We can only go so far without addressing capitalism and the state

So much for the new era of social economy and social entrepreneurship. NGOs and foundations are downsizing left and right. A prominent social change event attended by social entrepreneurs and social innovators has had to be postponed because of the economic crisis.

Except in a few marginal cases, much of the "social economy" is funded out of surplus dollars produced in the market. We are exposed to the market and subject to its vicissitudes until we can envision and strategize a replacement. It is an old argument. Rosa Luxemburg pointed out* that co-operatives, which prefigure socialist values and practice, can only go so far, because their profit and loss are still calculated within the market, and subject to the logic of competition: workers may carry out these cold financial orders for themselves, but the choices are no less cold for that.  Social economic approaches are worthwhile, but will always be subject, finally, to the needs of the market.

Likewise, the relentless ideology of Stephen Harper's government -- the roundup of migrants being only the most recent outrage -- and the effeteness of the left-wing response to it should provoke critical reflection on the inherent limitations of movements trying to achieve gains without a strategy of engaging and transforming the state. We obviously can't rely on existing parties to do this job, but does this mean we must be pessimistic about the potential of any political organization to help achieve transformative change? We are missing the ideological presence, the organizational unity, and the political power that a mass organization can bring. We have learned many lessons about how not to run mass organizations: does this mean we should not organize them at all?

About one thing, Marxists have something true to say. Without an understanding of capital and how it structures the state, and without a powerful strategy to transform both the state and the economy to make them more democratic, social change will always be subject to the limits of market logic.

*In Reform or Revolution:

"Co-operatives – especially co-operatives in the field of production - constitute a hybrid form in the midst of capitalism. They can be described as small units of socialised production within capitalist exchange. But in capitalist economy exchanges dominate production. As a result of competition, the complete domination of the process of production by the interests of capital – that is, pitiless exploitation – becomes a condition for the survival of each enterprise. The domination of capital over the process of production expresses itself in the following ways. Labour is intensified. The work day is lengthened or shortened, according to the situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market, labour is either employed or thrown back into the street. In other words, use is made of all methods that enable an enterprise to stand up against its competitors in the market. The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production are thus faced with the contradictory necessity of governing themselves with the utmost absolutism. They are obliged to take toward themselves the role of capitalist entrepreneur."