THE FORTUNES OF SOCIAL ECONOMY

The paper describes the economical context of the emergence of the social economy, its main characteristics and dimensions; it identifies the similarities and the differences amid the social economy and the liberal economy in particular. As a descriptive-explanatory paper, it develops on the technical literature in order to highlight the importance of this sector within the ensemble of the market economy, the difficulties that it confronts with as a competitive actor and the chances of insuring the sustainability of social enterprises. The conclusions of the paper point to the idea that, despite the obstacles it confronts with, the sector of social economy has availability of development by itself representing an opportunity of increasing the occupational degree by inserting the disadvantaged groups on the labour market.