Social and Solidarity Economy

The Social and Solidarity Economy is made up of networks of businesses and civil and consumer organizations that share criteria for production and consumption that are alternative to those promoted by the neoliberal capitalist system. So, speaking about the growth of a solidarity economy is to speak, first and foremost, of inter-cooperation, a concept that is inscribed in the very name of the Red de Redes de la Economía Alternativa y Solidaria (REAS) (Network of Alternative and Solidarity Economy Networks).

The Social and Solidarity Economy shares ethical, democratic, environmental, and solidarity criteria in every territory in which it’s active, intending to meet a significant part of the needs of its participants, especially those of consumers, and disconnect the solidarity economy from the capitalist economy. Therefore, each entity that makes up the network offers different products or services (in diverse sectors such as food production, mobility, education, banking, and communication), which all move towards the same goal- the transformation of the model of production and consumption.

by Isidro Jiménez Gómez

Alternative Meanings:

Social and Solidarity Economy
It is a type of economic entrepreneurship because in reality most of the social and solidarity economy projects are enterprises of a small group of people, in many cases with the legal form of the cooperative or simply speaking about it, but that is not so usual, even of autonomous people who decide to start a business under certain criteria, environmental, social, and ethical. The RRCC of the big companies say that what the telephone does is wonderful, but the problem is that there is no system or network that has the criteria in place as we do. That is to say, the social and solidarity economy allows all the entities there to be discussed because the criteria are created between everyone. The interesting thing is that you don’t create a thing. You can say you are very responsible with the environment but the network is the one that says if you are really responsible socially and environmentally. In Madrid now, there are hundreds of social and solidarity economy entities. We share practically the same environmental, social and other criteria. If you want to participate in that network, you have to pass a personal interview and show that you meet that criteria… If you want to participate in this network you have to undergo a personal interview and you have to meet those criteria, and in addition they’ll be analyzining you yearly. You have to fill out your social balance in which they ask you specific questions to find out- how many kilowatts you use a year? what challenge has this environmental year posed to you? The network itself exercises the controlling force over the entities that are within it and, in fact, if you do things that are obviously outside of the scope of the social and solidarity economy it’s the network itself that is watching over and can say to you, “we’re seeing that you aren’t meeting the criteria that you said you would meet in order to form a part of this network. That’s what’s interesting to me. It’s the network that really exercises...