Mutualism in the world: Ignorance, inequalities and market pressures

Anyone engaged on research who tries to get to know, evaluate and describe the mutual benefit movement in its worldwide context always comes up against the differences in terminology and in constitutions, as well as the disparate nature and unreliability of the financial statements: an international maze in which the observer is completely lost. In spite of the real efforts of the Association internationale de la mutualité (International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies — AIM), the European Community, the International Social Security Association (ISSA), the Institute of International Social Cooperation (ICOSI) and of universities, the history, assessment and evolution — both recent and comparative — of the mutual benefit movement remain largely “terra incognita”.