Doesn't it feel like déjà vu to talk about contracts as a possible pillar of solidarity? Doesn't this mean going back to the very foundations of civil society: the social contract? To be honest, the link between contract and solidarity can no longer be reduced to theories of the social contract. The links between them are even more complex and promising.
For a traditionalist civilist, the contract is not the place for solidarity, but for freedom. Solidarity would be a sign of sentimentalism that would be ill-advised in contract law. As for solidarity, it would be ill-suited to the philosophy that accompanies contract law: market ideology and economic liberalism.
In truth, this opposition is a caricature. Contracts can be a fruitful meeting place for freedom and solidarity. This contractualization of solidarity is all the more necessary as it responds to the challenges and perverse effects of globalization. The contract is a very useful instrument of internormativity for building a new social bond, a new collective consciousness of solidarity.
The link between contract and solidarity is no longer conflictual, but consensual. One is achieved through the other, and vice versa, in the form of a dialectic. If the obligations and duties of solidarity increasingly irradiate contractual ties, it is also the contract in turn that becomes a driving force for solidarity. To illustrate this point, the author has chosen to approach the question from two complementary angles: solidarity is born and flourishes within the contract; solidarity is born and flourishes through the contract.
