Group items tagged

Option 1: Euro-reformism

One (fast receding) option is the standard variety of euro-reformism, practised typically by social democrats who argue for ‘more democracy’,

dynamic analyses

The EU’s institutions are incapable of being reformed through the standard process of inter-governmental deliberations and gradual treaty changes.

Option 2: Lexit

This (Lexit) option raises concerns regarding its realism and probity. Is its agenda feasible? In other words, is it a realistic prospect that, by (in Kouvelakis’ words) calling for referenda to leave the EU, the Left can block “the forces of the xenophobic and nationalist Right from winning hegemony and diverting the popular revolt”? And, is such a campaign consistent with the Left’s fundamental principles?

the EU was constructed intentionally as a democracy-free zone designed to keep the demos out of decision-making

Given that the EU has established free movement, Lexit involves acquiescence to (if not actual support for) its ending and for the re-establishment of national border controls

the Left should demand common minimum wages in exchange for its support for the Single Market

xenophobic Right

do they truly believe that the Left will win the discursive and policy war against the fossil fuel industry by supporting the re-nationalisation of environmental policy?

Option 3: DiEM25’s proposal for disobedience

Instead, DiEM25 proposes a pan-European movement of civil and governmental disobedience with which to bring on a surge of democratic opposition to the way European elites do business at the local, national and EU levels.

national parliaments and governments have power

a progressive national government can only use this power if it is prepared for a rupture with the EU troika.

a clash with the EU establishment is inescapable.

wilfully disobeying the unenforceable EU ‘rules’ at the municipal, regional and national levels while making no move whatsoever to leave the EU.

Undoubtedly, the EU institutions will threaten us

Consider the profound difference between the following two situations: The EU establishment threatening progressive Europeanist governments with ‘exit’ when they refuse to obey its authoritarian incompetence, and Progressive national parties or governments campaigning alongside the xenophobic Right for ‘exit’.

It is the difference between: (A) Clashing against the EU establishment in a manner that preserves the spirit of internationalism, demands pan-European action, and sets us fully apart from the xenophobic Right, and (B) Walking hand-in-hand with nationalisms that will, inescapably, reinforce the xenophobic Right while allowing the EU to portray the Left as populists insufficiently distinguishable from Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen etc.

The Left’s traditional internationalism is a key ingredient of DiEM25, along with other constituent democratic traditions from a variety of political projects (including progressive liberalism, feminist and ecological movements, the ‘pirate’ parties etc.).

DiEM25 proposes a rebellion to deliver authentic democracy at the levels of local government, national governments and the EU.

This leftwing objection to DiEM25’s call for a pan-European movement is interesting and puzzling. In effect, it argues that democracy is impossible on a supranational scale because a demos must be characterised by national and cultural homogeneity.

The Left, lest we forget, traditionally opposed the bourgeois belief in a one-to-one relationship between a nation and a sovereign parliament. The Left counter-argued that identity is something we create through political struggle (class struggle, the struggle against patriarchy, the struggle for smashing gender and sexual stereotypes, emancipation from Empire etc.).

in order to create the European demos that will bring about Europe’s democracy

Only through this pan-European network of rebel cities, rebel prefectures and rebel governments can a progressive movement become hegemonic in Italy, in Greece, in England, indeed anywhere.

The question for Europe’s Left, for progressive liberals, Greens etc. is, now, whether this struggle, this project, should take the form of a campaign to leave the EU (e.g. Lexit) or, as DiEM25 suggests, of a campaign of civil, civic and governmental disobedience within but in confrontation with the EU

to those who berate DiEM25 and its call for a pan-European democratic movement as utopian, our answer is that a transnational, pan-European democracy remains a legitimate, realistic long-term goal, one that is in concert with the Left’s time honoured internationalism. But this objective must be accompanied by pragmatism and a precise plan for immediate action:

Oppose any talk of ‘more Europe’ now

Present Europeans with a blueprint (a comprehensive set of policies and actions) of how we plan to re-deploy Europe’s existing institutions

ensure that the same blueprint makes provisions for keeping internationalism alive in the event that the EU establishment’s incompetent authoritarianism causes the EU’s disintegration

“The EU will be democratised. Or it will disintegrate!”

We cannot predict which of the two (democratisation or disintegration) will occur. So, we struggle for the former while preparing for the latter.

