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Summary of the book 'Social Capital' (John Field)
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Social CapitalJohn Field
Introduction
The theory of social capital can be summed up in two words: relationships matter.
Modern organisations are governed by rules. But when they want to make something happen,
many people will ignore these formal procedures, and set off to talk to someone they know.
If people are going to help one another, they need to feel good about it, which means that they
need to feel they have something in common with each other. Formal systems are often an
attempt to control the excesses of mutual information cooperation, which can lead to forms of
indirect discrimination against others who do not belong in the charmed circle.
People’s networks should be seen as part of the wider set of relationships and norms that allow
people to pursue their goals, and alsof serve to bind society together.
Putnam defined social capital as ‘features of social organisation, such as trust, norms, and
networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions.
Marx sought to distinguish between what he called a class ‘in itself’, defined by its objective
economic circumstances, and a class ‘for itself’, whose members were subjectively aware of their
common situation and determined to do something about it.
The idea of social capital draws attention to the link between the micro level of individual
experiences and everyday activity and the meso level of institutions, associations and community.
1: From metaphor to concept
Durkheim drew a sharp contrast between the mechanical solidarity of pre-modern societies,
where obedience to authority derived from habit and social bonds arose on the basis of
similarities in status and routines, with the organic solidarity of the mobile, highly differentiated
social systems of modernity.
Networks provide a basis for social cohesion because they enable people to cooperate with one
another - and not just with people they know directly.
The metaphor of social capital implies that connections can be profitable; like any other form of
capital, you can invest in it, and you can expect a decent return on your investment.
Initially, the idea of human capital was a tool to help economists measure the value of workers’
skills.
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,Three seminal figures in social capital are Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam.
- Bourdieu shares with Marxism a concern with questions of unequal access to resources and the
maintenance of power;
- Coleman takes at his starting point the idea of individuals action rationally in pursuit of their
own interest;
- Putnam has inherited and developed the idea of association and civic activity as a basis of
social integration and wellbeing.
All three consider that social capital consists of personal connections and interpersonal
interaction, together with the shared sets of values that are associated with these contacts.
BOURDIEU
Bourdieu described the dynamic development of structured sets of values and ways of thinking as
forming what he called ‘the habitus’, which provided a bridge between subjective agency and
objective position. He emphasised that groups were able to use cultural symbols as marks of
distinction, both signalling and constituting their position in the social structure.
Bourdieu emphasised repeatedly, people’s ownership of cultural capital did not just mirror their
resources of financial capital. Shaped by family circumstances and school tuition, cultural capital
can to some extent operate independently of monetary holdings, and even compensate for lack
of money as part of an individual’s or a group’s strategy to pursue power and status.
Bourdieu compared the ‘social field’ to a casino: we gamble not only with the black chips that
represent our economic capital, but also with the blue chips of our cultural capital and the red
chips of our social capital. These various capitals might not always be substituted for one another,
but in combination they may in turn breed new capital.
His definition of social capital is: ‘The sum of resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an
individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalised
relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.’
His main concern is the understanding of social hierarchy. For Bourdieu, inequality was to be
explained by the production and reproduction of capital. Both cultural capital and social capital
should be treated as assets, representing the product of accumulated labour.
Social capital functions to reproduce inequality, but does so partly independently of economic
and cultural capital, from which it is nevertheless inseparable. He also acknowledged that the
value of an individual’s ties depends on the number of connections they can mobilise and the
volumes of different capitals possessed by each connection.
Bourdieu’s theory remains vulnerable to many of the criticisms levelled at the Marxism he has
sought to leave behind. He certainly views social capital as the exclusive property of elites,
designed to secure their relative position. He argued that social life ‘is not to be reduced to a
discontinuous series of instantaneous mechanical equilibria between agents who are treated as
interchangeable particles’.
Flaws in his theory are:
- He represents social capital as largely benign, at least for those who possess high volumes of it.
- He shows little interest in social capital’s ‘dark side’.
- He tends towards a view of social capital that seems slightly old-fashioned and individualistic.
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,COLEMAN
Social capital, according to Coleman, represents a resource because it involves the expectation of
reciprocity, and goes beyond any given individual to involve wider networks whose relationships
are governed by a high degree of trust and shared values.
Coleman was seeking to develop an interdisciplinary social science that could draw on both
economics and sociology.
Rational choice theory shared with classical economics a belief that all behaviour results from
individuals pursuing their own interests; social interaction is therefore views as a form of
exchange. Rational choice theory assumes a highly individualistic model of human behaviour, with
each person automatically doing what will serve their own interests, regardless of the fate of
others.
Social capital seems to have provided Coleman with a resolution of the problem of why humans
choose to cooperate, even when their immediate interests seem best served by competition. In
Coleman’s hands, social capital worked in a way that was broadly comparable to, and congruent
with, the role of the ‘invisible hand’ of the market in classical economic theory.
Out of his studies, Coleman concluded that communities were a source of social capital that could
offset some of the impact of social and economic disadvantage within the family.
His definition of social capital is: a useful resource available through his or her social
relationships.
Unlike human and physical capital, which are normally a private good whose ownership and
returns reside with individuals, Coleman portrayed social capital quintessentially as a public good
that is created by and may benefit not just those whose efforts are required to realise is, but all
who are part of a structure. It therefore demands cooperation between individuals who are
nevertheless pursuing their own self-interest.
Social capital is of value not only in the acquisition of credentials but also in both cognitive
development and in the evolution of a secure self-identity.
