Beyond capitalocentricism: are non-capitalist work practices ‘alternatives’?

It is widely believed that there is no alternative to capitalism. Over the last two decades however, the critical geography literature on diverse economies has demonstrated the existence of alternatives to capitalism by revealing the persistence of non-capitalist forms of work and organisation. The aim in this paper is to question the validity and usefulness of continuing to frame these non-capitalist practices as ‘alternatives’. Positioning non-capitalist economic practices as ‘alternatives’ fails to capture not only the ubiquity of such practices in everyday life, but also how those engaging in them do not see them as ‘alternatives’ in the sense of a second choice, or less desirable option, to capitalist practices. The intention in doing so is to reveal that it is not non-capitalist practices that are ‘alternative’ but rather, capitalist practices themselves, thus opening up the future to the possibility of a non-capitalist world more fully than has so far been the case.