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8. Organization and Resistance 8.1. Mutualism

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8. Organization and Resistance 8.1. Mutualism 8. Organization and Resistance Marcelvan der Linden 8.1. Mutualism “Mutualism” refers to all voluntary arrangements, in which people make contribu- tions to acollective fund, which is given, in whole or in part,toone or moreof the contributors accordingtospecific rules of allocation. The concept goes back to the nineteenth century and was probablycoined by the French social anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.The idea behind mutualism is simple: there are thingsinev- erydaylife people desire but cannot acquirefor themselvesasindividuals.Such thingscan consist of labour,ofgoods, or of money.There are two possiblereasons for the existence of such items.Onthe one hand, there are tasks that individuals can- not possiblyexecute on their own, within areasonable period of time. Forthese, they need other people to help them. Andonthe other hand,there are tasks which an individual could well execute him- or herself, but which would have significant neg- ative effects on the person involved, for example because workingtoobtain agood on one’sown is frighteningorstultifying. In both cases, individuals benefit by asking others for help. In compensation for this help, they can perform asimilar (reciprocal) task in return, or payfor it.Mutualist activities not onlyoccur among all kinds of workers,but also among other social classes. Mutualism is in this sense not class- specific, although it often is an important component of proletarian survival strat- egies. In agreat variety of circumstances workers have utilizedmutualist arrangements to make their livesmore liveable and less risky.Mutualism took agreat variety of forms in the past,and still does today. Yetpatterns and relations can be discerned. In general there are three kinds of mutualist arrangements, based on (i) scheduled demand and rotating allocation; (ii) scheduled demand and non-rotatingallocation; and (iii) contingent demand and non-rotatingallocation. Scheduled demand means that the people involved know in advancethatthey will have to perform acertain amount of labour,ortopay acertain sum of money or goods at some point in the future. There are two kinds of scheduled demand: one-off and recurring. Single expenses mayfor instance be refunded for ceremonies or parties, on the occasionofrites of passage, such as weddings or funerals. On such occasions,the individuals or households involved are in acute need of alarge amount of goods or money which they cannot supplybythemselvesinashortperiod of time. Among these single expenses, Iincludethe purchase of durables and invest- ments in capital goods. The second variety of scheduled demand is amatter of reg- ularly recurring expenses,such as the periodic strain on household resources at the end of the month. In these cases, mutualist associations can also provide asolution. DOI 10.1515/9783110424584-025 492 Marcel vander Linden Non-scheduled demand is unpredictable and unplanned, and usually comes as an unpleasant surprise (illness, unemployment,etc.). Rotating allocation means that all participants in amutualist arrangement will come in for their turn;there is then necessarilyalways amaximum number of par- ticipants (roughlybetween 10 and 200), because everyone wants to have his or her turn within areasonable period of time. Non-rotating arrangementsimplythat only some of the participants will receive money,labour or goods from the common fund. With non-rotation, there is no technical limit to the membership in these cases, and thereforesuch associations can contain large groups of people. Scheduled demand and rotating allocation In some cases mutualism revolvesaround the provision of labour;the participants in an arrangement can either rotatelabour,oruse labour for the production of one good, by which all can benefit.Inthe first case (rotation), one person first “con- sumes” the labour of the rest of the group, and after that another,etc. Such forms of labour rotation are known around the world.¹ Nicolaasvan Meeteren describes such an arrangement on Curaçao, which was popularthere until the first decades of the twentieth century: “Wheneverone needed to weed, plant or harvest,the cus- tom was implemented that was known as ‘saam.’ All neighborsthen agreed to work for each other once or twice in the week in the evening by moonlight.The beneficiary of the workprovided rum and refreshments. As the workers encouraged each other by singinginturns in ‘guenee’ or ‘Macamba,’ the work went smoothlyand everyone benefittedbyit.”² VanMeeteren thinks thatasaam had the advantage that the work was done much faster, because workers encouraged each other,which is very impor- tant,especiallyfor strenuous labour in the fields.