It builds class solidarity and strengthens community organizing which is key to challenge capitalism

Solidarity The concepts of shared needs and collective responsibilities embody the idea of solidarity, and the practice of UBS has the potential to develop and strengthen solidarity. Here we take solidarity to mean feelings of sympathy and responsibility between people that promote mutual support. It is an inclusive process, not just within well-acquainted groups but also, crucially, between people who are ‘strangers’ to each other. It involves collective action towards shared objectives.15 There is a growing literature on the ways in which neoliberal capitalism, based on individualism, choice and competition, weakens the values of social citizenship and undermines solidarity. UBS calls for collective policy and practice: sharing resources and acting together to deal with risks and problems that people cannot cope with alone. It is not something that can be achieved by individuals or groups simply fending for themselves and pursuing their own interests. This is reflected, for example, in the EU’s long-standing goal of economic and social ‘cohesion’: combining a free market economy with ‘a commitment to the values of internal solidarity and mutual support which ensures open access for all members of society to services of general benefit and protection’. In the same spirit, the Fabian Society has argued that ending poverty requires a ‘solidarity settlement’ that would profoundly reshape the welfare system by enshrining ‘equal citizenship’ and fostering ‘a sense of mutual interdependence’. 16 Some have argued that public services ‘crowd out’ social capital by inhibiting informal caring networks, mutual trust and social norms that favour civil commitment and trustworthiness. However, evidence contradicts this hypothesis, finding instead that Nordicstyle welfare regimes, where there are more universal services, tend to have higher levels of bonding and bridging social capital.