From the book, "Si Uno Come, Que Coman Todos, Economia Solidaria" published by DESMI
By Alma Cecilia Omana Reyes and Jorge Santiago Santiago
Translated from Spanish by Chris Treter on March 4, 2002

Economy and Development

There exists different forms of how an economy conducts its development, and this depends on the concrete form of how a society, region, or group, combines certain factors or elements that permit them to achieve the objectives they seek. These factors vary according to the vision and the concept of what you determine as development.

Generally, people consider development factors as the following: work, production, the market, technology, financial resources, natural resources, the relationship between society and the individual, employment, health, education, housing, recreation, culture, democracy, and space. Different economic models use almost the same factors in order to define development, the difference between one and another is the way they combine them into an ideological conception.

The Neoliberal Economy

Neoliberal Economics defines development as an increase in the total production of goods and services over a large period of time. Therefore, it is the increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country over the medium and long term, and measured by per capita. It is a deliberate and gradual process, but does not necessarily imply an improvement of social well-being or the equality of opportunity between all members of society.

We can see how they combine the development factors.

Work and production are focused upon the market; within that they have their efficiencies, or ability to be highly productive. The market is the priority, controlled by large corporations and world banks. Technology supports the increase in the market and in areas of efficiency with less cost going to replace the workforce; the financial resources are a good that generate power and also are a function of the market. The natural resources are a source of goods needed for the production. Actually, it is a very large source of power. For example, the control of biodiversity, which is one of the main struggles within neoliberalism, looks to dominate more than preserve and conserve as a benefit to humanity.

Development factors have a significant commercial value, as the tendency of privatization demonstrates, in order to make the cost of services profitable.

Democracy comes from the electoral process; if all or a majority vote, it says that there is democracy and therefore does not see it in terms of political, social, and economic participation.

The Solidarity Economy

Parallel to the neoliberal model, exists another model known as Solidarity Economy, and its concept of development is based within the liberation of the potential of humanity. Although the development factors are equal to those in the neoliberal model, they have another meaning. We'll see why.

Work is the medium in order to satisfy the needs but also a form of realization of the person, as "a person that sews cloths, they do it in order to earn money and so acquire that which they need, but also, it permits them to have a satisfaction as a person, because that which they do they like, because they are able to learn new things, or it permits them to relate to other people."

Production is done in order to satisfy the needs of a population and for self-sufficiency, for the community, or for the market. As in the neoliberal model, production has to be done efficiently and of the highest quality. The difference is that it is not exclusively for the market.

In the Solidarity Economy market, the market is a space for the interchange of goods at a fair price with just relationships and constituting a means of creating development. Technology and the financial resources are instruments for work and production. Natural resources are raw materials for production, the basic means to contribute to the development. Within the model, exists a consciousness of respect for nature and the knowledge that natural resources aren't of an unlimited supply; therefore they require planning, preservation and sustainable use so they can be used by future generations.

Employment, health, education, housing, and recreation are basic human rights which are not needed to profit from, but rather to always exercise and favor.

Culture is the source of identity. Democracy is within all political, economic, and social structures, being the base from which all decisions are made. The space is free, harmonious, mutually binding, and organized, where the relationship are of cooperation and for the construction of a social power. This economic model coexists with neoliberalism. It is a model without an endpoint, it is in the process of construction within various parts of the world: Belgium, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, etc. It is under construction as a positive alternative. It looks to create economic growth stressing the importance and priority of the well-being of society and with a solidarity as a strategy to achieve it.

Elements of the development factors of the Solidarity Economy are as follows:

• The Solidarity Economy as a collective and integral social process implying the construction, growth, and fortalization of community.
• Work is collectively based.
• Production is organized in a manner which is satisfactory for self-sufficiency and for commercialization related to the global market.
• There is an interchange of experiences between working groups.
• There is an interchange of products that favor the producer and the consumer.
• Apprenticeship and the value of collective knowledge are inherent in the economic processes.
• There are development strategies to further ones' ability and potential to create.
• It looks to create integrated collective development.
• It creates relationships between communities based upon mutual support and equality.
• There is an equal distribution of the benefits.
• There exists the knowledge to administrate the resources.
• There is access to new technology.
• There is ethical and moral worth, respect and solidarity.
• There is a union of the forces.

Relationships that exist in the process of the construction of the Solidarity Economy are between:

• The Solidarity Economy and the autonomy of the rights of the community.
• The Solidarity Economy and capital.
• The Solidarity Economy and natural resources: to make use of natural resources without depleting them, the social property of the resources.
• The Solidarity Economy and the ecology. The systems of production of agro-ecology.
• The Solidarity Economy and the organizational processes.
• The Solidarity Economy and the human race.
• The relationship between Solidarity Economy and faith (the christian experience).

Fundamental Principles: Important Elements of the Solidarity Economy

1. It is an exercise which permits the collective maintenance of resources, organizes for work, teaches solutions, motivates organizations, allows for the ability to obtain resources that can be used for education and motivation, solves community problems, and also proposes the use of administrative based technology and mechanisms.
2. It implies the administration of resources as fundamental for the economy. Regulation, control, order, systems, rules, and operating processes based in practice.
3. Links work and services to organizational processes of the community.
4. It is an economic support to develop initiatives in order to generate community-based resources in line with autonomy of communities.
5. Carries out the need to clarify the fundamental principals of the economic processes in order to identify the experiences in the scope of the regional and national economies as producers and as a social sector.
6. Collective work is not necessarily the collective possession of land and instruments of work.
7. It implies a fortalization of the judicial and legal aspect of the economic organizations.
8. It is the promotion and the creation of technologies that increase the potential for obtaining resources for the community.
9. It implies the integration of ethical principles of cooperative work with justice.
10. It implies the fortalization of culture and the organization having the ability to use its' native language, systems of election, uses, customs, in relation to the responsibility and the recognition of authority and prestige of the communities.
11. It also does not take ownership over experience; it is in this sense that it maintains the appropriate space for the communities to make their own decisions.
12. It implies the development of a social subject and not the development of an institution. Specific work is not done unless the community is interested in it.
13. Participation increases starting from the time benefits are recognized and free political participation is begun.
14. It combines a political strategy with the practice of economic development. It is not work isolated from processes of consciousness and politics. We considerate it fundamental to understand that social practice is part of a process of liberation, created from a social subject, toward the consolidation of a solidarity economy that permits the clarification of its position in front of socio-political challenges and also contributes to the formation and training of its members toward the creation of a new society.
15. It supports the processes of community support, consciousness, creating options, with risk, and also as part of a process. The economic experience is able to be initiated or part of an organic process.
16. For this it is necessary to understand everything within the global society, within the framework of love. For this it is important that community problems are seen as problems of a sector of society, conditioned by them, and not totally isolated. The solutions need to be raised in the scope of the global society in its totality and not only for the marginalized, or for those from different ethnic backgrounds.

DESMI (Social and Economic Development for the Indigenous of Mexico) is a non-governmental organization that is located in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, working for over 30 years with 240 indigenous communities throughout the state.