Tangible Solidarity: Solidarity Amongst CalWORKS Recipients

A common American idiom is “Birds of a feather flock together.” We know that opposites attract but for the most part one clings to people and things that are familiar in a sense. The CalWorks Program is especially designed to assist a particular group of people with needy children. These birds flock together because they have children and a need of assistance with the responsibility that comes along with having children. This essay will argue that solidarity is present because of the criterion for entrance into the program by reviewing Durkheim’s concept of solidarity and applying it to the CalWorks program.

Durkheim’s central objective is to gage whether the division of labor is a good or bad thing. His concept of solidarity plays a vital role in answering this question. Durkheim defines solidarity as a feeling of unity with others. “There can certainly never be solidarity between ourselves and another person unless the image of the other person is united with our own.” Essentially, the connection that commonality or similarities make is extremely important to the existence of solidarity. (Durkheim, 22) According to Durkheim, solidarity is unmistakably good under all circumstances because it is beneficial when people are bound together by likeness or by difference, mechanically or organically. He thematizes solidarity as a win-win situation. Durkheim makes the link between specialization (the division of labor) and solidarity by asserting that the division of labor generates solidarity. “We are therefore led to consider the division of labor in a new light…its true function is to create between two or more people a feeling of solidarity.” (Durkheim, 17) He feels that solidarity and the division of labor are closely related in a causal relationship. If solidarity is unequivocally good under all circumstances does the division of labor’s association to it make it good as well? Moreover, the recipients of CalWorks benefits are mechanically bound together by likeness; they are all facing the same social circumstance and have applied for the same social service.

This program applies to Durkheim’s definition of solidarity because each recipient is granted cash benefits based on criteria that does not set them apart from one another. They are capped or limited if you will into a group based on eligibility. Their solidarity is manufactured or created by what is required to receive assistance. For example, all recipients must not exceed five years of assistance, must have one or more children, must live in a specific county, and must either attend school or attend work. CalWorks is built on solidarity as each parent shares the same societal status.

However, this solidarity is not necessarily existent because of a feeling of unity from one CalWorks recipient to another initially. It is literally constructed. Furthermore, it is constructed without the division of labor. Durkheim doesn’t account for this type of situation, as every constituent of his theory is dedicated to postulating the stance of the division of labor. What if solidarity is man made? Does it maintain its pure status then? (500 words)