A raised fist symbolizing solidarity of the worker movement
Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes.[1][2] Solidarity does not reject individuals and sees individuals as the basis of society.[3] It refers to the ties in a society that bind people together as one. The term is generally employed in sociology and the other social sciences, as well as in philosophy and bioethics.[4] It is a significant concept in Catholic social teaching and in Christian democratic political ideology.[5] Although closely related to the concept of charity, solidarity aspires to change whole systems, not merely to help individuals.[6][7]
Concepts of solidarity are mentioned in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights,[9] but not defined clearly.[10] As biotechnology and biomedical enhancement research and production increase, the need for a distinct definition of solidarity within healthcare system frameworks is important.[editorializing]
The terms solidaire and solidairement already appeared in French legal language in the 16th century. They are related to the Roman legal concept in solidum, which was derived from the Latin word solidus, meaning "on behalf of the whole". In Napoleon's code, solidarity meant the joint liability of debtors towards a common creditor and was not a primary legal principle.[11]
Conservatism, following the French Revolution, introduced the concept of "solidarity", which was detached from the legal system, as a reaction against rapid social change and as a longing for a stable society. During the July Monarchy, Pierre Leroux, a utopian socialist who is also said to have coined the term socialism, also introduced the concept of non-legal solidarity.[11]Auguste Comte, the so-called founder of sociology, adopted the concept in the sense of social interdependence between people. Comte linked solidarity to the concept of altruism as the opposite of egoism. Instead of emphasising the individual, altruism emphasises common responsibility and solidarity. The interpretations of Pierre Leroux and Auguste Comte gave rise to the idea of a specific social solidarity as the basis of the social order.[12]
After the French Revolution, new scientific and ideological interpretations of solidarity emerged in France in the second half of the 19th century. The concept took on sociological (Émile Durkheim), economic (Charles Gide), legal (Léon Duguit) and political (Léon Bourgeois) variants. Thinkers with different emphases shaped the meaning of the concept of solidarity to suit their own purposes.
The Paris Communards, for example, exchanged the revolutionary slogan of "fraternity" for "solidarity". Some French liberal economists also began to use the term "solidarity", but they changed its meaning in an individualistic direction. Liberalists argued that interdependence between people meant that people also had to take responsibility for their actions without the state intervening.[11] Charles Gide, an economist who opposed liberalism, developed his own interpretation of the concept and even proposed solidarity as the name of a new school of economics.[12]
Through these stages, by the turn of the 20th century, solidarity had become a generic term that could be associated with almost everything that was considered good and progressive. The Paris World Fair in 1900 was accompanied by a congress on "social education and the new solidarity". The Catholic Church also began to use the popular concept of solidarity. According to sociologist Steven Lukes, solidarity played a role in France at the time that was almost as strong and influential as individualism did in the United States at the same time.[11]
Émile Durkheim's theory
According to Émile Durkheim, the types of social solidarity correlate with types of society. Durkheim introduced the terms mechanical and organic solidarity[13] as part of his theory of the development of societies in The Division of Labour in Society (1893). In a society exhibiting mechanical solidarity, its cohesion and integration comes from the homogeneity of individuals—people feel connected through similar work, educational and religious training, and lifestyle. Mechanical solidarity normally operates in traditional small-scale societies.[14] In tribal society, solidarity is usually based on kinship ties of familial networks. Organic solidarity comes from the interdependence that arises from specialization of work and the complementarities between people—a development which occurs in modern and industrial societies.[14]
Although individuals perform different tasks and often have different values and interests, the order and solidarity of society depends on their reliance on each other to perform their specified tasks. "Organic" refers to the interdependence of the component parts, and thus social solidarity is maintained in more complex societies through the interdependence of its component parts (e.g., farmers produce the food to feed the factory workers who produce the tractors that allow the farmer to produce the food).
