A charter



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1. ALOE – the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and Solidarity-based Economy - rallies actors from various disciplines for its central task of collectively designing, reflecting, exchanging, promoting and implementing a responsible, plural and solidarity-based economy (RPSE). It creates various forms of collective efforts to develop, nurture, and enhance sustainable models of RPSE in various countries and regions of the world that contribute to the evolution of a RPSE global value chain.

2. ALOE identifies itself as an independent alliance operating in collaboration with the various actors that are working to construct an economy based on the values of responsibility, plurality, solidarity, integral democracy, cooperation, reciprocity, respect for diversity, ecological sustainability, social justice, equity, complementarity and love.

3. ALOE seeks to promote a Culture and a Socioeconomy based on those values as a new way of organizing the human economy and society, from the local to the global levels. All forms of organization of RPSE should preserve their autonomy from political parties, governments and religious organizations.

4. ALOE underlines the central role that women and men have to play in socioeconomic systems, enjoying the same rights of participation, decision-making and implementation, weaving in solidarity webs the diversity that constitutes humankind, abolishing all forms of oppression, domination, prejudice and exclusion, especially those that have subjugated women throughout history.

5. ALOE conceives human work, knowledge, ethical sensitivity and creativity as central attributes of human society and seeks to foster practical means of life and work that liberate human time and energy towards fulfilling all human potentials freely, equitably and ethically.

6. ALOE acts to promote economic, social, political, cultural and environmental rights of working people. ALOE’s activities are directed towards enabling each and every person, community and society to share in solidarity the possession, control and management of productive goods and resources, knowledge, technology and the benefits generated by the action of producing, exchanging and consuming.

7. ALOE identifies itself as a framework for the promotion, rescue and recognition of the cultures, traditions and wisdoms of traditional peoples, and of their solidarity-based, reciprocal economies.

8. ALOE understands economic and technological development not as an end, but as merely a means at the service of human, social, ethical and environmentally sustainable development.

9. ALOE understands human persons, communities and society as the leading agent of the development of their own potentials, and of their material and immaterial resources. The democratic State and democratized multilateral governance organizations should be development agents subsidiary to Civil Society. It is the mandate of the democratic State to serve the People, to assure that the democratically formulated national and regional development projects are carried out harmoniously, and to engender and implement public policies that guarantee access for all to productive and reproductive goods and resources and a just distribution of income, wealth and opportunities.

10. ALOE asserts that working women and men are also consumers. The way we consume defines the type of society we have. The first step towards constructing a RPSE is for us to consume ethically, responsibly and in solidarity. Once the needs and wishes of individuals and communities are defined, that provides the basis for planning what is to be produced, with what technology, in what quantity and with what quality, while maintaining ecosystems in balance and promoting ethically exercised public, personal and social freedoms.

11. ALOE seeks to interlink, among diverse modes of organization, ten fields of socioeconomic activity:

  • Ethical consumption
  • Self-managed, sustainable production
  • Equitable and ethical trade
  • Solidarity finance and social currencies
  • Sharing of knowledge and technology
  • Cooperative education
  • Art and Communication in plural dialogue
  • Democratic, participatory governance at all levels of social life
  • Legislation to regulate the presence of RPSE in the country’s socioeconomic life
  • Ethics, culture and personal-interpersonal transformation.

12. The criteria for participation in ALOE include:

  1. Ethical and political commitment to the principles and values of this Charter.
  2. Commitment to adopting practices conducive to maintaining ecosystems in balance, reducing waste and promoting ecologically sustainable consumption, re-use and recycling
  3. Absence of practices that involve exploitation of human work
  4. Defense of common assets (water, land, air and biodiversity) as assets that cannot be privatized, nor converted into commodities
  5. Practice and promotion of education in the values of self-management
  6. and solidarity
  7. Promotion of ALOE as a space of exchange of knowledge, practices, links and initiatives.
  8. Responsibility to making ALOE known, disseminating its works and findings.
  9. Recognition that one has permanently to learn from the others.
  10. Respect for the diversity of points of view and convictions being expressed, with the intent to build common perspectives.
  11. Participation in the effort to elaborate proposals and implement them.
  12. Respect for the forms of work and deadlines commonly agreed.
  13. Commitment to use the name of ALOE in coherence with the ethical criteria and after asking the opinion of the others.
  14. Commitment to work for a culture of peace and cooperation; the conflicts within ALOE are managed peacefully in dialogue, with the intent to make of it an opportunity of collective progress.
  15. Respect for the rules of confidentiality defined in common.