You have been lied to about what charity actually is.

When a crisis hits, whether it's a flood, a fire, or a medical emergency, we are trained to look up. We wait for the government agency to arrive. We wait for the large NGO to coordinate relief. We wait for some wealthy benefactor to swoop in and save the day.

This is vertical charity. It is hierarchy dressed up as compassion. It is dependence masquerading as care.

But here's the thing: this is not how humans actually survived for most of our history.

Our species did not claw its way out of the dirt because some central authority decided to benevolently distribute resources from on high. We survived through horizontal cooperation, through neighbors helping neighbors, through reciprocal support networks built on the radical idea that "I help you today because I might need your help tomorrow."

This is mutual aid. And it is the opposite of charity.

...read more at bitcoinwell.com