ABSTRACT
Given the importance of financial capital and human capital in standard economic theory, one must take the suggestions about the existence and impact of social capital most seriously. It comes as no surprise that social capital theory has stimulated a debate about how this idea could be made into a workable scientific concept, to be measured in an intersubjectively adequate way. The enquiry into this new social entity – social capital – has opened up a few different lines of research, one focusing upon behaviour or membership in civil society and another targeting attitudes such as trust or tolerance. It is hardly amazing that some scholars have voiced a warning about this new concept, namely that it may be too amorphous (Hardin 2006). However, despite conceptual ambiguity one may wish to retain the social capital concept and link it with an enquiry into the value-orientations in postmodern society.
