We use own and third party cookies to improve your user experience and our services, analyzing users' browsing in our website. If you continue browsing, we will consider that you consent to its use. You can get further information in our Cookies Policy
Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution
Vallecas, Madrid, España
Channel
A copy of the book Mutual Aid which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (only in the Iberian Peninsula).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
A copy of the book Mutual Aid + three fanzines which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (only in the Iberian Peninsula).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
A copy of the book Mutua Aid + a book published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
A copy of the book + two books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
A copy of the book + four books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home address without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
A copy of the book + four books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) + a surprise set of three books from other publishers, which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publisher’s premises or to your home address without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
A copy of the book + four books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) + a surprise set of three books from other publishers, which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publisher’s premises or to your home address with no shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only). In addition, two years of being a member of La Rosa Negra, which includes a free copy of each edition published by our publisher from the date you become a member, plus a 10% discount on all books you purchase in our virtual bookstore.
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
La Rosa Negra Ediciones wants to publish the book “Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution” by the anarchist theorist and activist Kropotkin.
Material
|
Minimum | Optimum |
|---|---|---|
|
25 / 5.000 Edition of Mutual Support
These are the costs related to printing.
|
€ 2.000 |
Task
|
Minimum | Optimum |
|---|---|---|
|
Advertising
These are expenses related to advertising and expenses that may arise from delivering the rewards.
|
€ 1.000 | |
| Total | € 2.000 | € 3.000 |
Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution, by Piotr Kropotkin, is one of the most important works in the history of anarchist literature. First published in book form in 1902, the volume brought together several articles that appeared in the magazine The Nineteenth Century between 1890 and 1896.
Mutual Aid was Kropotkin's response to the social Darwinism in vogue at the end of the 19th century. Social Darwinism was the pseudoscientific justification for rapacious and homicidal colonialism, as well as for factory capitalism that exploited children, women and men in its unhealthy factories. It was a tendentious interpretation of the concept of struggle for existence (struggle for life) used by Darwin in his theory of evolution set forth in The Origin of Species (1859). This interpretation served to naturalize the social injustice with which the great European landowners accumulated capital. Social inequality was justified by the fact that the strongest, the capitalists, subjugated, in accordance with the laws of nature, the weakest, the working class.
Kropotkin brilliantly dismantled this fallacy in the pages of Mutual Aid, presenting examples of cooperation between different animal species such as dung beetles, ants, bees, cranes, parrots, wolves, lions, rodents, monkeys, etc. The author presented illustrations of mutual aid between the so-called "savages" - using outdated nineteenth-century terminology - such as Bushmen, Hottentots, Australians, Papuans, Eskimos or Aleuts. He also provided examples of mutual aid between the so-called "barbarians", such as Buryats or Kabyles, dismantling the traditional image of brutality that is usually attributed to barbarian peoples under the influence of the Roman Empire. By analysing institutions such as the tribe, the clan, the extended family, the village commune, the nuclear family, the guild or the free medieval city, Kropotkin ends up considering workers' unions (trade unions). The study of mutual aid in modern times allows the Russian geographer to articulate, first of all, a critique of the incipient state structures that attacked guild organisation, those same guild organisations based on mutual aid that were able to undertake the social projects of building the imposing cathedrals that run throughout Europe. Secondly, Kropotkin articulates a critique of the liberal State, opposed to the traditional and popular structures of cooperation of the European peoples.
To understand the fundamental idea of Mutual Aid it is necessary to dwell on the concept of struggle for life. In the process of natural selection, the struggle for existence, in a broad sense, includes not only competition, but also mutual aid, an evolutionary strategy for the perpetuation of species. Kropotkin argues that mutual aid is a more important evolutionary factor than competition, as can be seen in the fact that cooperative strategies are highly developed in higher species. The preponderance of the cooperative factor has the following consequence: “Mutual aid – and not mutual struggle – has been the determining factor in the ethical progress of the human being.”
Kropotkin’s elaborations of the idea of mutual aid in Mutual Aid not only had the effect of displacing social Darwinist delirium, but also served to promote the most brilliant anarchism, while providing support, up to our days, to all social movements that aim to transform the world through social cooperation and in opposition to statist verticalism.
There is currently no affordable edition of Mutual Aid in Spain. La Rosa Negra is willing to do so.
La Rosa Negra has revised and improved Luis Orsetti's translation, comparing it with the English edition. The result is a refined text that surpasses previous editions in quality.
In addition, the La Rosa Negra edition includes an epilogue by Miquel Amorós entitled Anarchism and Darwinism, in which the author points out that "from my point of view, the greatest merit of the book we are discussing was precisely that of directing the gaze towards these past forms of social life that showed the historical existence of a self-managed society, independent of any external power. Any future liberation project will have to take this type of society into account and will have to look in that mirror, not to repeat it, but to be inspired and let itself be carried away by it."
Objective: Print 400-600 copies.
