The Social Economy The dynamics of the social economy Example of Basta Arbetskooperativ










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The Social EconomyThe dynamics
of the social economy Example of Basta Arbetskooperativ
Summary
The social economy - an import from France There is growing
awareness of the social economy in Sweden, but it is still something new
and most people have had no reason to consider its role and place in the
social system. The term "economie sociale" originated in France. Since it
is a new concept in the Swedish language, the terminology is incomplete
and is still being developed.
Historically, interest in the social economy coincided with the 1990s
economic crises, high unemployment and the declining security of the
welfare system.
For those who distrust the public sector for political or other
reasons, as well as for those who reject the market forces' infiltration
of welfare provision, welfare provision within the social economy can
present an alternative. As a result of this ideological dualism, the
social economy can often win political favour both on the left and on the
right.
The Basta workers' co-operative is only one example of enterprise in
the social economy in Sweden. A book dealing specifically with Basta would
have adopted a different approach. Then Inger, Harry, Kenta, Åsa, Jackie
and others in the co-operative would have played a prominent role, with
the focus on their personal experiences and development. Social enterprise
involves developing and valuing human capital. Basta's role is simply to
put into practice and exemplify the processes that occur when a group of
marginalised people start a company.
Social economy and social enterpriseIn the EU a great deal
of effort has been expended in an attempt to define what is meant by the
term social economy. In 1989 social economy became an officially
recognised term in the EU. In Sweden the debate on the social economy
started later. A Swedish definition of social economy was drawn up by a
Government working party and presented in 1999:
"By social economy is understood organised activities whose primary
objectives are social, which are founded on democratic values and
organisationally independent of the public sector. These social and
economic activities are run primarily in societies, co-operatives,
foundations and similar associations. The main driving force of activity
in the social economy is the general good or the good of the members, as
distinct from profit motives."
The Basta exampleThe Basta workers' co-operative is situated
in Nykvarn outside Stockholm. In this small idyllic spot in Sörmländ there
are a number of small and me-dium-sized companies. With 60 employees Basta
is one of the bigger companies in the area and consequently plays quite a
significant role in the economy. However, it is not Basta's size that has
attracted attention, but rather the company's special employment policy.
The company welcomes and takes on people with serious drug addiction
problems. Of those living and working at Basta, 95 % have a background of
drug addiction and crime.
The vision underpinning the userrun company includes the conviction
that it is possible to create a successful company, where creating and
running the company are a rehabilitating process.
Basta's goal is to offer people with addiction problems a way out of
their addiction. Production at Basta is subordinate to this goal. Basta's
experience in one area is unambiguous:longterm drug abuse requires a long
period of rehabilitation. Longterm rehabilitation in residential treatment
centres is an expense which society today is increasingly unwilling to
offer people over 30 with a long history of drug addiction. The need for
long rehabilitation periods and society's unwillingness to provide it
means that Basta has incorporated this need into its rehabilitation work.
Everyone who comes to Basta and who wants to participate in the work and
in the community can stay as long as he or she wishes. The social services
and the National Prisons and Probation Administration pays Basta for one
year. After that the former client becomes a colleague at Basta. He/she
now earns his/her living by working in the company .
The need for a visionRunning a company and being an
entrepreneur is a highly respected occupation. If drug addicts were to do
this honestly and successfully this would in itself be a remarkable feat,
confounding both the world and the drug addict's own stereotypes and
prejudices regarding drug addiction .
The power of a good vision lies in its ability to fire peoples'
enthusiasm. It can lead people to excel when they sense or see a desirable
and coveted future. A live vision beckons towards a new reality, which can
change peoples' lives if it is attained. In contrast, a vision rarely
speaks about the concrete steps necessary to achieve it.
Basta's enterprise is a robust tool designed to achieve the abstract
vision, "a good life". By keeping the vision alive during the daily work
in the company, the enterprise does not become a goal in itself, with
unreasonable profit and efficiency demands on staff. Such demands can
easily become counterproductive in terms of the enterprise's goal to be a
path towards a future "good life".
By their nature visions are abstract and elusive. One way of clarifying
the vision is therefore to break it down into a number of manageable
concrete and down-to-earth concepts - principles which can be applied to
everyday work.
A specific cornerstone of Basta's vision is the role of work. Work
plays an important role at Basta and is one of the ideological platforms
of the co-operative. Work provides a living, social interaction and a
personal and collective identity. However, daily work and acquired
professional skills are not the most important goals of the work at Basta.
Work is a therapeutic tool, a tool that is used to develop social and
communication skills. The lack of communication skills is the scourge of
longterm drug addiction. Other founding principles are solidarity, quality
consciousness, ecological thinking, the pride of being independent and the
power of example as a model.
In an ideabased company visions represent the soul while the daily
activity represents the body. The trick is to bring body and soul into
harmony in the daily work. The body, in particular its infirmities, has a
tendency to constantly seek attention. The road back from drug addiction
is far more than simply learning routines such as working and being on
time. Having understood this, the question of how visions and hopes are
handled becomes decisive in determining whether a company such as Basta
takes on the character of a work camp or instead becomes a place of
personal development and growing selfconfidence.
Basta - yesterday and todayOn a hill outside Rimini on the
Italian Coast lies the enormous San Patrignano . Today 1500 former heroin
addicts live and work there. Visitors come from all over the world and are
amazed at what they witness in a day's tour.
