Table Of ContentG
The first introduction to global solidarity L
O
GLOBAL
Exploring the theory and practice of resisting and overcoming social B
divisions, Global Solidarity adopts a radical humanist perspective to the
A
possibility of building a solidaristic global community. It offers a novel
path into recent debates about our cosmopolitan future, bringing L
together various theoretical and socio-political aspects of globalisation,
SOLIDARIT Y
such as global justice, cosmopolitan democracy, global civil society and S
world culture.
O
In focusing on the normative goal of global solidarity, Lawrence Wilde L
connects the different strands of the new cosmopolitanism by analysing I
D
the ways in which people have mobilised together to struggle for
ever-widening social inclusion since the middle of the 19th century. A LAWRENCE WILDE
While old forms of solidarity, centred on labour or community, have
R
frayed, new forms arise that open up the possibility of achieving social
solidarity on a global scale. I
T
Key Features Y
•Critiques major theories of solidarity, critically engaging with the key
thinkers including Habermas, Honneth and Touraine W
•Contributes to the discussion of global democracy with an outline of
I
L
a politics of global solidarity
D
•Widens the scope of theories of global justice by presenting an
E
original radical humanist approach to solidarity
•Looks at the causes of social division and how they might be
overcome
Lawrence Wilde is Professor of Political Theory at Nottingham Trent
University. He is co-author, with Ian Fraser, of The Marx Dictionary
(2011) and author of Erich Fromm and the Quest for Solidarity (2005),
Ethical Marxism and its Radical Critics (1998), Modern European
Socialism (1994) and Marx and Contradiction (1989).
Coverimage:Solidarity: The Propellor Song,KätheKollwitz©DACS2012.
Coverdesign:McColmDesign.co.uk
ISBN978-0-7486-4028-7
www.euppublishing.com
Global Solidarity
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Global Solidarity
Lawrence Wilde
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For Joan Catherine and Frances Catherine
© Lawrence Wilde, 2013
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www. euppublishing. com
Typeset in 11/14 Sabon by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 4029 4 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 4028 7 (paperback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 7454 1 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 7456 5 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7486 7455 8 (Amazon ebook)
The right of Lawrence Wilde to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
Published with the support of the Edinburgh University Scholarly
Publishing Initiatives Fund.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
1 Introduction 1
2 Evolution of the Concept 18
3 Theories of Solidarity 68
4 Radical Humanism 106
5 Social Division and Reconciliation 142
6 Culture 191
7 The Politics of Global Solidarity 218
8 Conclusion 255
References 259
Index 290
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Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Ian Fraser and Joan
Melia for their meticulous and invaluable comments on an earlier
draft of the entire manuscript and for discussing the issues with
me over the past eight years. Thanks also to Tony Burns, Karl
Haselden, Oli Harrison and Rick Simon, who have helped me for-
mulate my arguments on solidarity in formal and informal settings.
A number of papers have been given on the topics in this book. I
would like to thank participants for their comments on papers deliv-
ered at the Manchester Political Theory Workshops of 2004, 2008,
2010 and 2011. Thanks also to the participants who commented
on papers presented to the Political Studies Association annual
conference at the University of Reading in 2006, the conference on
Recognition and Global Justice at the University of Nottingham in
2007, the International Utopian Studies conference at the University
of Oporto in 2009, the Martha Nussbaum International Conference
at the University of Nottingham in 2010, and the conference on
the Relevance of Marx and Marxism to Contemporary Global
Problems at the University of Newcastle in 2011.
Many of the ideas expressed here have been developed in teach-
ing my fi nal-year undergraduate module at Nottingham Trent
University and I thank those students for helping me to clarify my
arguments. I would like to thank Nicola Ramsey, senior commis-
sioning editor at Edinburgh University Press, for her support from
the outset. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Joan,
Frances, and Scratch the cat for creating the loving environment
in which this book was researched and written.
vi
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1 Introduction
The concept of solidarity has an elusive history. Emile Durkheim
(1858–1917) brought it into the fi eld of academic social science
when he published The Division of Labour in Society in 1893, but
although his distinction between ‘mechanical’ and ‘organic’ soli-
darity provides a seminal moment in our understanding of social
solidarity, he famously does not provide a defi nition of the key
concept itself. From the outset I would like to offer a normative
defi nition of human solidarity as a feeling of sympathy shared by
subjects within and between groups, impelling supportive action
and pursuing social inclusion. There can be little doubt that the
powerful subjective element of ‘solidarity’ deters conceptualisa-
tion, for as well as being realised in multiple forms of association,
it is felt as an inward pull, as an empowering affective force. The
tested tools of social scientifi c analysis struggle with this subjec-
tivity, bringing to mind Henri Bergson’s remark that attempt-
ing to analyse something that is essentially fl uid is like a boy
trying to catch smoke by closing his hands (Bergson 1913: 47).
