19th Century
Peter Kropotkin
1842–1921 · Anarchist communism
Mutual aid is a fact of nature. The state is the parasite.
In their words
“Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.”
A geographer who surveyed Siberia before becoming the movement's best scientific popularizer, Kropotkin gathered evidence of cooperation across the animal kingdom to answer social Darwinism. He argued that the state and private landlordism are recent extractions layered over far older customs of mutual support, and spent years in French and Russian prisons for saying so.
Why it matters for freedom
He gathered the evidence that cooperation is older than government, and that people organize without being ordered.
Who they stood against
social Darwinism, the tsar, and the claim that competition is the only engine of life