The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is an innovative economy anchored to the territory, which generates co-production of knowledge, goods and social services on the basis of cooperation (rather than competition) between different actors and sectors.
The social and solidarity economy is a broad concept used to indicate organizations and businesses working in the field of the social economy and solidarity, in particular cooperatives, mutual organisations, associations, foundations, social enterprises and non-profit enterprises, all of which have the specific characteristic of producing goods, services and knowledge while pursuing both economic and social goals and working towards the goal to promote solidarity.
The global economic and political instability has served to underline the shortcomings of our current development system and further confirm the necessity for an alternate or complementary development paradigm.
The Social and Solidarity Economy is a viable solution to re-balancing economic, social and environmental objectives. It proposes a system that is not only economic, but also socio-political and cultural, basing life-sustaining processes at the centre of socio-economic activity, placing people, communities and the environment above capital and its accumulation, and rejecting relations of inequality and exclusion based on gender, sexual orientation and identity, age or origin through values related, among others, to cooperation, reciprocity, self-management and solidarity.
Who are the subjects of the social economy?
These economic subjects are: families; businesses; the public operator; the banks; foreign operators. Families mainly tend to consume resources to satisfy their needs and therefore the main object of their spending decisions are consumer goods.
Example of Social and solidarity Economy
- Vio.Me (Tessaloniki – Greece) – https://geo.coop/articles/workers-self-management-viome
- Mescladís (Barcelona – Spain) – https://www.mescladis.org/
- Ecos grup cooperatiu (Barcelona – Spain) – https://grupecos.coop/
- European Village (Athens – Greece) – https://www.facebook.com/Kafeneio.Ak.Platona
- Botteghe delle Terre del Sole (Reggio Calabria – Italy) – http://www.consorziomacrame.it/le-botteghe/
Referencies