“It is right to empower citizens to create pioneering solutions and fairly share the wealth produced”

LHe recorded fundraising for tech startups and the media and political enthusiasm they generate reveal the priorities of our economy: payment solutions for impulse purchases, speculation on cryptocurrencies, internet advertising solutions… high priorities social and environmental realities. It becomes essential to grasp these topics and reveal a truly responsible and democratic economic model.

Years and warnings pass, but the conclusion is the same: while nearly half of humanity lives in situations highly vulnerable to climate change, the financial economy is putting our resources into activities that threaten life on Earth. With a disturbing cynicism, financiers find themselves cut off from the world and its crises.

After decades of neoliberalism, which gave all the power to the financial markets, it is necessary to restore the sovereignty of the citizens to the economic orientation. Citizen initiatives play a central role on the road to economic democracy. Often in the form of cooperative societies of collective interest, these approaches are based on a radically different economic model where citizens are fully involved.

This way of doing business is implemented on a national scale and in various key sectors of the ecological transition: food, energy, mobility, telecommunications, finance, secondary procurement. Many similar initiatives are also being developed at the local level. Hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered in cooperatives thus demonstrate a democratic economic system.

Exemplary initiatives

In order for exemplary initiatives to move forward, it is necessary to facilitate the financing of their citizens. We, the leaders of the cooperative enterprises gathered in the Licoornes Alliance, propose to strengthen public support, for example by increasing the tax deduction related to the investments of individuals in these structures. Indeed, due to the fact that cooperatives do not recoup or hardly recoup their capital, investment funds, no matter how “committed” they are, rarely finance these structures, which severely limits their development opportunities.

Under these circumstances, they cannot play on a level playing field with competitors full of millions. For example, while Back Market, a platform for the sale of electronic objects, raised 450 million euros in 2021, Label Emmaüs, its counterpart in the social and solidarity economy, with only ten times less employees (including a third in the integration process), raised 150,000 Euro (ie 3,500 times less) from small investors!