{"id":125709,"date":"2005-12-21T15:59:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-21T13:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.vn.nl\/fraternity\/"},"modified":"2005-12-21T15:59:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-21T13:59:00","slug":"fraternity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/fraternity\/","title":{"rendered":"Fraternity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Avishai Margalit<\/p>\n

1. Three Observations and a Problem<\/p>\n

We all watched with horror the helpless and hapless people, survivors of Hurricane Katrina crying desperately for help but to no avail. This apocalyptic scene created a strong impression that the voters of Bush, those who brought him to power, do not care a whit for the wretched survivors. They view them not as \u201cone of us\u201d in spite of the fact that they are United States citizens. Citizenship in itself does not secure solidarity.<\/p>\n

We are still in the dark as to the exact causes for the torch-lit nights in the rioting suburbs of Paris, when alienated youngsters set ablaze thousands of cars. Here too we are under a strong impression of facing a severe crisis of solidarity. In the case of Paris we learn again that the Republican creed that citizenship should secure solidarity is under tremendous strain. <\/p>\n

The murder of Van Gogh in Amsterdam is very different from what happened in New Orleans and Paris. Yet, it conveys the feeling of mutual estrangement between veteran Dutch people and sons and daughters of immigrants from Islamic countries. The social glue seems to be missing; things do not seem to stick together. <\/p>\n

Admittedly, all these impressions of a lack of solidarity are nothing but impressions. They are not backed by careful research. Should we wait for research or should we risk acting on mere impression? The shrewd poet Auden gives us two conflicting pieces of advice. On the one hand he believes that \u201caccurate scholarship can unearth the whole offence,\u201d which means wait for the findings of accurate research. On the other hand he commands us \u201cThou shalt not sit With statisticians nor commit A social science,\u201d which I take to mean just trust your intuitive judgment as empirical research cannot really improve your initial impressions; at best it can document the obvious. <\/p>\n

I do believe that statistics and social science can teach us something useful. Accurate research can and on occasion does correct misguided first impressions. But accurate research takes time and in times of emergency acting on impressions is better than acting on inaccurate research.
But I am not in the business of suggesting how one ought to act in case of an emergency. I am here to suggest a perspective on solidarity that holds for all times. What I am about to say holds true, I believe, even if all or some of the events mentioned are not caused by lack of solidarity. <\/p>\n

It is the perspective of the reformist left. It was the perspective of Joop den Uyl, a perspective he shared with his predecessor Willem Drees. Under this perspective solidarity is a cardinal virtue in political life: solidarity among workers and national solidarity. Both solidarities are intrinsically valuable. They should not be regarded as mere instruments for recruitment. <\/p>\n

The reformist left\u2019s perspective on solidarity differs greatly from that of the revolutionary left which adhered to the creed that the workers have no country. Drees and den Uyl believed that the Dutch workers have a country to which they are dearly attached and to which they should be attached. It is Holland. The reformist perspective also differs from that of the “one flag” integral nationalists who allow only one collective identity and only one loyalty\u2014an undivided loyalty to the nation and to the nation only. <\/p>\n

The reformist left advocates a double loyalty, if you like: solidarity with the nation and solidarity with the workers. The revolutionary left advocated one undivided loyalty. It is expressed in the closing slogan of the Manifesto: Working men of all countries unite.<\/p>\n

This was the principled position of the revolutionary left, yet in practice the revolutionary left tried on many occasions to capitalize and manipulate patriotic feelings and national attachments among working people for its own goals. It attached to national solidarity an instrumental value at best, as a sometimes useful means to promote its goals. But the revolutionary left never ascribed an intrinsic value to loyalty to the nation as something which can be good in and of itself. <\/p>\n

2. The Reformist Left <\/p>\n

The reformist left is the left that played a crucial role in shaping countries like Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, much as it had done in shaping New Zealand, Austria, and Australia. It is the left that had a great deal of influence in shaping Germany, Britain, and France. The revolutionary left is the left that shaped countries such as the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Cuba, and North Korea.
The reformist left in spite of all its shortcomings and limitations is an impressive success story. By impressive I don\u2019t mean heroic. Indeed, the reformist left by temperament and by creed is an antiheroic movement, yet it is responsible for many (unheroic) successes. The revolutionary left is heroic if not by temperament then by creed (the creed of violent revolution). Yet the revolutionary left is responsible for colossal and cruel failures, albeit heroic failures. I guess that very few people recognize the name Hjalmar Branting, the father of the reformist left in Sweden, a philosopher king of the workers\u2019 movement in that country, an immensely successful organizer, and a social thinker of considerable stature.<\/p>\n

