Social and solidarity economy and self-management
Social and solidarity-oriented and self-governed processes of organizing economic life have existed since humans have collaborated to survive. However, the conscious demand and conceptual realization of the social aspects of the economy only arose in Western thought with the emergence of a primarily market-based exploitative economy and the enclosed commons, forcing working people into capitalism’s system of production and exchange (McMurtry, 2010; Polanyi, 2001 [1944]).