Mutual aid

“ However, before submitting for three centuries to come, to the all-absorbing authority of the State, the masses of the people made a formidable attempt at reconstructing society on the old basis of mutual aid and support. ”

“ Our wants are various, and nobody has been found able to acquire even the necessaries without the aid of other people, and there is scarcely any Nation that has not stood in need of others. The Almighty himself has made our race such that we should help one another. Should this mutual aid be checked within or without the Nation, it is contrary to Nature. ”

“ Mutual aid societies fight against risks which threaten human life sickness, old age, and death ; they are of a philanthropic nature, and were formerly called " brotherhoods." Co-operative societies have for their object the providing for the needs of every-day life by new economic means ; they are businesses in the true sense of that word in political economy. This difference of aims is so real that French law has had to make different codes for the one and the other. Mutual aid societies have one special form of legislation, co-operative societies another ”

“ All these associations, societies, brotherhoods, alliances, institutes, and so on, which must now be counted by the ten thousand in Europe alone, and each of which represents an immense amount of voluntary, unambitious, and unpaid or underpaid work-- what are they but so many manifestations, under an infinite variety of aspects, of the same ever-living tendency of man towards mutual aid and support? For nearly three centuries men were prevented from joining hands even for literary, artistic, and educational purposes. ”

“ These facts, mostly neglected by sociologists and yet of the first importance for the life and further elevation of mankind, we are now going to analyze, beginning with the standing institutions of mutual support, and passing next to those acts of mutual aid which have their origin in personal or social sympathies. ”

“ One single war--we all know--may be productive of more evil, immediate and subsequent, than hundreds of years of the unchecked action of the mutual-aid principle may be productive of good. ”

“ And yet, as soon as we try to ascertain how the millions of human beings live, and begin to study their everyday relations, we are struck with the immense part which the mutual-aid and mutual-support principles play even now-a-days in human life. Although the destruction of mutual-aid institutions has been going on in practice and theory, for full three or four hundred years, hundreds of millions of men continue to live under such institutions ”

“ Labour-unions grown after the destruction of the guilds by the State. Their struggles. Mutual Aid in strikes. Co-operation. Free associations for various purposes. Self-sacrifice. Countless societies for combined action under all possible aspects. Mutual Aid in slum-life. Personal aid.
When we examine the every-day life of the rural populations of Europe, we find that, notwithstanding all that has been done in modern States for the destruction of the village community, the life of the peasants remains honeycombed with habits and customs of mutual aid and support ”

“ The Mutual Aid Society is a registered body, and is a limited partner in the firm, the liability of the two managing partners being unlimited and the control resting entirely in their hands. The benefits of the Mutual Aid Society, and of the profit-sharing generally, are enjoyed in the main by all the employees of the business, but certain advantages are confined to a limited number of permanent employees. ”

“ We do not object to this, provided that it is left to the co-operator himself to use his bonus in this way ; but if it is the co-operative society which, owing to lack of confidence in the spirit of foresight among its members, wishes to pay the bonuses to mutual aid societies directly, then we should have serious objections to the system, because in that case co-operative societies would only be cows to be milked by mutual aid societies ! It is the duty of co-operation to keep its resources for its own ends and not to serve as the instrument of other organisations. ”

“ The first five of the second decade of centuries of our era may thus be described as an immense attempt at securing mutual aid and support on a grand scale, by means of the principles of federation and association carried on through all manifestations of human life and to all possible degrees. ”

“ But we see also that the practice of mutual aid and its successive developments have created the very conditions of society life in which man was enabled to develop his arts, knowledge, and intelligence; and that the periods when institutions based on the mutual-aid tendency took their greatest development were also the periods of the greatest progress in arts, industry, and science. ”

“ Mutual aid and support cannot be limited to a small association; they must spread to its surroundings, or else the surroundings will absorb the association. And in this respect the medieval citizen had committed a formidable mistake at the outset. Instead of looking upon the peasants and artisans who gathered under the protection of his walls as upon so many aids who would contribute their part to the making of the city--as they really did--a sharp division was traced between the "families" of old burghers and the newcomers. ”

“ For beyond so behaving that each achieves his ends without preventing others from achieving their ends, the members of a society may give mutual help in the achievement of ends. And if, either indirectly by industrial co-operation, or directly by volunteered aid, fellow-citizens can make easier for one another the adjustments of acts to ends, then their conduct assumes a still higher phase of evolution; since whatever facilitates the making of adjustments by each, increases the totality of the adjustments made, and serves to render the lives of all more complete. ”

“ This institution, again, kept men together for a number of centuries, permitting them to further develop their social institutions and to pass through some of the darkest periods of history, without being dissolved into loose aggregations of families and individuals, to make a further step in their evolution, and to work out a number of secondary social institutions, several of which have survived down to the present time. We have now to follow the further developments of the same ever-living tendency for mutual aid. ”

“ If the working population of a locality is really reduced to living from day to day, and has not the ready money to make its purchases, if it is obliged to wait for its fortnight's wage to be able to pay for its food, it would be better to form near the distributive society a loan society, either philanthropic, or preferably a mutual aid society, which could make advances to the necessitous workman. ”

