3.1. SOLIDARITY AS A PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL COHESION
The father of modern sociology Emile Durkheim, in his doctoral thesis titled Division of Labor in Society (1893), described the phenomena that keeps society together and named it solidarity. He distinguished between mechanic and organic solidarity.
Mechanical solidarity comes from “a certain number of states of conscience which are common to all the members of the same society” (Durkheim 1933: 109), i.e. it based on the likeness among the individuals. It is largely dependent on common rituals and routines. Mechanical solidarity was common among prehistoric and pre-agricultural societies, and becomes ever more unusual as modernity increases.
As labor becomes more divided, people become more individualized and at the same time more mutually dependable. With a great technical advancement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and with the development of the liberal political spirit, it became less likely that the whole population was to share the same moral beliefs and overall values. However, these dissimilarities again force people to cooperate and stick together. The grounds for it need not be based on an economic gain, i.e., Durkheim argues vehemently against utilitarianism and finds a ground for social cohesion in a necessity of people to be bound to the association where one’s own weaknesses are to be compensated.
Organic solidarity got its name from the analogy with the behavior modus of an organism: each organ does its part for the sake of an overall good functioning.
However, at no point in the book does Durkheim explicitly define solidarity. He only describes social behavior that he then titles “mechanic and organic solidarity”. The best way to decide with what kind of society we are dealing with is to look at its laws. They are a mirror image, a tangible aspect of the phenomenon of solidarity. Laws of pre-modern societies, with less devised labor and one “conscience communitaire” have predominantly repressive laws that punish the infringement of common beliefs.
Modern societies, organized through, or based on organic solidarity cherish civil laws with its
instruments of interdependence e.g. the institution of contract. They generally provide not for repressive punishment but for retribution and compensation. Thus, according to Durkheim it is the relationship of solidarity, mechanical or organic, which is the basis, the underlining idea, of any legal system.
Durkheim´s approach is purely descriptive and does not differentiate between an illegitimate solidarity e.g. mafia-solidarity from a legitimate one e.g. solidarity among the citizens of a nation state.
Furthermore, Durkheim does not indicate which change in solidarity is to be legitimately accounted for through laws; he does not answer the question whether a change in laws must always be followed by a change in the organization of social structures and hence whether the solidarity can be instrumentalized through law95.
However, Durkheim´s descriptive notion of solidarity gives us three further characteristics of the concept. First, the context of “we” has been opened to the whole society. Solidarity is presented as a relation among individuals with no personal ties and even no similar interests: solidarity through or because of dissimilarities. Modern society is explained as an organism with different organs all of which have different purposes. They have one thing in common, however: the urge for self-success. This is again only possible through the good coordination of the whole organism. Mistakes are not stigmatized but enlightened, i.e. educated through retributive laws. Second, Durkheim´s stresses the importance of laws for solidarity in the society. Hence he points that an individual always needs the institutionalized protection of his or her lifestyle: society as a guaranty of individual progress. The need for security and a willingness to contribute is an important trait of solidarity.
Durkheim does not give us a value judgment about which of the societies is better, nor is he interested in explaining how societies come about, or how can solidarity be influenced ex post the creation of the society. Durkheim is simply looking at the historical events and describing the state of affairs. Solidarity in Durkheim´s account is mirrored through legal systems of society. How these laws should be and how or whether they can influence the strengthening of social solidarity is left open by Durkheim.
3.2.SOLIDARITY AND PHILOSOPHY
What we gained so far is a descriptive character of the notion of solidarity. It is a relationship between an individual and a group. The parties participate in it because they want to realize their conceptions of a good life and for that they need a support of others.
As indicated in the last section, the question of which of the cooperative relationships should be chosen, how they should be supported, and how a common protection should be organized is still left
95 H.L.A.Hart noted that Durkheim´s argument cannot be normatively taken seriously (cf. Hart 1967)
open. This is the question of normativity of solidarity, and hence a question that political philosophy needs to answer.
However, philosophical literature has been rather scarce when it comes to solidarity. We find the some explicit reference to the term in teachings of Jürgen Habermas (cf. Habermas 1986) and Richard Rorty (cf. Rorty 1989), as well as in modern communitarian teachings. Nevertheless, I think that liberal political doctrine contains a notion of solidarity as well. For the purpose of this work I follow the notion of solidarity as I think it may be found in modern communitarian and liberal debates.
