Living Economics: Canadian Perspectives on the Social Economy, Co-operatives, and Community Economic Development

The Canadian social economy is thriving.From thousands of co-operatives to hundreds of community economic development projects and from myriad non-profits to a burgeoning number of social enterprise initiatives, Canada's social economy encompasses a wide array of alternative economic practices serving most communities in all regions of the country.But, despite a multi-billion-dollar force within the Canadian economy, the social economy is highly contested among academics, policymakers, and even practitioners, who argue about how to conceptualize it and what practices it encompasses.In fact, Canada's social economy is not yet very well understood, even by those who work within it.As J. J. McMurtry perceptively points out in his introductory chapter to his edited book Living Economics: Canadian Perspectives on the Social Economy, Co-operatives, and Community Economic Development, this lack of understanding is surprising, given the global surge in social economic activity in response to the negative aspects of the neoliberal order of the past three or so decades.As McMurtry further emphasizes, any meaningful conceptualization of the social economy must come to terms with how social needs ground economic practices, as well as the normative (or ethical) dimensions necessarily contained therein.Conceptualizing the social economy in this way, McMurtry suggests, is important for several reasons.Such a conceptualization assists in including the myriad diverse practices and life needs engaged within the social economy.It helps practitioners to come to know that they are indeed part of the social economy, it aids in influencing much-needed policies (especially in English Canada), and it helps in building a robust and recognizable social economy "movement."For McMurtry, by carefully considering the social economy as a guiding concept, practitioners and researchers can coalesce around "articulating [social] needs beyond the Vol. 1, No 1 Fall /Automne 2010 105 -109