Coffee break: The Care Manifesto by The Care Collective

Book summaries shared here are done with full credit to their authors and are a way of sharing the learnings I've had from them rather than trying to replicate them or replace them. If I share it here, it comes with a strong recommendation to go and read the book in full.

Sit down and read today and every day

The Care Manifesto is a gentle and serious manual for our era. It feels like many things I've been thinking about but written more eloquently and precisely, even promiscuously. It is not as anarchist as I would have liked, but it does offer some interesting ideas for alternative world/life models which center care. There are many gems which could produce entire essays each, but here I just offer a highlight.

The main question of this little book is: How do we move from the carelessness inherent in the current systems to consciously creating communities of interdependent care?

‘The crisis of care has become particularly acute over the last forty years, as governments accepted neoliberal capitalism’s near-ubiquitous positioning of profit-making as the organizing principle of life.’ Is caring for ourselves meant to be so lonely and difficult? What are the problems inherent in the current systems of welfare, wellness, and even self-care? How have individualized modes, built on the backs of colonialist white systems of oppression, seeped into our ability to take care of one another? And how has it been mainly delegated to the feminine realm of devalued caring professions?

The Care Collective takes great care in unpacking so many of these ideas, giving the reader a guideline on how we can create new systems. They ask, what would happen if we were to begin instead to put care at the very center of life? It means, to them, recognizing and embracing our interdependencies. 

‘Care is our individual and common ability to provide the political, social, material, and emotional conditions that allow the vast majority of people and living creatures on this planet to thrive - along with the planet itself.’

My love of the intersectionality of this book is real. So few books out there have taken such an effort to interrogate every intersectionality affecting our lives, bringing together a critique of the systems of oppression along with remedies to elevate interdependent care and community. They do this by offering a model of universal care based on mutual interdependencies, with a breakdown of six areas wherein we can co-create this model, namely caring politics, kinships, communities, states, economies, and ways of caring for the world at large. ‘The goal is to ensure that the whole of society shares care’s multiple joys and burdens.’

Let’s break down these six branches briefly, mainly as an enticement to get you to read the book in full.

Caring politics: is there even such a thing I wonder. I used to be quite politically apathetic growing up because I felt so strongly that political systems are such a farce, it was like, what’s even the point in participating. They’re all one form or another of garbage. I grew up a bit more and realized that unfortunately, I dont have the privilege of not caring what happens in the political realm. Rarely anyone in the majority of political systems represents me or cares for my well-being, and in fact most perpetuate systems which oppress or undermine one or another of my facets of being (most of me is of the unprivileged variety). Therefore, it simply isn't possible to exist apathetically, so I became quite engaged for a while. And now, I've moved again into no longer wanting to fix the systems that be. I’m tired of representation. Of puppets paying lip service to the ‘underrepresented’, the vulnerable, the minorities. Current political systems as a whole need to be abolished in favor of consensual agreements between communities, for smaller nation states. For The Care Collective, this looks like ‘cultivating and prioritizing the social, institutional and political facilities that enable and enhance our capacities to care for each other and to restore and nurture rather than pillage the natural world.’ Political systems need to ensure ample resources and time which remove care from the feminine realm to create conditions which make caring possible for all. Rather than public spending which creates higher degrees of dependencies, the availability of adequate and secure resources for all would enable better forms of interdependent living. 

‘The practices of care that recognize the complexity of human interactions also enhance our ability to reimagine and participate more fully in democratic processes at all levels of society.’

Caring kinships: who is our kin? How do we define this circle? My favorite part of the book, by far, what they call promiscuous care, a new ethics which would enable us to multiply the number of people we can care for and about and with. Music to my ears. Leaning on looking at communities where resources are made scarce, the authors explore how other-mothers support blood mothers in many parts of societies. There is also of course the concept of families of choice, developed primarily within queer communities, defining significant family members outside the traditional biological ties. The main challenge with promiscuous levels of kinship is the lack of state recognition of these ties, cutting off decision-making powers from un-recognized partnerships. So there are the models of ‘caring for strangers like me’ movements of which we are familiar, across the gay and Black liberation movements. But what about caring across differences? How can we care for strangers not like me? They take it to the extreme by exploring medics who care for enemy combatants on the battlefield. And then what about caring for other species and the environment? There are expansive forms of caring kinships which already exist, and the authors draw on many examples, from Greek island care of refugees, to the politics of the Water Protectors at Standing Rock. Promiscuous to mean intimate, experimental, extensive, alternative, and - perhaps most difficult - indiscriminate.

