As the US faces historic cuts to the social safety net, local economic alternatives can meet basic needs and provide opportunities to organize for a better future.
This article was originally published on Waging Nonviolence.
As people across the United States face massive cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other vital programs, many are asking: What happens when the systems we rely on fail us? And what happens when our communities are torn apart by toxic inequality, political fragmentation and declining social trust?
The solution may lie in something that humans have been doing throughout our existence: taking care of each other, often without realizing it. Today that’s what some of us call the “solidarity economy.”
I first heard the term in late 2008, and I wasn’t impressed. I believe the term I used might have been something like “boutique-y.”
Those were different times. After the George W. Bush era ended, the idea of painstakingly building positive local economic alternatives to exploitative systems seemed far less promising than the direct route of pushing for massive changes in public policies.
It seemed to me then that windows to achieve major changes were about to open. My heart was set on reforming labor laws to make union organizing easier, approaching universal health care, domestic spending to counter the Great Recession and climate action.
Some of those opportunities were squandered, but it wasn’t all a waste. There were gains in health care, stimulus spending and child nutrition. And a lot of things didn’t get much worse for a while. But those same windows to affect positive policy change tend to be shut more often than open.
Beyond the rock
As we’re seeing today, the gains of the past can be undone. I am often reminded of Sisyphus and his rock. Over time, I’ve come to realize that while policy struggles and resistance are more necessary than ever, repeatedly rolling the rock up the hill only to see it roll down aren’t the only options. Positive alternatives to the dominant system that help people meet basic needs and relate to each other in new ways started making a lot more sense.
The New Economy Coalition defines the solidarity economy as “a global movement to build a just and sustainable economy where we prioritize people and the planet over endless profit and growth.”
According to the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, which emerged out of the 2007 U.S. Social Forum, the principles of this new economy include: solidarity, cooperation and mutualism, equity in all dimensions, participatory democracy, sustainability and pluralism.
Examples include Indigenous approaches to survival and sustainability, cooperatives, community