Mutual Aid. Pablo Servigne

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MUTUAL AID

      The Other Law of the Jungle

      Pablo Servigne and Gauthier Chapelle

      Translated by Andrew Brown

      polity

      Originally published in French as L’entraide. L’autre loi de la jungle © Les Liens qui Libèrent, 2017. This edition is published by arrangement with Les Liens qui Libèrent in conjunction with its duly appointed agent Books and More Agency #BAM, Paris, France. All rights reserved.

      This English edition © Polity Press, 2022

      Excerpt from Dans la lumière et les ombres by Jean Claude Ameisen reproduced with kind permission of Librairie Arthème Fayard. © Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2008

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      ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4793-7

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2021938636

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Dedication

       To all you who share this enthusiasm, but who sometimes have doubts.

       To Marine Simon, so passionate about group dynamics, who interconnected us in 2011.

       To Albert Jacquard and Jean-Marie Pelt, who inspired us so much; we had dreamed of getting you to read this book …

      Nothing is solitary, everything is solidary.

      Man is solidary with the planet, the planet is solidary with the sun, the sun is solidary with the star, the star is solidary with the nebula, the nebula, a stellar group, is solidary with the infinite. Take one term out of this formula and the polynomial becomes disorganized, the equation falters, creation no longer makes sense in the cosmos, and democracy no longer makes sense on earth. So there is solidarity between everything and everything, and between everyone and everything. The solidarity of men is the invincible corollary of the solidarity of all worlds. The democratic bond is of the same nature as the sun’s rays.

      Victor Hugo, Proses philosophiques (Philosophical Prose) (1860–5)

      We must help each other – such is nature’s law.

      But one day the Donkey made fun of this law:

      I don’t know why he made this mistake;

      For he’s a good creature.

      Jean de La Fontaine, ‘The Donkey and the Dog’ (1678)

Acknowledgements

      This book deals with mutual aid on a theoretical level. But, behind the scenes, there was quite a bit of practice. We have been helped by many living beings over the past few years.

      We would like to start by thanking Marine Simon,¹ who introduced us to each other almost seven years ago, precisely in relation to this magical subject of mutual aid. It seems like we’ve known each other forever, so fundamental have been the ideas that the three of us have been able to develop, exchange, share and discover together. Thank you!

      Over the past few months, we have benefited from the interest, intuition, understanding and patience of our editors, Henri Trubert and Sophie Marinopoulos, from the aptly named publishing company Les Liens qui Libèrent (The Bonds that Free). What a work of weavers! Thank you also to Élise Roy for her impressive proofreading and correction work.

      A huge thank you to Charlotte de Mévius for making it possible to write, so quickly and comfortably, this manuscript that has been running through our heads for years. Thank goodness you were there! We almost didn’t write it … due to the collapse of civilization. We are touched by your friendship and your trust, and by your sensitivity to the worlds of ‘other than human’ creatures.

Thank you also to the courageous and generous reviewers of the first versions of the manuscript, for their compliments, advice and criticism: Benoît Richard, Bruno Corbara, Pablo Michelena, Marine Simon, Rachid Tahzima, Alain Caillé, Philippe Audfray, Élise Monette, Bruno Tracq, Jacques Lecomte, Matthieu Ricard and Serge Tisseron.

      Thanks to Alain Caillé for his wonderful foreword, his kindness and his surprising availability given the dynamism of the convivialist movement.

      Thank you to all of our loving tribes for their support: in the first place, Raphaël Stevens, the other (inter)dependent researcher and acrobat; Corinne, Helena, Vincent, Nathalie, Aline, Josué, Nathéa, Laurent, Valérie, Azul, Élisabeth, Muriel and other accomplices of the mycelium which now extends beyond the ‘Travail qui