Solidarity

Solidarity
Name	Solidarity

Solidarity is a multifaceted social and political concept denoting cohesion, mutual support, and collective action among individuals and groups. It functions across cultural, labor, political, and ethical arenas, informing movements, institutions, and philosophies from local associations to transnational campaigns. Its interpretations and practices have influenced events, organizations, and thinkers in diverse contexts, shaping alliances and conflicts in the modern era.

Definition and Concepts

Solidarity refers to collective bonds exemplified by cooperation among groups such as Trade union, Trade union movement, Labour Party, SPD, Christian Democracy, Anarchism, Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Liberalism, Conservatism, and Feminism. The concept appears in writings by Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Antonio Gramsci, Alexis de Tocqueville, John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt, and Simone de Beauvoir. Institutional articulations occur in documents from United Nations, European Union, Council of Europe, International Labour Organization, World Health Organization, Red Cross, and Amnesty International. Legal and ethical formulations arise in cases before European Court of Human Rights, International Court of Justice, and national constitutions such as Poland and France. Philosophical relatives include concepts in works like On the Division of Labour in Society, The Communist Manifesto, Prison Notebooks, A Theory of Justice, and The Human Condition.

Historical Development

The idea of collective mutual aid predates modern states, seen in associations like guilds, medieval guilds, mutual aid societies, friendly societies, and cooperatives. In the 18th and 19th centuries, solidarity featured in debates among figures such as Edmund Burke, John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Robert Owen. It influenced 19th-century organizations including Chartism, First International, Second International, Knights of Labor, American Federation of Labor, SPD, and Syndicalism. In the 20th century, solidarity shaped responses to crises around Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War, World War I, World War II, Cold War, and decolonization movements involving Mahatma Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, and Nelson Mandela. Postwar European reconstruction and labor struggles engaged institutions like Cominform, European Coal and Steel Community, NATO, OECD, and European Economic Community. Late 20th-century instances include campaigns associated with 1980s Polish independent trade union, Lech Wałęsa, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, Vaclav Havel, Gene Sharp, and transnational activism connected to Anti-globalization movement, World Trade Organization, World Social Forum, Occupy Wall Street, and Black Lives Matter.

Types and Forms

Solidarity manifests as institutionalized practices in trade unions such as AFL–CIO, CGT, DGB, and Solidarność-style organizations, as well as civic forms like civil society, non-governmental organization, church, synagogue, mosque, community association, and cooperative movement. Transnational solidarity appears in internationalism, pan-Africanism, Pan-Arabism, European integration, and alliances among groups like International Brigades, ANC, IRA, Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and Hezbollah. Cultural and symbolic forms include commemorations such as May Day, International Workers' Day, Bastille Day, Remembrance Day, and artistic expressions by figures like Pablo Picasso, Bertolt Brecht, Diego Rivera, and Banksy. Digital-era solidarity employs networks such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Change.org, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch for mobilization.

Role in Social Movements and Labor

Solidarity underpins labor struggles in events such as the Haymarket affair, May 1968 protests, UK miners' strike (1984–85), 1936 French general strike, 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, and the Pullman Strike. It informs campaigns by organizations including AFL–CIO, CIO, International Trade Union Confederation, UniGlobal Union, Service Employees International Union, and Teamsters. Social movements leveraging solidarity include Civil Rights Movement, Women's suffrage movement, LGBT rights movement, Environmental movement, Anti-Apartheid Movement, Indian independence movement, and Occupy movement. Political alliances shaped by solidarity feature in coalitions like Popular Front, United Front, and modern electoral alliances in Brazil, Spain, Greece, India, and South Africa. Solidarity strategies appear in strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, and campaigns around issues adjudicated in forums like International Labour Organization and European Court of Human Rights.

Political and Ethical Dimensions

Political theorists and actors from Karl Marx to John Rawls debate solidarity's normative role in welfare systems like Beveridge Report, Social Security Act, National Health Service, and policies of states such as Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, and France. Faith-based proponents include Pope Leo XIII, Pope John Paul II, Liberation theology, and organizations like Caritas Internationalis. International policy articulations occur in documents from United Nations General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, European Social Charter, and treaties like Treaty of Rome. Ethical frameworks engage scholars like Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Martha Nussbaum, and Philippa Foot in debates over obligations toward refugees from crises in Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Venezuela.

Criticisms and Debates

Critiques arise from proponents of libertarianism, neoliberalism, classical liberalism, and anarcho-capitalism who argue solidarity can conflict with individual liberty and market mechanisms as discussed by Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Robert Nozick. Debates address whether solidarity becomes co-opted by bureaucracies like Soviet Union, East Germany, Stalinism, or instrumentalized in campaigns by political clientelism in states such as Mexico and Argentina. Academic disputes involve methodological approaches from sociology, political science, and philosophy examined by scholars linked to Durkheimian and Marxist traditions. Critics also highlight tensions between national solidarity in settings like Brexit and transnational solidarities in institutions like European Union and United Nations.

Category:Social concepts