I guess that there are few people who do not recognize Fidel Castro: colorful, romantic, very photogenic in his olive green uniform and with his phallic Cuban cigar, and, last but not least, heroic in his guerilla feats. However, he is responsible for the massive failure of the authoritarian communist regime in Cuba. <\/p>\n

The reformist left is responsible for the most decent and well-behaved societies of our time. This does not mean that the reformist left was not involved in shameful practices such as the forced sterilization of individuals of mixed races or low intelligence, which lasted over 40 years in Sweden; or the role that the Australian Labor Party played in promoting the White Australia Policy of immigration. Yet I repeat that for all its shortcomings the record of the social democrats in creating livable societies is unrivaled.<\/p>\n

The accelerated movements in the world economy in recent years have put the reformist left under severe stress, if not in downright crisis. The world economy moves rapidly towards markets that transcend national borders. Whereas the reformist left is anchored to national boundaries. The two loyalties of the reformist left are predicated on an economy that is basically a national economy with some portion of international trade. But the accelerated integration of goods, capital, and services in the world market and with it the pressure of immigration to advanced economies undermines the basic assumptions of the reformist left.<\/p>\n

The revolutionary left underestimated national feelings as a strong motivating force among workers. The reformist left is in danger of underestimating the international nature of capital in undermining social policies of the reformist left. More importantly, the global nature of the market impinges on the basic sense of worker solidarity. After all, how far are workers willing to go in protecting the noncompetitive industries of their comrades so as to defend workers\u2019 interests? The common answer is, only up to a point. <\/p>\n

3. The Revolutionary Triangle<\/p>\n

The triangle \u201cLiberty, equality, fraternity\u201d is the famous slogan of the French revolution. Robespierre suggested weaving the slogan on the French flag. His suggestion was not accepted. But the slogan was well inscribed in the revolutionary conscious. There is no agreed sense of what the slogan means. Thomas Carlyle, punning on the related revolutionary slogan \u201cFraternity or death,\u201d wrote that fraternity in the French revolution meant \u201cBe my brother, or I will kill you.\u201d But there are of course far more charitable understandings of fraternity. <\/p>\n

In any case the revolutionary triangle set the agenda for much of the political thinking since the revolution. A great deal of effort was devoted to explaining the twin notions of liberty and equality and what lies between them. By \u201cwhat lies between them\u201d I have in mind questions like can we have liberty without economic equality? \u201cNo\u201d says the left; \u201cyes\u201d says the liberal right. Can we gain equality without coercive means that would destroy liberty? \u201cNo\u201d says the right; \u201cyes\u201d says the left. And so it goes. The neglected side in the revolutionary triangle is the side of fraternity, or in the workers\u2019 language, solidarity. Fraternity is a much more elusive term than either liberty or equality. Fraternity as a brotherly attitude towards people who are not literally brothers strikes one as a metaphorical term that cannot be cashed in, in literal terms. <\/p>\n

There is however something else that deters thinkers from dealing with fraternity: it smacks of moral kitsch. Kitsch attracts activists and propagandists but it deters serious thinking. Kitsch in my eyes is not just an expression of bad taste. It is a term that should be applied equally to art and morality. Sentimentality is what is wrong with kitsch and what is wrong with sentimentality is that it distorts reality so that we \u201ccan indulge our feelings.\u201d To talk about strangers as brothers is such a distortion. Indulging in \u201cbrotherly love\u201d is not to be in love with strangers but to be in love with our phony love of strangers. It is a second-order emotion, emotion about our real or affected emotions. Brotherly love is an invitation to a narcissistic love of how precious we are in loving all those suffering strangers.<\/p>\n

Milan Kundera, a keen connoisseur of kitsch, does not spare us the kitsch of the grand marches of the smiling brotherhood. He goes as far as saying that what makes the left is not any theory but the kitsch of the grand march of the smiling brotherhood. This last remark I don’t buy. What I do buy is that the elusive sense of fraternity and the kitsch morality that is so easily attached thereto deterred serious thinkers from treating it seriously.<\/p>\n