And so arises their ethics of promiscuous care (which really builds on AIDS activism): for care to become the basis of better societies, ‘we need to change our contemporary hierarchies of care in the direction of radical egalitarianism. All forms of care between all categories of human and non-human should be valued, recognized and resourced equally, according to their needs or ongoing sustainability.’ 

Caring communities: how do we create caring communities which support our interdependencies? What kind of infrastructures are necessary? They argue for four key features: diverse forms of mutual support (spontaneous, consistent, structured), public space (co-owned and held in common), shared resources (material and immaterial resources, between and among people), and local democracy (localized engagement and governance, insourcing its caring activities). Brought together, they form a ‘sharing infrastructure’ at community level. The authors provide many examples of these features for inspiration.  

Caring states: belonging in the state should be based on our mutual interdependencies, rather than ethno-cultural identities and border security. They argue that we need to reverse state functions on their head; their responsibility should be fostering the well-being of human and non-human life (wasn't that always the original premise of a state?). Putting the necessary material, social, and cultural conditions in place for the mutual thriving of all. What about the current model of the (Keynesian) welfare state which exits in much of Europe and North America? Initially established after WWII, the promises were not exactly fulfilled, leaving states with space to privatize much of its welfare activities, to the negligence of its most vulnerable. The authors explain all the arenas in which this would take place, including housing, use of public space, education, and healthcare. The authors also discuss the importance of social rather than criminal justice, taking a leaf from the books of the abolitionists. It’s a tall order. I’m a bit on the fence here as I don't necessarily believe we need formal states at all but it’s dreamy to imagine a caring state. I do like the idea of taking caring for each other and expanding that towards ‘community-building of radical municipalism and nation states, ending with caring for the furthest reaches of our interconnected planet.’

‘A caring state will always begin by valuing caretaking over profit-making, and champion caretaking as a highly valued end in itself.’ 

Caring economies: neoliberalism and capitalism vs eco-socialist alternatives. How do we create more caring exchange arrangements between consumers and producers, care-receivers and care-givers? The authors argue for building a model of universal care which overrides the market-mediated forces of individualized self-interest. The main idea is that care resources need to be distributed equally (read: access) while care work needs to be valued highly, without the subjection to capitalist markets of supply and demand. Re-socialising and in-sourcing our care commons and infrastructures - such as health, education, and housing - and moving away from the neoliberal dogma of marketization and privatization is essential here. That being said, the exchange of good and services will continue, so how can we do that caringly? They argue for re-regulation, meaning a move towards the eco-socialist alternatives of co-operatives, public-commons partnerships, etc., aiming to de-fetishize the current markets and increase accountability along the commodity chains (including addressing the exploitation of humans and non-humans). The market models proposed would also address modes of ownership, production, and consumption overall, to be as egalitarian, participatory, locally embedded, and environmentally sustainable as possible.

Caring for the world: we’ve really made a mess of this one. The latest pandemic showed us the realities of how careless the existing systems are. We clapped for the nurses from the balconies, but now won’t give them proper sick days or a raise. We locked down countries but hoarded vaccines until they expired. And then of course, we are destroying the natural resources of the planet at a pace which brings, within one generation, not only the definition of climate change but the tangible consequences of that exploitative destruction. In this chapter, the authors argue for social justice which restructures caretaking, work, energy, and financial systems, in transnational manifestations. They explain that while the left have promoted The Green New Deal on governmental levels, it is not enough. Global progressive alliances are needed to organize care and caretaking better. These would address the effects of climate change through targeting the neo-liberal capitalist systems and the legacies of Western imperialism and neo-colonialism which remain around the world. 

It would uphold the grassroots resistance movements around the world and ‘demand to distribute the world’s resources not only in an environmentally sustainable fashion but also in ways that more equitably sustain populations and diminish the resentment between them to create connections across difference.’ It highlights the importance of interdependence of care, for one another and between one another, ‘cultivating a far-reaching ethics of care and solidarity in all our relationships… promiscuous care on a global scale.’ 

Do we find it too idealistic? Thoughts based on the summary here? Or, I’m curious if you’ve read this book, what do you make of it? Tell me.

Coffee breaks are sponsored by this thought: did you know that coffee is one of the most exploitative supply chains in the world? Please take time to investigate where your coffee is coming from and how much those farmers are getting paid. Farmers in the global south, where coffee is grown, are routinely paid less than cost of production which keeps them in cycles of poverty and debt. Consider purchasing direct trade which pays above fair and at a good profit. If you are in the Global North, don’t be afraid to ask your roaster or supplier where the coffee is coming from and its conditions of production - the more we ask, the better choices we can make, the more we can care for each other. Don’t participate in exploitation. You can do this.