Léon Bourgeois's solidarity
Although the concept of solidarity had already been used in the labor movement in the mid-19th century, it was only the liberal republicans who brought solidarity into the mainstream of French political debate. In 1896, Léon Bourgeois published his book Solidarité, which introduced the concept of solidarity into political language. Bourgeois's solidarity was based primarily on the interdependence between people, a double-edged sword that produced both security and threats. On the other hand, it was also based on the idea of social debt. According to Bourgeois, man owes society the technical and intellectual capital that social development has produced for him.[11][12]
Bourgeois also introduced the term solidarism to describe a political ideology based on solidarity. Solidarism was a precise and clear structure of ideas which radicalism was also able to assimilate, and it came to regard it as its own ideological expression. After the turn of the century, Bourgeois solidarism came to be regarded almost as an official idea of the Third Republic. His solidarism combined elements of Durkheim's theory of solidarity with the theories of Louis Pasteur and Charles Darwin, and constituted an alternative to the confrontation between classical liberalism and workerscollectivism. Bourgeois emphasised the solidarity generated by interdependence between people as a positive factor for all human growth. Solidarism thus combined the natural interdependence of human beings with solidarity as a moral goal. Although the idea of solidarity had different successors and interpretations, they had in common the emphasis on both the social responsibility of the state and the cooperation of citizens.[11][12]
Charles Gide's economic theory
Solidarity also played a central role in the thinking of the French economist Charles Gide (1847–1932). Gide set out to challenge the dominance of the liberal school of economics in France. His thinking was influenced by both biology and sociology. He was particularly influenced by Charles Fourier, who had criticised the social ills created by free market competition. Solidarity became a fundamental concept in Gide's thinking. He found manifestations of solidarity in nature, in the economy and in the social interdependencies of society, but for him solidarity was only ethically valuable when it was consciously voluntary. He created his own national economic doctrine, called Solidarism, according to which society could gradually move towards a cooperative economy in which workers themselves controlled the means of production. In Gide's thinking, the values and goals of solidarity could be pursued through cooperative associations, 'the voluntary association of well-meaning people'.[15]
In Gide's solidarity, the common property created by free cooperative associations is their own and the added value created by their activities is returned in the form of profit sharing. Solidarism preserved the foundations of the free market economic system and also accepted differences in people's economic status. However, large income disparities were not in line with the idea of solidarity, as Gide considered them to break the ties that bind the individual to society.[15] Gide is considered a major representative of the French historical school, and his ideas were quite different from the mainstream liberal economics of the time. Gide's social philosophy was close to that of Léon Walras, the developer of neoclassicalgeneral equilibrium theory, and he was one of the few supporters of Walras during his lifetime.[16]
Solidarity is still the core value underlying cooperatives today, alongside self-reliance, ownership, equality and justice. Cooperative members have a duty to emphasise the common interest and to ensure that all members are treated as fairly as possible. In addition to solidarity with its own members, the cooperative now also emphasises social responsibility beyond the cooperative itself.
Peter Kropotkin's theory
Anarchist theorist Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) connected the biological and the social in his formulation of solidarity. In his most famous book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), written partly in response to Huxleyan Social Darwinism, Kropotkin studied the use of cooperation as a survival mechanism in human societies at their various stages, as well as with animals. According to him, mutual aid, or cooperation, within a species has been an important factor in the evolution of social institutions. Solidarity is essential for mutual aid; supportive activity towards other people does not result from the expectation of reward, but rather from instinctive feelings of solidarity.