³ Other writers confirm this con- jecture. David Ames offers twoexplanations:workinginagroup both stimulates friendlycompetition among workers,and is more agreeable: “Working with one’s companions,joking and singing, is obviouslyless tedious thansolitary labour.”⁴ In the second form of labour mutualism, the joint effort results in a shared prod- uct.The members of the collective gather once or several times to work together,for See e.g., T.S. Epstein, EconomicDevelopment and Social ChangeinSouth India (Manchester: Man- chester University Press, 1962),p.73; Alan Dawley, Class and Community.The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge,MA, and London: HarvardUniversity Press, 1976), p. 57;Diana Wong, Peasants in the Making.Malaysia′sGreen Revolution (Singapore: InstituteofSoutheast AsianStudies,1987), p. 120. Nicolaasvan Meeteren, Volkskunde vanCuraçao (Willemstad: no publisher,1947), p. 35. Ibid. David W. Ames, “Wolof Co-operative Work Groups”,in: William R. Bascomand Melville J. Hersko- vits (eds), Continuity and ChangeinAfrican Cultures (Chicago [etc.]: Chicago University Press, 1959), pp. 224–237, at 231. 8.1. Mutualism 493 the production of agood from which they all hope to benefit when it is finished.Col- lectively building acommunity centre or achurch are good examples. Labour mutualism often becomes less important when the role of money increas- es in the local economy. The tendencytobuy labour tasks individuallywith money then usuallygrows.OnCuraçao,the saam seems to have disappeared from the 1920s or 1930s onwards.Similartrends are visible in manyplaces.⁵ But thereare alsoex- ceptions to this rule. In the case of the Maka in Southeastern Cameroon, the rise of the cash crop cultivation instead stimulated labour rotation, because the Maka re- fused to perform wagelabour for the other villagers.⁶ It is asmall step from labour mutuals to mutualist institutions, wherethe fund consists partlyorwhollyofgoods or money.Labour rotation corresponds exactlyto the simplest kind of the so—called rotating and credit savings association (rosca), in which, however,the labour input is replacedbyacontribution in kind or in money. Forexample, an anthropological studyinthe early1960s recorded that Indian mi- grants on the island of Mauritius operated a rosca called a cycle or cheet: “A man or awoman calls togetheragroup of friends and neighbours. Suppose there are tenofthem, and each puts in Rs. 10.They then draw lots and the winner takes the Rs. 100.(Sometimes the organizer automaticallytakes the first ‘pool’.) The following month each again puts in Rs. 10,and another member takes the result- ing Rs. 100;and so it continues for tenmonths until each member has had his Rs. 100.”⁷ In other words, sums of money weredeposited in the cheet,but for the rest the logic was the same as in labour rotation. It is thereforenot surprising that some scientists believe roscasoriginated in rotatinglabour pools.⁸ Whether this ex- planationiscorrect has yettobeestablished by empirical research. But roscascan also be much more complex than in the simple case outlined above. The allocation of the order of rotation is central to roscas. It can be deter- mined by acommon arrangement among participants; an allocation by the organiz- er; by auction; or by drawing lots. In an auction, participants can of course exert a stronginfluenceonthe order of allocation, and this method can thereforelead to complex relations of debt and credit within the arrangement.Inthe case of Mauri- Charles J. Erasmus, “Culture,Structureand Process:The Occurrence and Disappearance of Recip- rocalFarm Labor”, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology,12(1956), pp. 444–469; Paul F. Brown, “Population Growthand the Disappearance of Reciprocal Labor in aHighland Peruvian Community”, Research in Economic Anthropology,8(1987), pp. 225–245. Peter Geschiere, “WorkingGroups or Wage Labour?Cash-crops, Reciprocity and Money amongthe MakaofSoutheastern Cameroon”, Development and Change,26(1995), pp. 503–523. Burton Benedict, “Capital, Savingand CreditamongMauritian Indians”,in: Raymond Firth and B.S.Yamey (eds), Capital, Saving and Credit in Peasant Societies (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1964), pp. 330 – 346,at341. AnthonyI.Nwabughuogu, “The Isusu: An Instititution for Capital Formation amongthe Ngwa Igbo;its Origin and Development to 1951”, Africa,54, 4(1984), pp. 46–58, at 47;Mark W. Delancey, “Credit for the Common Man in Cameroon”, Journal of Modern African Studies,15, 3(1977), pp. 316– 322, at 319. 494 Marcel vander Linden tius, we find that, likethe Indian immigrants on the island, the Chinese also had ros- cas. But these functionedinadifferent way: “The Chinese on the island – as elsewhere – operateavariant of the cycle in which the ‘lenders’ (late drawers)ineffect receive interest payments fromthe ‘borrowers’ (earlydrawers). The par- ticipants bid for turns;aman in need of quick cash
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