Whatever the explanation for what happened in New Orleans, Paris, and Amsterdam, the issue of solidarity should be of primary concern to the reformist left. Formal citizenship is not enough of a bond to enable the pursuit of the reformist left\u2019s concern with social justice. Social justice is the right combination of liberty and equality. Solidarity is a prerequisite for the pursuit of social justice. We should be much more clear-headed about what solidarity requires if we are to deal seriously with liberty and equality. By “we” I mean we the reformist left. <\/p>\n

There is a rather famous debate between two members of the French National Assembly during the \u201cthe spring of the nations\u201d (1848): the poet with socialist leanings Alphonse de Lamartine and the libertarian philosopher Frederick Bastiat. Lamartine claimed that Bastiat stopped at liberty and did not go to the other half of the revolutionary formula whereas he Lamartine went the whole way from liberty to fraternity. To which Bastiat replied, \u201cYour second half will destroy the first half.\u201d This is not a trivial remark. It should be taken as a warning sign but not as a road map, a map which should be bounded I believe by the three sides of the revolutionary triangle. <\/p>\n

4. Fraternity: A Family Business<\/p>\n

Fraternity, like the French fraternit\u00e9, is rooted in frater (brother) and fraternus (brotherly). It evokes a metaphor of family relations: relations among brothers. The revolutionary idea of fraternit\u00e9 was meant to be extended to all humans so as to view humanity as an extended family: the family of man. Relations among brothers are basically horizontal relations: relations among equals. The revolutionary fraternity is in competition with another political family metaphor: paternalism, which is the government of a father over his children, a thoroughly vertical relation. It is a relation of authority and hierarchy. Paternalism is a relatively new term coined in the second half of the nineteenth century, but viewing the king as father and his subjects as children has been with us from time immemorial. Paternalism is based on the idea that the ruler, the metaphorical father, knows best what is good for his subjects, his metaphorical children, than they themselves do. Fraternity differs from paternalism and in a way is a rejection of paternalism. We the metaphorical brothers will help you as long as you are loyal to the family.
Fraternity is meant to replace paternalism as the model of family relations. It is a constant complaint in my country of Israel by people who came to Israel from Islamic countries after 1948 that they encountered condescending paternalism from the veteran socialists rather than fraternity. There is enough truth in this to serve as a serious warning sign that social democrats with the best of intentions may help people in need, especially immigrants, with a paternalistic attitude rather than in the true spirit of fraternity. <\/p>\n

Solidarity does not invoke and does not connote family relations. Its etymology is quite different and if we trace it to its Roman root it has to do with the joint debt of a group that binds each and every member to a mutual personal responsibility for the whole (in solidum) debt. Fraternity and solidarity are in the grip of two different pictures: fraternity is modeled on family relations, solidarity on strong partnership with unlimited liability in case of a joint debt.<\/p>\n

Nationalism is the grip of a family picture. It makes us think about our nation in terms of an extended family: lineal descent from common ancestors. Class solidarity is not conceived in family terms. When it matters I shall use fraternity for national solidarity and reserve solidarity for what is predominantly class solidarity. <\/p>\n

Let me hasten to add that the secular left has no monopoly on the use of the term solidarity. It has an extensive use in Catholic writing, including conservative Catholic writing. A society on this account has solidarity to the extent that its members view their mutual dependence on each other as their dependence on God. It is no wonder that the famous movement in Poland that helped bring Communism down was called Solidarity, for it catered to both types of audience, Catholic and Communist (or ex-communist).<\/p>\n

4. The Contrast between Two Ideas of Solidarity<\/p>\n

It is not the religious notion of solidarity that influenced the reformist left but the idea of solidarity that came from the revolutionary left. In what follows I shall concentrate on the contrast between the revolutionary left, which is mainly a phenomenon of the past with a social reform agenda. <\/p>\n

