Solidarity economy
Solidarity economy is an approach to economic life that prioritizes people, community, democracy, and ecological wellbeing over profit maximization.
What solidarity economy means
Solidarity economy is a broad way of organizing production, exchange, care, finance, and consumption around cooperation and social purpose. It includes organizations and practices that put people, democratic participation, community benefit, and ecological responsibility ahead of simply maximizing returns to capital. The phrase often appears as social and solidarity economy, or SSE. The social economy side emphasizes established organizations such as cooperatives, mutual societies, associations, foundations, and social enterprises. The solidarity side also includes grassroots, community, and movement practices that may be informal or locally rooted.
How it differs from ordinary markets
Ordinary markets can coordinate useful exchange, but they often treat profit, growth, and competition as primary goals. Solidarity economy asks different questions: Who controls the organization? Who benefits from the surplus? Are workers, users, and communities represented? Does the activity strengthen local life or extract value from it? A solidarity-economy project may still sell goods or services. The difference is that trading is governed by social purpose, democratic accountability, mutual support, and limits on profit extraction.
Typical institutions
Solidarity economy can include worker cooperatives, consumer co-ops, credit unions, community land trusts, mutual-aid networks, fair-trade organizations, local currencies, time banks, social enterprises, repair networks, community-supported agriculture, and nonprofit associations with earned-revenue activity. Not every organization in these categories automatically practices solidarity economy well. Governance, mission, inclusion, labor conditions, and use of surplus matter more than labels.
Values and principles
Common principles include cooperation, democracy, equity, social justice, mutual support, environmental sustainability, local rootedness, and respect for human dignity. These values can show up in different ways: one member, one vote; reinvested surplus; fair wages; participatory planning; community ownership; or commitments to racial, gender, and ecological justice. Because the field is diverse, there is no single template. Solidarity economy is better understood as a family of practices held together by shared values.
Where the idea grew
The term has roots in multiple traditions, including cooperative movements, labor organizing, mutual aid, community development, feminist economics, Indigenous economies, and Latin American movements responding to inequality and crisis. It became more visible globally through networks such as RIPESS and through policy work by the ILO, OECD, United Nations, and regional governments. In April 2023, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution promoting the social and solidarity economy for sustainable development. That gave the field stronger international recognition.
Why communities use it
Communities often turn to solidarity-economy tools when ordinary markets or public systems fail to meet needs. A cooperative may preserve a grocery store, a credit union may expand access to finance, a land trust may protect affordability, and a mutual-aid network may move resources quickly during a crisis. The goal is not only service delivery. It is also building capacity: people learn to govern shared resources, keep value circulating locally, and create institutions that are accountable to the people they affect.
Challenges
Solidarity economy faces real tensions. Small organizations may struggle with funding, regulation, professional capacity, burnout, and competition from larger firms. Informal groups may be flexible but fragile. Democratic governance can be empowering, but it can also be slow or dominated by people with more time, education, or social power. The field also has a measurement problem. GDP, revenue, and job counts do not fully capture trust, care, empowerment, resilience, or community control. But without evidence, it is harder to win policy support and resources.
Why it matters
Solidarity economy matters because it gives language to economic practices that already exist outside the simple categories of state, market, and charity. It connects co-ops, social enterprises, local currencies, mutual aid, and community ownership as parts of a wider people-first economy. Its promise is practical as much as idealistic: build institutions that let communities meet needs, share power, and keep social and ecological goals at the center of economic life.