The Economic Rationale for the “Third Sector”

Voluntas Symposium: Comments on Salamon and Sokolowski’s Re-conceptualization of the Third Sector

“…First and foremost, it would be quite relevant to revisit the ''rationale of the third sector'' through which Gui (1991) theorizes the latter as pulling together all private organizations whose beneficiary category (i.e. to which the net surplus is allocated) is composed of stakeholders other than investors.…”

From the ‘Double Nature’ of Cooperation to the Social Economy: Fifty Years of Associationalism1

“…Regardless of the argument between those who view cooperatives as business oriented organizations aiming to maximize profit like common businesses (see, for instance Robotka, 1957;Helmberger & Hoos, 1962;Roy, 1969;Frederickson, 1985) and those for whom cooperatives are part of the nonprofits (Abrahamsen, 1976;Gui, 1991;Barbetta, 1997;Quarter et al, 2003 and many others), the notion of nonprofit was recently seen as applying to all forms of organizations that perform according to the aforementioned criteria of the social enterprise (Fiorentini, 2002). This was not the approach of the John Hopkins University's research on the Third Sector (Salamon & Anheier, 1994) which decided to exclude the cooperatives on the ground that they 'distribute profits' .…”

Renta Básica Incondicional y Economía Social: un intento de relación

“…Defourny, 1992, Gui 1991 han definido la misma como el tercer sector, ubicándose e incluyéndose en él las formas de organización económica que no casan ni en el sector capitalista ni en el sector público, es decir, las cooperativas, mutuas y asociaciones que cumplen funciones económicas sin ánimo de lucro. Opinamos que siguiendo el criterio de Rock y Klinedinst (1994) el incluir en la economía social partidos, grupos de interés, lobbies o sindicatos tal y como Barea (1991), Barea y Monzón (1992) o Michelsen (1994) apuntaron, sería un error ya que su finalidad y actividad principal no es económica y podría difuminar el sentido del tercer sector como forma diferenciada al sector capitalista y al público.…”