In this paper the author maintains that solidarity is the ethical fundament or, in a wider sense, it is the social and cultural basis of every society. Solidarity provides with meaning and justification personal and functional relationships, simple or more complex as they may be. Solidarity is originated (and continuously re–originated) on the basis of three different dynamic aspects: - common recognition, through which a collectivity identifies with an "us" both rationally and emotionally perceived, differentiated from the "others"; - reciprocity, which is obtained thanks to the consolidated confidence and trust between the members of a society and thanks also to the open attitude towards social relationships; responsibility, which characterises the concrete duty we have consciously taken towards (and inside) society. At last the author argues that solidarity can be culturally expressed by means of generalised symbolic codes (truth, power, money, love and friendship, art, religion and so on); these codes constitute the cultural structures which signify and rule expectations, social roles, and the representations we have of things, persons and values. These symbolic codes, if correctly declined, are "foundations of solidarity".
