BETTER TOGETHER: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein with Don Cohen (Simon and Shuster; September 10, 2003)
150 ways to generate Social Capital on your own.
Stories of successful efforts to generate Social Capital.
I was turned on to the idea of Social Capital after reading Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam (New York: Simon and Shuster; 2000). Professor David Moscowitz from Roger Williams University used the lessons drawn from Putnam's study to diagnosis the sickness which plagues our American republican institutions (It pains me to do so, but I must give credit where credit is due and have therefore chosen to give kudos to Professor Moscowitz.)
At its most fundamental level, the idea of Social Capital can be explained by studying the interpersonal relationships between individuals whose actions directly affect one another within a social group. These relationships are typified by their subtle delivery of non-monetary value between individuals on the one hand, and the cumulative health of the entire community which is seemingly borne out of thin air, immaculately conceived, on the other hand. Block parties, bowling leagues (Putnam's favorite example), neighborhood watches, baby-sitting, house-warming gifts, Christmas parties, etc., are but a few of the activities Putnam identifies that generate Social Capital.
Simply listing these activities shows one that Social Capital is a topic more dynamic than most would think. More than funding or income levels, Social Capital is the lifeblood of a community, the latter of which in its most basic form is the chosen vehicle for organizing the members of society into complex yet stable groups. The common factor that each community identifies as its binding agent can take many forms, but that factor is important enough to convince individual members that 'belonging' is valuable. When the value individuals expect from their membership in the group disappears so, too, does the community vanish. Communities are fluid systems; members come and go as the group's organizing principle is subject to change. For some, qualitative changes of a community's raison d'etre can not be tolerated and so they leave. For others, that same change is tolerable, and for another group the change might prompt them to join the community. The important insight for me is that most community's manage philosophical and structural changes very well; rarely does a community undergo a change so dramatic that it ceases to exist soon thereafter. And yet, communities are fragile phenomena. The idea of a 'community' is nothing more than an idea so long as the individuals who make-up that community refuse to express loyalty to the group in exchange for social value. Loyalty is felt for a group if its members share both a reasonably similar vision with one another and a belief that their collective efforts, when directed towards the pursuit of that vision, will bear fruit. Self-interest still exists, of course, but individuals loyal to a healthy community learn to subordinate their immediate desires in order to capture the benefits only attainable by a community. Communities, in all of their shapes, sizes, and operations, most often flourish and grow when their members secure the bonds of trust and confidence between one another. Trust and confidence, if plentiful, lubricate the community's delicate need to use collaboration as its modus operandi, and in-so-doing achieving what on the face of things looks to be a counterintuitive act. Collaboration is an end in-and-of-itself among community members and the value they create is Social Capital.
If we take a moment to survey the landscape of our country's community structures it doesn't take long to notice that collaborative efforts at every level of society are few and far between. Coupled with this indifference, an elite class of autocrats and powerful personages work at the moral fringe of the rule of law, manipulate the legislative processes to favor their interests, and additionally leverage their abilities to work through loopholes and dense legal frameworks in order to monopolize power. The class of the elite is no monolith, but its preferential access to republican levers of power is highly problematic from both a theoretical and actual viewpoint.
To the general public, the specter of an elite class siphoning off scare resources and influence only aggravates the offense. If the common citizen believes the republic to be corrupted thusly, and if he is unable to remedy his poor position through legal or democratic channels, then he must eventually abandon the last vestiges of faith in his republic. If he felt anger and frustration before in the face of corruption, he will next show signs of civic exhaustion and despair, both of which work upon his conscience until he settles into a type of lethargic citizenship. Instead of seeking redress for himself or closing ranks with his under-represented comrades, the now disillusioned man focuses his efforts inwards towards himself, his career, his family, etc., because to do otherwise would be to squander valuable time and resources upon a lost cause. The moment our citizen chooses not to actively participate in the mechanics of his republic is the moment his social contract has broken. Sure, he will still live within the realm of and be subject to the authority of republican institutions, but in a way the authority those institutions wield is not legitimate. Notwithstanding his attempts in the past to redress his injuries through constitutional means - rather, perhaps in spite of them - our citizen can only find justice if some outside, systemic change re-calibrates the weight of representation each class deserves. If he finds himself hoping for such a fortuitous deliverance then he will unknowingly do himself harm; his lethargic attitude towards politics will suddenly be punctuated by flashes of anger and deeply bitter, shamefully regretful reminders of the chasm between what his republic owes him on the one hand and the paltry amount he has received on the other. Perhaps, even, under extreme circumstances he will mistrust and then dismiss his moment of deliverance because his helpless position has shattered the frame of reference through which he would normally use to judge political considerations.
