The Optimal Level of Solidarity

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511510519.008

8 - The Optimal Level of Solidarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009

Edited by

Pierre Salmon and

Ronald Wintrobe: Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Western Ontario
Albert Breton: Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Gianluigi Galeotti: Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza', Italy
Pierre Salmon: Affiliation:
Université de Bourgogne, France
Ronald Wintrobe: Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario

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INTRODUCTION

This chapter looks at solidarity from a rational choice point of view. I begin with some puzzles about the meaning and significance of solidarity and its relationship to social capital, trust, and other concepts. The concept of social capital has been used to mean a number of things, and sometimes it means the same thing as solidarity and sometimes not. But perhaps this is the price for the new-found popularity of the subject. The heart of the chapter is a simple model of how solidarity, social cohesion, horizontal trust, or horizontal social capital – concepts that are interchangeable in this paper – is generated. I describe a production process for solidarity; that is, I explain one way in which it is created. This makes it possible to think more systematically than is usual about the conditions under which solidarity grows or declines. This model and some of its implications are described in the sections, “The Production of Trust” and “Trade in Beliefs.”

The next two sections discuss the relationship of this model of solidarity to certain classical ideas about the formation and properties of group beliefs: Rousseau's “General Will” and the jury theorem of Condorcet. These works, with their emphasis on group decision making and the conditions under which various forms of group decision making are in the group interest, can be used to illuminate some of the social costs of solidarity.

Type: Chapter
Information: Rational Foundations of Democratic Politics , pp. 125 - 146

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511510519.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2003

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