This paper outlines the rationale for establishing the Whole Economies Research Collective (WERC) at the University of Liverpool – a newly-formed action-research collective which brings together researchers from across the university interested in the wider value of work, social perspectives on the economy, and building new economic institutions which provide more dignified, meaningful and sustainable forms of labour. Our development of a Gramscian approach to praxis takes as its starting point the close collaboration and co-production of research with policy-makers, practitioners and activists in social enterprises, social institutions and community organisations. Drawing on this perspective, we critique neoliberal economic development strategies and, using the UK city region of Liverpool as a case study, we construct a vision for economic development that harnesses the mostly untapped potential of the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) to deliver more effective, equitable and democratic urban transformation. Our empirical starting point is the Liverpool City Region – WERC is, after all, Scouse dialect for ‘work’ – but extends out to global research and comparison.
The most recent economic development vision for Liverpool, known as the ‘Growth Strategy’, is delivered by the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) – a devolved tier of city-regional public-private governance tasked with stimulating growth in UK cities – and reproduces the same logic that David Harvey (1989) critiqued in his classic article on ‘urban entrepreneurialism’. Whilst this entrepreneurial policy approach, including culture-led mega-events such as European Capital of Culture 2008, has no doubt contributed to a renaissance for Liverpool city centre, there remain enduring socioeconomic problems in the inner-city and metropolitan periphery. Liverpool City Region still suffers with some of the worst rates of deprivation in the UK (as the most deprived of all 39 LEP areas in England in 2015), as well as severe intra-urban inequalities. Despite great opportunities opened up by devolution, when coupled with post-crash austerity, this approach now risks plunging Liverpool into fiscal crisis, which Peck (2017) argues characterises ‘late-entrepreneurialism’ more generally.
From a Diverse Economies perspective (Gibson-Graham 2008) Liverpool boasts a rich history of alternatives – from philanthropic associations through cooperatives to new social enterprises – and today supports a vibrant and growing SSE. This currently operates beneath the radar of the LEP and formal local governance institutions, yet plays an increasingly important role in sustaining livelihoods, addressing deprivation and finding innovative solutions to social problems, especially in those marginalised neighbourhoods left out of the limelight cast by culture-led and entrepreneurial urbanism. In answer to the challenges of the bleak politico-economic landscape painted by Peck (2017), the findings from the project demonstrate how social enterprise and innovation in deprived areas is doing something where entrepreneurial strategies have failed.
In this paper, members of WERC present findings from their diverse research base to offer a different city-regional economic vision for Liverpool that identifies workable policy solutions. We illustrate our approach through examples of SSE projects both locally and globally, including work on alternative currencies, community land ownership and locally embedded everyday entrepreneurship; as well as presenting findings from a recently-commencing research project into the scale, scope, social value and political potential of the social economy across the Liverpool City Region, which draws on practitioner interviews, case study observation and analysis of international best practice to explore how social innovations can be funded and supported through mechanisms such as solidarity funds and patient capital.
Our approach provides a broad church for understanding important aspects of what we call the ‘whole’ economy. Place-based health and well-being; community asset development; entrepreneurship in low income communities; ethical procurement and social value; feminist economics and diverse conceptions of livelihoods; democratic civic engagement; political change and social innovation – these are all examples of the work we are engaged in. Some of this fits well with Substantivist conceptions of the economy as developed by Karl Polanyi (1944), although overall we are broadly interested in the multiple and interrelated ways in which people make provision for their lives. Hence we concentrate on whole economies, including all productive and reproductive activities, and not just formal paid labour and market exchange. We seek to advance our understanding of the whole economy, to help unlock the potential of the SSE to transform urban economies and provide democratic accountability, individual and community well-being and dignified and sustainable livelihoods.
References:
Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2008. “Diverse Economies: Performative Practices for ‘other Worlds.’” Progress in Human Geography 32(5):613–32.
Harvey, D. 1989. “From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism.” Geografiska Annaler. Series B. Human Geography.
Peck, J. 2017. “Transatlantic City, Part 2: Late Entrepreneurialism.” Urban Studies 54(2):327–63.
Polanyi, K. 1944. The Great Transformation: The Political And Economic Origins Of Our Time. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
1. Concepts and models of social enterprise worldwide
