Solidarity economy and social technology: concrete and convergent utopias

Abstract

Studies on Social Economy (SE) rarely address technological issues. The Science-Technology-Society approach, however, leads to a critical analysis of the capitalist technoscience and its relation to social exclusion, work and social transformation. To understand and to prescribe on these issues, the key-concept of social technology (ST) was created. This article considers that a crucial approach to ensure the sustainability of SE is to criticize and correlate the technoscientifi c, sociotechnical, political and policy aspects associated to SE and ST. Its central argument is that the movements of social economy and social technology have convergent and concrete utopias. Authors who stressed the importance of utopian thought for the movements that aim to transform society are reviewed; then the convergences between the two movements in terms of their context, practices and motivations are pointed out. The article concludes by identifying four concrete utopias and convergences between the two movements: self-management; the participatory dimension of the production of goods and knowledge; the potentially transforming societal character of the relation between work and technology; and the overcoming of capitalism. By doing so the article illustrates the need for studies that aim to build a bridge between the territories where those two movements are located.

Key words: solidarity economy, social technology, technoscience, utopias, self-management, sustainability.