ABSTRACT
The history of thought about an economy that serves human and social needs can be traced back to the 18th and 19th centuries to the so-called utopian socialists, Robert Owen (1771–1858), Charles Fourier (1772–1837), Pierre-Joseph Proud-hon (1809–1865), Louis Blanc (1811–1882), Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864), or the Rochdale Pioneers (since 1844) (Elsen 1998: 66–69). All of these forerunners were detractors of industrial labor organization and the capitalist system. They combined economic, social, cultural, and political objectives, placing the have-nots – their cooperation, the bundling of their resources, and the common use of the means of production – at the center of their concepts. Their ideas and social experiments are the cradle of today’s alternative economy and the cooperative movement as a part of Social and Solidarity Economy.