Revolutionary socialism according to Marx means creating a society free from exploitation. In this view labor, and labor alone, creates everything valuable. Hence, any reward not given to labor is exploitation. Forming a society free from exploitation can be achieved only by a revolutionary act carried out by the exploited in which private ownership over means of production is transferred to social ownership\u2014most likely by way of violence. Solidarity of the working class is required for coordinating the revolutionary acts that would bring about the transfer of ownership from private to public hands. Solidarity is not the goal. It is a means to achieve the goal, the goal being a society free from exploitation. In Marx\u2019s view the exploitative capital does not know national boundaries. Thus exploitation is not bounded within national borders. Hence solidarity among the exploited should not recognize national boundaries. It is in this sense that the working people have no fatherland. By Marx’s account the fact that the workers are exploited will sooner or later determine their consciousness of being exploited. Such consciousness can be the result of a relatively speedy process or of a long and painful process. But no matter how long it takes the revolution is bound to succeed. The reason is that the expositors created an irrational economics that would impede productive forces. Halting the productive forces is what would bring about the revolution. <\/p>\n

The reformist has many qualms about this story. He argues that what is wrong in capitalism is its morality, not its rationality. There is no internal self-defeating mechanism in capitalism that is going to force it to block its productive forces. Capitalism is an unprecedented success story in terms of economic growth the likes of which humanity has never encountered before, not even the agricultural revolution in Mesolithic times. There is no evidence whatsoever that capitalism is losing its vitality. By all indications\u2014China and India glaring examples\u2014capitalism is still going strong in developing the productive forces in society. <\/p>\n

The cruel historical paradox is that if there is any social system that halted its productive forces so as to bring about its own destruction it is communism. The irony is that Marxism far better explains the end of communism than it ever explained the alleged downfall of capitalism. <\/p>\n

Class solidarity based on the promise of the inevitability of the downfall of capitalism erodes solidarity. When the illusionary promise collapses, solidarity collapses along with it. <\/p>\n

The reformist left has another worry about solidarity with regard to the revolutionary left\u2019s analysis. Solidarity among workers according to the Marxist account is galvanized when workers recognize their interest in not being exploited. This awareness should lead them to recognize that only by a collective act can they rid themselves of exploitation. Solidarity is what makes the revolutionary collective act go round. <\/p>\n

But the reformist is quick to point out that these two recognitions are far from securing solidarity. For you as a worker may recognize that you have been exploited and you may also recognize that only by a collective act of the workers can exploitation be stopped and yet rationally recognize that it is not in your interest to join in the struggle of your comrades. You may cogently reason as follows. The struggle to end exploitation is going to succeed whether I take part in the struggle or not, given that all the other workers are struggling. My personal contribution is negligible yet the personal cost of joining the struggle may be very costly indeed. So let\u2019s stay away and not show solidarity but enjoy the fruits of whatever is achieved, much as a scab enjoys the outcome of a strike without paying the price of taking part in the strike. So if the appeal of solidarity is that it severs one\u2019s interest then the logic is wrong. It is in the interest of each and every worker to be a free rider, with the hope that the others are not. To overcome the free-rider problem and mount collective action, each worker must take a moral stand to refrain from free riding; in other words, he must not exploit his comrades\u2019 struggle against exploitation. <\/p>\n

The reformist left believes that solidarity is based on morality as much as it is based on interests. Solidarity is a moral stance which involves paying a personal price. For the revolutionary left morality, bourgeois morality if you like, is nothing but soft sentimentality whereas acting out of interests has the hardness of reality itself. But then it cannot convince the individual workers who do not show solidarity that it is in their interest to join the struggle. What is wrong with them is not their rationality but their morality. <\/p>\n

As mentioned, solidarity for the revolutionary left is based on the workers being aware both that they are exploited and that they should coordinate their political action. This recognition can take two forms. In one form the workers perceive themselves as victims, victims of exploitation. In the other form they perceive themselves as laborers, sole creators of anything valuable. So in one form they are passive victims; in the other, actors who should be proud of what they do. Marx, I believe, opted for pride; many of his followers opted for pity.
It is hard and I believe wrong to base solidarity on victimhood; it detracts from their humanity. There is need for pride. Marx provided the workers with sources of pride. Yet a great deal of what happens nowadays is the creation of a political culture of victimhood. <\/p>\n

I believe that many people in colonial and postcolonial societies who are swearing in Marx\u2019s name are too much immersed in the culture of victimhood and too little in building independent sources of pride. Those who recognized the need for pride among people under colonial rule, like Franz Fanon, came with the very wrong source of pride and that is violence. Violence, even when justified in severe cases of oppression, should never be a source of pride. Marx counted on violence but he did not count on violence to build the pride of the workers. Violence may be necessary, he thought, but its necessity does not confer a halo. I believe that violence as a source of pride still plays a role in communities that view themselves as being under something akin to colonial rule. This vitiates the reformist left\u2019s idea of pride and rightly so. <\/p>\n

