Solidarity Economy Organizing

Razeto starts with an analysis of two perennial sources of transformational energy: the “impoverished and untenable” situation of those who are marginalized and subordinate in the existing order, and the profound dissatisfaction of those better situated who nonetheless hope for a better society in which higher values and ideas are made real. Challenging the wide-spread notion of “system change,” the idea that “the existing social order – understood as a “system” – must be replaced by a different one: a new type of society,” Razeto critiques the focus on conquest of power, and the emphasis on politics as the “proper arena for the application of forces tending to the construction of a better society.”

Having previously identified the participation of workers in decision-making as the key to the emergence of solidarity in labor and the recuperation of work’s “rich meaning and content,” Razeto deepens and expands his analysis of participation and self-management. A “bottom-up” analysis of management, power, and authority – understood as a gift the subordinated make to those in power – enables a powerful critique of centralization, bureaucracy, delegation, and co-optation.