Call for Papers

20^th International Conference of the Gide Association

“Solidarity”

Sciences Po Bordeaux, June 20-22, 2024

Call for Papers

Download the call in PDF: CFP Gide 2024 EXTENDED

The 20^th international conference of the Charles Gide Association aims to examine the notion of "solidarity" in the light of the history of economic thought, while taking a multidisciplinary approach by calling on social sciences such as sociology, anthropology and political science, as well as philosophy, history, law and management sciences. It will be held at Sciences Po Bordeaux from June 20 to 22, 2024.

Nowadays, "solidarity" has a prescriptive and moral meaning, reflected in calls for donations and generosity. The term has a plural and polyphonic history, clearly reflected in the questions and controversies in social sciences.

• What links are there between solidarity and the division of labor? For Adam Smith, the division of labor calls for the “cooperation of thousands and thousands of men” while for Léon Walras, thanks to it, “the destinies of all men are in solidarity with each other.”

• To what extent does solidarity make it possible to question the notion of debt (private debt, public debt and sustainability issues)? What is the nature of the link between debtor and creditor? What does this link mean in the case of public debt? John M. Keynes explores the shared responsibilities of creditors and debtors in the process in adjusting balances of payment.

• What about reflections on the creation and distribution of value? The division of labor gives rise to a series of economic thoughts on the distribution of value resulting from cooperation, leading Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx, for example, to criticize the exploitation resulting from capitalist production relationships. What is this solidarity, at the heart of the communist ideal, which appears in the statutes of the International Workingmen's Association in 1864 and as a central element of Lenin's international workers' solidarity?

• Can we link the notion of solidarity with altruism or disinterestedness? After Auguste Comte “systematized” the term altruism, John Stuart Mill discussed “association” as a school of sympathy and equality that accelerates human progress towards taking into account the interests of others, considered as equals. Later, Alfred Marshall approached the notion of selflessness as a sacrifice of one’s own interests for those of future generations.

• Similarly, is there such a thing as an anarchist economic thinking based on solidarity? How do anarchists such as Pierre Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin establish a state of society linked to the moral imperative of mutual aid? 

• What is the normative and positive scope of the notion of solidarity? Is it a descriptive concept, as employed by Émile Durkheim's sociology with mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity? Or does it immediately carry a moral or prescriptive meaning, in the manner of the solidarists who, like Charles Gide, Léon Bourgeois and Léon Duguit, were deeply rooted in the Bordeaux region, and who embodied a normative republican economic and political philosophy.

• To what extent can the reciprocal logic present in the anthropology of the gift, particularly by Marcel Mauss or Claude Lévi-Strauss, be linked to solidarity as the basis of exchange? Can we, like Karl Polanyi, question the limits of the market with thehelp of reciprocal logic? More generally, how does solidarity allow us to question our society's relationship to gift: gift/counter-gift or “free” gift? For example, Jacques Derrida’s phenomenological approach reveals the constitutive impossibility of giving, and thus resigns us to a reciprocal logic based on exchange.

• Is solidarity one of the “bourgeois virtues” whose genealogy Deirdre McCloskey traces ? How do liberal thinkers conceive the notion of solidarity? Is it fiercely criticized or rejected, as Friedrich Hayek put it: "A great society has no use for ‘solidarity’”? Or is it a virtuality to be achieved, as Walter Lippmann sees it, although he deplores its harmful effects? 

The 20^th Gide Conference will examine the astonishing plasticity of the notion of solidarity. However, the history of economic thought is also used to shed light on contemporary issues. New questions call for new histories. The 20^th Gide Conference intends to mobilize the potential of the notion of solidarity to shed light on the major issues of our time, and to do so in several ways:

(1) International solidarity.

• The notion of international solidarity allows us to question the question of global justice more generally. What kind of solidarity are we talking about? In so doing, the nature of solidarity sheds light on the nature of justice: global justice, local justice, social justice?                                                                                                                                                                                                        

• In the same vein, the question of the relevant scale of solidarity arises and must be linked to the question of territorial solidarity. At what scale is justice relevant: international solidarity? Local solidarity? Global solidarity?

