Civil society and the ‘commanding heights’::The civil economy: Past, present and future

Abstract

Civil society associations, including voluntaryand community groups, trade unions, faithbasedorganisations, co-operatives andmutuals, have long influenced the economy.Civil society associations can run businesses and theycan run organisations that aim to influence businesses.Together, these two sorts of association help to grow acivil economy. This paper reviews the history of the civileconomy and looks ahead to how it may come to have agreater influence in the future.During industrialisation, many civi