‘Mutual aid’ is a radical ideal. Some live its communal spirit
The conundrum with mutual aid is that it&#x27;s non-trivial to identify the right size community for a given type and&#x2F;or level of aid.<p>For example, a block or 3 of mixed income households can certainly help ameliorate temporary &quot;food insecurity&quot; for some of its members. A slightly larger community can probably offer significant aid when it comes to providing at home care for people with temporary illness or ill health.<p>But ... covering unemployment or serious illness ... these are examples of things that require a much (much) larger societal unit to be really effective. The same is probably true for providing long term at-home care for the elderly or chronically ill.<p>That doesn&#x27;t mean that mutual aid makes no sense - there are plenty of good reasons to operate with different types of organization at different levels. It just means recognizing what the limits of a given societal unit are likely to be, and making sure there are other structures&#x2F;organizations in place to deal with things that go beyond those limits.