The economy of solidarity is in the process of moving from the phase of localised and sector-specific alternatives that fill the gaps left by the dominant economic system into another way of looking at economics, which focuses on the human being. With this in mind, the Alliance has chosen to discuss the socioeconomy of solidarity.

The socioeconomy of solidarity is characterised by alternative forms of services (directed at people, at inhabitants, families, the elderly and the young, etc), of finance and saving (microfinance, social finance), of distribution (fair trade, ethical consumerism), of production (sustainable and clean), of exchange (local and social currencies, local barter systems), and of new relations between State and civil society (based on contracts, covenants and agreements, delegation of services, etc.) But in the absence of a shared vision, the risks of fragmenting and trivialising the socioeconomy of solidarity increase, with each sector looking for its niche in an attempt to catch up with or adapt to the market or State.

But are the agents and firms of the social economy really able to include their activities in a project for society or propose a different model of development? If they are, the necessary evaluation of the economic and social performance of the socioeconomy of solidarity must not be shy of criticising a market society in which development is reduced to GDP growth, where share capital companies are the only legitimate form of economic organisation and where the market is the only effective principle for producing, exchanging and distributing wealth.


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