Thinking about alternative economies I typically come across, e.g., community economies, household economies, islamic banking – they all somehow challenge existing capitalism. Do you know other examples or have other readings of the concept of alternative economies?
Perhaps there is something of interest to you in this forthcoming book. http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138000773/
We have some experiences in Brasil called "local currency" which are trials of developing money circulation - and thus economic activity - in places where the private bank system (or even the public one) has no interest to operate. They have been good experiences, quite in line with the community economy you pointed out (solidarity economy). Other one is the "collaborative consumption" or the "collaborative economy" which is growing fast pushed by the internet. If you search for this key-words you can fins good material, academic ones as well as non-academic. However, I don't think that these experiences are challenging existing capitalism but "refurnishing" it.
Fabian, are you looking for alternatives TO capitalism, or alternative FORMS OF capitalism - because I think Fabio is correct; most so-called "alternative" economic relationships, e.g. Islamic banking or collaborative consumption, are but marginal modifications of capitalist social relationships. The very concepts of economy and economics, as notions of overall social organization - as opposed to Aristotle's preoccupation with the household - and the study of it, were born within capitalism - starting with the mercantilists. Alternatives TO capitalism, therefore, are best conceived and executed outside and beyond such concepts. At this point in history you will only find small-scale survivals - among isolated indigenous peoples - or experiments - such as the one being carried out by the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Somewhat akin to the book Kristofer recommended is LIFE WITHOUT MONEY, although it still frames the issue in terms of alternative economies. Polanyi, as well as Marx, is useful in escaping the lens of economy/economics.
Thanks for these first replies!
I am looking forward to the book recommended by Kristofer.
Referring to Harry's last point in connection with Fabio's examples: Would you say that capitalism = economy/economics? Is it a specific way of doing economy (well, of course) and is it at the same time a way of understanding it?
I thought of alternative economies as different forms of practices that do not follow concepts such as capitalism, communism or alike, but still lead to "tangible" results one might consider being economic (what ever exactly that is).
So in the end I am trying to find alternatives TO capitalism that still are within the boundaries of "western" societies (whatever this is exactly, not indigenous maybe) that might somehow contrast the mainstream economic system (capitalism/(neo)liberalism/market or communism/socialism); alternatives in the knowledge of capitalism.
Fabian, What I'm saying is that the concept of "the economy" and its study, first called "political economy" and then later "economics" are phenomena of capitalism. Once upon a time, during the period in which folks like Adam Smith did "political economy" their conceptual framework focused on the production and distribution of wealth, thus Smith called his major work "The Wealth of Nations". Later, the term "political economy" was abandoned by stripping out the "political" and reconceptualizing the analysis of the economy in terms of choice, i.e., "economics" was defined as the study of choices made in the presence of scarcity. At first, the focus of this new "science" (The French call economics "la science economique" and Paul Samuelson, the famous Nobel Prize winning economist whose introductory text book became the template for all those that have followed, called economics the "Queen" of the social sciences.) was choices made by consumers and firms, which was, at first, called "price theory" and nowadays is called "microeconomics", with some room left for what we now call "macro" concerns, e.g., aggregate economic phenomena. Since Keynes, that part blossomed into "macroeconomics", on par with microeconomics - although neoliberal types think all macro is really micro, i.e., market driven. But then they worship (and make a fetish out of) "the market"..... Here's the thing: whether you do political economy or economics you are accepting the concept of "the economy" - a concept that only makes sense within capitalism. Why does it only make sense in capitalism? Because only in capitalism is the incredible diversity of human activity and its equally diverse results thought of in such reductive terms as "production", "wealth", "labor", "capital", and measured systematically in terms of exchange value, i.e., money. Marx shows how such reductionism rationalizes exploitation and results in alienation. Polanyi shows - by looking at non-capitalist (mostly earlier) societies - how such concepts and their application are unique to capitalism. In his terms, in capitalism market relations of exchange - which were once quite limited and marginal to every social order - became "disembedded" from the social fabric and became the template for a new fabric, i.e., capitalism.
So, one can try to "go beyond" capitalism by reweaving social relationships (to retain the metaphor) in non-reductive ways, where there are myriad activities with myriad results but no aggregation through the application of one unique measure (be it labor time, or money). Polanyi, and the study of (structuralist) anthropology and history more generally is helpful because they reveal a wide variety of social relations very different from capitalism. Most folks find it hard to imagine worlds without all the familiar reductions of activity to "production" or "consumption" or "choice", without monetary measures of value but with many, often competing measures of value. Just how hard it is to escape can be seen in the work of Pierre Bourdieu who strives mightily to recast thinking about social relations but winds up still employing such capitalist concepts as "profit" and "capital." Marx, himself, because he eschewed utopian speculation could only, for the most part, offer critiques of capitalism but no new vocabulary for a post-capitalist society (beyond the one totally under-defined name of "communism" - not to be confused with 20th Century "socialism" or "communism", Soviet-style).