DiEM25’s Progressive Agenda for Europe will be pragmatic, radical and comprehensive. It will comprise policies that can be implemented immediately to stabilise Europe’s social economy, while:

affording more sovereignty to city councils, prefectures and national parliaments, proposing institutional interventions and designs that will reduce the human cost in case the euro collapses and the EU fragments, and setting up a democratic Constitution Assembly process that enables Europeans to generate a European identity with which to bolster their reinvigorated national cultures, parliaments and local authorities.

Conclusion:

The EU is at an advanced stage of disintegration. There are two prospects. The EU is not past the point of no return (yet) and can, still, be democratised, stabilised, rationalised and humanised The EU is beyond the point of no return and incapable of being democratised. Therefore, its disintegration is certain, as is the clear and present danger of Europe’s descent into a postmodern version of the deflationary 1930s

So, what should progressives do?

Campaign vigorously along internationalist, cross-border, lines all over Europe for a democratic Union – even if we do not believe that the EU can, or ought to, survive in its current form Expose the EU Establishment’s authoritarian incompetence Coordinate civil, civic and governmental disobedience across Europe Illustrate through DiEM25’s own transnational structure how a pan-European democracy can work at all levels and in all jurisdictions Propose a comprehensive Progressive Agenda for Europe which includes sensible, modest, convincing proposals for ‘fixing’ the EU (the euro even) and for managing progressively the EU’s and the euro’s disintegration if and when the Establishment brings it on.

Nor has the euro reduced inequality among European countries.

The prolonged depression has helped fuel the rise of right-wing nationalists and Euroskeptics. In Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, radical right-wing parties now enjoy more success at the polls than at any time since the 1930s.

Trust in EU institutions,

has fallen through the floor.

The reason currency pegs often depress economic growth lies in the essential nature of monetary arrangements.

Varoufakis

Galbraith

Stiglitz

All three would prefer that the system be reformed.

Galbraith offers the most succinct explanation of why the system has benefited Germany at the expense of weaker economies:

The Greek story is properly a European story in which, as in all European stories, Germany takes the leading role.

Varoufakis, Galbraith, and Stiglitz differ on the details, but they all blame the euro system and, especially, Germany.

Stiglitz shows that international systems of pegged currencies, of which Europe’s single currency represents only an extreme example, “have long been associated with recessions and depressions.”

Most observers now attribute these troubles to the euro.

In the real world, however, countries have diverse market positions and domestic institutions, which means that macroeconomic convergence is hard to come by.

a currency peg prevents the governments of countries that run trade deficits and incur debt from pursuing healthy economic policies to correct the problem.

normally loosen domestic monetary policy (thereby lowering interest rates and stimulating investment), let its currency depreciate (thereby boosting exports, reducing imports, and transferring income to the sector of the economy that produces competitive goods), and increase government spending (thereby stimulating consumption and investment).

Deficit countries are thus left with only one way to restore their competitiveness: “internal devaluation,” the politically correct term for austerity

permanent austerity becomes the only way to maintain international equilibrium.

Citizens grasp at increasingly radical new parties and lack the faith in Europe required to enact needed reforms.

Germany has emerged almost unscathed—at least so far.

Yet the costs of a flawed monetary system may eventually boomerang and depress growth even in Germany. Austerity is slowly reducing Germany’s ability to sell its goods to other European countries,

Despite the EU principle of free movement, many informal barriers to mobility still protect special interests.

to force the German economy into line

the EU could discourage trade surpluses by imposing a tax on them

Another set of structural policies would encourage large fiscal transfers and migration in order to offset the inequities that the euro has induced. In essence, this would replicate the movements of capital and people that make single currencies viable within individual countries.

fiscal transfers from creditor countries such as Germany to deficit countries such as Greece and Italy.

Stiglitz proposes, Germany and other surplus countries could do more to accept and encourage continuous migration flows from deficit countries.

Germans are unlikely to renounce the export-led growth that has stemmed from their 60-year tradition of high savings, low inflation, and modest labor contracts. They are even less likely to accept massive fiscal transfers to other countries.

Stiglitz offers the most thorough evaluation of the possible options. There are three. The first entails reforming the fundamental structure of the euro system so that it generates growth and distributes the benefits fairly. Stiglitz details how the EU and the European Central Bank might rewrite tax laws, loosen monetary policy, and change corporate governance rules in order to boost wage growth, consumer spending, and investment.

Political opposition to immigration is already strong in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, and these countries would not tolerate many millions of additional foreigners.

a second policy option: muddling through. In this scenario, member states would strengthen the EU’s ability to manage the crisis.

