capitals influence on selflessness

OPINION ARTICLE.

One thing that I think is unconditionally true is that every person would like to be good and moral. To the average person, who doesn't have the time nor the energy to read extremely drawn out, theoretical treatises on ethics or the society we live in, one of the simplest means to this end is that of charity, or more broadly what I will call selflessness. However, as I will argue, what seems to be a basic and self-reproducing instinct of a moral society and life is inherently perverted under capitalism, both in its reproduction and what it achieves, to the point of being detrimental to the goal of supporting others.

Charity, under most definitions, is that action wherein a delineated group of people who help aid people who are identified to require that help. Under many analyses, it is found (correctly) to be patronizing, ineffective, and inherently reproductive of the very power structures it purports to bypass. Selflessness, alternatively, is the classically anarchist approach to a similar end. It is characterized by individual action, whithin or without an organization, that is not transactional, but relies on some notion of reciprocation. Proponents of selflessness as an alternative to charity correctly note that it sidesteps many of the problems inherent in the latter, including all of the stated ones, in an effective manner.

Selflessness, however, is not self reproducing, because of the structure of capitalism it operates within. Consider, for instance, two agents, Alice and Bob. Alice has some mental or physical issues that force her to be unable to work effectively. Bob, an empathetic and moral individual, seeks to aid Alice in her plight. He, taking what would seem the straightest path, in his free time helps her to clean her space, to attend her appointments, to eat, and so on. His work, however, continues, at a rate of eight hours a day, plus the additional energy spent on what seems the obvious thing to do. For some time this continues, but each day Bob grows resentful and restless, facing the inevitable dilemma between his duty to Alice to provide to her, and that one to himself to sustain himself. At some point, he stops, either altogether or in steps, to help Alice. He correctly justifies his decision by explaining to Alice, who is now stranded without a support system, that he cannot continue to provide for her, that at some point he will die of stress, and that however much he may feel for her and understand her plight, he simply cannot be the one to help her. The astute reader will object here, to say that this does not generalize to the notion of selflessness as described, as Alice did not provide anything. But what could she provide that would help? Company? Tea? All things that would serve to quicken Bobs expenditure, by the additional need required. In the essay Dump Your Puppygirl, Knight succinctly describes this dynamic:

Total expenditure per partner: thirty-seven hours of unwaged labor weekly. In return she receives a portion of the puppygirl’s attention, some affection, the social fact of partnership. Call this five hours’ worth of reciprocal care, generously calculated, ...

There is nothing that Alice can provide to Bob (or the puppygirl to her partners) that would amount to equivalence, not even close, because she is a disabled woman living a life of struggle. Thus this selflessness always serve to burn itself out, at least alone.

Now consider what selflessness by itself achieves: not a modulation of the power structures that create the disparity in need, nor a sustainable fulfilling of that need, but a temporary, ineffective solution that gets the object of the expenditure just to the next day, so to speak. If we consider again the case of Alice and Bob, this is extremely clear. Bob is not spending his time or energy dismantling the system that creates the disparity in Alices situation, nor creating a new one that can effectively and sustainably provide for her; he doesn't have the time or the energy. In simply giving to another all that one can, one effectively removes themselves from the creating of exactly what would make life so much more livable for all involved. This is a mistake made not only by individual agents making simple decisions, but of organizations that charter themselves as anti-captialist. For one salient example, in For a Revolutionary Approach to Mutual Aid, Nikoli Weir shows what his DSA chapter has been doing with its time and manpower.

This is most exemplified by the mutual aid work of my local DSA chapter ... [Recently, it has] disproportionately focused on mutual aid work. This has mostly manifested itself as cooking warm meals [for the homeless] ...

Have [the] DSA's mutual aid efforts done anything to alleviate the plight of the homeless? Has it empowered the homeless to begin advocating for themselves as a part of the working class? It has not. The most it has done is temporarily fill the bellies of a few dozen people every month. It has, however, done nothing to alter the long term living conditions of said people. ...

In the pursuit of building an alternative power structure, [the] DSA has abandoned any and all efforts to contest the one place where true power exists; the state.

It is clear that though selflessness may seem moral and anti-capitalistic, it removes by its nature the ability of the working class to change that system which causes the need, and burns out individuals. Because it effectively drains all the energy from the giver, it destroys itself, and encourages individuals to act selfishly. Through that same giving, it removes the giver from the necessary struggle against capitalism, the only solution to the issue of need. Selflessness, then, is not a radical act of anti-capitalism, but one that inherently serves to aid it.

So what can we do? When we see people like the homeless suffering under capitalism, it is a natural instinct to want to help, and indeed one that I would say is moral. However, we must be careful in how we help. Concretely, what this may look like is an advocacy group, for, say state-funded food, that may already be distributing food. Instead of simply providing that aid, however, this organization could begin to try changing the power structure that lead to the need that they solve in the current moment. This can perhaps be by handing out flyers, providing classes, showing local news groups how much work they have to do to an end that is decisively the business of the state. Instead of blindly giving what we individually can, we must strive to create alternative power structures. By doing this, we may create a more sustainable, resilient society, that may be able to support individual needs without individual burnout. We must create communities that serve not to give from one side to another, nor ones thats sole purpose is to enable reciprocal giving, ones that understand the power structures that engender need in the first place, and make pressure to change those structures, while in the moment aiding those that can reasonably be aided. In essence, we must create communities for which creating an alternative system is a primary goal, and transient aid is secondary.