The practice of some industrialized countries in implementing the ideas of a socially inclusive economy in national law

Abstract

Virtually all industrialized countries have well-developed legislation on social enterprises, which constitute a separate segment of the economy. For historical and doctrinal reasons, there are several approaches to regulating the social economy.
In general, countries that have legal regulation of the social economy can be divided into three groups, namely: those that have legally recognized specific organizational entities or legal structures as prototypes of social enterprises, as happened in some countries with social cooperatives; those that have adopted a special law to regulate social enterprises; and those that have included social enterprises in a general law on the social economy.
The economic principle that defines the activities of organizations within the social economy is reciprocity. Social economy actors achieve their goals, both economic and social, on the basis that the contributions of individuals will be reciprocal and the benefits shared. The main goal of social economy organizations is to promote mutual collective benefit. The goal of reciprocity is human connection or solidarity, which makes social enterprises fundamentally different from private and public enterprises. Social relations are mobilized to achieve collective goals through social control of the capital.
The Ukrainian legislator has a fairly wide range of doctrinal and legal approaches to regulating the social economy. The choice of the optimal model depends on the goal set by the legislator. In Ukraine, there is a National Strategy for Civil Society Promotion for 2021-2026. From the point of view of Ukrainian society, the social economy is not something new.
Going beyond the legal analysis, a more in-depth analysis of not only legal but also tax regulation of social enterprises in different countries should be conducted in the future to understand how social enterprises are supported in different countries, taking into account the fact that these enterprises are often non-profit.
Another important aspect of future research could be to study the prevalence of social enterprises in different countries, taking into account different doctrinal and legal approaches to their regulation.