European Stability Mechanism,

The burden of the current system on deficit countries must also be eliminated—a change that requires far more serious reform. Eventually, Europe would have to restructure its debt,

GDP-indexed bonds

eurobonds

the solvency of national banks,

Yet Germany and other creditor governments are naturally hesitant to accept financial responsibility for debtor countries.

Such reforms would also require the EU to massively expand its oversight over national financial systems,

If neither of the two options to save the single currency and restart growth is viable, this leaves only a third option: abolishing the euro.

Although Stiglitz would prefer that the euro be reformed, he admits that “there is more than a small probability that it will not be done” and therefore argues for breaking up the system.

from Grexit to his preferred alternative of breaking the eurozone into several subgroups, each with its own currency.

Yet even the radical step of breaking up the eurozone, Stiglitz makes clear, would probably help deficit countries only if Germany agreed to increase domestic spending, rein in speculation, and reduce deficits.

Abolishing the euro might slightly improve the options for deficit countries, but absent deeper structural reforms, it would not eliminate the underlying problem.

depressing reading, because in the end, they suggest that there is no easy way out of Europe’s predicament, given the current political constraints. In the long run, muddling through may be the worst outcome, and yet it is the most likely.

In response to such a bleak prognosis, many European federalists, particularly on the left, contend that Europe’s real problem is its “democratic deficit.” If only EU institutions or national governments were more representative, they argue, then they would enjoy sufficient legitimacy to solve these problems. The EU needs more transparency in Brussels, more robust direct elections to the European Parliament, a grand continent-wide debate, and political union, the argument runs, so that the resulting European superstate would be empowered to impose massive fiscal transfers and macroeconomic constraints on surplus countries. Alternatively, if more radical alternatives could be fully debated in national elections, then member states might muster the power to pull out of the eurozone or renegotiate their terms in it.

everything comes down to choices made by self-interested sovereign states. Governments have little incentive to make charitable and risky concessions, even in a united Europe with economic prosperity on the line. Politicians simply lack the strength and courage to make a genuine break with the status quo, either toward federalism or toward monetary sovereignty.

yritykset voivat lähettää juristinsa lakimuutosta valmistelevaan sosiaali- ja terveysministeriöön kertomaan, ettei esitys ole mieleinen ja jos se toteutuu, luvassa on haaste kansainväliseen välimiesoikeuteen

Investointisuoja muuttaa neuvottelutilannetta olennaisesti

TTIP-sopimuksen investointisuojan turvin yhdysvaltalaiset sijoittajat voivat kyseenalaistaa eurooppalaisen demokraattisen lainsäädäntötyön, viranomaisten hallintopäätökset sekä riippumattomien oikeuslaitosten tuomiot. Kyse huomattavasta julkisen vallan siirrosta kansalaisyhteiskunnan ja muun kontrollin ulottumattomiin.

tähän mennessä nostettu noin 600 kannetta, joista reilu puolet on ratkaistu. Välimiesoikeuksien toiminta on osoittautunut ongelmalliseksi

– Tiedämme tähän mennessä ratkaistujen juttujen perusteella, että lopputulos riippuu merkittävästi kokoonpanosta. Samoilla faktoilla on tehty vastakkaisia ratkaisuja – eikä niistä voi valittaa, Koskenniemi sanoo.

uhka demokratialle ja oikeusvaltiolle

painostuskeinon vaikuttavuutta lisää se, etteivät välimiesoikeuden ratkaisut ole ennakoitavissa

Investointisuojajärjestelmä on kolonialistinen strategia

investointisuojamekanismeja

Yhdysvaltalaisten investointien osuus Suomessa ja Euroopassa on monikymmenkertainen, eivätkä kymmenien miljoonien oikeudenkäyntikulut ole merkittäviä suursijoittajien näkökulmasta. Yhdysvalloissa on myös hyvin aggressiivinen oikeusperinne, jossa suuryritykset ja sijoittajat pyrkivät vaikuttamaan sääntelyyn oikeusteitse.

ulkomainen investoija voi nostaa itseään koskevan oikeusjutun eurooppalaisen oikeusjärjestelmän ulkopuolella. Toisin sanoen, kansainväliset investoijat saavat oman oikeusjärjestelmän

pysyvää yhteiskomissiota, jossa EU:n ja Yhdysvaltain edustajat ottaisivat kantaa kaikkeen lainsäädäntöön vapaakaupan näkökulmasta.

