Removing Rose Colored Glasses

Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community has been one of the most influential contributions to the social sciences in the past decade. The book makes a powerful case that “our economy, our democracy, and even our health and happiness depend on adequate stocks of social capital.” ¹ In Putnam's conception, social capital “refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” ² The core idea is that networks of formal and informal sociability foster relations of trust and reciprocity. These levels of trust and reciprocity are the capital from which further assets are produced, namely the political engagement of citizens. Putnam argues that technological and social changes since the mid-1970s have led to a decline in social capital. This diminishing stock of social capital has in turn translated into reduced levels of civic engagement, less trust in traditional institutions of government, and an erosion of that spirit of cooperation and mutual tolerance that is essential to the solution of collective problems.