The foundational economy approach: a public social science of socio-economic life

The foundational economy approach is an innovative perspective on economic life. It claims that a very large part of citizens’ well-being depends on collectively provided, high-quality, affordable basic goods and services. Over the last three decades private investment has been rationed by extractive and short-term private business, and public investment in the foundational domain has progressively shrunk. It is now necessary to rethink the organisation and operating rules of foundational provision. This chapter highlights the distinctive framing that establishes the claim of foundational economy as a public social science: this approach brings into play multiple forms of knowledge; it combines analytical capacity with a pluralist, non-ideological normativity; it insists on the importance of re-politicizing everyday life; it develops a work of cultural mediation; it understands the public as a process and adopts an experimental and open approach, best-suited for the construction of alliances for knowledge exchange and political action.