Nevertheless, towards the end of his book, Durkheim identifi es
the ideal that fi red his work, the ideal of ‘human fraternity’, real-
isable only through the solidaristic division of labour. He clearly
has in mind a social construction at the level of the nation state,
but he also makes it clear that this could one day be achieved at
the level of a ‘single human society’, however distant that pos-
sibility appeared at the end of the nineteenth century (Durkheim
1964: 405–6; Inglis and Robertson 2008).
International confl icts of the twentieth century appeared to
1
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Global Solidarity
mock that ideal of global solidarity, with two horrendous world
wars and a ‘cold war’ that threatened human civilisation with
nuclear destruction. Yet the century also witnessed the onward
march of representative democracy, the eclipse of dictatorships,
the end of colonialism, the establishment of the welfare state and
the emergence of successful new social movements. A new dis-
course of globalization has conceptualised changes in economic,
cultural and political life that have swept the world. Defi ned as
‘the process of increasing interconnectedness between societies
such that events in one part of the world more and more have
effects on peoples and societies far away’ (Baylis et al. 2011: 8),
globalization poses a number of challenges for social and political
theory. In particular, the development of economic globaliza-
tion, dominated by transnational corporations, has limited the
capacity of states to control their economic affairs, while increas-
ing the power of technocratic organisations of economic global
governance, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The need to address this
‘democratic defi cit’ has stimulated ideas about creating new forms
of accountable decision-making that take responsibility for the
welfare of all the peoples of the world (Held and McGrew 2007:
157–8). This opens the possibility that Durkheim’s ideal of social
solidarity in a nation state could now be applied to the world
as a whole. Global Solidarity sets out to explore this normative
goal, and, as such, it is a contribution to modern cosmopolitan
theory.
The new cosmopolitan outlook is in fact the ‘third wave’ of
cosmopolitan thinking, the fi rst wave referring to the viewpoint
developed by the Cynics and Stoics in the Ancient Greek world
from the fi fth century bc, and the second to the prescriptions
of the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–
1804) in the late eighteenth century (Heater 2002: 26–52). The
Cynics took their inspiration from Socrates (c. 469–399 bc),
reputed to be the fi rst to claim to be a ‘citizen of the world’
(Heater 2002: 39). Their position was anarchic, directed against
all state authority, asserting the ability of wise men to live without
2
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Introduction
the tutelage of political power. Diogenes, the most prominent
Cynic philosopher, claimed that the only right state was that
of the world (Barker 1970: 120–3). However, cosmopolitanism
became a signifi cant social doctrine through the later teachings
of the Stoics, who held that human beings all belong to the same
species and should be thought of as living in world society, gov-
erned by natural law and pursuing a goal of harmony (Heater
2002: 30). Unlike the Cynics, the Stoics saw no contradiction
in being citizens of the world and proud citizens of their states,
viewing life in terms of a series of concentric circles fl owing out
from self and family through cities and states until fi nally we see
ourselves as part of common humanity (Nussbaum 1996: 9). The
Stoics believed in natural law, applicable to all, to which all posi-
tive law should strive to correspond, a natural law that compels
us to become citizens of the world with a duty to the common
good above all considerations of narrow self-interest (Long 2001:
162–3).
The revival of cosmopolitanism towards the end of the eight-
eenth century is associated above all with Kant, who was deeply
infl uenced by Stoic philosophy (Nussbaum 1997). His writings
Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784)
and Perpetual Peace (1795) have proved inspirational to modern
cosmopolitan theorists (Boucher 1998: 268–84). Kant was com-
mitted to the idea that constitutional representative government
provided the means for rational thought to triumph, offering the
promise of peace and prosperity. In Idea for a Universal History
he states that the achievement of a perfect constitution within a
state is subordinate to establishing the law-governed relations
between states. He sees the competition between states as a spur
to political perfection, for only the best states will prevail. Even
war, the breakdown of politics, will eventually deter states from
going down that path; tyrants will be found out and moral politi-
cians will emerge triumphant. Kant sees this as part of a ‘natural’
development towards a rational world federation, arguing that
the goal of reason is abandoning a lawless state of savagery and
forming a federation of peoples
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