CPE at the U.S. Social Forum
Instead of usual week-long Summer Institute, we decided to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the first U.S. Social Forum, held in Atlanta, Georgia. It was indeed an historic event, bringing together over ten thousand people, a thousand self-organized workshops with presenters largely from grassroots groups, great diversity including youth, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ, ex-offenders, and representation of every progressive issue under the sun.

In addition to serving on the USSF national program committee, we initiated the following:

Economic Alternatives & the Social/Solidarity Economy Track
CPE worked with other groups to organize a track of around 75 workshops/activities on the social/solidarity economy (click here for the full program in PDF format). CPE staff economists participated in a dozen workshops including ones on strategies for economic transformation, the federal budget, inequality, food, global warming, community wealth, global vs local economic development, and building a solidarity economy. Our four hour “Why we need another world – Introduction to Neoliberalism” attracted around 80 participants and was really well received.

In this video, Emily breaks down the term “neo-liberalism”, describes the work of her organization in exposing the flaws of neo-liberalism and only recently beginning to explore alternatives, and then introduces a stepping stones group exercise to look at examples of the solidarity economy. (More Videos from Economic Alternatives Track)

Solidarity Economy Caucus. We organized two meetings at the Social Forum. The first meeting on the opening day of the Social Forum brought together around 40 invitees and served to develop a common base of knowledge about the social and solidarity economies. We were lucky to have wonderful participation from our Canadian neighbors who have had remarkable success in pushing the social economy into the mainstream, leveraging government support and significantly expanding various elements of the solidarity economy.  Nedda Angulo Villareal, who works with El Grupo Red de Economía Solidaria del Perú (GRESP) and is also on the governing board of the RIPESS (Intercontinental Network to Promote the Social Solidarity Economy), shared a view from the global south. In Peru, 40% of the people are poor; 15% are extremely poor and largely indigenous or mestizo. The solidarity economy is not a proposal, but is a realitiy, developing among the poor as a way to survive, build community support systems and push for policy changes.
We had a rich and good spirited discussion about challenges and opportunities.  Significantly, we were able to have critical debate about a wide range of challenges, without the discussion become rancorous, defensive or dispiriting. On the contrary, the  debates were energizing and served to advance understanding and commitment.
On the last evening of the Social Forum, we met again to discuss next steps. There was unanimous support for forming a U.S. Solidarity Economy Network. We agreed that CPE will serve as the fiscal sponsor and provide staff-time to bring this Network into being. This is an exciting and emergent opportunity to create a common framework to bring together the vast array of worthy but disconnected efforts to create a more just, equitable and sustainable economy.