Economic Theory

" [A symbiotic economy or] symbiotic circuit cannot promise that the benefits of a collaborative chain will eventually reach an even pattern of distribution among all the parties involved; there is no automatic synthesis of interests, guarantee of universal applicability or any sort of binding moral nexus within a humanitarian marketplace.

Modern thought has long moulded its understanding of a free society’s circuits of collaboration upon the form of the market (Palacios, 2018). Yet, currently, the messy cultural penetration through market avenues of such an open-ended ethos as humanitarianism allows us to consider an alternative strategic projection for an ‘economy’ composed of practices of freedom, at least in the sense that this term is arguably being used in post-capitalistic formulations such as ‘human economy’ (Hart et al., 2010), ‘economy of survival’ (Abélès, 2010) or ‘community economy’ (Gibson-Graham, 2006); namely, as a circuit whose spatiality and totalizing effect cannot be presumed beyond the idea that it comprises a series of contingent yet potentially self-sustaining dynamics among plural individualities leading, from an external point of view, to an aggregate productivity with a generally positive balance for those involved and, crucially, a balance that is still susceptible to correction and redirection by means of policy. " (Palacios 2021 p. 129)

"There is a growing sense among cultural researchers of a need to conceptualize a ‘human economy’ that is ‘two-sided’ (Hart et al., 2010: 4-5) and of moving towards a more ‘productive critique’ of ‘human rights in the age of enterprise’ (Dale and Kyle, 2016: 792). 

...If we take as a relevant point of comparison the parallel rise of a ‘sharing economy’ driven by the wide accessibility of digital platforms, we can see that it is still quite easy for us social critics or even for business scholars to immediately aspire to differentiate those initiatives that are truly about ‘sharing’ from those that are simply about market profit and utilitarian values (e.g. Belk, 2014). Even if the lived reality of these collaborations in the sharing economy is bound to remain hybrid (Arvidsson, 2018), one can still plan to evaluate, for example, the extent to which their collaborative dimension is actually embedding practices of market exchange in the substantive dynamics of ‘reciprocity’ and ‘redistribution’ famously synthesized by Polanyi (Arcidiacono et al., 2018: 277-278).

In the case of a ‘human economy’ or what I am trying to less holistically spatialize as a ‘humanitarian marketplace’, the tension between the social and the economic is distinct in that it does not find an immediate path for resolution... for the kinds of initiatives that one finds in this arena, such as corporate social responsibility, venture philanthropy, brand aid, ethical consumption, fair trade, social microcredit, social entrepreneurship, nonprofit internships and volunteer tourism, are not just hybrid but ambivalently hybrid. Even those who embrace the humanitarian aspect of these experiences are likely to perceive their contribution as a ‘disquieting gift’ (Bornstein, 2012)." (Palacios 2021 pp. 118-119)

" ...a behavioral test is ahistorical and, thus, formally constrained. It has a set limit for how prosocial one can be, while, in real institutional contexts, one may well choose the most prosocial option that is on offer and still remain dissatisfied with just being what the tests would define as a Homo socialis. Young volunteer tourists, in fact, often end up feeling skeptical about the progressive effects of their humanitarian placements overseas (Vrasti 2013; Palacios 2022)—which means that, while they outwardly behave as a Homo socialis, inwardly they wish they could be more radically prosocial.

The experimental measurements of Homo socialis require, in short, a deeply qualitative interpretation, because, depending on the context, both a prosocial and a non-prosocial choice can stand at times for a more radically prosocial sensibility, one that has no set marker or top limit in a behavioral range. One could perhaps conceptualize this extended range of radically prosocial preferences through a marker such as “Homo humanus,” which would be helpful to explore new experimental hypotheses about individuals who apparently react to policies as a Homo economicus or a Homo socialis would but who, deep down, have a humanistic sensibility that is more radically prosocial" (Palacios 2024, pp. 12-13)