• In addition, international solidarity raises more general questions about North/South relations and how solidarity is integrated on a global scale. How is solidarity exercised in the unequal relationship between “developed” and “developing” countries? How can we link the notion of solidarity with the notion of development?

• On the economic front, the interdependence and solidarity of globalized economies raise the question of international and regional monetary systems, with aview to understand the causal mechanisms at work.  

• In the new climate regime, the ecological transitions call for reflection on the place to be given to international solidarity.  What new forms of solidarity are needed in the face of ecological debt? Isit a question of intergenerational solidarity? Or intra-generational solidarity?

• In this context, international solidarity raises the question of energy. How can we ensure security and safety through international, particularly European, interconnection mechanisms? How does electrification call for public policies to combat fuel poverty? How can communities build energy resilience in their territories, by transforming energy into a common good?

(2) Solidarity in the social and solidarity economy

• The Covid-19 pandemic has rekindled interest in the social and solidarity economy. How does the logic of solidarity fit into the social and solidarity economy? How can territorial anchoring and resilience ensure that the social and solidarity economy process respects the principles of social utility, democratic governance and not-for-profit status?

• How can we reconcile the theoretical principles of solidarism, as represented by Charles Gide's cooperativism and Léon Bourgeois's republicanism, with the practical achievements of the social and solidarity economy?  

• The social and solidarity economy enables us to question our relationship to access to health, education, consumption, credit, etc. The social and solidarity economy has developed many achievements based on solidarity between members or with third parties.

• At the heart of the social and solidarity economy values, can solidarity constitute an alternative mode of coordination to the state and the market? How does it propose to re-embed the economy in society?

• In economic terms, the development of alternative currencies has represented a monetary upheaval, challenging the state's monetary monopoly. These currencies take different forms in terms of organization and objectives. Some challenge the state’s monetary monopoly, others complement it, and some attempt to reframe monetary relations in terms of social, territorial or ecological objectives.

(3) Solidarity in social protection

• Historically speaking, at the end of the 19th century, the French Third Republic (III^e ) relied on the principle of solidarity to resolve the social question. The notion of solidarity served as the basis for a reversal of the approach to human and civil rights, which stemmed from the recognition of the individual, to found the quasi-contract setting out the rights and duties of each and every person vis-à-vis society.

• The place of the notion of solidarity in the social state must therefore be examined. How has the social state been deployed in the fields of labor relations, assistance and collective welfare, etc.?

• The links between the principle of solidarity and the principle of equality need to be questioned.  From a historical and social point of view, the structuring of social security and anti-poverty policies, often seen as problematic, should be debated, as they are part of a reformulation of social relations in terms of social cohesion rather than class antagonism.

• Solidarity must lead to reflection on how it can be applied and put into practice. Is there such a thing as “capitalist solidarity” and “communist solidarity”? Is there worker solidarity with the unemployed? Is there intergenerational solidarity between working people and retirees? In this way, our social protection system is called into question through the very notion of solidarity.

Publication:

The Revue d’histoire de la pensée économique will publish a special issue on the theme the conference : “Solidarity”. To this end, a dedicated call for papers will be issued at the end of the conference (summer 2024). You will be invited to submit your article proposals and thus enter the journal's usual evaluation process: https://classiques-garnier.com/revue-d-histoire-de-la-pensee-economique.html

Please note:

• A Symposium on Economics and Literature willbe held in parallel with the Conference on Thursday, June 20, with a separate call for papers: https://gide2024.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/13

• As with previous Gide Conference, this event is open to papers on all themes relating to the history of economic thought and economic philosophy.

When submitting your proposals, please specify the relevant theme:

(1)    Solidarity (conference theme)

(2)    Symposium Economics and Literature

(3)   History of Economic Thought and Economic Philosophy