The Solidarity Economy

"Histories of the economy often characterize the post-war era as one of demoralization, in which the rise of monetarism and neoliberalism marked a moral decline in public life. The story Tehila Sasson tells here, by contrast, uncovers the humanitarian, moral, and popular origins of a new form of cultural capitalism, one which promised that commerce could offer ethical progress after empire. Unlike the more common story about the neoliberal and conservative right, it focuses on the role of the British left--and the nonprofit sector in particular--in this transformation. It follows economists, MPs, campaigners, activists, and journalists of the British left, all of whom turned away from state-led development towards a vision of decentralized fair-trade markets. For the key actors in this story, it was the state--not the marketplace--that was morally vacant. Haunted by the specter of imperial political economy, they sought to bypass the state as the primary organizer of economic life."-- Provided by publisher.