Article 25 of the Mexican constitution provides for the support to the social and solidarity economy sector, including all those organisations ‘devoted to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services... [ view full abstract ]
Article 25 of the Mexican constitution provides for the support to the social and solidarity economy sector, including all those organisations ‘devoted to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that are socially necessary’. This category comprises ejidos, community organisations, workers organisations, cooperatives, enterprises belonging in part or completely to their workers.
This constitutional provision, however, remains largely unattended, in spite of the recent approval of a law on social and solidarity economy (2012). Indeed, Mexican institutions have been favouring the expansion of the private national and foreign for profit sector, even in those sectors of activities that the Constitution declares fields of activity of the public sector, and this tendency appears accentuated with the recent neoliberal reforms brought by the government of Peña Nieto. Accordingly, a real institutional support to the sector has been lacking and this shortage of specific public policies has produced a scarce access to funding opportunities, a poor entrepreneurial training, and a consequent high informality of productive activities in the sector.
The main objectives of the new law on Social and Solidarity Economy (2012) are to establish mechanisms able to support the organisation and expansion of the social and solidarity economy sector, where the responsibility of this support is taken by the state; and to define rules for the organisation and empowerment of the sector as a mechanism that can contribute to socio-economic development through employment generation, strengthening of democracy, redistribution of resources, and generation of social patrimony (art. 2).
The law has also created a National Institute of Social Economy, an autonomous institute that will be part of the Secretariat of Economy with the aim of defining and implementing public policies to support the social economy sector. However, the capacity of incidence of this institute appears limited, given its reduced dimensions and the scarcity of funds it relies on.
Next to traditional agricultural or productive large cooperatives, and in spite of the scarce institutional support, several autonomous initiatives are developing from the civil society. Among some remarkable and innovative initiatives, it is worth mentioning community cooperative organizations developed by indigenous peoples who are seeking an alternative approach to development, mixing their ancestral knowledge and culture with modern practices. These self-managed community organisations seem an effective vehicle for promoting buen vivir, an indigenous conception of well-being based on reciprocity and solidarity among human beings and the natural environment.
