Social Solidarity

In France, the ‘solidarist’ movement also argued for greater support for the less fortunate individuals in society. For Fouillée, ‘justice is the obligation to give each person what is due to him by reason of his function in the living totality and his solidarity with the whole society.’ The idealist approach was contrasted with the sociologist Durkheim (1887) who argued that society was based on the interdependence of individuals or groups having functionally differentiated roles. A moral obligation was needed to maintain this solidarity. In a society of complex specialisation what is necessary is that each person fulfils his specialised role conscientiously. Society, through the state, imposes the requirement to do so – to fulfil one’s function, or that of one’s social group.

The legal academic, Duguit, took up these ideas. In 1901, he argued that the family and local communities were disintegrating as cohesive units, offering individuals support. Associations and factual interconnectedness were replacing them These facts of interconnectedness gave rise to a principle of action, namely that one should try to act in a way that contributes to social solidarity: “To act in conformity to law…is to act in conformity to what is social. The legal principle (la règle du droit) says: Do a thing because it is social; refrain from doing a thing because it is anti-social.”

These ideas were adopted by Saleilles and Josserand, academics who influenced the development of strict liability for exploding boilers and traffic accidents [See Traffic]