A dynamic development of market economy, broadly understood globalisation, the welfare state crisis in Western Europe etc. cause the intensification and creation of new aspects of poverty, marginalisation and social exclusion. The capabilities to solve the increasing social issues must be connected with the idea of social economy which assumes, among other things, facilitating the employment participation, access and use of any resources, laws, products and services. The opportunities of implementing those actions are linked to functioning of a specific group of entities which perform, along with the economic activity, also a social mission. Cooperatives should be classified in such group. They can be an alternative for those entities of commercial economy which are profit-oriented. Hence, the aim of this paper is to identify the interdependencies between the increase in significance of social economy in market economies (inter alia in Poland) and the pace of development of cooperative movement, indicating its directions the conditions that determine it.