Vers un nouveau paradigme ancré dans les pratiques d'économie solidaire : le délibéralisme

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes that business-as-usual is no longer an option. Today numerous academics are investigating as well as pursuing new research approaches. Our research in this field is summed up in our 2017 work about the principles of Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) originally published under the French title of Principes d'Économie Solidaire. The conclusion of our book was that a radical change of the current representation of economy was a prerequisite if a way out of the present conceptual impasse was to be explored. Contrary to orthodox liberal views, our approach to economy – for which we coined the new deliberalism term – is radically different. It stems from what we hold as a basic principle: the best way to allocate resources in a democratic society will not rely on the 'Invisible Hand' purported to govern markets but rather on a deliberative consensus reached by all parties concerned. This conclusion results from the study of the experiments of the SSE sector. For us SSE comprises four characteristics: - The need for active political and militant action in favour of worldwide solidarity as opposed to aimless globalisation of the economy (Utting, 2017; Kawano, 2012). - A host of economic activities revitalising local areas free from the constraints of demand-and-offer mechanisms and monetary speculation (Laville, 2010; Monzón and Chaves, 2017). - A global project for society as far as the field of economy is concerned: a hopeinspiring utopia in search of a fairer society with a view to broadening democracy and endowing it with more substance. - A new theoretical template in today’s fast developing knowledge-society assuming that the best available way of redistributing resources does not rely on markets but on deliberation.