Thanks for prompting more good thinking—this time about municipalism in contrast to solidarity economy (SE) projects.
As you know better than I do, municipalism works within existing political structures—city councils, local governments, public budgets—with the aim of decentralizing and democratizing power. Because it operates through institutions already in place, it tends to be seen as more realistic when it comes to policy implementation, voter engagement, and electoral traction. A leading example is Spain's Barcelona en Comú , the citizen platform.
SE projects, by contrast, often seek to bypass market capitalism altogether and slight political investment, building cooperative, commons-based, and non-exploitative systems. While many of these thrive at the local level, they face serious challenges when scaling up or integrating with dominant economic systems. That’s why SE can strike some policymakers—and politically engaged citizens like me—as more idealistic than feasible--granted the slow success of municipalism as well.
I'm just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if SE activists are “thinking big enough” in terms of political reality, not just the scale of their projects. Maybe the missing infrastructure isn’t just financial—it’s political. Legitimacy, influence, and even the dream of creating something like a “national air freight cooperative” with its own airports would depend on that political scaffolding.
I appreciate how seriously you engage these issues. Thanks again.
Spitballing, admittedly, and speaking from where much of my life’s work has been, in the alternative credit space that became that of so-called community development financial institutions (CDFIs) that before long had its own division at Treasury. In other words, lost its edge pretty quick.
Nonetheless, I am still always compelled by the notion of a fund with specific expertise. The national co-op bank (NCB) got funded with pretty lofty ideas before it ended up funding mostly “safe“ co-ops, but there might be something there. It might at least give the MacArthur’s of the world an SE platform in which to invest…
You propose that SE enterprises associate to create business plans that would attract larger gifts--gifts that currently don't reach SE enterprises because of the individual projects' small scale. Of course, such business plans would require the SE enterprises to associate (federate?) in ways that would assure the grantors that the money will be used well and properly accounted for. These exercises would cause the SE enterprises, I guess, to find not only common ground but complementary skills, products, and locations. Discussions among enterprises would involve how to stay true to their values and their people while coordinating their work among the enterprises in question. I wonder if "worker co-ops, land trusts, CSAs and peoples’ assemblies" could in some cases work outside of their forms. That is, could land trusts work with peoples' assemblies to propose a solution to a critical problem? I'm weak on the enterprise side of associations, but your proposal fascinates me. It seems like it could challenge SE enterprises to see their work as part of larger SE federations of enterprises.
I'm channeling some research we did on solidaristic associations and networks in Europe and elsewhere. It's the thickness of these ecosystems that help enterprises which have smaller profit margins and social purposes stay in business--harder to do in the U.S., as we know, because we don't create similar ecosystems (yet).
I would recommend looking at the Mondragon Corporationin Spain as the scalable cooperative model. There's also the text by Common Trust / Purpose (https://www.assetsincommon.org/) that offer options for shared infrastructure across solidarity models as an organizing mechanism for identifying and going after shared service needs.
The citizens assembly idea is interesting. It reminds me of some of the design of community development block grants. Perhaps there is a way to productively channel the Trump administrations dismantling of the federal bureaucracy info a more participatory yet economically oriented approach to investing in solidarity economy enterprises.
Thanks for this nudge! Absolutely perfect timing as I and many others in the U.S. wrestle with the challenge of building alternative support systems for food and agriculture ecosystems based on a solidarity economy, not a co-opted federal government...
So appreciate this. I'm a big believer in the power of starting small, and building trust and learnings along the way.
Thanks for prompting more good thinking—this time about municipalism in contrast to solidarity economy (SE) projects.
As you know better than I do, municipalism works within existing political structures—city councils, local governments, public budgets—with the aim of decentralizing and democratizing power. Because it operates through institutions already in place, it tends to be seen as more realistic when it comes to policy implementation, voter engagement, and electoral traction. A leading example is Spain's Barcelona en Comú , the citizen platform.
SE projects, by contrast, often seek to bypass market capitalism altogether and slight political investment, building cooperative, commons-based, and non-exploitative systems. While many of these thrive at the local level, they face serious challenges when scaling up or integrating with dominant economic systems. That’s why SE can strike some policymakers—and politically engaged citizens like me—as more idealistic than feasible--granted the slow success of municipalism as well.
I'm just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if SE activists are “thinking big enough” in terms of political reality, not just the scale of their projects. Maybe the missing infrastructure isn’t just financial—it’s political. Legitimacy, influence, and even the dream of creating something like a “national air freight cooperative” with its own airports would depend on that political scaffolding.
I appreciate how seriously you engage these issues. Thanks again.
Great piece to get us thinking, Elias. Thank you.
Spitballing, admittedly, and speaking from where much of my life’s work has been, in the alternative credit space that became that of so-called community development financial institutions (CDFIs) that before long had its own division at Treasury. In other words, lost its edge pretty quick.
Nonetheless, I am still always compelled by the notion of a fund with specific expertise. The national co-op bank (NCB) got funded with pretty lofty ideas before it ended up funding mostly “safe“ co-ops, but there might be something there. It might at least give the MacArthur’s of the world an SE platform in which to invest…
Good thought on the NCB--gracias!
You propose that SE enterprises associate to create business plans that would attract larger gifts--gifts that currently don't reach SE enterprises because of the individual projects' small scale. Of course, such business plans would require the SE enterprises to associate (federate?) in ways that would assure the grantors that the money will be used well and properly accounted for. These exercises would cause the SE enterprises, I guess, to find not only common ground but complementary skills, products, and locations. Discussions among enterprises would involve how to stay true to their values and their people while coordinating their work among the enterprises in question. I wonder if "worker co-ops, land trusts, CSAs and peoples’ assemblies" could in some cases work outside of their forms. That is, could land trusts work with peoples' assemblies to propose a solution to a critical problem? I'm weak on the enterprise side of associations, but your proposal fascinates me. It seems like it could challenge SE enterprises to see their work as part of larger SE federations of enterprises.
I'm channeling some research we did on solidaristic associations and networks in Europe and elsewhere. It's the thickness of these ecosystems that help enterprises which have smaller profit margins and social purposes stay in business--harder to do in the U.S., as we know, because we don't create similar ecosystems (yet).
I would recommend looking at the Mondragon Corporationin Spain as the scalable cooperative model. There's also the text by Common Trust / Purpose (https://www.assetsincommon.org/) that offer options for shared infrastructure across solidarity models as an organizing mechanism for identifying and going after shared service needs.
The citizens assembly idea is interesting. It reminds me of some of the design of community development block grants. Perhaps there is a way to productively channel the Trump administrations dismantling of the federal bureaucracy info a more participatory yet economically oriented approach to investing in solidarity economy enterprises.
Thanks for this nudge! Absolutely perfect timing as I and many others in the U.S. wrestle with the challenge of building alternative support systems for food and agriculture ecosystems based on a solidarity economy, not a co-opted federal government...