Painting Fakes

Back in 1904, Peter Kropotkin published the anarchist classic Mutual Aid.   He wrote it as a response to the prevailing pseudo-Darwinian notion that life, both animal and human, was defined by a perpetual struggle for survival - a view that drove the ravages of colonialism, the exploitation of labour by capital, and the wars which engulfed Europe in the years after its publication.   For Kropotkin, this view is a mistake.  He starts in the animal kingdom, going through ants and bees forming huge cooperative colonies, birds forming flocks for food gathering, protection and navigation across migrations, mammals forming packs for cooperative hunting and herds for mutual protection.  Throughout the animal kingdom, he says cooperation is the norm.  For mammals and birds, certainly, it is solitary competition which is the exception.   He then moves on to spend most of the book talking about cooperation and mutual aid as a driver of human history, from p...