“ The practice of mutual aid causes as such no far reaching change in the cooperating individuals. By this happy device of uniting strengths for such tasks as killing game, dragging a boat or building a hut, desired results can be reached with less trouble in the isolated state—that is all. ”

“ But such subscriptions are a general practice among the workers all over the world, even in much more ordinary cases than a death in the family, while aid in work is the commonest thing in their lives. ”

“ Wherever nations are willing to help themselves, we stand ready to help them build new bulwarks of freedom. We are not purchasing votes for the cold war; we have gone to the aid of imperiled nations, neutrals and allies alike. What we do ask—and all that we ask—is that our help be used to best advantage, and that their own efforts not be diverted by needless quarrels with other independent nations.
Despite all its past achievements, the continued progress of the Mutual Assistance Program requires a persistent discontent with present performance. ”

“ And if we could add to it, as we certainly ought to, what is spent in hospitality, petty mutual services, the management of other people's affairs, gifts and charities, we certainly should be struck by the importance of such transfers in national economy. ”

“ Each and all, one as well as another, may choose his own modes of contributing his share to the general welfare, in which his own is involved and identified. Under one great law of mutual dependence and mutual responsibility, all are placed--the strong as well as the weak, the rich as much as the poor, the learned no less than the unlearned. All bring their wares, the products of their enterprise, skill and industry, to the same market, where mutual exchanges are freely effected. ”

“ But they knew the need and had an instinct for helping the right people. In seven years these boys helped in more than two hundred and fifty emergency cases; their pennies grew to dollars as they earned more; their charity developed their self-respect; they held weekly meetings for debate, and several of them made their way through college. Funds were supplied, also, from friends outside, who were glad to aid such a worthy enterprise. The great need among private agencies is fuller co-operation with one another and with public boards and institutions. ”

“ To the Majority what seems desirable is that the army of destitute persons needing assistance should be divided into two classes—those who can best be helped by private charity, and those for whom public assistance is most appropriate. These two classes should, it is asserted, be kept, from the outset, wholly separate, to be dealt with by two vertically co-ordinate authorities—the Public Assistance Committee, an official body, dispensing public funds, and the Voluntary Aid Committee, made up of voluntary charitable workers, dispensing private funds. ”

“ So the willingness to work with government in a positive spirit, which the United Nations has so hearteningly evinced recently, has been put on hold by some donors who still think that aid is a political tool to advance their own interests. ”

“ Arguments for and Against Private Agencies of Relief.—Some argue that private agencies should do it all. In spite of the large resources at the command of the state and the frequent necessity of legislation to handle the problem, they claim that public aid humiliates and degrades the recipient, while private assistance may put him on his feet without destroying his self-respect; and that public charity is too often unfeeling and tends to become a routine affair, while private aid can deal better with specific cases, show real interest and try experiments in the improvement of methods. ”

“ It was also a wonderful way of ensuring that funds supposedly meant to benefit poorer countries were not swallowed up in the maw of extreme poverty. Whereas in the old days aid workers lived on shoestrings, now they have very healthy packages, with benefits that support the lifestyles – and the mortgages etc – to which they were accustomed at home. ”

“ America is leading the fight against global poverty, with strong education initiatives and humanitarian assistance. We've also changed the way we deliver aid by launching the Millennium Challenge Account. This program strengthens democracy, transparency, and the rule of law in developing nations, and I ask you to fully fund this important initiative. ”

“ Does not the co-operative movement, now steadily advancing, spring out of the recognition of the fact that mutual welfare is a far more excellent thing to be attained than the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many? ”

“ To-day, this program can be carried out more easily than ever before in human history. The social conscience is already awakening and in his efforts to win more support for his righteous cause, the worker will derive aid from the churches as well as from the many organizations that have come into existence during the past decade solely to cast their influence in behalf of social-welfare movements. The social question to-day includes the industrial question. ”

“ My Administration is working to advance the cause of social justice in the Pan American region, and we are committed to supporting our neighbors' efforts to meet the needs of their citizens. In 2004, we created the Millennium Challenge Corporation to provide increased aid to nations that govern justly, invest in the education and health of their people, and promote economic freedom. ”

“ But they can supplement the efforts of these organizations; they can bring monetary as well as personal assistance; and they can, above all, bring a mass of public opinion to bear on local and central governing bodies which will lead to the only real economy, which consists in expenditure on an adequate scale, bringing to the aid of the families of the people the preventive, the medical, and the nursing facilities of which they remain in need. ”

“ Far more important, however, than these not inconsiderable economic advantages are the social benefits which are derived by bringing people together to achieve in a very definite and practical way the aim of all coöperative effort—self-help by mutual help. ”

“ The provisions made for loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to States that have exhausted their own resources, guarantee that there should be no hunger or suffering from cold in the country. The large majority of States are showing a sturdy cooperation in the spirit of the Federal aid. ”

“ Two years ago from this podium, I asked five companies to lead a national effort to hire people off welfare. Tonight, our Welfare to Work Partnership includes 10,000 companies who have hired hundreds of thousands of people. And our balanced budget will help another 200,000 people move to the dignity and pride of work. I hope you will support it.
We must do more to bring the spark of private enterprise to every corner of America, to build a bridge from Wall Street to Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to our Native American communities. ”