An Atlas to Map the Swarming of Social and Voluntary Enterprises

Very useful is 'The Atlas of Social Economies' developed by Guido Caselli, a hot statistician in his ironic and bitter 'game with cold numbers' presented by an artificial intelligence 'robot' that rushes over the territory to make a light interpretation of the changing geography of welfare and places. Bringing together computing power, plurality of statistical sources, it always uses the dense urban sociology of Calvino's Invisible Cities to interpret the data. It is an atlas that shows us the advance of an economy of services increasingly linked to the economies of tiny lives struggling to live, care for themselves, eat and in the mobility not only of bodies, but also of going beyond the wall of loneliness. That 'little robot' refers to a high segment of the tertiary affluent segment of business consulting, electronic commerce, communication and diffuse real estate rent that inhabits the digital networks of the simultaneity of the masters of the algorithm.The Atlas gives us an account of the proliferation at the bottom of the economies of proximity in which social enterprises, cooperatives and voluntary organisations are included, which preside over the last mile with services of proximity to people (care, social inclusion, cultural and sports promotion) in the minute maintenance of buildings, public spaces, the environment, goods logistics, tourism and catering. A nebula of proximity economy made up of 452 thousand organisations (3 out of 4 voluntary) with 2 million employees (70% in social cooperation) and 98 billion added value. These numbers are larger than those of Istat: 360 thousand, thus signalling the urgency of a necessary review of our reasoning on social classes and social composition. This is what Caselli calls 'magnitude', mapping a proliferation of the social economy that points to a not insignificant question: whether this is just a third sector supporting the economy or vice versa a social issue before the economy. Unveiled also by its atlas of territories, being the social and proximity economy in symbiosis with local public spending in territorial platforms where social cohesion is made to compete also with corporate welfare, where civic virtues are stressed before the economy and where social capital is produced to stimulate local authorities and economies especially in the south. Seen from the territory, one wonders if we are only facing the numbers of the third sector or not the beginning of a third story. To begin, Caselli's suggestion, by equipping ourselves with an atlas to understand the many who are at work mobilising social sense and passion, but with what income, with what micro-budget of enterprises and micro-cooperatives with what contract and salary in the nebula of proximity economies. Thus dispelling the fog produced by the fiscal crisis of the state and local authorities in the welfare crisis. Digging into the importance of social weaving, of the relational interweaving that becomes the consciousness of places capable of attracting people and businesses, to combat the demographic winter and regenerate the culture of work and enterprise by changing a term dear to me as "geocommunity." Powered by territorial platforms in which 'places are more places', where the layout of relational capital is intertwined according to a questioning relationship with the competitive dimension, pivoting on the nodes of the metropolis but above all, on the network of medium-sized cities, the intelligent interface of commutation of metamorphosis. And here, I return with Caselli to Calvino's Invisible Cities. To Ersilia, where the complex weave of threads stretched between buildings reminds us of the idea of the territory as a social construction in progress between frays, tears, mending and tangles that in modernity become social economy, beyond the walls of the company, the social cooperative, the voluntary sector, hybridising profit and non-profit in the proximity of the last mile. This is why it is necessary to recount and give weight to the social composition of a Lilliputian multitude put to work for the reproduction of living human capacity, and to recount it on the border of the margin that becomes the centre, induces

to a representation not only of a third sector in entrepreneurial consolidation, but of a third narrative capable of giving an account of the restless and industrious communities on the ground, questioning the economy on the border of the ecological crisis and the development model. This is a debate that has also been animating the National Forum of the Third Sector, which will meet in Rome soon. These are traces of hope.

bonomi@aaster.it