May was my social economy month. Like a red thread, the topic ran through almost all the encounters and events I was involved in. Why actually? One possible answer to this became clear to me at re:publica, where the increasing pressure on democracy and ultimately also on the social market economy was discussed in countless talks and panel debates.
In May, I was part of a jury commissioned by the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises, which selected the winners of the Berlin Social Enterprises 2026 competition across the three categories People, Planet, and Transformation. In the course of this work, and especially in preparation for the keynote I gave at the award ceremony at re:publica, I became aware of how strongly the field of social economy is increasingly intersecting with critical debates around Big Tech, artificial intelligence and techno-feudalism.
Discursive shift: marking the “un-social”
There is a vibe shift around the concept of "social". For a long time, the social economy understood itself as a counter-model to the “real” economy. Social enterprises, cooperatives, collectives, or common-good-oriented initiatives had to explain why they are not only socially relevant, but also economically viable.
Today, it is increasingly the economic actors who must justify themselves: those who produce beyond planetary boundaries and whose business models are based on the exploitation of labor or data. The “Berlin Social Enterprises 2026” competition made this very clear: while social enterprises are already professionally established and operate in technologically innovative and economically relevant ways, it is increasingly those forms of business that externalize social and ecological costs that are coming under pressure to justify themselves.
I would find it desirable if, at the same level at which we begin to label social enterprises, we also made “un-social” players visible and called them out accordingly.
The sector needs more data
The Verbund Kooperatives Wirtschaften (VKW), of which I have been a founding member and co-board member since 2024, argued in an online event on May 29, 2026, that the social economy is a significant economic factor. For this purpose, recent studies from Berlin and Bremen were presented and compared. The data and studies from both federal states indicate that social enterprises are playing an increasingly relevant role in the overall economy - not only qualitatively but also quantitatively.
At the same time, it became clear how fragmented the data situation still is. Many activities of the social economy only partially appear in conventional national economic statistics, even though they generate real value creation, employment and innovation. This brings us to an ongoing structural problem: what is not visible fails to enter the political stage.
Against this backdrop, the discussion repeatedly raised the question of what a contemporary system for recording social-economic activities could look like.
New measurement logics for societal value
One of the central questions of the coming years is how we actually measure economic success. Are GDP, growth, and profitability still sufficient, or are these indicators already too limited? And what about the externalization of costs that many industries continue to pass on to society? As an example, one could look at the IMF’s current figures on the societal costs of fossil fuels.
If we look at how social enterprises, such as the Berlin repair and circular economy project Kreisler or the food startup Haferkater, write their impact and sustainability reports, we see expanded logics of impact. These do not only account for revenue and scaling, but also ask whether people become more capable of action, whether ecological stability is strengthened, and whether democratic spaces and societal resilience are reinforced. I also found it particularly interesting that Haferkater publishes not only a sustainability report but also an unsustainability report. Apparently, they are not afraid to disclose areas where they do not yet meet their own standards.
This brings another perspective into focus: many social enterprises assume social, ecological, and infrastructural responsibilities that are systematically externalized in other parts of the economy. These contributions remain largely invisible in conventional metrics, even though they generate real societal value.
Okapis and the question of (re-)socialization
What I found particularly interesting in the studies were companies that cannot be clearly classified as social enterprises. In the Berlin study, in distinction from “zebras” - the core group of social enterprises - they are referred to as “okapis.” This hybrid form may hold one of the greatest transformation potentials.
As important as it is to support existing social enterprises, it is an equally important task to enable as many companies as possible to transition into the social economy.
What would actually be the “minimum viable social business” of a company? Which small changes in governance, ownership, procurement, or impact could already trigger significant shifts?
Of course, this requires non-negotiable core principles: the prioritization of socio-ecological goals over pure return logic must be structurally secured. Social enterprises, cooperatives, or purpose-driven organizations typically achieve this through statutes, governance structures, or ownership models. What is needed now are open transitional spaces for the transformation of companies. We need a re-socialization of the economy. This is less an option than an infrastructural necessity.
Social economy as the operating system of a democracy
What we classify as the social economy and what for decades has occupied a special position in economic policy discourse should become the primary economic operating system of all democratic states, unless we are interested in being swallowed by techno-fascism.
How can the social economy be understood as an integrated part of a future economic operating system? And when I say operating system, I do not mean it in a technocratic sense, but rather as a system that understands economic performance, democratic control & social responsibility as interdependent prerequisites.
To strengthen the social market economy, we must above all protect the economic order from the societal threat posed by the unregulated power of tech corporations. This requires a fundamental shift in thinking to defend informational self-determination and democratic values against exploitation. Those who think this is exaggerated should take a look at Francesca Bria’s Authoritarian Stack, which clearly shows how the penetration of US tech companies into Europe’s critical infrastructure affects democratic governments.
Maybe we won’t need the term “social economy” anymore
If there is a social economy, what is the appropriate term for the purely market- and profit-oriented economy? Market economy? Or perhaps simply: un-social economy?
The best outcome would be if we no longer needed the term “social economy” at all. If no one would think of separately highlighting socially oriented economic activity because its principles had become self-evident.
Because social responsibility, ecological stability, democratic infrastructure & long-term thinking would no longer be exceptions but the baseline standard of economic action.
Then we would perhaps no longer invite outstanding social enterprises onto a stage to honor them - although, admittedly, that is a lot of fun. Instead, the focus would be on developing transformation programs for those economic actors who have not yet arrived in the present: those still tied to fossil fuels, those maintaining gender pay gaps, those promoting the 40-hour work week, and those squeezing everything possible out of supply chains regardless of cost.
These companies should go into the okapi training program - or onto the shortlist of “un-social enterprises,” the (still) fictional negative award of an economy that will hopefully soon begin to take the externalization of costs as seriously as the accounting of profits.