ABSTRACT
Strategies for laying claim to resources would thus include not only practices of social exclusion but also those adopted by the excluded themselves as a direct response to their status as outsiders. Strategies of exclusion may be regarded as the predominant mode of closure in all stratification systems. Solidarism is a generic term designating the closure attempts of excluded groups, whether of a class or communal nature. Because they generally lack legal or state support, solidaristic efforts are heavily dependent upon the capacity for social mobilization on the part of the excluded. The formal political expression of solidarism is of course the mass party, a movement whose social programme is generally not dissimilar from classic liberal ideals of justice as enshrined in the slogan 'equality of opportunity'. Industrial solidarism relies increasingly for its effectiveness not simply upon the capacity for social mobilization but also upon the capacity for social and economic dislocation.
