Legal foundations of a solidary economy

Abstract

The global economic system, as well as the planetary civilization, as a whole are experiencing an era of "great changes". The transition is overdue from an economy based on the paradigm of "economic man" — calculating, selfish, competitive, striving to maximize profits — to a regenerative one, based on solidarity and cooperation, built into natural cycles and focused on the welfare of the majority. The solidary economy (SE), which is replacing the existing one, is at the same time a transition to a future regenerative economic system. Its positioning is due to the fact that its institutional design consists of forms of organization integrated into the late modern, but whose potential in terms of prospects for social development goes beyond its limits, crossing the border separating modernity from postmodernity. SE can be understood as an ecosystem of practices that already exist — some old, some new, some still emerging. International organizations consider the solidary economy to be the key to implementing the paradigm shift envisaged by the UN Agenda for the period up to 2030 and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The key understanding of the SE as a system produced by the evolution of the modern economic system, which does not presuppose its revolutionary replacement with forms that constitute an alternative to existing institutions, the authors drew to its description the cooperation that best meets the needs of the transition to a new quality of socio-economic organization