In May 1989 a study group from the Swedish Association for Help and Aid
to Drug Abusers, RFHL, visited San Patrignano. The experiences of that
day's study visit were overwhelming. How could former heroin addicts run
an economically successful model company with just a handful of
professionals at their disposal? The visit shattered Swedish frames of
reference. Addicts should be treated in small and secret treatment
centres. Treatment required a large and highly trained therapeutic staff.
The visit to San Patrignano was thought-provoking. How was all this
possible?
RFHL received support from five districts south of Stockholm to plan a
Swedish workers' co-operative and after four years' preparation Basta
Arbetskooperativ was able to open its doors and take in the first addicts
in 1994. In an initial phase San Patrignano became an ideal, which
provided the inspiration to dare embark on a Swedish experiment.
From client to colleagueSince Basta's survival depends on
how successful the company is, everything is for real. If Basta does not
survive the competition with other companies, it faces bankruptcy. A
bankruptcy at Basta means not only that 60 people become unemployed. They
also find themselves without living quarters while the social network, on
which in many cases their freedom from drug addiction is founded,
disappears. The price of a collective failure is higher at Basta than in
any other company. Thus Basta's enterprise is genuine and can in no way be
considered simply as therapy to keep occupied and pass the time.
Basta is a multiactivity company whose quality goods satisfy a market
need. Many interests and occupations and skills can be developed while
making a profit, which is sufficient to provide a living for workers and
to make annual reinvestments to guarantee continued growth. It is through
this process that people leave the helpless client's role to begin to
regain control of their lives.
The need to be independentWhy is important to be
independent? For Basta the issue of being independent is bound up with the
company's overall economic development and the composition of its
clientele. Basta sells commercial products and rehabilitation. The
purchases of the rehabilitation services are in the public sector; by the
social services and the National Prisons and Probation Administration. The
public sector is not a homogeneous client. For Basta the public sector
means a market where all Sweden's districts and all national correctional
services are potential clients. The problem of a lack of independence
becomes acute if the company has only one or very few public clients who
could then make demands on how Basta's internal affairs are run. There
might be demands that the co-operative would oppose, but would feel it
could not afford to reject. Today, Basta's relations with the public
sector are strictly commercial. Basta does not receive any subsidies.
Basta's internal affairs are its own business. Local authorities and
correctional services pay for rehabilitation as long as they consider that
Basta has something to offer which is competitive with other care
providers.
Running a userdriven companyA significant difference between
social and commercial companies is that social companies recruit staff
from a much narrower circle. The manpower comes from specific target
groups. They are the mentally handicapped, the physically handicapped, the
longterm unemployed or drug addicts, while commercial companies handpick
specific occupational groups to meet their requirements, e.g.
electricians, draftsmen, computer specialists and business managers.
Diagram 1, 2: For Basta it has been
important to create a company, which is strong economically. At the
beginning of 1994 all income came from sales of rehabilitation places to
the public sector. Six years later the ratio between rehabilitation and
commercial sales* is 60:40. In 2000 the turnover was SEK 11 million.
*In 2000 Basta owned a limited company with a turnover of SEK 1.7
million. If this is taken into account the commercial share is 48 %.
Diagram 3, 4: The diagrams show Basta's
economic development over time: increased income from commercial sales and
a shift towards production in the construction and craft sector.
Combining social and economic goals Basta has no anonymous
shareholders demanding higher returns and no politically defined framework
for its activity. This provides a certain measure of freedom to shape the
enterprise so that it is adapted to the overriding goal of rehabilitating
drug addicts. However, this freedom is far from complete. By virtue of
Basta's structure, where those who wish may remain after an initial paid
apprenticeship year, production must generate income to cover the costs of
wages, accommodation, food, as well as investments to guarantee future
development and survival.
Basta has created a rehabilitation system that depends on production
and market success. This influences the type of person who is suited to
the company and consequently also on those who are offered work. But the
demands in terms of production cannot be such that they defeat Basta's
raison d'etre, i.e. to be a company for human development. This means that
there must always be scope for taking account of social considerations,
which profitmaximising companies operating in the care and rehabilitation
market cannot "afford" to consider.
The social accounts For normal companies the final accounts
are generally considered to reflect the public value of the company.
Companies operating within the social economy file annual company
accounts, but in addition they also create a social value added alongside
the values recorded in these accounts. The social value added represents
the unrecorded positive side effects. To highlight the social value of a
social company's production it is necessary to supplement the ordinary
annual accounts with special social accounts. The two accounts combined
would provide a fair view of the true social benefit of the social
company. Basta's social accounts show a social saving of about SEK 25
million annually, i.e.the income from social savings from "eliminating
addiction".
Evaluation of resultsIn a social company documentation,
evaluation and research encompass both macro and micro aspects. The
company's main objective is social, in Basta's case the rehabilitation of
drug addicts. Basta's tool in this rehabilitation is enterprise. The
results of its activity fall into three specific fields. Firstly "How well
is the rehabilitation working for the individual?" Secondly "How effective
is the tool of this rehabilitation, i.e. enterprise?" And thirdly: "How
well do the rehabilitation and its tool - the social company - function
from a social point of view."
There is a major need to develop key data and simple methods for
quality assurance within the social economy. Such systems must be able to
identify and measure the processes that emerge when rehabilitation and
enterprise interact. It is this interaction, which is unique for social
enterprise. It involves more and is qualitatively different than
documenting and measuring individual rehabilitation processes and output
in pounds and pence. The challenge is to understand and gain a measure of
the synergies, which develop.
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