build things, and we really have to learn their strategies, whether we agree with their politics or not. If they have something to teach us, let's learn it.”
41:45 - In our economy, capital is extremely concentrated. However, there is also a “hidden economy” where decentralized interactions take place between people who have real need and who care for each other.
43:00 - Government should track local cooperatives instead of the whims of the super rich.
Links:
Excerpt from Mutualism: Building the Next Economy from the Ground Up
Black Church Food Security Network
New Polity Podcast on Insurance