Social Labour and Democratic Capital: The Margins or The Mainstream?

Suddenly, everyone is taking an interest in the ‘third sector,’ the social economy, the not-for-profit sector. The IMF looks to it for shock absorption as the tremors of its structural adjustment programmes rip through the social fabrics of North and South; neo-liberal governments use it to provide the services in which the ‘for profit’ sector has little interest and for which the state itself claims to have insufficient resources; Conservatives and Christian Democrats give an astringent sort of support to workers co-operatives on the grounds that through them workers will learn the real costs of running a company and moderate their wage demands as a consequence. Social democratic governments seeking to protect their citizens - and their own political position - against deregulated international markets see it as an ally in achieving social cohesion; and greens and libertarian socialists see it as a space for at best, feasible Utopias and at the minimum, a dignified strategy for collective survival.