None of which means we can't find examples of non-capitalist social relationships existing in the interstices of contemporary society, on small or large scale. Some Marxists have contributed a bit to identifying such constructions - especially those I call "autonomist" Marxists, which includes an array of folks - but so have deep ecologists who have sought out alternative non-capitalist relationships between humans and the rest of nature and these days those who are busy not just identifying but building "commons", call them "commoners" who are experimenting with various forms of "commoning". That's why I mentioned the Zapatistas who have been building their "commons" in imaginative ways despite the ever present pressure of surrounding capitalism with its economists, police, military and paramilitary goons. They emphasize their indigenous Mayan cultures but they have been and still are very much part of Mexican history that includes the 500-year imposition of various aspects of Western culture and "economic" relationships. As a result, they, just like many others, strive to create something new while freeing themselves of existing constraints imposed by capitalist society.
Because it thrives on debt, the present economic system, capitalism, can only be sustained through growth. In the impossibility to maintain infinite growth, because the planet and its resources are limited, the system will eventually crash in its whole. In order to limit the chaos such a collapse will cause (money made obsolete and food only available to those who produce it), it is imperative to start establishing parallel economies, based on sustainability. I believe the economy of the (near) future will be a sustainable communism.
Interesting discussion! I am writing a theoretical review on the alternative/diverse economy (theories, movements, and activities). So far, I have found these theories/movements: commons, community economy, solidarity economy, anarchist economics, and the social economy. I am now trying to figure out how these theories/movements are related to one another. I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
The alternative economy is developing among other activities, around eco-design, bio-construction and sustainable urbanism, affordable and renewable energy, food sovereignty, Smart cities, personal well-being, sustainable fashion, or the creation of spaces for exchange and local consumption and production.
Thus we have, among others: the blue economy (Pauli, 2011), the orange economy (Buitrago and Duque, 2013), the green economy (Pearce et al., 1989), the economy of the common good (Felber, 2013), the collaborative economy (Ray, 2007), the solidarity economy (Singler, 2002; Mance, 1999), the circular economy (Pearce and Turner, 1990), the Economy of happiness (Easterlin, 1974) emerging indigenous economy (Inter-American Institute of Human Rights, 2007), ecological economy (Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Herman E. Daly, Kenneth Boulding, Karl W. Kapp, Robert Ayres), environmental economics (Hartwick, 1977; Solow, 1986), and the economics of Natural Resources.
Paul: Digital currency (i.e. cryptocurrency) might be part of an alternate economy.
One estimate says there is over $84 Trillion in the digital currency market.
Could also give a look at Mary Njeri Kinyanjui's new book: African Markets and the Utu-Ubuntu Business Model (2019). Non-west forms of economic exchange tend to be marginalized in academic research.
The following materials can be useful in this discussion. The materials give some insight into the ideas of the diverse economies, the Social Economy, the Black Social Economy, community economies, commons, Social and Solidarity Economy, :
Hossein, C. S. (Ed.). (2018). The Black Social Economy in the Americas: Exploring Diverse Community-Based Markets. Springer.
Gibson-Graham, J. K. (1996). The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2006). A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gibson-Graham, J. K., Cameron, J., & Healy, S. (2013). Take back the economy: An ethical guide for transforming our communities. University of Minnesota Press.
Amin, A. (2009). The Social Economy: International Perspectives on Economic Solidarity. London: Zed Books.
Amin, A., Cameron, A., & Hudson, R. (2002). Placing the social economy. Routledge.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.
ILO. (2019). Social and Solidarity Economy. Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/cooperatives/projects/WCMS_546299/lang--en/index.htm
"Èconomie renversée" (economy reversed), Pierre Bourdieu's conceptualisation of non-economic economic worlds. With best
I have been interested in three alternative economic theories that can mitigate the negative effects of capitalism. For some interesting reading see: (1) ecological economics (see Capra (Sept. 11, 2017). A conceptual framework for ecological economics based on systemic principles of life. International Journal of Social Economics 44(6), 831-844). (2) Sharing economies (see Orsi, J. (2012). Practicing law in the sharng economy: Helping people build cooperatives, social interprice, and local sustainable economies. American Bar Association); and (3) Sacred Economics (see Eisenstein, C. 2012/(2019). Sacred Economics: Money, gift, and society in the age of transformation. North Atlantic Books.
Think alternative economy is a transfer capitalist attitude (materiel centric) toward humanism. capitalist mindset has changed of economic actors, as a consumer, labour, entrepreneurship, as well as social, political institutions. This term assumes that all humans are moral and do not harm others as humans, animals and nature, states and other institutions behave the same toward any socio-economic and political problems. people’s co-operatives, organisation based decentralised economic activities create more.
In the case of finance, informal financial institutions such as Rotating Saving and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) can be excellent examples. Here is a short documentary about ROSCAs by Prof. CAROLINE SHENAZ HOSSEIN: https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-banker-ladies/