Yhteiskomissio toimisi poliittisesti merkittävässä roolissa ilman demokraattista vastuuta.

korppikotkarahastoja, jotka ostavat talouskriisiin ajautuneiden valtioiden velkakirjoja murto-osalla niiden nimellisarvosta ja vaativat sitten koko summaa maksettavaksi investointisuojan nojalla oikeusteitse

korppikotkarahastot pystyvät ajamaan kriisivaltiot perikatoon estämällä velkajärjestelyt

Aika näyttäisi olevan TTIP-sopimuksen vastustajien puolella. Sopimuksen sisältö pitäisi saada neuvoteltua valmiiksi tämän vuoden loppuun mennessä, jotta Yhdysvaltain nykyhallinto ehtisi viedä asian kongressiin ennen presidentinvaaleja 2016.

Koskenniemi arvioi TTIP-sopimuksen kaatuvan, sillä hänen mukaansa EU:lla ei ole valtuuksia hyväksyä sopimusta kansallisten parlamenttien ohitse.

sekasopimus

epävirallisissa keskusteluissa EU-komission virkamiesten kanssa on käynyt selväksi, ettei ole sellaista tahoa, joka katsoisi EU:n voivan ratifioida vapaakauppasopimuksen yksin.

Se tarkoittaa, että sopimuksen täytyy mennä 28 EU-valtioon – eikä se tule hyväksytyksi tämän kaltaisella investointisuojajärjestelmällä 28 EU-valtiossa. Sama koskee CETA-sopimusta.

TTIP- ja CETA-ratkaisut ovat voimakkaasti poliittisia päätöksiä, koska sopimukset kajoavat yhteiskunnan perusrakenteisiin

EU-komission tilaaman selvityksen mukaan sopimus kasvattaisi lähivuosina talousalueen bruttokansantuotetta keskimäärin 0,05 prosenttia vuodessa – mikä on esitetyistä arvioista positiivisin. Sopimuksen kriitikot pitävätkin mahdollisia hyötyjä riskeihin nähden olemattomina. Toisissa laskelmissa TTIP-sopimuksen taloudelliset seuraukset on arvioitu negatiivisiksi.

TTIP-ratkaisu on nimenomaan poliittinen

Among Colau’s commitments to the people of Barcelona was a local tax cut for small businesses and households, assistance to the poor, and the construction of housing for 15,000 refugees

All of this could be achieved while keeping the city’s books in the black, simply by reducing the municipal budget surplus.

Spain’s central government, citing the state’s obligations to the EU’s austerity directives, had enacted legislation effectively banning any municipality from reducing its surplus.

At the same time, the central government barred entry to the 15,000 refugees for whom Colau had built excellent housing facilities.

In any systemic crisis, the combination of austerity for the many, socialism for bankers, and strangulation of local democracy creates the hopelessness and discontent that are nationalism’s oxygen

To this day, the budget surplus prevails, the services and local tax cuts promised have not been delivered, and the social housing for refugees remains empty. The path from this sorry state of affairs to the reinvigoration of Catalan separatism could not be clearer.

Progressive, anti-nationalist Catalans, like Colau, find themselves squeezed from both sides: the state’s authoritarian establishment, which uses the EU’s directives as a cover for its behavior, and a renaissance of radical parochialism, isolationism, and atavistic nativism. Both reflect the failure to fulfill the promise of shared, pan-European prosperity.3

The duty of progressive Europeans is to reject both: the deep establishment at the EU level and the competing nationalisms ravaging solidarity and common sense in member states like Spain.

The EU treaties could be amended to enshrine the right of regional governments and city councils, like Catalonia’s and Barcelona’s, to fiscal autonomy and even to their own fiscal money

They could also be allowed to implement their own policies on refugees and migration.

EU could invoke a code of conduct for secession

As for the new state, it should be obligated to maintain at least the same level of fiscal transfers as before.

the new state should be prohibited from erecting new borders and be compelled to guarantee its residents the right to triple citizenship (new state, old state, and European).

Europe needs to develop a new type of sovereignty

This is about remarking on the battleground itself: big cities, not nations, as the symbolic and political space for the network society.

But the leaders — and beneficiaries — of this growth, a precarious first generation of a new middle class, lives a hard, intense life, between low-paying jobs and constant training.

they don’t see themselves reflected or recognized in the social discourse, which is now outdated. The struggles for public space in Istanbul or for access to transportation in Sao Paulo are a lot more than mere municipal policies

In SP, and especially in Istanbul, the mobilizations have had a clear discourse on the development of state authoritarianism

This authoritarian drift, paired with a reactionary discourse on intellectual property that criminalizes a generation which has made P2P culture a mark of daily identity, seems to be the only way the nation-state knows how to react technological change, trying to exclude, both in the present and in the future, those who somehow feel they could share as they build.

movements on the digital, social and even geographic periphery, have created their own centrality and their own logic, which we can summarize in three points as we look to the future:

The starting point and point of conflict with power is in the closest urban policies.

