While the roots of Social Solidarity Economy are ancient (they can be found in most communities in different forms of mutualistic cooperation, worker's unions, social economy, etc.), the term Solidarity Economy as a basis for today's SSE networked movement is fairly recent.
The concept of solidarity economy has diverse origins and varied meanings, all of which revolve around the effort to root economic activity in principles of solidarity, participation, cooperation, and reciprocity as opposed to the competitive individualism characteristic of mainstream capitalist paradigms.
New and resurgent solutions are democratizing how we produce, consume, govern, and solve social problems. The maker movement, collaborative consumption, the solidarity economy, open source software, transition towns, open government, and social enterprise are just a few of the movements showing a way forward based on sharing.