Contemporary moral and political philosophers who analyze the concept of solidarity (particularly as applied to global redistribution) tend to be divided between (philosophical) pragmatic communitarians and neo-Kantian universalists. The pragmatic communitarians contend that the bonds of mutual care that characterize a solidaristic community are constituted within particular societies where members share a strong common identity; thus they are pessimistic about the possibility of economic redistribution across the boundaries of states.

i To construct a “we,” these theorists argue, particular groups define themselves against an “other.” In contrast, those writing in the Rawlsian or neo-Kantian tradition claim that human cooperative endeavors can only be sustained over time if carried out under just conditions of mutual respect. Thus, Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge contend that today’s interdependent global society morally necessitates us to extend the Rawls’ “difference principle” across borders.

ii (One might query whether “cosompolitans” overestimate the extent of global economic integration. In fact, one could argue that the most economically disadvantaged are those in autarkal peasant economies who do not have access to clean water, public sewage, modern health care and who cannot purchase basic consumer goods. That is, the poorest 1/6thth of the globe who live on under $1/day purchasing power are mostly excluded from the interdependent workings of the global capitalist economy.)

The communitarian position emphasizes the exclusionary side of democratic sovereignty. The demosdemosdemos is self-defined, and, in the absence of a global state, must exclude others. But an overly pragmatic defense of particularism denies the universal mpulse of democracy’s commitment to the equal moral worth of persons. It negates the historical reality that social movements of the excluded resort to universalist arguments when demanding to be included in the democratic polity. The egalitarian logic of democratic solidarity involves the equitable sharing of the risks, burdens, and opportunities of an interdependent society across lines of race, gender, and class. Thus particular movements for democratic inclusion inevitably press their potential fellow citizens towards a more capacious and universal conception of equality. But whether and how truly internationalist movements of social solidarity – that can change the policies of the powerful states that construct and control global economic regulatory institutions – can develop is a question largely unanswered by cosmopolitan theorists of global justice. In fact, one could argue that there is a peculiarly apolitical quality to many theorists of global justice.

In a world of neo-liberal ideological hegemony – in which egalitarian politics is, at best, on the defensive (if not defeated) in most developed capitalist democracies – these theorists envision a world of global solidarity. But what they don’t compelling outline is a strategy of reviving solidaristic politics in the developed world and extending such solidarity to members of less economically advantaged polities. That is, if you cannot envision a feasible politics of solidarity between affluent suburban United States citizens and their fellow citizens in our inner cities (yet alone undocumented workers who often care for the children of the affluent – or at least care for their lawns) how can one conceive of a feasible politics of solidarity between the affluent of the First World and the more distant dispossessed! (There is somewhat a politics of psychological “displacement” going on among left theorists here – absent a coherent redistributive left project in the domestic sphere they theorize a politics of
global solidarity. But absent cohesive, real-world social movements who fight for a feasible program of global solidarity, most cosmopolitan theory is an “ought” in search of an “is.”

The absence of coherent theories of social agency and social transformation on the part of most of contemporary political theory and social philosophy should remind us that compelling social theory necessitates a coherent theory of historical – and contemporary – social transformation. That is, it’s time to re-read Marx and Weber!)
Thus, the social theorist within me compels me to remind my abstract cosmopolitan theorist comrades that thus far, in real history, the sharing of social risk has only been (all too tentatively and minimally) achieved at the level of the state (with some social and human rights being institutionalized on a regional level within the European Union). Transnational movements for environmental, labor, and human rights have had modest successes and, upon occasion, the international community responds generously to natural disasters (but more unevenly to massive violations of human rights, as in Rwanda, the former Zaire, or Darfur).

The neo-Kantian position underestimates the difficulty of transforming a transnational “ought” into a regional, yet alone, international “is” of effective human, labor, and environmental rights. The road to greater international solidarity cannot transcend the politics of the state, but, rather, must run through it. For only states that have achieved an advanced degree of economic security and solidarity are likely to help construct institutions of international governance that “level-up” global human rights and living standards.
Achieving a modicum of social solidarity has been difficult enough to achieve at the level of the state. The neo-liberal pressures of late global capitalism have trimmed, if not seriously weakened, many of the social rights achieved by the labor movement and the
left in advanced industrial democracies.

iii This has been particularly the case in the United States. Thus, social theorists in the United States who are seriously interested in reviving a politics of social solidarity must first comprehend why there has been such a weak domestic political response to the United States’s emergence as the most inegalitarian of advanced industrial democracies. Only by doing so can we develop the moral and political means by which to revive democratic egalitarian politics at home.

Aspirations for greater international solidarity must be grounded in transnational movements that have sufficient presence in particular states to compel these polities to adopt foreign economic and diplomatic policies that enhance global labor, environmental, and human rights conditions. Just as the moral horizons of democratic polities have expanded only through the struggles of formerly excluded social groups, so will the transition from national to regional to international solidarity occur more through political contestation than by means of abstract philosophical argument. First World citizens are more likely to support policies that will enhance global justice when motivated by enlightened self-interest than by altruism. Philosophical arguments can inform the ideology of movements for social justice; but it will be the particular politics of democratic polities that determine whether a more equitable world emerges.