The demands are concrete and clear, and could, in fact, be satisfied by a local administration, but they summarize a much broader social situation

the debate

turns toward the authoritarian development of the nation-state

Istanbul and Sao Paulo are a step into a new phase of distributed social movements

Moreover, the algorithm was written in such a way as to guarantee a steady ‘production’ of these strings, or bitcoins, over time and in response to the computing power devoted by users in order to help track transfers and, thus, in order collectively to maintain The Ledger.

Lastly, to cap the supply of bitcoins, and thus safeguard their value, the algorithm guaranteed that the maximum number of these strings, or bitcoins, could only grow (given the algorithm’s structure) to 21 million units by the year 2040. Once it reached that quantity, its ‘production’ would cease and the users of bitcoins would have to do with these 21 million units.

the new currency on the basis of faith in the crudest version of the ‘monetarist’ Quantity Theory of Money (i.e. the idea that the value of money depended solely on the quantity of money supplied to the public) and, thus, aimed at creating the digital equivalent to… gold.

ust like gold, there are two ways in which bitcoins can be acquired: One is to buy them using dollars, chickens, silk, honey, whatever… The other is to ‘dig’ for them like 19th century gold diggers dug for gold. To that intent, Mr ‘Nakamoto’ designed his brilliant algorithm in a manner that allowed for ‘bitcoin digging’.

bitcoin users must make available computing power to the bitcoin users’ community so that everyone can ‘see’ the Ledger, in order to ensure perfect community ownership of the transactions’ record, as opposed to trusting some government agency (e.g. the Fed) or some private corporation that may have its own agenda.

here are two insurmountable flaws that make bitcoin a highly problematic currency: First, the bitcoin social economy is bound to be typified by chronic deflation. Secondly, we have already seen the rise of a bitcoin aristocracy

First, deflation is unavoidable in the bitcoin community because the maximum supply of bitcoins is fixed to 21 million bitcoins and approximately half of them have already been ‘minted’ at a time when very, very few goods and services transactions are denominated in bitcoins.

the available quantity of bitcoins per each unit of goods and services will be falling causing deflation.

Secondly, two major faultlines are developing, quite inevitably, within the bitcoin economy. The first faultline has already been mentioned. It is the one that divides the ‘bitcoin aristocracy’ from the ‘bitcoin poor’, i.e. from the latecomers who must buy into bitcoin at increasing dollar and euro prices. The second faultline separates the speculators from the users

; i.e. those who see bitcoin as a means of exchange from those who see in it as a stock of value.

in the case of bitcoin speculative demand outstrips transactions demand by a mile.

Can these two flaws be corrected? Would it be possible to calibrate the long-term supply of bitcoins in such a way as to ameliorate for the deflationary effects described above while tilting the balance from speculative to transactions demand for bitcoins? To do so we would need a Bitcoin Central Bank, which will of course defeat the very purpose of having a fully decentralised digital currency like bitcoin.

The Crash of 2008 has infused our societies with enormous scepticism on the role of the authorities, both government and Central Banks. It is quite natural that many dream of a currency that politicians, bankers and central bankers cannot manipulate; a currency of the people by the people for the people. Bitcoin has emerged as the great white hope of something of the sort. Alas, the hope it brings to many people’s hearts and minds is false. And the reason is simple: While it is true that local communities have, in the past, generated successful communitarian currencies (that enabled them to improve welfare in their midst, especially at a time of acute economic crises), there can be no de-politicised currency capable of ‘powering’ an advanced, industrial society.

The 1920s thus demonstrates the impossibility of an apolitical money supply. Even though the monetary authorities were insisting on a stable correspondence between the quantity of paper money and gold, the financial sector was boosting the money supply inexorably. Should the authorities stop them from so doing? If they had, the Edisons and the Fords would have never flourished, and capitalism would have failed to produce all the goodies that it did

To the extent that bitcoin attempts to emulate the Gold Standard, if a large portion of economic activity is denominated in bitcoin, the dilemmas of the 1920s will return to plague the bitcoin economy.

