The Social Economy and Utopia: Paradoxes, Realism and the Theory of Complex Social Systems

Ermanno C. Tortia ()
Additional contact information
Ermanno C. Tortia: Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento, Italy

Chapter 8 in Imagine, Studying the Relationship between Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) and Imaginary in the Era of Capitalocene, 2024, vol. 6, pp 135-148 from CIRIEC - Université de Liège

Abstract: This chapter considers utopia as prospective statements about social realities, representing “pole stars” for developing social thinking in development programs and policies. It aims to reconstruct the concept of utopia from a social economy point of view, striving to highlight what conceptual criteria can be used to classify different types of utopias, especially “feasible” and “unfeasible” on the one hand, and “good” and “bad” utopias on the other. To achieve these results, elements of complexity theory, social systems theory in the social sciences, and critical realism in philosophy are considered. Some examples referred to organization in the social economy are used to show how definitions and conceptual categories can be applied to real-world cases, or to utopian ideas that achieved some degree of relevance in culture and science (Hedrén, 2014).

Keywords: utopia; complexity theory; social systems theory; critical realism; paradoxes; social economy organizations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 B55 L31 O35 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ciriec.uliege.be/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CSS6-CHAP8.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crc:chapte:6-08

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in CIRIEC Studies Series from CIRIEC - Université de Liège Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CIRIEC ().