Social rights, solidarism and the market society: Afterword to the Foreword by Nehal Bhuta

This Afterword builds on Nehal Bhuta’s Foreword by revisiting the intellectual and historical underpinnings of social rights, particularly their emergence in the 19th century through solidarist political philosophy. It argues that solidarism, unlike both liberal individualism and Marxist collectivism, envisioned the political community as grounded in spontaneous social bonds of mutual responsibility rather than in contracts or class struggle. The Afterword further explores how social rights were historically entangled with capitalism, noting that while originally conceived to counterbalance market forces, their efficacy is now weakened by the neoliberal transformation of civil and political rights. Contemporary market dynamics – exemplified by gig economy practices – threaten to erode the emancipatory potential of social rights. Unless social rights are reconnected to the democratic principle and material conditions of political participation, they risk losing relevance in the face of growing inequality.