In his introduction to the book, Kropotkin wrote:
The number and importance of mutual-aid institutions which were developed by the creative genius of the savage and half-savage masses, during the earliest clan-period of mankind and still more during the next village-community period, and the immense influence which these early institutions have exercised upon the subsequent development of mankind, down to the present times, induced me to extend my researches to the later, historical periods as well; especially, to study that most interesting period—the free medieval city republics, whose universality and influence upon our modern civilization have not yet been duly appreciated. And finally, I have tried to indicate in brief the immense importance which the mutual-support instincts, inherited by mankind from its extremely long evolution, play even now in our modern society, which is supposed to rest upon the principle "every one for himself, and the State for all," but which it never has succeeded, nor will succeed in realizing".[17]
Kropotkin advocated an alternative economic and social system, which would be coordinated through a horizontal network of voluntary associations with goods distributed in compliance with the physical needs of the individual, rather than according to labor.[18]
Solidarity in the insurance system
The political philosophy of the early twentieth century, condensed into the concept of solidarity, sought to offer both a scientific theory of social interdependence and a moral solution to social problems. According to some scholars, the emergence of this new rationality was made possible by the concept of social risk and the idea and technology of insurance developed to manage it. Social risk is defined as the risk to a group of people, statistically speaking, which is caused in one way or another by their living together and which can be mitigated by a technique of joint and several liability such as insurance.[12]
It has been said that insurance can be seen as one of the institutions of the social contract. The way insurance works requires individuals to take a collective responsibility or the events they feel the need to prepare for. Society can be said to have become 'modern' when insurance becomes social insurance and when, thanks to the techniques and institutions of insurance, the insurance model becomes both a symbolic and a functional basis for the social contract.[12]
Solidarity and justice are key principles underpinning the insurance system, according to Risto Pelkonen and Timo Somer. In the context of voluntary personal insurance, solidarity means that the insured share the benefits and costs between themselves, while justice means that each insured contributes to the costs according to the actuarial probability. Social insurance, on the other hand, is available to all citizens, regardless of their choice and health status, as the costs are covered by tax revenues and statutory contributions.[19]
Solidarity as the foundation of the welfare state
Solidarity, or solidarism, is widely seen as the central foundation of the welfare state.[12][20][21][22] Among other things, the advent of statutory social insurance and social law in the 20th century changed social thinking and enabled the breakthrough of the solidarity paradigm. The emergence of solidarity in social law can be thought of as being based on the norm of collective provisioning as the foundation of social justice. On the other hand, it can be argued that the justification for social regulation and solidarity is not necessarily a positivenormative logic, but rather general civil rights. Human rights are intended to apply equally to all people and are more akin to a legal 'law' than to a normative logic. The formation of welfare policy can therefore be thought of as being based on human and civil rights with a completely different logic, rather than on a collective norm.[12]
According to Professor Heikki Ervast, however, three basic concepts can be associated with Nordic welfare states: macro-collectivism, universalism and solidarism. In simple terms, macro-collectivism means that recipients and payers of transfers do not need to know each other. Universalism means that the social protection and services of the welfare state apply to all citizens. Solidarism means that the welfare state is not simply an instrument designed to guarantee social peace, but is based on solidarity, human dignity and equality. Pauli Forma, Associate Professor of Social Policy at the University of Turku, has summarised the central role of solidarity as the ethical basis of the welfare state in a nutshell: 'The welfare state is an institution of collective solidarity'. In other words, a welfare state is a democratic and prosperous state that collectively shows solidarity by taking responsibility for the social security and equality of its citizens and for helping the disadvantaged. The welfare state can be said to be the "invisible hand of solidarity", in the same way that the "invisible hand of the market" is at work in a free market economy.
A solidarity tax is a fee imposed by the government of some countries to finance projects that serve, in theory, to unify or solidarize the country. It is usually imposed for a short period of time in addition on income tax of individuals, private entrepreneurs and legal entities.[23][24][25]
In Germany, the solidarity tax was first introduced after German reunification. The tax amounted to 7.5% of the amount of income tax payable (for individuals) and income tax payable (for legal entities). It was later abolished and reintroduced from 1995 to December 31, 1997, after which it was reduced to 5.5% on January 1, 1998.[26][27] The legality of the tax was repeatedly challenged, but it was recognized by the German Federal Financial Court as not contrary to the German Constitution. The long-term assessment of the solidarity tax was considered unconstitutional in Germany.[23]
In Italy, the solidarity tax was first introduced in 2012. All individuals whose annual gross income exceeds €300,000 are required to pay a 3% tax on the amount exceeding this amount.[28]