The reformist left is committed to the need to find true sources of pride for shaping solidarity. It recognizes the appeal of nation as such a source. True, many national movements in which workers were deeply involved viewed their history as a history of victimization. Irishmen and Poles shaped their account of their past as a passion play, with suffering stations on the road to the cross. The nation is a sacrificial lamb. But even they were not proud of being victims but of being \u201cchosen\u201d by history, destiny, God, or whatever, to suffer. Jews without the station of the cross view their history in very much those terms. <\/p>\n

In the eyes of the reformist left the nation is a legitimate source of pride. This source can be tainted and perverted as happened with some nasty forms of nationalism but nationalism as such is not perceived by the reformist left as mere jingoism. The vision the reformist left has of the world at large is of a world that is international\u2014that is, a world constructed out of multicultural nation states. The revolutionary left talked about itself in international terms but its true logic was a cosmopolitan logic\u2014not in the last analysis an international movement but a cosmopolitan one. <\/p>\n

The revolutionary left has deep doubts about nations. It believes that social classes form objective reality anchored in material conditions whereas nations are social constructs and in the last analysis nothing but human inventions.
The reformist is unimpressed. Social class is as much a construct as the construct of nation. Human social classification depends on the consciousness of the individuals and very little on so called objective basis. Even in a case where there is a clear objective reality for the classification like the one between male and female we still talk and rightly so about gender rather than abut sex. Gender is a social construct sex a biological category.
Poles and proletariat, unlike dogs and daffodils, are social constructs, not natural kinds. But this is how it should be. For the reformist left, the importance of classifying humans in politics into groups is their potential contribution to human well-being: Nothing more but also nothing less. Nations and social classes should be judged in the context of solidarity in moral terms, not in scientific terms. For the reformist the pretentious talk about scientific socialism is as oxymoronic as the expression \u201cGerman physics.\u201d Solidarity is a moral stand, not a scientific stance. <\/p>\n

5. Negative Solidarity<\/p>\n

Karl Schmitt is an influential thinker with a shameful Nazi past. He made the claim that solidarity is always negative. It is always solidarity against a common enemy. If, he argued, logic is based on the distinction between truth and falsity, aesthetics on the distinction between beautiful and ugly, ethics on the distinction between good and evil, the fundamental category of human existence is inevitably based on the distinction between friend and foe. <\/p>\n

We should be disturbed by Schmitt\u2019s claim since we all recognize too many expressions of solidarity that bear the signs of negative solidarity. Yet the reformist left rejects his claim not because he was a Nazi but because as a general claim it is false. <\/p>\n

The revolutionary left that views history in terms of class struggle is quite sympathetic to Schmitt\u2019s claim (though it believes in a future classless world in which politics will disappear\u2014which Schmitt rightly believed was nothing but Utopian nonsense). The reformist left does not believe in the end of politics or indeed in the end of anything. What it does maintain is that a common enemy is not a necessary category of politics and, more importantly, it is not a necessary condition for forming solidarity. <\/p>\n

The reformist left actually flourishes when there is no enemy, namely, in a situation of peace. Whereas in times of national wars the reformist left is in dire political straits. Because the reformist left is based on a double loyalty and times of national crisis do not admit such ambiguity. The reformist left in France found itself in a terrible situation in Algiers since there was a suspicion that it would be too soft in defending national interests because of its socialist hangover. To remove such suspicion the reformist left behaved particularly badly in Algiers. Once there is a Schmittian enemy the reformist left is a suspect. It has constantly to prove that it is patriotic. The double loyalty puts the burden of proof of its loyalty to the nation on its shoulder.<\/p>\n

The burden of proof of patriotism that weighs heavily on the shoulder of the left is very damaging to the cause of the left. The right is exempt from tests of national loyalty because it is taken by the public as patriotic by definition. We had a glimpse of this in the last U.S. presidential election. John Kerry who in the American context is considered liberal left had to prove that he was a patriot and had to bring his record as a war hero to the campaign whereas Bush who conveniently deserted the Vietnam war had nothing to prove. He was considered patriotic by definition. It is no accident that some of the most significant moves in politics in recent history were made by right-wingers who were perceived as patriotic by definition and betrayed their voters to pursue a policy that the left could not afford: De Gaulle in Algiers, de Klerk in South Africa, Nixon in China, and Begin in Sinai. <\/p>\n

