How do social movements come to make the language of economic systems change their own? Building a more just and democratic economic system requires that people understand the problems of the current economic structure, propose democratic alternatives, and organize to make those ideas a reality. As has been noted by NPQ, “The struggle for a solidarity economy is a practical one, and there is no path forward without social movement.”1  

In short, we need “movement economies”—that is, democratic economic structures that social movements understand to be in their interests and worth fighting for. 

Conversations about economic justice often offer frameworks for pursuing the democratic allocation of resources in a participatory manner, such as the idea of a solidarity economy.2  Theory—the what—is important; but the ways in which such frameworks connect with the larger social forces that drive them—the how and the who—are necessary to achieve those gains.

We know there’s a deep hunger in movements for an economy that people collectively own and democratically manage. Increasingly, the old stories of a happy capitalist economy simply do not hold water, particularly with younger people, many of whom are saddled with student debt and see diminished economic prospects. As Belén Marco and Tori Kuper of the New Economy Coalition recently noted, “Disillusionment with capitalism is so ubiquitous it’s trending on TikTok.”3 And there is a virtual cottage industry of books coming out that critique capitalism and the core social myths that uphold our current economy.4

We see, too, movement energy in the organizing at Amazon, at the over 200 Starbucks branches that have unionized, in the new vigor behind the pursuit of worker cooperatives and community land trusts.5 But we would not be writing about movement economies if there were not still a large gap between social movements and efforts to develop a solidarity economy.

Read the full article about movement economies by Steve Dubb and Rithika Ramamurthy at Nonprofit Quarterly.