Conceptualizing Politics

3.   Solidarity
We are now turning to a category that enjoys little recognition in political phi-
losophy and is subject to misunderstanding, partly because of its binary status, 
analytical and normative. Its analytical version is best known through the work 
of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who along with Max Weber is regarded as the 
(French) founder of sociology. For him, solidarity is the force that keeps human 
beings together in society and consists of two sub-types corresponding to different 
structures of society. In traditional societies, mechanical solidarity prevails, often 
enforced by punitive law and violence, among individuals that are very similar to 
each other and live in communities with a low degree of integration, but strong 
common values. Organic solidarity develops in modern society, in which the divi-
sion of labour creates differentiation and interdependency among individuals.
Durkheim’s solidarity concept remains objectivistic, inasmuch as it focuses upon 
the driving forces, resulting from the evolutionary stage of society, that keep it 
together; while we are rather interested in solidarity as a piece of the subjective side 
of politics (solidarity felt as such is a layer of political identity). We are better served 
by the definition found in the Oxford Dictionaries:
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Unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a 
common interest; mutual support within a group.
This wording rightly moves the focus to a ‘feeling’, though in the philosophi-
cal language we cannot say solidarity to be just an emotion. Also, this definition 
expresses a phenomenology of solidarity, but makes no hint at its normative ele-
ment: the solidarity we are talking about here, taking place in an ‘organic’ Dur-
kheimian context, brings together feelings and a sense of obligation, though this 
obligation does not result from a higher principle, but is rather felt and enlivened 
as a known condition of the group’s (in our case, the polity’s) survival, while the 
individual can only find in group support and meaning for one’s own life. This 
explains my suggestion to understand solidarity as a self-imposed obligation to and a 
feeling of mutual support and sympathy between equals. Self-imposed out of the knowl-
edge that without mutual support of its members the polity is likely to dissolve, 
while none of the other normative categories can nourish the cohesion it needs 
to survive and perhaps flourish – cohesion is necessary also in order to let liberty, 
equality and justice develop. Sympathy, which is here introduced without a chance 
to discuss its relationship to David Hume’s (1711–1776) conception of it, is the 
moral sentiment accompanying the readiness to mutual support, and means the 
ability to put oneself in somebody’s else shoes, sharing imaginatively her/his pains 
and problems.

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182  Ethics and politics
‘Between equals’ requires a more differentiated explanation. The equality meant 
here is not matter-of-fact, but normative: I lend my support to others because I rec-
ognise them as equal in rights and dignity with myself, even if they are presently 
unequal in the enjoyment of freedom and life chances. This is what distinguishes 
solidarity, which is horizontal, from charity and philanthropy, which rather evoke 
verticality. Also, solidarity as the fundamental category we are talking about cannot 
be downsized to its meanings in social aid groups or in Catholic social thought. 
Lastly and consequently, solidarity is seen here as a political virtue to be imple-
mented by the state, not merely as a relationship between individuals.
Another question regards how to determine the perimeter of the equals: equal 
in the local community, in the region or province, in the nation, in a civilisation, 
or among humankind? To date, the current definitions of solidarity have pointed at 
the (however defined) particular group as the sphere within which solidarity can 
sensibly be expected to develop. This is well-known from its social history in the 
West: the Freemasons in the Enlightenment, the clubs of the French revolutionar-
ies (before they started to send each other to the guillotine), the movements and 
later the parties of the working class, including their pledge to the international 
solidarity of the proletarians, who, however, could not but massacre each other in 
the trenches of the Great War. Yet can there be, contrary to this factual limitation, 
a solidarity extended to the whole of humankind, as it has been suggested over time 
by humanists, pacifists and religious leaders? With an eye towards religious cleav-
ages and the upsurge of nations, this suggestion or appeal was, with good reason, 
regarded as politically ineffective. Things are now changing, as we have learned in 
Chapter 7: with respect to its chances to survive global and lethal threats, and only 
in this respect, humankind is becoming the dimension in which men and women 
can experience solidarity with each other and the fellow humans of future genera-
tions.
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 This has normative relevance, but also – as explained above – an analytical 
profile: without assuming that an initial form of the solidarity of humankind is at 
work, especially with regard to future humanity, it is difficult to explain the progress 
made, for example, by a more reasonable climate policy at both a national and inter-
national level. Self-interest or security considerations do not explain everything 
that is going on in politics, as we shall see in the Epilogue.
The relevance I am giving to solidarity comes from, among other things, the 
puzzlement about the disappearance of its predecessor fraternité from the glorious 
triad ‘liberté égalité fraternité’ of the ‘ideas of ’89’ (scil. 1789) – the brilliant career 
of the two first partners notwithstanding. It looks like solidarity had been dismissed 
or pushed to the sidelines due to three adverse and illusionary beliefs:
A.  Social and political cohesion is not a political issue, but a side effect of market 
relationships.
B.  Abstract deontological guidelines provided by ethics such as justice create 
enough of political unity.
C.  Cohesion is important, but it is entirely provided by living together in the 
nation.

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Justice and solidarity  183