ABSTRACT
This contribution sees social movement and trade union cooperation through a Polanyian perspective. It understands movement and trade union alliances as cross-movement counter-mobilization (CMCM), when this cooperation aims at transforming and reinventing institutions which govern capitalism. It goes beyond approaches considering alliances as a new means of worker organizing or trade union revitalization, proposing to pay more attention to those forms of cooperation in which institutions governing capitalist social orders are modified, shaped, and designed. The text reminds us that progressive social movements and trade unions have been key forces for the building and strengthening of democratic institutions balancing capitalism in the past, and we need to better understand if and how this is still possible under the conditions of ongoing crisis, the diminishing of democratic space, and multiple institutional failures. The text gives several examples of how CMCM has created new institutions at the local, national, and global level, suggesting that these collective efforts have been more successful in the creation of alternative institutions, often in interactions with companies and other market actors, than leaning on the state to effectively regulate the market.
