The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is the only existing economic system whose internal logic concretely prefigures a shift from capital-centred to human-rights-centred economic activity, yet its transformative potential is persistently blunted by public neglect, by the massive subsidisation of for-profit competitors, and by the recurring risk of being treated as a mere palliative for the capitalist organization of the economy. Historically, the integration of cooperative and mutual enterprises into competitive markets has produced institutional isomorphism and commodification, while the late-20th-century wave of citizen-led solidarity initiatives — community services in the Global North and the popular economy in the Global South — repoliticised the SSE around participatory democracy, care ethics, gender equality, and ecological transition.
The policy proposes an institutional ecosystem built on four interdependent pillars. First, the decommodification of “well-being” activities: prohibiting profit-seeking enterprises from operating in highly relational sectors (care and support to older persons, support to persons with disabilities, early childhood, health, social services) where shareholder-return imperatives are structurally incompatible with human rights, and treating public services and SSE providers as two complementary, quality-oriented pillars of provision — as Quebec’s co-constructed subsidised early-childhood system illustrates. Second, the recognition of the right to initiative: removing administrative and capital barriers to grassroots organising, funding the intangible investments that determine SSE viability, and legally recognising social innovation as a collective public responsibility on a par with technological innovation, with public research budgets directed accordingly. Third, strengthening existing SSE structures, taking into account national circumstances through tools and training grounded in social-purpose rather than capitalist management frameworks, the construction of territorial synergies and regional SSE “districts”, as well as regional development funds pooling savings, corporate contributions, and public resources under multi-year agreements. Finally, the co-construction of public action: designing SSE policy not top-down but through structured, sequenced, and formatively evaluated partnerships between public authorities, SSE networks, and civil society — as pioneered by Brazil’s National Forum for the Solidarity Economy and France’s Rtes network, where researcher-mediators bridged institutional and civic boundaries. The main risks to guard against are instrumentalisation — reducing the SSE to a “sub-economy for the poor” channelling people back into precarious wage labour — and technocratisation through the “social business” paradigm, which absorbs SSE vocabulary while subordinating solidarity initiatives to neo-philanthropic managerialism, corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks, and social-impact bonds. Implementation is best anchored at the meso level of regions and sectors, consolidated through local policy in the short term and underpinned by national legislation and budgets over time; the framework is relevant across income contexts, provided institutional designs are adapted to local conditions rather than transplanted wholesale.
