Introduction

The political weight of global capital, particularly finance capital and its reactionary side-kick, landed capital, can be measured by the new cities it has built in the global South where none existed before, by the rapidity with which it abandons emblematic zones of prosperity in the global North, and by the ferocity with which it destroys habitats, species and clean air everywhere. On the other side of the global ghost-walk by Monsieur le Capital and Madame la Terre, those marginalised and menaced by globalisation as well as those opposed to it in principle have been putting down the roots of social and solidarity enterprises (SSEs) in the thin soil of opposition, thereby asserting the existence of alternative ways of living in today's world. How do we assess these efforts and claims? Are they big enough? What is big? What is enough? In short, if we look to SSEs to challenge the hegemony of capital, how do we expect them to do this?

According to Marx's analysis, the Achilles heel of capital's hegemony is its successful mystification of how land and labour are commodified in the course of capitalist economic growth. One illustration of this idea will suffice. Marx in his discussion of the transformation of agriculture in Scotland wrote about the actions of a certain Duchess of Sutherland with respect to the communal lands adjoining her estates. He explained:

Violence, Marx argued, is the essential first step in the commodification of land and labour. Obscuring that violence is essential to defending capitalism; obscuring violence requires narratives that mystify how it comes to pass that people's lives are a plaything of market forces.