Talk:Mutualism

Unsourced distinction
There appears to be no reason, aside from the desire of a single editor, for separating anarchist mutualism from the tradition of mutuals, and plenty of reasons not to. At minimum, some scholarly source should be provided to justify the distinction. Neither Swartz nor Carson make the distinction. Greene placed mutualism in the tradition of economic mutuals. Etc. Libertatia (talk) 03:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The origins of mutual organizations such as mutual insurance predate the philosophy of mutualism by at least a century. Mutualism can be understood to be a consequence of the growing popularity of mutuals and cooperative societies at the time. The political ideals of mutualism, however, are not inherent to mutual organizations. I doubt many people who work for Mutual of Omaha are even familiar with Proudhon. Gobonobo  T C 06:29, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * None of that, assuming it was sourced, contradicts what I have said, justifies the removal of the Mutualism (economic theory) article from the Mutualism category, or the marginalization of that article on the disambiguation page. After all, as I have said, the scholarly sources on anarchist mutualism acknowledge this history. Libertatia (talk) 07:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * "Mutualism" from mutual organizations and insurance companies have nothing to do with theories about equal exchange or restricted ownership of land. Mutualism from mutuals don't propose any kind of future society, this kind of mutualism is politically neutral (could be part of profit enterprises, charity asociations, political parties, religious organizations, etc) and have been spreaded around the world like a cooperative insurance system. Check Cooperation and Mutualism, Mutualism : A Third Way for Australia, http://books.google.com.ec/books?Check this book, and this other. Instead, anarchist mutualism is an almost forgotten theory about exchange and land, so what isn't justificated is to monopolize the term mutualism for an very exotic idea.--Sageo (talk) 13:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, there is no question here of monopolizing the term mutualism for the content of Mutualism (economic theory). If there is another "mutualism" that can be shown to be clearly distinct from that mutualism, using scholarly sources, then an article can be created for it -- using scholarly sources. In the meantime, using the category listing to exclude one form of mutualism and the disambiguation page to editorialize is obvious POV-pushing. The fact that anarchist mutualism proposes more than just the formation of mutuals means that it is a subset of the broader category. And this is precisely what the literature claims. Your "nothing to do with" claim appears obviously incorrect, since the most famous institution of anarchist mutualism is the mutual bank, a form of friendly society for providing local currency that we can trace back to the land banks of the 17th and 18th centuries. Warren's "equitable commerce" presented itself as an alternative to the Rochdale form of cooperation. In the US, there were also strong connections between the radical theory and the development of mutual insurance. A truly encyclopedic approach would clarify these issues, rather than sweep them away. But until the issue is resolved according to the sources, there is still just an unsourced distinction that needs addressing. Libertatia (talk) 17:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Attempting to purge anarchist mutualism from the mutualist tradition is totally baffling. If folks want to keep the Category:Mutualism page "clean," maybe they should create a Category:Anarchist_Mutualism subcategory? - N1h1l (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There isn't any important relation between mutualism of the mutuals movement (mutual because mutual insurance and organization, an neutral humanitarian ideal, not because any extreme change of political system and the economic order) with mutual about "mutual exchange" without profits with changes in the money and value system, both movement are very differents and the mutual of theirs names becomes from different reasons.

If this history is different and exist an important relation this relation should be refferenced. Wikipedians should refference the affirmations not the negation of affirmations. I have pressent some sources, but wich are yours. --Sageo (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC) PS: You have mention Warren, but no one of the sources I read mention Warren like a mutualist because he beleived in lockean private property that mutualism rejects (another signal that should advertise you that we aren't talking about the same doctrine). Check that mutualism of mutual movement could be applied in any ecomomic system, per example capitalism. You also mention a kind of central bank called "bank of people", but this (theorical) bank I read that is a bank that helps the exchanges of equal amount of labor... is "mutualist" because it tried to avoid the profits not because was part of the mutual movement of societies of mutual insurance and credit (mutual because members supports theirselves). Compare Bank of People with Mutualist Banks around the world, currently part of financial system, again we are talking about two different meanings of "mutual" (ist) term, not about the same movement. Nihil talks about an "anarchist mutualism", well, we are talking about two different things with the same name, not a thing that belongs to another thing. "mutualism" from anarchist history is independent from mutualism of mutuals, is more a theory of value (mutuum value) and is not part of the movement of mutuals, however mutualism of mutual probably would still existing in an anarchist world without state because is politically neutral.

Factually there is the issue of relevance, mutualism of mutuals is easily very much relevant that mutualism of mutual exchange and no-property of land, first mutualism haven't any important influence from the second mutualism. In fact, first mutualism about mutuals exists and is actually working around the world, second mutualism about mutual exchange and no-land property doesn't really exist. Or probably a better explanation is that mutualism from mutuals is a social movement and an asistencial theory and practice, and mutualism from no-profits is a theory of a future society (in this way obviusly this mutualism doesn't exist), but the first have many "militants", the second is more a theory than a movement like almost all anarchism (I'm not against anarchism, I'm been honest). I repeat, there is a relevance order that should be always considered.

Check Cooperation and Mutualism, Mutualism : A Third Way for Australia, Check this book, and this other. Please read p. 203 about a mutualism of 1 million member wich had a president that support it in 1860 in France, here we have a case of homonym. Next time I would prefer reliable refferences over personal approaches.--Sageo (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The distinction is still only your assertion. You have presented no scholarly evidence for it. Presumably, you want to make some sort of undue weight argument, but the sources you have provided aren't very convincing. One could reasonably argue that "The New Mutualism" is a much greater departure from the mutualist tradition than anything in the existing article. I would have no objection to seeing a more extension treatment of mutualism, and a separate page on the anarchist variety. It would be nice, for example, if the only discussion of "land banking" was not related to investment strategies. There are quite a few varieties of mutual that do not appear to be represented on Wikipedia at all. There are certainly also some issues with the existing articles, caused by contemporary political debates, which have obscured some of the histories. But none of this is addressed by attempting to banish the material in Mutualism (economic theory), on no grounds more scholarly than your say-so. Libertatia (talk) 04:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Mutualism is a form of symbiosis
Mutualism is a form of symbiosis. It is a 'type of'. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=mutualism+symbiosis&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=on

I do not think it is confused with symbiosis, as to call it symbiosis is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BenjaminDHolland (talk • contribs) 11:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The description has been removed, as it isn't needed for disambiguation purposes anyway. Station1 (talk) 19:36, 5 September 2011 (UTC)