Technical characteristics:
The world we live in has not been freed from the influence of the social Darwinism of Kropotkin's time. Today, everywhere, we can see the abuse of the economic and political elites over the entire world population, which is justified in ways very similar to how it was done in the 19th century: the richest, the most intelligent, the most capable are those who subjugate and exploit the poorest, the most stupid, the least capable.
Without a doubt, Kropotkin is the most widely read author in the anarchist milieu and, of course, the most influential. His book Mutual Aid has been published countless times and is constantly sold out on the shelves of bookstores around the world. On a planet that seems to be headed for destruction by the selfishness of a few, his reading continues to be of the utmost relevance. How could the greatest motivation of La Rosa Negra not be to publish a book that contradicts the authoritarianism of the social dynamics that have been artificially created by a few brains in power?
Our publishing project El apoyo mutua is not only aimed at anarchists. For a long time now, La Rosa Negra Ediciones has taken a leap outside the narrow anarchist circles to direct its gaze to the general public, to the whole of society. We have before us a book for everyone without exception. And, above all, for those who, without being anarchists —or, better, without knowing that they can be...—, feel uneasy in the face of a present full of wars, social inequality, religious fundamentalisms, authoritarianisms, ecological disaster, social atomization and technological domination, in search of a possible way out of the world of merchandise for the collective construction of the future.
Enviar comentarios
Born in 2013, La Rosa Negra was initially a traveling distribution in sociocultural spaces (social centers, squatters, book fairs...), distributing anarchist books, magazines and pamphlets. In 2016, the project opened a bookstore in the heart of Puente de Vallecas (Calle Santa Julia, 6), and in 2020 it was closed. Since 2024, the project has been dedicated to editorial work. The publisher is against state subsidies and is non-profit.
In 2019, the publisher launched a patronage campaign with Goteo to publish the book Los emisarios de la nada. Una historia del nihilismo ruso, which was successfully carried out after achieving the set goal.
Throughout our history we have participated in Anarchist Book Meetings held in cities such as Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, A Guarda, Valladolid, Salamanca, Castellón, Zaragoza, Candás, Palencia, Murcia, Alicante, Cádiz, Albacete, Santander, Gijón, Cartagena, A Coruña, Tabernes de la Valldigna...; in the self-managed Vallecas festivals of La Karmela and those of Villa de Vallecas; in the Alternative Fair of Valencia; in events organised in squats in Madrid such as CSOA La Casika, CSO Eskuela Taller, La 13.14 Okupada, the Ateneo Libertario de Vallecas, CSO La Fábrika, CSOA La Gatonera and ESOA La Dragona, and in squats in the rest of Spain such as CSO Kike Mur in Zaragoza, CSOA A quinta da Carmiña in Vigo, CSA Villafría in Salamanca and CSO A Kasa Negra in Ourense; in the corridors of the Faculty of Political Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid; in some CNT premises such as those in Villaverde (Madrid), Guadalajara and Ponteareas; in the editions of ¡Vallecas Okupa la Calle!, a morning celebration held on the first Saturday of every month on the Vallecas boulevard of Peña Gorbea; in Anarquía en las Calles, a cultural and political event organised by Juventudes Libertarias de Madrid; and in the Vallecas Book Fair organised by the Municipal Council.
The works published so far have been:
La Rosa Negra is a non-profit anarchist publishing house that is against state subsidies. The idea that inspires the publishing house is to spread anarchism in order to transform society by abolishing the State and capitalism.
A copy of the book.
A copy of the book Mutual Aid which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (only in the Iberian Peninsula).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
> 16 Co-financiers
A copy of the book + three fanzines
A copy of the book Mutual Aid + three fanzines which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (only in the Iberian Peninsula).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
> 04 Co-financiers
A copy of the book + a Black Rose book.
A copy of the book Mutua Aid + a book published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
> 04 Co-financiers
A copy of the book + two books from La Rosa Negra.
A copy of the book + two books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
> 03 Co-financiers
A copy of the book + four books from The Black Rose.
A copy of the book + four books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publishing house or to your home address without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
> 02 Co-financiers
A copy of the book + four books from La Rosa Negra + a surprise batch of three books from other publishers.
A copy of the book + four books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) + a surprise set of three books from other publishers, which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publisher’s premises or to your home address without shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only).
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
> 01 Co-financiers
A copy of the book + four books from La Rosa Negra + a surprise batch of three books from other publishers + two years of membership
A copy of the book + four books published by La Rosa Negra (choose at www.larosanegraediciones.es, under the “Publisher” tab) + a surprise set of three books from other publishers, which will be delivered to the La Rosa Negra publisher’s premises or to your home address with no shipping costs (Iberian Peninsula only). In addition, two years of being a member of La Rosa Negra, which includes a free copy of each edition published by our publisher from the date you become a member, plus a 10% discount on all books you purchase in our virtual bookstore.
Important: remember that you can deduct up to 80% of the amount of your donation. For more information, you can consult: https://www.goteo.org/calculadora-fiscal
> 00 Co-financiers
