Abstract

The idea of a Solidarity Economy has emerged in Latin America, as a development paradigm and social movement, with the goal of creating an “alter-modernity” that bases the modernization of society on erasing the distinction between “public” and “private” spheres. The potential to achieve this goal arises from the fact that a Solidarity Economy would be sustained by a concept of social justice that: (1) contains at its core an approach to community that includes all living and inanimate beings; and (2) recognizes the emancipatory potential of the norms, social dynamics, and forms of organization of subaltern groups. Organic intellectuals working with the popular classes in Latin America have identified the concept of social justice as being a core aspect of the sociability of the subaltern social group referred to as “the poor” (Icaza, 2008) or the “pobretariado”/“pooretariat” (Löwy, 1996).