Enemy does not help the reformist left in a national struggle; it is stuck. Either it is going to be a left that is morally relevant but politically irrelevant\u2014something like a student protest movement\u2014or it is going to be politically relevant and morally irrelevant. This dilemma of the reformist left has plagued it since the First World War when it was clear that the workers were swept by waves of national patriotism. <\/p>\n

The reformist left is the party of peace not because it advocates peace\u2014this is on too many occasions not the case\u2014but because the reformist left can flourish only in times of peace. <\/p>\n

For the revolutionary left the capitalists are the enemy in a class war. For the reformist left they are rivals to be defeated only by ballots and never by bullets. The distinction between rivals and enemies is not based on the intensity of hatred towards the capitalists but by the justification for the use of violence. The reformist left is committed to democracy as the sole legitimate instrument of social change in democratic countries. By democratic countries I mean countries in which the rulers can peacefully be replaced by election. The reformist left is committed to democracy before any other commitment it has. Solidarity in democratic countries should be wrought by democratic transparent means and only by democratic transparent means. <\/p>\n

6. Class Solidarity<\/p>\n

The words \u201csolidarity\u201d and \u201cworking class\u201d may strike you as nostalgic verging on kitsch. They may strike you as utterly anachronistic and irrelevant for describing the social and economic reality of the advanced postindustrial societies of today. The accusation of anachronism has two senses: one descriptive, one normative. The descriptive sense of anachronism says that the concept of working class has lost its grip in advanced societies no longer organized around machine production. Machine production of the past had a particular type of working place and working class which was the breeding ground of the reformist left. But we are living in the advanced information-based economies of today which have dismembered the organized working class as we knew it. Hence to talk about solidarity with the working class is nothing but nostalgic talk unchecked by reality. <\/p>\n

The normative sense of anachronism says more: the reformist left lost not only its power base with the dispersion of organized labor but with it lost its moral relevance too. It is not only the industry in economically advanced societies that went through privatization, morality too went through privatization. Moral issues that concern gays, women, minorities, or for that matter environment, became one issue group while the reformist left lost its ability to connect those issues into a coherent whole expressed in one convincing political platform.<\/p>\n

For one thing, what is left of the traditional backbone of the reformist left, the organized labor, is estranged from those concerns. The English writer E. M. Forster coined the slogan \u201calways connect.\u201d The political thinker Steven Lukes suggested that the reformist left should adopt this slogan. This is a good suggestion: the reformist left should connect all the moral issues I just mentioned under the aegis of the labor movement.<\/p>\n

I admit, how can I not, that organized labor has been weakened quite considerably in advanced countries in recent years. But it is still alive even when it is not kicking. The news about the death of the working class is premature exaggeration. The working people are still the backbone of the reformist left and should be so; nothing can replace the workers as the driving force in improving society. For one thing it is the only force that is both interested in improving society and able to win elections. <\/p>\n

Yet the moral renewal of the reformist left depends on reaching out and connecting the varied causes of women, gays, guest workers, and immigrants into the concerns of the reformist left. Connecting to these groups by siding with their causes is the kind of solidarity that is not only morally required but is politically needed. For one thing, the motivated young are moved by these concerns more than by the traditional trade unionist concerns of the reformist left. Yet the concern with the welfare state should be at the center of it all. <\/p>\n

The reformist left and only the reformist left is capable of connecting this wide array of moral issues. Being capable does not mean that it is easy or that the reformist left is going to do so; all it means is that it can and that it should. <\/p>\n

There are of course gays among the workers but the workers are not particularly sympathetic to the gays. There are of course women among the workers but the workers are not particularly sympathetic to the women\u2019s movement, let alone to the immigrants or the guest workers. Indeed the thorny issue is the issue of solidarity between the local workers and the guest workers, and thornier than that is the issue of solidarity between the employed and unemployed immigrants. This is especially painful when the immigrants do not belong to the nation of the workers. There are two issues here. One is lack of solidarity with the employed who are not \u201cone of us,\u201d say Turkish guest workers in Germany. Another is solidarity with the unemployed who are citizens but do not belong to the category of \u201cone of us,\u201d say North African Muslims in France. <\/p>\n

