Confidence-based Relations among Individuals and the Necessity of Social Solidarity

The article by Prof. Dr. A. Gurhan Fisek was taken from Çalışma Ortamı (Working Environment) Periodical, No:38, May-June 1998.

The Foremost Problems of Social Security:

  • With its ?social? character, it struggles to endure during the dissolving process of the social state.
  • Social security institutions are not capable of acting in their behalf. The balance between the laws enacted in the parliament and the social security institutions, and their operations are spoiled.
  • Recording and thus, evaluation systems are inadequate.
  • It is carried out on the basis of indemnification philosophy only.

There is a slight difference between ?individuals? taking themselves into consideration as independent beings and improving themselves as self-complacent beings? and their behaving ?individualistically?. The only mechanism that stops them against exceeding this delicate line is the feelings of ?confidence? and ?necessity? towards each other. Behind every individualistic behaviour, there lie ?mistrustfulness in one?s own circle right beside? and ?so-called vigilance?.

As you see, it is also the delicate line between ?social security and solidarity? and ?individual release?.

In these days, poverty and increase in the extent of transition into poverty detain people from realising the ones in their surroundings. They compel people to work for meeting their basic needs at any prise. They got the mistaken idea that they should struggle cruelly with the people beside in order to survive. However, this is the wrong addressee for struggling. Because, what makes these people become impoverished is not their (or their neighbours?) incompetence, but the extensive gap in the level of incomes of the individuals, owing to globalisation.

People who want to make this gap deepened have taken aim at social state, social security and educational systems foremost.

It is because of this reason that the major problematic of the social security systems is the dissolution of the social state. In today?s world (both in Turkey and all over the world), social security organisations have been striving to release from this handicap by means of the philosophical tools of the system that push themselves to be in this situation.

When we take a glance at the ordinary people?s considerations and sensitivity on social security issues in Turkey, we meet with an intensive mistrustfulness and denial. ?If they give the insurance premium I paid, I would be provided with 10 fold better services than this one?. As you see, this is a yearning for an ?individual? release, not for a ?social? one…

All these prove that ?individualistic? rather than ?social? perspective is dominant in our country. It proves to what extent we have exceeded the delicate line between ?individuals? taking themselves into consideration as independent beings and improving themselves as self-complacent beings? and their behaving ?individualistically?. The only mechanism that stops them against exceeding this delicate line -the feelings of ?confidence? and ?necessity? towards each other- seems not working.