Article by Bérénice Dondeyne, Co-Chair MES Occitanie
The Mouvement pour l’Economie Solidaire is part of the Republic of SSE, following the tribune written by Jérôme Saddier, President of ESS France in May 2020. Appealing to all those who make the social and solidarity economy “so that the post-covid days will be happy days! “, the Republic of SSE will continue until 2021. The objective is to “build a collective dynamic of citizens involved in the SSE around the construction of a political project with a common vision of the World”. “This approach will be concretised by the writing of a new political declaration in December 2021, during a gathering Congress.
The Mouvement pour l’Economie solidaire participates in the common elaboration by orienting its commitment for “a Republic of the SSE” towards economic democracy through proposals, agoras and meetings. This must be seen as an ethic of citizenship and a reflective and collective practice, in an absolutely inclusive way.
Faced with the challenges of economic, environmental and social transition, there can be no under-citizenship or second-class citizenship, while experts, influencers and decision-makers would give the way forward. What link do we make between living in precarious conditions and being a citizen? Doesn’t entering precariousness also mean resigning or being removed from citizenship? How, in spite of ourselves, do we, SSE actors, stakeholders, solidarity entrepreneurs participate in this invisibility? SSE must also change its postures and renew its practices. The guarantee of the dignity of persons and fundamental human rights deserve in the 21st century a re-examination of democratic practices and a “step aside”, as much on the side of the actors of the Social and Solidarity Economy as on the side of public policies and institutional actors.
Our movement wishes to be able to highlight new democratic practices within SSE, valuing the “doing with”, bottom-up or horizontal decision-making systems, especially in the field of popular education, social intervention and ecological and economic transitions. These questioning of the vision of the system aims to respond to current problems; can we seriously and authentically, through initiatives linked to the Social and Solidarity Economy, propose solutions to the growing challenge of current and future precariousness? If so, then the SSE must in the future be a solidarity and popular economy, appropriated by all, as an economic model in its own right.
Read the rest of the article here (in French).