Up until now I have contrasted the reformist left with the revolutionary left. This is a comparison of great historical and ideological importance. But the relevant contrast for the concerns of today is with the right-wing marketers: those on the right who believe that the market is the right answer to what truly bothers humans, namely, fulfilling their wants. <\/p>\n

According to the market view of society human relations in the political sphere should be molded on economic relations in the marketplace, namely, on contractual relations that are meant to further mutual self-interest. The plea for solidarity is a plea to go beyond contractual relations based solely on self-interest. The reformist left that has heavily invested in the modern welfare state does not believe that a lasting welfare state can be grasped as nothing more than an insurance policy. Pensions and the health of working people, let alone of the unemployed, cannot be protected by an insurance policy.
This is very clear from the American experience with these institutions. Without solidarity\u2014a true commitment to the institutional support of those in need, be it for reasons of health or old age or education\u2014those in need would be extremely vulnerable. <\/p>\n

Workers, say, in Germany, do understand that they need to recruit young workers to keep their pension funds alive. They realize that in many cases this can be done only by recruiting foreign workers. These workers grudgingly admit them for insurance purposes but on many occasions they do not want them socially. They do not feel the double loyalty of the reformist left but only the national loyalty of the jingoistic right which gives them the social edge on the foreign workers. The nation is their insurance against being d\u00e9class\u00e9. <\/p>\n

All this is painfully familiar to you all. Solidarity is a very demanding thing. Sympathy for the underdogs as long as they stay far away is no solidarity but salon solidarity<\/p>\n

7. What is the Solidarity of the Reformist Left?<\/p>\n

Solidarity is a complicated attitude: a combination of beliefs, values, and emotions that bring people to act in certain ways. For one thing, it is complicated because solidarity is both an attitude towards other persons and an attitude to a cause. With some people the main drive in their sense of solidarity is the people with whom they identify. With some people it is a loyalty to the cause that those people represent. <\/p>\n

The emotional attitude in solidarity is important. It is based on a capacity for sympathy, which is to feel for the suffering of others, and because of that to be committed to help alleviate the suffering. But sympathy in solidarity should never make the sufferer a mere object of suffering, a pure victim. Solidarity calls for a strong sense of human dignity. Viewing humans as mere victims is degrading them. <\/p>\n

Solidarity, unlike identity, does not necessarily involve a trait one shares with others. You may feel solidarity with the Muslim community without being a Muslim. There is another important difference between solidarity and social identity. If one has a social identity one identifies with a certain trait, say, being Dutch, and values this trait. In the case of solidarity, say, solidarity with people with Aids, one does not value the disease; one values their struggle to survive or to die in dignity. <\/p>\n

Worker solidarity is based on a trait that at the moment is not sufficiently valued but which is very valuable, namely, the value of work. But you may hear workers complain, Well, I do like my people, meaning my ethnic group. They are like me even if they have more money. But I don\u2019t like the immigrants; they are not like us. Preaching to us about solidarity is no good. At best it is organized hypocrisy in the labor movement which covers smoldering resentment. You force us to feel something that we do not naturally feel. <\/p>\n

I believe that this reaction is based on confusion. Solidarity is not about liking, although liking helps. Even love in the family is not about liking. One may love his younger brother without really liking him, preferring any time the company of his adorable friends to his sulking behavior of spoiled brat brother. Yet brother he is. One loves his brother dearly and is willing to do anything for him. The total commitment is there but not the liking. It is a very nice feeling to love and like your family, but not liking does not mean not loving. <\/p>\n

What is needed in solidarity is the commitment to help in a struggle and this can be achieved\u2014though with more difficulties\u2014even with people one does not feel at ease with, or one does not even particularly like. The solidarity of the reformist left should steer clear of sentimental kitsch and organized hypocrisy. This we can do and if we can we must. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Avishai Margalit 1. Three Observations and a Problem We all watched with horror the helpless and hapless people, survivors of Hurricane Katrina crying desperately for help but to no avail. This apocalyptic scene created a strong impression that the voters of Bush, those who brought him to power, do not care a whit for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3380,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[1917],"acf":[],"author_name":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125709\/revisions"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"name":"AndorT","href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/3380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vn.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}