Communitarian philosophy, as we already seen in Chapter I, can be perceived as one which stresses the importance of the community in distributing rights and duties between it members. The fundamental criterion for the communitarians seems to be geographical closeness and possibility of immediate interaction. Hence any duties an individual or a community might have beyond the community’s limits depend again on the existence of concrete interaction with the third party. Communitarians see solidarity as one of the natural bonds among the co-citizens that as such do not exist beyond the community, and hence the feeling of solidarity justifies the different treatment of others who do not belong to the community (cf. Sandel 1982). They often speak about the solidaristic communities, as if solidarity were that specific something that exists before the very formation of a juridical system of the state. Solidarity, according to these authors is a feeling that provokes a way of action due to the common value-order that conditions the jurisprudence of the state. Solidarity is not the result, but a starting premise whose existence and rightness is not questioned. Accounting for the feeling of solidarity is a necessity of specific circumstances, and it cannot be universalized. However, it is not clear what the origin of solidarity is. It exists in every society and keeps it together. Some communitarians see it in the culture or tradition or national characteristics of the society. It is rather under-defined but still a rich concept.
In modern liberal theories solidarity also plays a role, though not as explicit as in communitarian ones and with quite a different task. Solidarity is not something that decides upon the norms of society in advance and in the light of which society holds together. The liberal version of solidarity is a concept that refers to the minimal agreement among citizens that is to be of an advantage to all. This means that cooperation between individuals in the society goes beyond the “modus vivendi”; it further means that the advantages individuals are getting are not equal. It is a rather exclusive concept; it excludes everything that does not belong to the political life of an individual and applies solely on the overlapping values of a pluralistic society. Individuals realize that no matter what their personal goal may be, they share one common task: to succeed in their personal goals. This is only possible through the support of others. Hence solidarity is one of the principles. It results from the social contract among free and equal
individuals; it is not given in advance as a value that determines the outcome.
Social contract is a method of justification of government. Individuals agree on the legal and moral obligations they are to take upon themselves in the society and expect from the society to assure their rights. Hence from social contract theorists we learn that the principles of cooperation need to be agreed upon by everyone in the state of nature. Therefore, the normative principles for society are to be formulated ex-ante the actual coming into existence of a society; the point being to create a social system that will ensure the undisturbed development of each individual that would do justice to everyone, no matter what social characteristics the person actually has. These principles are then based on the empirical facts about the human psychology on their face value, and not on the contingent roles of individuals in the society and values they may or may not affirm as already formed citizens.
Hence, social cooperation, mutual support between individuals and guarantee of undisturbed development of an individual from the part of society, are the characteristics of liberal political system.
The system is neutral towards any particular conception of a good life, and is formulated in such a way as to support all. The liberal system makes a distinction between the political and personal world, or rather between public and comprehensive views; the former being the view connected only to the political institutions while the latter is connected to the overall personal view on what the good life is.
Political solidarity is hence connected only to the former, political or public view. It is an exclusive concept and means mutual cooperation and support of the individuals in the public sphere. Each individual invests in the society and each gets at least the protection of his undisturbed development that is protection of his/hers negative freedoms, while some even get concrete support for achieving their social independence. This idea is already present in Kant´s writings. Kant does not go into greater detail about how the others should be supported. He mentions the necessity of a system of taxation in order to support the organizations providing for poor people, for foundling homes and church organizations, through these provisions society can be maintained in perpetuity: “and for this end it (people’s will) has submitted itself to the internal authority of the state in order to maintain those members of the society who are unable to maintain themselves” (6: 325-6)
For John Rawls, a twentieth century Kantian, solidarity corresponds to the second principle of justice, also known as the difference principle. This principle mitigates the social and economic inequalities in the society in the way that any economic advancement of the citizens that are “better-off” should be followed by the proportional advancement of those who are “worst-off”. Rawls explicitly uses the model of the original contract in order to establish ex-ante the principles of justice. The parties in the original position agree to the principles of equal basic liberties and opportunities and on the positive economic support for those who ex-post the formation of society end up in a non self-sufficient position.
Thus, if we are to follow communitarian teachings, solidarity is an underlining value and society´s constitution should be modeled to preserve this value, whatever it may be. Solidarity dictates the political formation of society since it is the glue, the key element for the sake of which society keeps together. Solidarity itself is not normative but it orientates the norms of society. The liberal philosophers on the other hand see solidarity as a concrete principle of justice. Genuine solidarity is then ex-ante:
before the origin of the society the citizens agree upon the way they are going to be helping each other.
This solidarity is impartial and does not take into account personal preferences rather just the general idea of achieving the personal good through helping the community at large. Such an idea of solidarity can reviewed ex-post, if the ex-ante provision for mutual help does not adequately deal with the existing problems.