Capitalism and Civil Society Revisited or: Conceptualizing a Civil, Sustainable and Solidary Economy
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Capitalism and Civil Society Revisited or: Conceptualizing a Civil, Sustainable and Solidary Economy Frank Adloff 1 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract
After a brief reconstruction of the discourse on civil society, the notion that civil society and the economy are two separate spheres is criticized. Economies are not only embedded in civil society; they can also be organized according to civil society principles. This is discussed conceptually on the one hand, while on the other, the degrowth movement and cooperatives are used as examples to show what a civil, sustainable and solidary economy may look like. It will be shown that the concept of civil society is indispensable for the understanding of modern societies in general and also for economic processes. If one overcomes the sector-specific understanding of civil society and the identification of economy with profit-oriented capitalism on the basis of private property, a variety of connecting lines can be observed. Civic practices can also be identified in the economy and offer a reform approach that is largely overlooked and underestimated in social scientific and political debates. Many experiments on the entanglement of business and civil society are underway, and it is necessary to explore how these spaces can be created and expanded. Keywords Civil society . Civic practices . Capitalism . Solidary economy . Cooperatives . Degrowth
Introduction Western societies are currently faced with a constellation of crises whose exact contours and backgrounds we are only beginning to comprehend. In political science debates, the state of Western democracies is often referred to as “post-democratic” (Crouch 2007). The critical effects of these developments are being aggravated by stagnating rates of economic growth in Western countries, which go hand in hand
* Frank Adloff Frank.Adloff@uni–hamburg.de
1
Fachgebiet Soziologie/Fachbereich Sozialökonomie, University of Hamburg, Welckerstr. 8, 20354 Hamburg, Germany
Adloff
with a significant increase in social inequality (cf. Piketty 2014) and the rise of populist movements. What is more, global political actors appear to be unable to agree on binding regulations for the reduction of economic resource use, and thus to counter climate change effectively. The current constellation of crises can justifiably be summed up in the concept of a social and ecological “double crisis,” which can be traced back to the negative effects of prevailing capitalism. In capitalism, the economy must grow in order to keep profit-driven competition going, which in turn drives companies towards steady expansion (Barth and Reitz 2016). This type of economic activity is not sustainable because it is based on energy and ecological conditions that are not permanently available (Sommer 2016). More natural resources are consumed and destroyed than can be regenerated. Thus, on the one hand, contemporary capitalism produces social inequalities of unexpected proportions; on the other hand, it depletes natural resources. Modern capitalist society is to
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