Defining the Solidarity Economy, Defining my job

Jenna Allard, Solidarity Economy, Solidaritycents

So, I’m somewhat new to Guramylay: Growing the Green Economy and to Transformation Central, and this means that I am both learning about my new job and learning how to explain it to others. I haven’t quite gotten the conversational job description in a nutshell it down to a standardized spiel yet, so it inevitably becomes a long explanation. You see, my job makes no sense if you don’t have a concept of what the solidarity economy is, and that term doesn’t mean much to most people in the United States (although of course I want to change that). Moreover, for any of you readers out there who want to follow my musings about one of my favorite subjects (there probably aren’t that many of you yet), a clear sense of what “solidarity economy” means is critical. Let’s do our definitional work then, just as my four years of college-level social science training have taught me to begin any good intellectual inquiry with. In the process, I might be able to come up with better answers for those who ask me in person.

I first encountered the solidarity economy in Brazil. I was studying abroad, and had never even heard of the term until after I started researching economic restructuring in Rio de Janeiro, when our group had the opportunity to a visit solidarity economy research facility called the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE), a solidarity economy incubator called the Technological Incubator of Popular Cooperatives (ITCP), and a cooperative that the incubator was supporting, the Craftswomen of Mare Handicrafts Production Co-op. In Latin America, “popular cooperatives” are an important part of the solidarity economy, basically worker-owned and run businesses that employ the poor and the socially excluded. The cooperative in Mare was run by women that would not otherwise have jobs, located in an informal community. They made beautiful and unique jewelry by crocheting thin metal chains and semi-precious stones. They were paid a flat wage determined by piecework, and they rotated administrative jobs like accounting and ordering, giving each member a chance to learn these new skills. As each new member joined, she would share her knowledge of crochet stitches, and these skills would be added to the cooperative’s inventory. Even the space that they worked in was multi-functional and integrated into the community; children played there as they worked, and the site also hosted a sexual education program for their daughters. I came into the situation with my own pre-conceived lens, expecting to hear them talk primarily about the financial benefits. I left after they had discussed how they gained self-esteem, learned new skills, and made new friends. One women, for instance, told me that if she did not come to work, one of the other women would call her to find out was wrong. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they didn’t quantify their work in strictly monetary terms; they did not consider it strictly a financial transaction.

This initial experience made a lasting impression on me. At its most concrete level, that is the solidarity economy – or one of its many manifestations. As I came to learn more about the solidarity economy, however, I learned that it makes sense on a macro scale too. Of course, like many other leftists, I have deep suspicions about capitalism, and I find my ideas about work tinged with Marxist conceptions of alienation and exploitation. I believe that structural change is necessary, but I still suspicious of the some half-baked and some mostly-baked economic alternatives that radicals cook up, and I am even more suspicious of how we could feasibly transition to one of those systems (even if that transition involves a revolution). Many of these systems replace the tyranny of one model with the tyranny of another, one set of one-sided assumptions about human nature with another set. The solidarity economy is a framework, based around shared values, rather than a model. Solidarity economy initiatives could be cooperatives, fair trade companies, local currency systems, or even small local capitalist firms that are committed to certain ethical principles. This inclusive framework accommodates the diversity of economic alternatives all around us, because doesn’t it just make sense that local communities and local stakeholders should decide which structures and practices best allow them to live their values? At the same time, the solidarity economy unites those with common values on a regional and global scale, so that these pioneering initiatives don’t always have to be an isolated island in a capitalist sea. On one level, the solidarity economy is simply the naming of many practices that are already going on; it is simply an organizing tactic to build network connections between these initiatives so that they can learn from one another and build power. But, at the same time, the solidarity economy is the building of a concrete alternative to capitalism, building that alternative in a counter-hegemonic manner from the bottom-up, having the potential to unite sustainable, democratic, cooperative, just practices into chains of production and consumption.

Because the solidarity economy is being constantly re-invented at the grassroots, however, it can be somewhat difficult to define. And, especially in the U.S., where the term is virtually unheard of, definitions can be the first and most important task. One of the most standardized definitions, from an Alliance 21 Proposal Paper, is often reproduced:

“Solidarity economy designates all production, distribution and consumption activities that contribute to the democratization of the economy based on citizen commitments both at a local and global level. It is carried out in various forms, in all continents. It covers different forms of organization that the population uses to create its own means of work or to have access to qualitative goods and services, in a dynamics of reciprocity and solidarity which links individual interests to the collective interest. In this sense, solidarity economy is not a sector of the economy, but an overall approach that includes initiatives in most sectors of the economy.”

This captures the scope of the solidarity economy, but not necessarily its excitement. Personally, I think it is most helpful to think about the solidarity economy as any type of economic activity that is organized around certain progressive values, values that liberal activist movements all over the globe are already converging around. These values start to paint a picture of what the “good” society might look like; the characteristics of the communities that we would like to live in. Most of us can agree that we would want these communities to be democratic and sustainable, to be just and cooperative, to respect human dignity and to fulfill human needs. And though we might imagine that these values are expressed best through our political lives and our activism, we are learning increasingly that whether we bring our own cloth bags to the grocery store might have a much more significant, albeit less glamorous, impact than the number of environmental rallies we attend. Yet, ethical consumption is just the beginning. Consumption usually occurs in isolation, and I’ve always found that the most transformative possibilities can be found in community; while trying to reach consensus in a worker-owned cooperative; while meeting your neighbors in the local coffee shop and starting to discuss a community problem; or while learning a new skill from an acquaintance – be it a new butter-cream frosting recipe or a particularly trenchant reading of Kropotkin. Solidarity is all about our relationships to others – recognizing lines of cooperation with people with share our values or people who have been historically oppressed, recognizing ourselves as members of a community or as parts of an ecosystem. Moreover, the solidarity economy has the ability to form new relationships. Marcos Arruda, in an article entitled “Solidarity Economy and the Rebirth of a Matristic Human Society”, describes the solidarity economy with a more specific reference to relationships and to values, saying:

“It is economic activity organized for safe and sustainable individual and collective self-development, which implies the shared satisfaction of needs and wants and the co-management of the houses people share in common – the home, the community, the district, the county, the ecosystem, the country, the planet. It is an ethical, reciprocal and cooperative way of consuming, producing, financing, exchanging, communicating, educating, developing which fosters a new way of thinking and living.”

That last phrase is particularly ringing, and explicitly calls to the transformational potential of living our values in community and in solidarity. In Arruda’s mind, the solidarity economy is not merely and strictly an “economic” practice.  In my own mind, this can be roughly translated to “living ethically”. While the solidarity economy may not tell us how to do this, it calls our attention to the many economic, social, and political experiments in this type of living, from participatory budgeting, to voluntary down-shifting, to barter clubs, to intentional communities for adopted children and their families. The solidarity economy also calls on us to unite these experiments, to learn from each other, to develop collective power, to make each of these experiments more transformative, and to be members in a more transformative society.

Now, if I could just get all of this down to a paragraph, I could have a ready answer to anyone who asked me about me job…I’ll work on it.

 

Jenna Allard August 8, 2007 at 1:04 pm