Essay by dr. Bert Breij, author of Solidary Technology

Here, technology becomes human again.

The modern enterprise is searching for its soul. For too long, business revolved around profit margins and shareholder value, while technology often overpowered rather than served humanity. Yet across the world, a different model is emerging: the social enterprise — a business where profit is not the goal but a means to create social value.

In the United States, this movement already has legal form. Benefit Corporations and Low-Profit LLCs are allowed to make profit but are required by law to report on their social and environmental impact. Well-known names such as Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s show that economic strength and moral responsibility can go hand in hand. In Europe, the same spirit lives on in the United Kingdom’s Community Interest Company and France’s société à mission. Technology here is no longer a neutral tool but a carrier of responsibility — a force that connects innovation with justice, and progress with care.

The Netherlands is still catching up. Social enterprises exist in practice — often as foundations that own a business — but they lack a legal identity. The proposal for a new BVm, a private limited company with a social mission, has been waiting for years. Meanwhile, a new practice is quietly taking shape: organizations that refuse to choose between idealism and realism. They show that technology is not just about speed or scale, but about meaning, restraint, and solidarity.

One of the leading voices in this field is Professor André Nijhof of Nyenrode Business University. He promotes the concept of steward-ownership — ownership as responsibility, profit as a means rather than an end. In his vision, the enterprise becomes a custodian of values rather than a possession. Nijhof sees the social enterprise as the natural home for solidary technology: technology that strengthens people and communities instead of replacing them.

This marks the birth of a new economic consciousness, where innovation and solidarity no longer oppose each other but belong together. Every business that reinvests its profit in its mission, every technological innovation that restores human dignity, proves that there is a third way between market and morality. Technology without ethics hardens; ethics without technology weakens. Only in their union does progress remain humane.

The Netherlands is well positioned for this transformation. Its cooperative traditions and culture of collaboration offer fertile ground for enterprises that combine social goals with technological innovation. What is missing is not the will, but a legal framework that recognizes and safeguards this balance.

The social enterprise is therefore more than an economic novelty — it is a civilizational experiment. It redefines what it means to do business, who benefits, and what technology is for. It shows that solidarity is not an ornament of progress but its foundation.

Perhaps that is the greatest gain of all: that through the social enterprise, technology becomes human once more. Not to dominate, but to serve. Not to divide, but to connect.