Closure: the existence of mutually reinforcing relations between different actors and institutions.
He certainly viewed social capital as ‘a capital asset for the individual’, but saw it as built up for
‘social structural resources’. He believed two crucial elements were:
- The actual extent of obligations held;
- The level of trustworthiness of the social environment.
Coleman explained why actors should choose to create social capital when they are supposed to
be pursuing rationally their own, individual interest by abolishing it: actors did not set out to
create social capital as such, rather it arose as an unintended consequence of their pursuit of self-
interest. Social capital arises not because actors make a calculating choice to invest in it, but as ‘a
by-product of activities engaged in for other purposes’.
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,“Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities
having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they
facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure.” (Coleman)
Coleman believed there certain types of social structure were more likely to facilitate individual’s
choice of actions than others. He portrayed the family as the archetypical cradle of social capital.
He believed that the erosion of the family and other forms of primordial organisation has led to a
transfer of responsibility for primary socialisation to constructed organisations such as schools,
leading to a long-term erosion of the ‘social capital on which societal functioning has depended’.
Coleman accepts that primordial forms of organisation, with their tight degree of closure, can no
longer provide a firm, general basis for societal action among calculating individual actors.
Coleman’s account appears to rest on a fundamentally ahistorical distinction between ‘traditional’
and ‘modern’ of even ‘postmodern’ social forms.
Comparing Coleman with Bourdieu
While Coleman called for social theorists to engage with ‘the problems of constructed social
organisation’, Bourdieu attempted to defend a humanist view of sociology as a form of reflexive
social practice.
Bourdieu’s treatment of social capital is somewhat circular; it boils down to the thesis that
privileged individuals maintain their position by using their connections with other privileged
people. Coleman’s view is more nuanced in that he discerns the value of connections for all
actors, individual and collective, privileged and disadvantaged.
They share a common concern with social cattail as a spruce of educational achievement. Both
view social interactions essentially as a form of exchange. Neither pays much heed to affect, to
the fact that people like, love or loathe one another for reasons that lie outside the domain of
rational calculation.
Coleman is also remarkably negative about individualism. He claims that social isolation is
inherently damaging and was not found in functioning primordial forms, yet he presents no real
argument or evidence tin support of either contention.
PUTNAM
Putnam used the concept of social capital to shed further light on the differences in civic
engagement. His definition of social capital is: features of social organisation, such as trust,
norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions.
More precisely, social capital contributes to collective action by increasing the potential costs to
defectors; fostering robust norms of reciprocity facilitating flows of information, including
information on actor’s reputations; embodying the success of past attempts at collaboration; and
acting as a template for future cooperation.
The vivid image of a solitary bowler was to capture the journalistic imagination, though as usual
this was at the cost of some over simplification. Putnam’s point in using the ‘bowling alone’
metaphor was not that Americans travelled on their own to play in isolation, but that they were
ever less likely to play in formal teams against regular sets of opponents in organised bowling
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, leagues and more likely to play with a group of family and friends. America’s social capital was in a
state of long-term decline and the main culprit in its demise was the rise of television.
Putnam’s definition of social capital changed over the 1990s to: features of social life - networks,
norms and trust - that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared
objectives.
He introduced a distinction between the two basic forms of social capital:
- Bridging (or inclusive): tends to bring together people across diverse social divisions.
- Are better for linkage to external assets and for information diffusion.
- Provide a sociological WD-40 that an generate broader identities and reciprocity.
- Bonding: tends to reinforce exclusive identities and maintain homogeneity.
- Good for ‘undergirding specific reciprocity and mobilising solidarity’, while serving as ‘a kind
of sociological superglue in maintaining strong in-group loyalty and reinforcing specific
identities.
Putnam argues that ‘vertical’ bonds might be less helpful than ‘horizontal’ ties, in that they
might undermine the capacity for collective action and tend to create suspicion.
Although Putnam notices some counter-trends, such as the growth of small self-help groups and
youth volunteering, and the rise of new ways of communicating through the internet and other
technologies, he ultimately concludes that the evidence is ‘ambiguous’ and certainly does not
outweigh the many other ways in which most Americans are less connected to our communities
than we were two or tree decades ago. He then offers an identity parade of the possible causes of
long-term decline.
- He dismisses such candidates as the transformation of family structures, women’s entry into the
labour market and the growth of the welfare state.
- Nor does he accept the left-liberal thesis that declining social capital is caused by racism; this
hypothesis fails in the light of evidence that the erosion of social capital has affected all races.
- He is less dismissive of another left-liberal idea, namely that declining civic engagement is
caused by the growing power of big businesses.
Ultimately, Putnam fingers four chief culprits for the decline of social capital:
- Sheer busyness and the pressures associated with two-career families have reduced the amount
of time and other resources that women in particular can devote to community involvement.
- The residents of large metropolitan areas suffer from what he calls a ‘sprawl civic penalty’, as
they are required to spend increased amounts of time getting around, and their ties tend to be
more fragmented.
- Home-based electronic entertainments (above all television).
- Generational change.
Finally, he notes that age is the only factor which proves an exception to the broad pattern of civic
engagement. This ‘unusually civic generation’ forced into cooperative habits and values by the
great mid-century global cataclysm of war and reconstruction, is being inexorably replaced by
others who are less civic minded.
Does it matter that America’s social capital is in decline? Putnam answers these questions by a
number of attempts to investigate the relationship between social capital and indicators of well-
being as education, economic prosperity, health, happiness and democratic engagement.
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