The difference is that capitalism is more than just an economic system, it is a form of class domination. Its a whole set of social relations that reinforce dominance. Voting with your dollars is not a viable strategy for opposing capitalism, there is no individual consumer decision that can make a dent.

A good example is Boycott/Divest/Sanction. That’s like voting with your dollars right? And it is objectively an effective tactic against apartheid regimes, themselves driven by capitalist incentives, the same way that slavery was in the US. But BDS isnt an action taken by an individual, or rather, it isnt only that. It is a movement of people organizing with each other to take collective action to resist injustice. Capitalists and their political proxies fucking love Israel, who cares who is exploited or murdered in the name of economic development? Same in South Africa. And these campaigns infuriate the capitalist and political classes, they literally imprison people for showing support for Palestine. If it was one guy, or a few people scattered who decided they just weren’t gonna buy goods from Israeli companies, nobody would care. But they’re organized against the capitalists as a class, they educate people, convince them, and are effective.

Capitalism organizes people too, it organizes us to sell our labor to someone who uses it to make themselves rich. When we organize on the basis of our own enrichment or self defense, against the interests of the wealthy, that’s where the cops show up and the president starts calling the most harmless and caring people “domestic terrorists.”

When capitalism seems like just some economic system, then it doesn’t feel as repressive. We can go whole days without spending money. But capitalism is more than markets. Its practically impossible to avoid enriching capitalism as an individual. But spending a little money to organize and help people is resistance to the system as a social system rather than an economic one.

Mutual aid can draw criticism on this basis too, like there are plenty of left criticisms of mutual aid. But by my reckoning, wherever people are helping each other rather than competing for a slightly higher wage, there is a pocket of anti capitalism. The capitalists have total control over the all production and markets. In order to free ourselves from it on a mass scale, we have to be principled and practical, and we have to do what it takes to get enough people to unite and take action. If that means giving someone money or doing mutual aid as a tactic, then that can be part of an anticapitalist strategy.