What's important to note is that this process which ends in isolation - or the construction of silos within which the individual and his nuclear family restrict their civic activities to - this degeneration away from republican activism washes over the brim of an individual's life and into that of the community. As the members of a community start to individually turn inwards, and concern themselves more often with self-preservation instead of collective security, the bonds that hold the disparate parts of the communal whole break one-by-one and do so with increasing regularity. Eventually, this process of communal dissociation picks up enough violent momentum to ensure the community's death. Perhaps more discouraging than the actual death of the community, is the pitiful phenomenon of neighbors living in close proximity to one another but who have little to no interaction and therefore no chance of generating Social Capital. With time, interaction between neighbors practically ceases because each actor's appreciation for civic action has atrophied beyond hope. The next generation will be born as civic introverts; not only would Social Capital be seen as a truly peculiar idea, but this new generation would actually believe that their private lives and spheres of influence were the norm, not the exception.
When self-preservation is valued more than collective-security/collaboration by the public, only an unforeseen political cataclysm can resurrect the ideal of republicanism. And that shift is oftentimes a very messy ordeal. More than likely, however, the new norm -- individual self-preservation -- will endure. We are nearing this shift in the U.S. and all of the signs indicate that community structures are so weak that they might not withstand the stress of a republican revival. This atmosphere, in a modern sense, can be thought to parallel Hobbes' more brutal "State of Nature," an image of society he used to illustrate the formation of the first human communities. While Hobbes' "State of Nature" posed real, existential threats to its inhabitants, today's reincarnation of Hobbes' illustration has all of the logical hallmarks of the original. If the members of local communities focused more upon day-to-day, intimate burden-sharing amongst themselves, then many of our national problems would vanish. But we are heading in the opposite direction. Communities fall to bitter infighting as blame is assigned to everyone like a hot potato. Frugal residents complain about expenses or taxes they pay to support services they barely use. Those who have had stable upbringings fail to empathize with those who lacked that foundation and no allowance is made on the grounds that "life isn't fair." We must swallow our pride at times in order to accept that our neighbors may simply have fallen on hard times. We need to have faith in the idea that an honest deed done for someone else for free can be more rewarding than a paycheck. Value takes many forms and it is hidden within our communities; it is our duty to mine for it using the right tools and practice.
Today's 'State of Nature,' unlike Hobbe's original articulation of that brutish life, does not pose an existential threat to individuals and families, not yet at least. But the same underlying logic that fed Hobbe's anarchic, chaotic life of self-interested brutes and clans is present today and it undermines any semblance of social security. Whether one analyzes cheating within the nation's tax system, insider trading on Wall Street, library late fees, increasing rates of traffic within the nation's major cities, etc., it becomes patently clear that individuals are more willing - by a large margin - to act in their best interests than they are to engage in collaborative efforts. It's not enough to believe or claim that self-interest and collaboration are mutually exclusive options; they are not, as is shown by the classic 'Prisoner's Dilemma': collaboration satisfies the interests of all those concerned.
However, in the Prisoner's Dilemma the suspects are motivated by a clear, tangible goal: avoiding a long prison sentence. To come full circle, this discussion must show that the American public can no longer identify a worthy goal to direct its efforts towards. Collaboration is dismissed because the public doubts the legitimacy of the social institutions and legal frameworks within which collaboration is supposed to operate. It's as if burden-sharing or collective action are risky endeavors because neither are able to gain traction, ultimately exhausting themselves leaving the public more tired and bitter than before. This positive feedback system has been looping for some time now and, in my opinion, a critical threshold for pain and frustration will be crossed shortly in America.
While those in power are, to all appearances, actively aggravating some of the causes and the symptoms of the nation's sickness, most of the blame rests with everyday Joes and Janes. An encouraging ray of hope still shines from the same idea of communities which I did my best to criticize above. In effect, the structure and operation of communities are so fluid that they can spring to life as fast as, or faster than, the time it takes for their predecessors to dissolve. If we can not bring ourselves to offer our loyalty to the community of the nation because it is a corrupt bargain, then we should look closer to home for inspiration. The lower and middle classes need to once again invest their time and effort into their neighborhoods in the hopes of constructing the valuable bonds of collaboration that generate Social Capital. More block parties, bringing a favorite cooked recipe to a neighbor's house during the holidays, organizing a volunteer street-cleaning crew, organizing pick-up basketball games at the local park, assisting young parents with baby-sitting and tutoring, etc. Take a look at the list linked above, pick out a few of the easier tasks you feel comfortable with and do them, no questions asked. I for one plan to bake a green-bean casserole for my new(er) next-door neighbor for the upcoming Fourth of July. I expect neither a reward nor an immediate reciprocation, but I guarantee that our relationship - between myself and Dennis - will become more dynamic. Maybe in the not too distant future he'll remember that shitty casserole - at least the effort I put into it - and the warmth he feels inside will prompt him to help me with my garden I plan on digging.
And eventually, as you cross off tasks and your stock of Social Capital accumulates ever higher, hopefully you will graduate to more ambitious labors. Perhaps you will organize an after-school parent-teacher tutoring service for struggling students. Maybe you'll mentor troublesome adolescents. While the list of opportunities will present themselves ad infinitum, the bedrock of your philosophy should never change: a community that organizes itself around the natural attraction between its members can only survive if those same members work for an ideal that transcends self-interest or material benefits. Within some recess of each individual's conscience, space must be kept for a stoic appreciation of republican foundations, the mortar of persistent civic duty, and the peculiar community-facades that are as variegated as they are familiar to their members.
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