The solidarity economy: an alternative development strategy?

Abstract

Although it no longer seems unanimous, the “Washington Consensus” concerns the implementation of poverty reduction programmes under the aegis of international financial institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, etc.). Now these development programmes are above all aimed at sustainable growth, which is the liberal version of the concept of “sustainable development”. But this “pro-poor growth” is essentially aimed at pursuing the globalisation of the economy. This is the sort of globalisation that many people oppose precisely in the interests of sustainable development and a humanism that regards degrading levels of poverty as intolerable. “We can no longer ignore the phenomenon of economic globalisation . . . Faced with the deterritorialisation of certain sectors of an economy which in some cases is losing its human scale, the solidarity economy forms part of a project: to put the human being back at the centre of the economy”. These remarks by Luxembourg’s economy minister Jeannot Krecke indicate that globalisation has yet to extinguish the utopian dream of a humanist universality. Having conquered the political sphere, democracy needs to be extended to the very heart of the economic sphere. Similarly, it seems only logical that a plural world requires a plural economy (Laville and Cattani 2005). The important UNESCO text on the preservation of cultural diversity is unlikely to have much impact if the same utilitarian vision of development is imposed across the board. A more democratic world entails the democratisation of the economy. These are the two key points of this article, which takes the form of three complementary sections. The first describes the international reality of the solidarity economy. The second moves into theory and attempts to rise above the disciplinary frameworks that separate the economic and the political in order to suggest a new definition of the economy which grasps the specificity of the solidarity economy. The third, pragmatic, section suggests approaches to the creation of an alternative vision of sustainable development for both North and South.