Growing the social enterprise bubble

The other day, I was attending a social enterprise fair for work (actually more than attending it, my employer set up this fair years ago and runs it every year). At lunchtime, while everybody balanced their lunches on their knees, we had a designated table.

I'm fairly junior in that organisation, but as that table wasn't getting used and I spotted one of our trustees in the room, I invited him up there. Soon another guy showed up. Our trustee runs a very succesful children's charity. The other guy runs a social enterprise alternative to Starbucks. That means his coffee is uber-ethical, and his workforce is almost entirely composed of vulnerable adults. None of the styrofoam plates feel here though. He simply does a great job.

Before my very eyes, the trustee with the children's charity said to the other guy that he was looking to sell coffee on his street corner, to raise funds and be more visible at shopfront level. The two guys very nearly stroke a deal right here and there.

I said something along the lines of "mmm this social enterprise fair seems to work alright, doesn't it?".

We then talked about how social enterprises can support each other and be each other's first clients. For lack of a better word, I said we could be like a tumour, growing our own little organism doing its thing in relative autonomy from the mainstream capitalist beast, to the point at which it becomes easy for groups and individuals to choose to inhabit the social enterprise bubble. I felt like plugging one of my favourite motto, the IWW principle of "forming the structures of a new society within the shell of the old".

But then I thought, hang on, where do we draw the line between what's a social enterprise and what isn't?

Specifically, I was thinking of my local sandwich shop near work. I mean sure, her sandwiches are way more expensive than what I could bring from home, so I could think that buying them is a luxury of sorts. But on the other hand, something in her eyes tells me she really needs my business. Is she a social enterprise? Nope. Should she be included in the bubble? I think so. Because a business that keeps a couple of people in employment bestows essential quality of life on them, and this is eminently desirable. So I'll favour a bubble for the dogooders and independents together.

As an aside, society is talking a lot about ethical stuff these days. The tories have been at it for half a decade too. And so pretty mainstream firms are rebranding themsleves as social enterprises because they have realised that a number of government agencies simply lurrrrve comissioning with social enterprises and favour them over mainstream firms. Buggers.