Solidarity is a form of social unity where individuals recognize their interdependence and shared interests with others, creating bonds of mutual support and collective responsibility that transcend self-interest, enabling coordinated action for common purpose and wellbeing.
Solidarity represents a form of social cohesion fundamentally different from both market-based exchanges and hierarchical authority structures. Unlike transactions based primarily on self-interest or charitable giving structured around helper-recipient dynamics, solidarity creates reciprocal relationships where participants acknowledge their interconnectedness and shared fate. This recognition generates commitments to mutual care, collective wellbeing, and coordinated action that can persist across differences in identity, experience, and social position.
In practice, solidarity manifests as a dynamic interplay between individual agency and collective power, where people voluntarily contribute to common causes while maintaining their distinct identities and perspectives. Solidarity creates durable social bonds through shared values, goals, and experiences, while also requiring concrete expressions through material support, risk-sharing, and collective problem-solving. These solidarity relationships build resilience by distributing resources, knowledge, and capacity across networks rather than concentrating them in centralized institutions.
Uses of “Solidarity”
Solidarity in Social Movements and Collective Action
In social movement contexts, solidarity functions as both an emotional bond and strategic practice that enables effective collective action. It creates the psychological unity necessary for sustained mobilization while establishing practical mechanisms for mutual support during periods of heightened risk or uncertainty.
This form of solidarity emerges through shared experiences of struggle, educational processes that build common analysis, and collective actions that demonstrate shared commitment. It can develop within communities directly affected by specific conditions or extend to include allies who act in support despite not sharing the same direct experiences. This distinction between solidarity within affected groups and solidarity across different positionalities represents an important dimension of movement strategy, requiring intentional practices to navigate power differences while maintaining unified action.
Solidarity in Decentralized Networks and Web3
Within Web3 ecosystems, solidarity manifests through decentralized coordination systems that align individual participation with collective outcomes. These systems create mechanisms for resource pooling, risk distribution, and collective governance without requiring centralized control or homogeneity among participants.
Blockchain-based technologies enable new expressions of solidarity by reducing coordination costs, increasing transparency in resource flows, and enabling participatory governance across geographic boundaries. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) represent one implementation of technological solidarity, creating structures where individuals can coordinate action, pool resources, and govern commons through mechanisms that distribute both decision-making power and responsibility across networks rather than concentrating them in centralized entities.
Solidarity in Economic Systems
In economic contexts, solidarity describes systems and practices that prioritize collective wellbeing and mutual support over individual profit maximization. These approaches include cooperative ownership models, mutual credit systems, and commons-based resource management that create shared stakes in economic outcomes and more equitable distributions of resources, risks, and benefits.
Solidarity economics recognizes that conventional economic frameworks often obscure existing practices of cooperation, reciprocity, and mutual aid that sustain communities, particularly those marginalized by dominant systems. Rather than proposing entirely new economic models, solidarity approaches often seek to strengthen, connect, and scale existing cooperative practices while developing policy and technological infrastructure that supports them. These efforts create economic relationships based on affinity and interdependence rather than pure market logics or bureaucratic control.
Related Concepts
- Mutual Aid: Solidarity provides the ethical foundation for mutual aid practices, which embody solidarity through direct reciprocal support
- Community: Solidarity creates bonds that strengthen community cohesion and capacity for collective action
- Coordination: Solidarity enables effective coordination by aligning individual and collective interests
- Autonomy: Solidarity balances collective action with respect for individual and group autonomy
- Decentralization: Solidarity in decentralized contexts creates resilient networks without centralized control
- Values: Solidarity functions as both a value that guides action and a practice that embodies values
References and Resources
- Scholz, Sally J. (2008). “Political Solidarity” - Comprehensive philosophical exploration of solidarity as a political concept
- Spade, Dean (2020). “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)” - Practical guide linking solidarity and mutual aid
- Durkheim, Emile (1893). “The Division of Labor in Society” - Classic sociological text distinguishing mechanical and organic solidarity
- Gaztambide-Fernández, Rubén (2012). “Decolonization and the pedagogy of solidarity” - Exploration of solidarity across difference