The sprouting of the self-managing organizations foments a detailed discussion about the self-management. In an effort to understand the width of this subject, this paper presents not only the origin and the meaning of this term, but the precepts and basic ideals of its construction. For that, we searched for the origin of self-management in sociological sources, focusing two approaches: the Marxist and the Proudhonian. This theoretical reflection demands to consider the re-appropriation of this concept by the business sciences. Taking these constructions, we observed how the concept and the practice have been understood by the specialists on Solidarity-based Popular Economy in Brazil. Therefore we opposed the precepts of classic authors and contemporary ones and we perceived the necessity of a relativization of self-management concept for distant realities found in the Self-Managing Economical Organizations. This way we hope to instigate new debates about this, aiming at the collective construction of an alternative way to the current hegemonic system.