ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a social capital paradigm that includes important insights on the subject from across the social sciences. It seeks to combine into a single paradigm the various views of social scientists pertaining to the motivations and outcomes of human exchanges. The chapter focuses on the interdependencies between pairs of elements of the social capital paradigm is arbitrary, somewhat like trying to isolate two elements of a baked cake. It proposes a new social capital paradigm definitions, rules, measurements, and expected causal relationships that takes all these perspectives seriously. When the alternative assumptions of the social capital paradigm are introduced, what was once considered irrational behavior is seen as completely rational. The social capital paradigm is a synthesis of concepts of interest to various social science disciplines. The concept of capital is an idea developed best in economics, as is the concept of production from various capital inputs.
