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Acknowledgements<br /><br />Foreword by Alain Caillé<br /><br /><br />Introduction. The age of mutual aid<br /><br />The law of the jungle<br /><br />A potentially fatal paralysis<br /><br />The emergence of another law of the jungle<br /><br />The construction site of the new century<br /><br /><br />Chapter One. The history of a forgetting<br /><br />Everywhere, all the time, and in every colour<br /><br />Among one’s peers<br /><br />Between distant cousins<br /><br />Between dissimilar organizations<br /><br />Our most distant ancestors, champions of mutual aid in all categories<br /><br />All the colours of ‘symbiodiversity’<br /><br />We are an inextricable bundle of interdependencies<br /><br />Setting the record straight<br /><br />Why society hasn’t seen it - a story of myths<br /><br />Kropotkin, the anarchist prince swimming against the tide<br /><br />Our blinkered society<br /><br />Why science didn’t see it – a history of genes<br /><br />Before the 1970s<br /><br />The life, death and rebirth of sociobiology, 1970-2000<br /><br />The renaissance of the 2000s<br /><br /><br />Chapter Two. Spontaneous mutual aid<br /><br />Contrary to popular belief…<br /><br />Where does Homo œconomicus live?<br /><br />What emerges in a crisis situation<br /><br />What emerges from stress and the unknown<br /><br />How are we to explain these automatisms?<br /><br />The end of simplistic models<br /><br />A malleable automatism<br /><br /><br />Chapter 3. Group mechanisms<br /><br />The hard core of mutual aid: reciprocity<br /><br />The obligation to give back<br /><br />The roots of reciprocity<br /><br />The transition to the group: extended reciprocity<br /><br />Reputation (indirect reciprocity)<br /><br />Rewards and punishments (enhanced reciprocity)<br /><br />Very large groups: invisible reciprocity<br /><br />Social norms<br /><br />Institutions<br /><br /><br />Chapter Four. The spirit of the group<br /><br />A magical moment: when the group becomes one<br /><br />The sense of security<br /><br />The sense of equality<br /><br />The sense of trust<br /><br />The birth of a superorganism<br /><br />Towards universal principles?<br /><br />The ‘fundamentals’: putting them into practice<br /><br />The principles of good governance<br /><br />Mutual aid taken to the extreme<br /><br />The dissolution of the self<br /><br />Collective ecstasy<br /><br />Group closure<br /><br />A tragic moment: when mutual aid collapses<br /><br /><br />Chapter Five. Beyond the group<br /><br />The big bad wolf principle<br /><br />Competition with other groups<br /><br />A hostile environment<br /><br />Reaching a common goal<br /><br />Can groups provide mutual aid to each other?<br /><br />Overcoming competition between groups<br /><br />The same mechanisms as at the lower level<br /><br />A limit on size?<br /><br />The opportunity of global disasters<br /><br />Chapter Six. Since the dawn of time<br /><br />The evolution of human mutual aid<br /><br />Associating to survive<br /><br />A band of immature primates<br /><br />The evolution of mutual aid between peers<br /><br />‘There is strength in unity’: the power of group selection<br /><br />‘Winter is coming’: the power of the hostile environment<br /><br />Other evolutionary forces<br /><br />The evolution of mutual aid between species<br /><br />Needing the other...<br /><br />... sometimes it’s mutual...<br /><br />... and eventually you can’t do without them<br /><br />Again and again the hostile environment<br /><br />An endless source of innovation<br /><br />Mutual aid calls for mutual aid<br /><br />Transforming yourself in contact with others<br /><br />Taking it to the next level<br /><br />How mutual aid changed the face of the world<br /><br /><br />Conclusion. The new face of mutual aid<br /><br />Much more than just a law of the jungle<br /><br />The main principles of mutual aid<br /><br />Towards a new vision of mutual aid<br /><br /><br />Epilogue. For which world?<br /><br />Are we going to kill each other?<br /><br />Towards another mythology<br /><br />Beyond humankind<br /><br /><br />Appendix. On the ‘new sociobiology’<br /><br />An earthquake in the land of sociobiology<br /><br />The secret had to lie in the genes<br /><br />The slow betrayal of the founding father<br /><br />The power of one man<br /><br />The various evolutionary forces behind mutual aid<br /><br />The origins of sociobiology: kinship selection and reciprocal altruism<br /><br />The discovery of other paths: indirect reciprocity and spatial selection<br /><br />Towards a more open and complex sociobiology<br /><br /><br />Notes

‘Cooperation has, over the course of evolution, been much more productive of increasing levels of complexity than competition. There is no doubt that mutual aid is omnipresent in nature. This penetrating study by Pablo Servigne and Gauthier Chapelle, which paints a portrait of this other “law of the jungle”, is more than welcome at a time when we so badly need to foster cooperation, solidarity and benevolence in order to build a better world together.’<br /><b>Matthieu Ricard, author of <i>Altruism: The Science and Psychology of Kindness<br /><br /></i></b>"Servigne and Chappelle’s narrative is on point"<br /><b><i>Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis</i></b>

<p><b>Pablo Servigne</b> is an agronomist with a PhD in biology. He is a specialist in questions of collapse, transition, agro-ecology and mutual aid.</p> <p><b>Gauthier Chapelle</b> is an agronomist and biologist and an expert on biomimicry. He founded Biomimicry Europa and co-founded Greenloop.</p>

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