The solidarity economy centers people, especially poor and working class workers and people of color, and a liveable planet, over profit. Solidarity economies focus on democratic, collective ownership and community control of the systems that distribute what human beings need in order to live with dignity, and what the planet needs in order to thrive.
One way to think about the solidarity economy is in contrast to our current economic system, which is organized around creating the maximum amount of profit for owners, bosses, and institutions, no matter the cost to workers or the planet. This economic system goes beyond dollars and affects almost every aspect of our lives – the types of food we can access and afford, where we can live, the kinds of work we are able to do, how safe and connected we feel to our fellow workers and our communities, to how we feel about what’s possible for the future.
To shift away from this kind of economy, we have to create ways to work differently together, ones that focus on cooperation rather than competition or profit. The solidarity economy is both about creating institutions that run differently and ways of relating to each other that are based in cooperation and care.
Foundational pieces of the solidarity economy include cooperative businesses owned by workers or the community, limited equity housing cooperatives, community land trusts, mutual aid groups, credit unions, public banks, solidarity loan funds and other institutions through which we can collectively own and control land, money and our labor.
The concept and practice of the solidarity economy started with social movements in Latin America, and in the past few decades has grown into a global movement of communities practicing alternatives to capitalism. In DC, Maryland and Virginia, Beloved Community Incubator is working to build a regional solidarity economy, where worker owned cooperatives, mutual aid projects, housing cooperatives and other community owned projects work together to build local alternatives to capitalism rooted in care and cooperation.