It’s not so much a buzzword nowadays, but “solidarity” is still an important concept, and one that often doesn’t mean what people think it does. To define what we mean by solidarity, we begin with the thought of Pope Saint John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyła, 1920-2005, elected 1978).
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| Karol Józef Wojtyła |
In February 1961, while still Auxiliary Bishop of Kraków, Wojtyła startled the intellectual community with his paper, “Personalizm Tomistyczny” (“Thomistic Personalism”), defining personalism as any school of thought, or any intellectual movement, that focuses on the reality of the human person and each person’s unique dignity. (Karol Wojtyła, “Personaolizm Tomistyczny,” Znak 13 (1961): 664-675.) In the short article presenting personalism as an alternative, he countered ideologies that shift dignity and power away from the human person.
Suggesting that some later interpretations of the documents were not consistent with the original intent, during the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), Wojtyła contributed to Dignitatis Humanae (“Decree on Religious Freedom”) and Gaudium et Spes (“Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”).
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| Karol Józef Wojtyła |
In Wojtyła’s thought, the concept of solidarity holds an important place. As he would later state — putting the word in quotes — solidarity is a “virtue,” the habit of doing good, but not in the same sense as, for example, justice and charity. In his encyclical issued as pope on the twentieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio he explained that solidarity —
. . . is above all a question of interdependence, sensed as a system determining relationships in the contemporary world, in its economic, cultural, political and religious elements, and accepted as a moral category. When interdependence becomes recognized in this way, the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a “virtue,” is solidarity. (Solicitudo Rei Socialis, § 38.)
Specifically, solidarity, a characteristic of groups per se, is a principle that fulfills and completes that general justice which permeates all virtue, a sort of “general social charity.” It is not a particular virtue (a virtue that is defined by a specific “act” directed at a specific “object”), nor does it exclude non-Christians. Solidarity is a virtue Christians necessarily have, not one that is exclusive to Christians: “Solidarity is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. In what has been said so far it has been possible to identify many points of contact between solidarity and charity, which is the distinguishing mark of Christ's disciples.” (Ibid., § 40.)
Karol
Józef Wojtyła
In the context of Wojtyła’s Thomistic personalism, then, solidarity describes an awareness of rights and duties within a particular group that define how sovereign individuals relate as persons to one another and to the group as a whole. All people as members of a group have solidarity when they have that awareness and can participate fully as members of that group.
Solidarity in Wojtyła’s thought is an essential prerequisite for social justice, for (as we will see) only members of groups can carry out acts of social justice. By this means cooperation is achieved, not by absorbing people into the group or collective, but by mutual interaction and give-and-take in exercising rights and attaining the common goals and aspirations of the group.
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| David Émile Durkheim |
Solidarism as conceived by Wojtyła is in sharp contrast to that of, e.g., the sociologist David Émile Durkheim (1858-1917). Durkheim, whose conception of God was a “divinized society” (Fulton J. Sheen, Religion Without God. New York: Garden City Books, 1954, 54), held that only the collective has rights. Individual ethics are merely expedient and necessarily give way before the demands of social ethics. As Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950) put it, for Durkheim, “religion is the group’s worship of itself.” (Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1954, 794.)
A common mistake today is to assume social rights and virtues are rights and virtues society or humanity as a whole has by nature. This is impossible, as “society” and “humanity” are abstractions, things created by human persons. Things have only such rights as human beings delegate to them. A social right or virtue is a right or virtue that human persons have with regard to society, not that society has with regard to persons.
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| Joseph Alois Schumpeter |
Together, Wojtyła’s concepts of solidarity and Thomistic personalism provide more than an esoteric academic discussion, but a practical means for applying the principles of Catholic social teaching to many of today’s otherwise overwhelming problems. Solidarity motivates our care for the common good. Personalism focuses our actions on promoting the dignity of every human being and on how each person can relate fully to society and to the common good. Combined, the two concepts offer a holistic paradigm for problem solving that puts even the most monumental tasks within the reach of every person acting in free association with others.
That brings us to today’s Solidarity movement in Central America. There are 200 companies in Guatemala with Solidarista Associations having over 100,000 worker-members. The USG forms new associations, provides technical assistance, and acts as a chamber for Solidarista Associations and companies in Guatemala. Solidarista Associations are similar to cooperatives. They advocate worker ownership of the sponsoring parent companies, somewhat like the Mondragon model in Spain.
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| Alberto Martén Chavarría |
Founded in 1949, Union Solidarista Costarricense (USC), the Solidarista movement in Costa Rica, has 1,400 corporate members and associations with over 400,000 worker-members. In both Guatemala and Costa Rica, the Catholic Church has supported the Solidarista movement as consistent with the social teachings of Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, and St. John Paul II, as well as Pope Francis’s concern with a preferential option for the poor.
Solidarista
members have worked closely with CESJ, whose programs integrate Catholic social
doctrine and the thought of ownership economist and ESOP-inventor Louis O.
Kelso. During the Reagan administration Solidarista
groups in Costa Rica and Guatemala helped get CESJ’s Presidential Task Force on
Project Economic Justice for Central America and the Caribbean underway in 1984. In a speech in 1987, President Reagan praised
the work and report of the PEJ Task Force.
The goal of the Task Force was to counter the spread of Marxism and
other forms of communism and socialism in those regions.
The late Señor Alberto Martén Chavarría, a student of the teachings of Father Heinrich Pesch, S.J. and founder of Solidarismo Costarricense, believed CESJ’s synthesis has the potential to make Catholic social teaching a practical reality for everyone, regardless of faith or philosophy. Don Alberto, named a national hero (Benemérito de la Patria) by the Costa Rican legislature in 2009, incorporated many elements of Kelso’s thought into his programs and corresponded with Dr. Norman G. Kurland, president of CESJ.
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