Solidarity

thumbnail|upright=1.1|A [[raised fist symbolizing solidarity of the worker movement]]

Solidarity or solidarism is the provision of mutual moral and material support among the members of a group in times of need.

History

Socialisation of the concept

The terms solidaire and solidairement had 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 the Napoleonic code, solidarity meant the joint liability of debtors towards a common creditor and was not a primary legal principle.

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.

After the French Revolution, new scientific and ideological interpretations of solidarity emerged in France. The concept took on sociological, economic, legal, and political 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. 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. 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.

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.

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

Anarchist theorist Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) connected the biological and the social in his formulation of solidarity. In his 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:

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.

Modern

Solidarity is also one of six principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and International Human Solidarity Day is recognized each year on December 20 as an international observance. Solidarity is not mentioned in the European Convention on Human Rights nor in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and therefore has lesser legal meaning when compared to basic rights. Concepts of solidarity are mentioned in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, but not defined clearly. It is a significant concept in Catholic social teaching and in Christian democratic political ideology.

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.

Solidarity as the foundation of the welfare state

Solidarity, or solidarism, is widely seen as the central foundation of the welfare state. 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. However, it can be argued that the justification for social regulation and solidarity is not necessarily a positive normative 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Solidarity is an element of Catholic social teaching. According to Pope Francis:

The Church's teaching on solidarity is explained in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, and briefly summarised in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Islamic solidarity

Solidarity is an important part of the teachings God sent down to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Indeed, Muslims were called upon in the Quran to unify under one banner, that of Islam, as equals before God. This centred around principles of brotherhood (ukhuwwa), social responsibility (al-takaful al-ijtima'i) and almsgiving (zakat or sadaqa). The central teaching to Islam is to subject oneself to God, and that, in this pursuit, all are equal before Him.

; IX, 60: "Alms are meant only for the poor, the needy, those who administer them, those whose hearts need winning over, to free slaves and help those in debt, for God's cause, and for travellers in need. This is ordained by God; God has the knowledge to decide."

; XVI, 90: "God commands justice, doing good, and generosity towards relatives and He forbids what is shameful, blameworthy, and oppressive."

; LIX, 7: "Whatever gains God has turned over to His Messenger from the inhabitants of the villages belong to God, the Messenger, kinsfolk, orphans, the needy, the traveller in need - this is so that they do not just circulate among those of you who are rich - so accept whatever the Messenger gives you, and abstain from whatever he forbids you."

This is not only applicable to the Muslim community. Other religious communities, especially the people of the book, are traditionally accepted as true believers and protected communities. This lesson is drawn from Surat al-Ma'ida, verse 48. Although opinions differ on this matter, Seyyed Hossein Nasr notes that the majority opinion of Islamic scholars is that this verse pertains to a universal acceptance of other religions.

Pan-Islamism

In modern history, pan-Islamism was an important driver of inter-Islamic solidarity movements. This movement sought to mobilize a trans-national imagined community in the wake of a perceived decline of the Muslim world to regain its former political glory. Pan-Islamism is often associated with anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. Whilst this is true for later period, early pan-Islamic thinkers such as Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī and Syed Ameer Ali sought to make use of pan-Islamic ideals to fight for Muslim rights within the colonial framework of the United Kingdom and the concert of Europe of which the Ottoman Caliphate was a part. In the 1920s, the Khalifat Movement made use of British concessions during World War I to combat the Treaty of Sèvres. And, in the 1930s, the World Islamic Congress was held in Jerusalem to negotiate a settlement for Palestinian independence within the confines of the British Mandate. Pan-Islamist ideas of society (Ar. umma, mujtamiʿ, or al-hayʾa al-ijtimāʿiyya) were characterised by modernist interpretations of Islam and a general acceptance of other religions.

Others in that period sought to implement Islamic solidarity principles from the bottom up. In Egypt, Hassan al-Banna established the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 to organize society on the basis of Islamic ethical and social values, including social welfare and solidarity with the disenfranchised. Operating in the capitalist setting of interwar Egypt and drawing on Islamic rights to property, they made the pragmatic decision to advocate an Islamic economy that stressed Egyptian ownership over factories and emphasized social welfare.

Al-Takāful al-Ijtimāʿī and Islamic socialism

Takāful is a difficult to translate word that might best be translated as a combination of solidarity, mutual responsibility, and cooperative insurance. Thinkers like Mustafa al-Siba'i, the leader of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, have employed the term to argue for Islamic socialism, arguing that socialism was most in line with Islamic teachings on al-takāful al-ijtimāʿī (social solidarity). Al-Siba'i identified ten levels of social responsibility and solidarity:

al-takāful al-adabī (Solidarity in mannerisms)
al-takāful al-ʿilmī (Solidarity in providing education)
al-takāful al-siyāsī (Political solidarity)
al-takāful al-difāʿī (Solidarity in defence [of one's community])
al-takāful al-jināʾī (Solidarity in [solving] crime)
al-takāful al-akhlāqī (Solidarity in upholding morality)
al-takāful al-iqtiṣādī (Economic solidarity)
al-takāful al-ʿabādī (Solidarity in worship)
al-takāful al-ḥaḍārī (Solidarity amongst societal groups)
al-takāful al-maʿāshī (Solidarity with respect to living, i.e. taking care of the needy)

Since the 1970s, takāful became theorised in Islamic finance as "a scheme where the participants are the insureds as well as the insurers and therefore share in the loss or profit of the operator, unlike insurance companies, where the risk is borne solely by the insurers"

Gallery

File:Helsingin Kaupunginteatteri solidarity for Ukraine RL-220309-2215.jpg|The Helsinki City Theatre in Helsinki, Finland illuminated in the colors of the flag of Ukraine, in solidarity with Ukraine during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

File:PraxisGermany - Copy.png|Anarchist banner Dresden Germany, translating to "Solidarity must become practice"

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