Strength and weakness of self-­organization in its utopian-­idealistic description

The article is a review of Johann Rittermann’s book The Power of Unity. Politics and Economics through the Lens of Cooperation (Moscow: Publishing House “Picture of the World”, 2025). In its abstract, the book is presented as “more than a theory — a guide to action for those who want to change the world around them”, and such positioning could not but affect the “quality” of this “research on cooperation in a world of growing polarization and crises”. Despite its numerous conceptual positions, historical reviews, discourse-­analytical descriptions of economic and political realities, which are certainly useful for social researchers for conducting theoretical and empirical studies of grassroots solidarity, including in the contemporary Russian society, the book is still popular-­scientific (lacks references even when citing specific authors) and even of positive-­slogan character (calls for joint humanistic action).