The reason that money is and can only be political is that the only way of steering a course between the Scylla and Charybdis of dangerous ponzi growth and stagnation is to exercise a degree of rational, collective control over the supply of money.

And since this control is bound to be political, in the sense that different monetary policies will affect different groups of people differently, the only decent manner in which such control can be exercised is through a democratic, collective agency.

Ihmiskunta tarvitsee yhteensä 1,5 maapalloa tyydyttääkseen tarpeensa. Suomalaisten ympäristöä kuormittava vaikutus johtuu erityisesti korkeista kasvihuonekaasupäästöistä. Muilta osin Suomen ekologinen jalanjälki on EU-maista pienimpiä.

Ihmiskunnan aineellinen hyvinvointi perustuu viime kädessä luonnon tuottamiin ekosysteemipalveluihin. Maailman maat eroavat toisistaan sen suhteen, mikä on niiden ekologisen jalanjäljen ja biokapasiteetin eli ekologisen tuottokyvyn suhde henkeä kohden. Suomen biokapasiteetti on Euroopan suurin ja maailman seitsemänneksi suurin. Ekologista jalanjälkeä suurempi biokapasiteetti kertoo käytettävissä olevasta maapinta-alasta, mutta myös siitä, millaista luonnonvarapolitiikkaa ja väestöpolitiikkaa maa harjoittaa.

Fakta: Maailman ylikulutuspäivä Ekologinen jalanjälki on kattavin käytettävissä oleva mittari, jolla voidaan arvioida ihmiskunnan kokonaiskulutuksen ja maapallon ekosysteemien tuottokyvyn suhdetta. Jopa yli puolet ekologisesta jalanjäljestä koostuu hiilijalanjäljestä. Hiilijalanjälki kertoo tuotteen tai palvelun elinkaaren aikana syntyneistä kasvihuonekaasupäästöistä. Globaalihehtaareina ilmaistava biokapasiteetti kuvaa alueen yhteenlaskettua ekologista tuottokykyä vuoden aikana. Ihmiskunnan ekologinen jalanjälki on 2,7 globaalia hehtaaria ja biokapasiteetti vain 1,8 globaalia hehtaaria henkeä kohden. Suomalaisen ekologinen jalanjälki on 6,2 globaalia hehtaaria, josta hiilijalanjäljen osuus on 4,2 globaalia hehtaaria. Global Footprint Networkin teemasivu Living Planet -raportti 2012 (WWF)

Iso-Britanniassa oli pari vuotta sitten 60 000 yhteiskunnallista yritystä. Niissä työskenteli 800 000 henkilöä, ja yritysten bruttotalousvaikutus oli 27 miljardia euroa

Suomessa on potentiaalisesti noin 12 000 yhteiskunnallista yritystä.

Sekä Britanniassa että Suomessa kiistellään edelleen yhteiskunnallisen yrityksen määritelmästä.

Sitran ja TEM:n määritelmissä yhteiskunnallisen yrityksen ominaispiirteenä pidetään arvopohjaisuuden lisäksi sitä, että vähintään puolet liikevoitosta kanavoidaan takaisin yrityksen toiminnan kehittämiseen tai suoraan toiminnan kohteeseen.

Suomen Yrittäjille ja yrittäjyyden professoreille koko käsite tuntuu olevan jonkinlainen punainen vaate.

Sitra esitti viime vuonna 50 miljoonan euron suuruista rahastoa suomalaisten yhteiskunnallisten yritysten kasvun turvaamiseksi. Stenman kertoo, että nykyisessä taloustilanteessa hanke on laitettu ainakin joksikin aikaa telakalle.

Yhteiskunnallisesta yrittäjyydestä on toivottu julkisen sektorin taloudellisen taakan helpottajaa erityisesti sosiaali- ja terveyspalveluissa. Monet yhteiskunnallisista yrityksistä keskittyvätkin esimerkiksi hoivapalveluihin.

Euroopan unionin komissio ja TEM ovat nähneet uudenlaisessa yrittäjyydessä uusia kasvu- ja työllisyysmahdollisuuksia

yhteiskunnallinen yrittäjyys houkuttaa sellaisiakin ihmisiä ryhtymään yrittäjiksi, jotka eivät muutoin olisi kiinnostuneita yrityksen pyörittämisestä.

Stenmanin mukaan suomalaisissa kauppakorkeakouluissa ei tällä hetkellä edes kerrota, että yhteiskunnallisen yrittäjyyden liiketoimintamalli on ylipäätään olemassa.