The new business of the third sector within a market society - as consumable, elite few and distant broker

Organising that is separate from state and market orgamsmg is variously called voluntary, nonprofit, not-for-profit, informal or grassroots and increasingly third sector at the more formalised scale of organising. Such third sector organising is deemed to involve people working together to serve or advocate for self or others beyond profit and coercion and is considered to support civil society.\ud \ud Considerable analytical and political energy has been expended in recent decades in many jurisdictions to create the third sector as a policy entity alongside the state and market. Some claim that the third sector is being created, from the seemingly disparate array of principles and logics outside of those ofthe state and the market, in order for it to be governed. Such political creation of the third sector has occurred within the dominance of an economic paradigm and can been a considerable distraction from the triumph of such market-based principles and logics. No less energy has been expended on creating the third sector as a social space with a value-base and logics outside of those of the state and the market, but perhaps with less demonstrable results.\ud \ud Classic representations of third sector positioning depict the quadratic of 'the market', 'the state', 'the third sector' and a fourth sector (such as community, households, families, or informal sectors) and their relations, variously arranging them as separate but relating, overlapping or parts of a whole. An alternate depiction of a market paradigm positioning for the third sector is posited and explored through a number of tentative accounts of manifestations or indicators of such new 'positioning' of actors and change directions. Three major flows of change are considered: from the informal sector via the third sector to market; from the third sector via the state to market; and from the state via the informal sector to the market.\ud \ud Such demonstration begins to highlight some of the new 'business' of the third sector as a consumable for social entrepreneurs; as elites of business-like large providers; and as distant brokers for the state. These flows from, to and through the third sector both demonstrate the dominance of economic thinking and the precarious nature of the third sector as created 'partner' within the national political realm. Such an approach lifts our gaze to focus on transformative flows in change rather than the instrumentalism of particular changes, from a focus on changes in the third sector to third sector space as a conduit for wider change