Social Solidarity and the Power of Contract
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2011.00540.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 38, NUMBER 2, JUNE 2011
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 189±214
Social Solidarity and the Power of Contract
Kenneth Veitch*
This article explores what social policy contracts reveal about con-
temporary forms of social solidarity, and what they tell us about the
nature of social cohesion in Western societies today. Taking the workfare
contract as its point of departure, and drawing on Emile Durkheim's
work, it is argued that social policy contracts disclose elements of
mechanical and organic social solidarity. They function in both punitive
and restitutive ways, their exclusionary and inclusive features acting as
important sources of contemporary social solidarity. By reference to
empirical evidence regarding workfare in various countries, the article
highlights the importance of structural factors in determining the success
of this policy. It is argued that the moralistic nature of the workfare
contract, and the forms of social solidarity it expresses, obscures these
deeper structural issues, leaving in place the conditions necessary for the
persistence of social suffering characteristic of the post-Keynesian era.
The contention is that contract has a de-politicizing effect in the field of
social policy.
INTRODUCTION
A country is at its best when the bonds between people are strong and when
the sense of national purpose is clear. Today the challenges facing Britain are
immense. Our economy is overwhelmed by debt, our social fabric is frayed
and our political system has betrayed the people. But these problems can be
overcome if we pull together and work together. If we remember that we are
all in this together.
1
189
ß2011 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2011 Cardiff University Law School. Published by Blackwell Publishing
Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*Sussex Law School, School of Law, Politics and Sociology, Friston
Building, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SP, England
K.J.Veitch@sussex.ac.uk
The ideas contained in this article were first aired at a workshop on the `Power of Law' at
Helsinki Law School, University of Helsinki. I am very grateful to Toomas Kotkas for his
kind invitation to participate in this workshop and to the participants for their discussion
and feedback. For comments on a previous written draft, I thank Roger Cotterrell, John
Harrington, Scott Veitch, Angela Williams, and the anonymous referees.
1
Conservative Party, Invitation to Join the Government of Britain: Manifesto 2010 (2010).
In a recent article, Gerard Delanty argues that there is an `emerging crisis of
solidarity' within Europe.
2
While this concerns the question of peoplehood,
and is most clearly expressed in the form of `increased levels of anxiety
around migration in European countries', he argues that its roots can be
traced to changes in the socio-economic constitution of Europe and its nation
states. Referring to the work of several sociologists, including Richard
Sennett and Jock Young, Delanty charts a variety of social and economic
transformations ± in work, the family, and pensions ± that have contributed
to the weakening of previously solid bases of solidarity within Europe, such
as status and class. With no sense of a collective identity at the European
level, the result is a crisis of solidarity that, in turn, produces a `fear of
others', most prominently of migrants and members of ethnic communities.
For Delanty, the way forward must involve a reassertion of the commitment
to social justice and solidarity, the current absence of which produces the
insecurities and anxieties that express themselves in this fear.
Delanty is not alone. Others, too, have bemoaned what they see as the
decline of solidarity in contemporary Europe. Zygmunt Bauman, for
instance, upon whose work Delanty relies, argues that the emergence of
`the society of consumers' has been accompanied by a decline in the
conditions necessary for the existence of solidarity today.
3
With the rise to
prominence of the cult of the consumer and the idea that consumers, rather
than the state, should provide for their own care needs, there has been a
simultaneous diminution in welfare benefits offered by the social state to
those requiring assistance. In Bauman's view, this decline in `communally
endorsed, collective insurance against individual misfortune' detrimentally
affects solidarity as it removes one of its key sources. This type of insurance
was designed to promote solidarity by creating the possibility of a society
understood as `a common good, shared, communally owned, and jointly
cared for, thanks to the defence it provides against the twin horrors of misery
and indignity ...'.
4
This theme of a crisis of, or at least a steady decline in, solidarity in
contemporary Europe raises some important questions. Does this mean that
there is no solidarity to speak of today? Can solidarity only be restored, if
indeed that is achievable, through a return to the Keynesian era with its
emphasis on full employment and strong social protection through a com-
prehensive welfare state?
5
If not, then what might constitute alternative
sources of solidarity in a post-Keynesian world? These are big questions, and
it is not the purpose of this article to address them in any detail but, rather, to
190
2 G. Delanty, `Fear of Others: Social Exclusion and the European Crisis of Solidarity'
(2008) 42 Social Policy & Administration 676.
3 Z. Bauman, Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers? (2008) ch. 3.
4 id., p. 140. Emphasis in original.
5 For this link between solidarity and Keynesianism, see, amongst many examples, D.
Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005) chs. 1 and 3.
ß2011 The Author. Journal of Law and Society ß2011 Cardiff University Law School
To continue reading
Request your trial