In France, the solidarity tax on wealth was introduced in 1981; in September 2017, the French government abolished the solidarity tax and replaced it with a wealth tax on real estate starting in 2018. It was paid by all citizens and married couples whose property exceeded 1.3 million euros on January 1. The tax ranged from 0.5% to 1.5% of the value of property exceeding 800,000 euros.[29]
In 2013 the solidarity tax was also introduced in the Czech Republic in response to economic recession and was cancelled in 2021. In this country it was 7% for all residents earning more than CZK 100,000 per month.[30]
Bioethics
Solidarity is discussed in philosophy within its various sub-fields of law, ethics, and political philosophy.[31] Ancient philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle discuss solidarity from within a virtue ethics framework, because in order to live a good life one must perform actions and behave in a way that is in solidarity with the community.[citation needed]
An approach in bioethics is to identify solidarity as a three-tiered practice enacted at the interpersonal, communal, and contractual and legal levels.[10] This approach is driven by the quest to differentiate between the diverse applications of the concept and to clarify its meaning, both historically and in terms of its potential as a fruitful concept for contemporary moral, social, and political issues.[32] The modern practice of bioethics is significantly influenced by Immanuel Kant's concept of the Categorical Imperative. Pastor and philosopher Fritz Jahr's article "Bio-Ethics: A Review of the Ethical Relationships of Humans to Animals and Plants" refines Kant's original Categorical Imperative discourse[33] by including the notion of the Bioethical Imperative[definition needed].[34] Biomedical technology has also further introduced solidarity as the pivotal concept in bioethics. Scholars, such as Ori Levi,[35] bring attention to the negative implications of biomedical enhancements.[relevant?] Another scholar, Meulen ter Ruud, discusses[further explanation needed] the application of solidarity within healthcare systems.[36]
Imperative
Fritz Jahr describes bioethics as ultimately made up of "academic discipline, principle, and virtue".[33] This echoes back[how?] to the influence Socrates has on the norms of bioethics and its practices. Jahr utilizes Kant's Categorical Imperative to demonstrate the obligatory, yet innately[citation needed] human practice of the Bioethical Imperative:
[T]he guiding principle for our actions is the Bioethical Imperative: Respect every living being in general as an end in itself, and treat it if possible, as such[33]
as it[ambiguous] arises in the relationships not only between people, but also with plants and other animal species.[sentence fragment] Jahr believes that in order to practice bioethics, one must be in solidarity with all forms of life.[33] If one only decides to be in solidarity in humans, then one should[ambiguous] not behave virtuously in any manner.[34]
No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world... the Brazilian people, particularly the humblest among you, can offer the world a valuable lesson in solidarity, a word that is too often forgotten or silenced because it is uncomfortable... I would like to make an appeal to those in possession of greater resources, to public authorities and to all people of good will who are working for social justice: never tire of working for a more just world, marked by greater solidarity[37]
The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of "friendship" or "social charity," is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood
1940
Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work. It also presupposes the effort for a more just social order where tensions are better able to be reduced and conflicts more readily settled by negotiation.
1941
Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity: solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in a business, solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order; world peace depends in part upon this
1942
The virtue of solidarity goes beyond material goods. In spreading the spiritual goods of the faith, the Church has promoted, and often opened new paths for, the development of temporal goods as well. And so throughout the centuries has the Lord's saying been verified: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well."
↑ Fitzpatrick, Tony; Kwon, Huck-ju; Manning, Nick; James Midgley, Gillian Pascall (4 July 2013). International Encyclopedia of Social Policy. Routledge. p.1866. ISBN978-1-136-61003-5.
↑ Thijssen, Peter (November 2012). "From mechanical to organic solidarity, and back: With Honneth beyond Durkheim". European Journal of Social Theory. 15: 454–470. doi:10.1177/1368431011423589. S2CID147685052– via EBSCO.
1 2 Jary, David; Jary, Julia (2005). "mechanical and organic solidarity". Collins Dictionary of Sociology. HarperCollins. pp.381–82. ISBN9780007183999.
↑ Efremenko, D.; Evseeva, Y. (2012). "Studies of Social Solidarity in Russia: Tradition and Modern Trends". American Sociologist. 43 (4). New York: Springer Science+Business Media: 349–365. doi:10.1007/s12108-012-9165-2. S2CID255519594.
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialised capabilities, and either form combinations or trade to take advantage of the capabilities of others in addition to their own. Specialised capabilities may include equipment or natural resources as well as skills. Training and combinations of equipment and other assets acting together are often important. For example, an individual may specialise by acquiring tools and the skills to use them effectively just as an organisation may specialise by acquiring specialised equipment and hiring or training skilled operators. The division of labour is the motive for trade and the source of economic interdependence.
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, along with both Karl Marx and Max Weber.
Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets, and economic justice. Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to ensure distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity.
In sociology, anomie or anomy is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community.
Léon Victor Auguste Bourgeois was a French statesman. His ideas influenced the Radical Party regarding a wide range of issues.
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.
Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed, as opposed to social assistance programs which provide support on the basis of need alone. The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury.
Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability".
Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational, believing humans can and should be "world citizens" in a "universal community". The idea encompasses different dimensions and avenues of community, such as promoting universal moral standards, establishing global political structures, or developing a platform for mutual cultural expression and tolerance.
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings, or purposes. Examples of social structure include family, religion, law, economy, and class. It contrasts with "social system", which refers to the parent structure in which these various structures are embedded. Thus, social structures significantly influence larger systems, such as economic systems, legal systems, political systems, cultural systems, etc. Social structure can also be said to be the framework upon which a society is established. It determines the norms and patterns of relations between the various institutions of the society.
Collective consciousness, collective conscience, or collective conscious is the set of shared beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society. In general, it does not refer to the specifically moral conscience, but to a shared understanding of social norms.
A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, friendly society, or mutual aid organization is a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief from sundry difficulties. Such organizations may be formally organized with charters and established customs or may arise ad hoc to meet the unique needs of a particular time and place.
Solidarism or solidarist can refer to:
Mutual aid is an organizational model where voluntary, collaborative exchanges of resources and services for common benefit take place amongst community members to overcome social, economic, and political barriers to meeting common needs. This can include physical resources like food, clothing, or medicine, as well as services like breakfast programs or education. These groups are often built for the daily needs of their communities, but mutual aid groups are also found throughout relief efforts, such as in natural disasters or pandemics like COVID-19.
The philosophy of healthcare is the study of the ethics, processes, and people which constitute the maintenance of health for human beings. For the most part, however, the philosophy of healthcare is best approached as an indelible component of human social structures. That is, the societal institution of healthcare can be seen as a necessary phenomenon of human civilization whereby an individual continually seeks to improve, mend, and alter the overall nature and quality of their life. This perennial concern is especially prominent in modern political liberalism, wherein health has been understood as the foundational good necessary for public life.
Welfare in France includes all systems whose purpose is to protect people against the financial consequences of social risks.
Corporatism is a political system of interest representation and policymaking whereby corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, come together and negotiate contracts or policy on the basis of their common interests. The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or "body".
In sociology, mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity are the two types of social solidarity that were formulated by Émile Durkheim, introduced in his Division of Labour in Society (1893) as part of his theory on the development of societies. According to Durkheim, the type of solidarity will correlate with the type of society, either mechanical or organic society. The two types of solidarity can be distinguished by morphological and demographic features, type of norms in existence, and the intensity and content of the conscience collective.
Leopold Caro (1864–1939) was a Polish historical school economist, international sociologist working with Gustav von Schmoller's Verein für Socialpolitik (VfS), and a lawyer. Caro functioned as an advocate for rights of oversea migrants and the establishment of economic cooperatives. Broadly conceived, he was a conservative symphatizer of the Sanation movement in Polish interwar politics, especially of its technocratic wing under Kazimierz Bartel, while he also maintained some contact with Narodowa Demokracja. First and foremost, Leopold Caro acted as a Catholic economist, who had strong ties with the church hierarchy and Catholic institutions. He is largely seen as a proponent of etatism, though he was a vocal critic as well as in-depth researcher of both National socialism and Soviet communism. He was a Jewish convert to Christianity of distant Sephardic origin who became a staunch anti-Semite.
Anti-statism is an approach to social, economic or political philosophy that opposes the influence of the state over society. It emerged in reaction to the formation of modern sovereign states, which anti-statists considered to work against the interests of the people. During the 19th century, anarchists formulated a critique of the state that upheld the inherently cooperative and decentralised aspects of human society. Anti-statism was later taken up by neoliberalism, which sought to cut state investment in the public sector and expand investment in the private sector. This caused a reaction from anti-statist social movements, which, now disconnected from state benefits, sought to overthrow or limit state systems, respectively through guerrilla warfare or by establishing decentralised and autonomous local institutions.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Christianity portal 
