Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam Offers

¶ … Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam offers an interesting image of how the idea of social capital applies in the modern world and how people are becoming more isolated so that the idea of democracy is under attack, given that people have fewer and fewer community associations and community activities binding them together. Putnam used the image of a bowler playing not against partners but simply keeping his own score, and he made explicit comparisons between what he observed in Europe, notably in Italy, and what he observed in America to show the problem he perceived and to suggest ways of overcoming this problem in the future.

Putnam first raised this idea in an important article he published in 1993.. There, Putnam suggests that social capital refers to features of social organization, such as networks, norms, and trust, all of which facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. He says that social capital enhances the benefits of investment in physical and human capital: "Working together is easier in a community blessed with a substantial stock of social capital" (Putnam, 1993, p. 35). Putnam reports on an Italian experiment that began in 1970 when Italians established a nationwide set of potentially powerful regional governments. This resulted in 20 new institutions that were virtually identical in form but with different social, economic, political, and cultural contexts. some were failures, and others were successful. Putnam finds that those that were successful traded in social capital in the form of a civic heritage with rich networks of organized reciprocity and civic solidarity. It is the civic nature of these communities that made them successful:

The social capital embodied in norms and networks of civic engagement seems to be a precondition for economic development, as well as for effective government (Putnam, 1993, p. 37).

Putnam has also addressed the same issues in an American context. In doing this, he counters de Tocqueville, who saw Americans as forming a wide variety of associations that strengthened American democracy. More recently it has been thought that this habit was waning and that therefore the stuff of civil society was eroding. Putnam addresses the issue with reference to bowling leagues and to the fact that the number of bowlers increased 10% between 1980 and 1993 while league bowling declined by 40%. Putnam offers other measures of proof that participation in associations has declined, including lower voter turnout, reduced participation in religious services, reduced membership in trade unions, reduced membership in the PTA, and so on. A number of reasons might be given for this, including the development of new technologies such as television which keep people home more and other social changes which reduce the time people have for joining associations. The Economist magazine points out that bowling remains a social activity even when people do not join leagues, so the analysis offered by Putnam is flawed (the Economist, 1995, p. 21).

However, there are good reasons for accepting Putnam's view first that civic engagement such as he found in Italy makes government turn into effective governance and second that civic engagement has been declining in American society. The failure of large portions of the electorate to participate in elections at any level is an indicator of this. However, it does not appear that this means Americans do not join associations when spurred to do so. H. Ross Perot proved this in the 1980s when he founded his organization, and he then started a third political party. Both gained adherents rapidly. The Million Man March in Washington was another example where a specific idea or theme developed social capital between a central group and a larger group eager to offer assistance in order to gain some benefit in the future. The secret is to develop a more permanent sense of civic engagement in order to make governance responsive to the needs of the public.

Putnam in his book expanded on his original analysis and cited certain social forces in America that were altering the way people related to one another and how they related to the idea of democracy:

Television, two-career families, suburban sprawl, generational changes in values -- these and other changes in American society have meant that fewer and fewer of us find that the League of Women Voters, or the United Way, or the Shriners, or the monthly bridge club, or even a Sunday picnic with friends fits the way we have come to live. Our growing social-capital deficit threatens educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health and happiness (Putnam, 2000, p. 367).

The fragmentation of the social order that Putnam sees has only increased over time, as he himself notes when he writes,

As late as 1975 Americans nationwide chose among a handful of television programs. Barely a quarter century later, cable, satellite, video, and the Internet provide an exploding array of individual choice (Putnam, 2000, p. 216).

Putnam is right that the audience is becoming fragmented at any given time, but it is not clear that this really leads to the sort of disintegration of social capital that he assumes.

The idea of social capital has been analyzed by many theorists who suggest ways in which it develops and the value it offers for social and political action. Oakerson (1988), for example, considers the issue of social capital and political and economic development as he considers how development occurs from the bottom up, a different way of considering the issue than is common. He says that the customary approach views development from one of two angles, one economic development, and the other political development. Both are seen as being national in character. Oakerson offers a different conception based on reciprocity, primary local units of collective action, and constitutional choices.

The core concept in economic thought is also the core concept in the idea of social capital -- exchange, a concept Oakerson calls the economic nexus, the basic relationship between individuals in a market model:

An exchange is based upon an explicit quid pro quo between two parties. It is a productive relationship in the Pareto-superior sense that both parties are left better off while no one is left worse off (Oakerson, 1988, p. 142).

Political development can be conceived not in term of exchanges but in terms of an analogous relationship Oakerson calls the productive political relationship that follows a pattern of reciprocity, similar to exchange in that both are mutually productive transfers:

Both increase social welfare. Reciprocity is different from exchange, however, in its lack of discreteness. Not a series of discrete exchanges, reciprocity is more like one on-going "exchange" over time, a continuing relationship between or among persons based upon mutual expectations of behavior (Oakerson, 1988, p. 143).

This description is very much the description of social capital.

Oakerson considers the operation of reciprocity and notes how it is based on a shared image of society. Certain images of society could reduce the ability of reciprocity to emerge, as in a society where the shared image is extremely hierarchical or one in which it is egalitarian but cutthroat:

In such a society, much of the task of development is intellectual or philosophical. It entails the creation and dissemination of ideas capable of transforming the basic conception of social relationships that, for the society in question, establishes the parameters of permissible social exchange (Oakerson, 1988, pp. 145-146).

Oakerson next analyzes the influence of primary local units which emerge from the voluntary face-to-face interactions of people joined together to provide themselves with collective goods, another reflection of social capital and its development in lieu of coercive power arrangements. They tend to be localized but can be extended beyond the immediate community. Greater reliance on primary local units leads to a higher level of productivity as citizens tend to practice self-help and apply their resources to productive activity. Individuals tend to learn how to function in a mutually productive manner, though this depends upon a number of situations in which social knowledge can be generated:

Learning and reciprocity are closely tied to the capacity of primary local units for self-governance. In a face-to-face community, officers can be held accountable as much by social processes of pair wise reciprocity as by formal procedures of election. . . Primary local units of collective action bring the processes of human reciprocity to bear upon the problems and opportunities created by jointness and interdependence--publicness -- among human beings (Oakerson, 1988, p. 149).

Many of the activities that Putnam finds have been curtailed do indeed involve such publicness, while others are more questionable. When he looks back to 1975, for instance, and finds that more people watched the same television program, he is not clear about what value that has in itself. This is not a public act even then, though it is a shared act. Presumably, people shared the experience and so might talk about it later or might act accordingly, but this does not necessarily mean they were more unified than they are today. Indeed, Putnam's analysis of this particular issue seems more dedicated to a view of time than shared experience, meaning that people then shared the experience at the same time, while today they might share the same experience but do so at different times. They might still see the same television show, for instance, but have some seeing it as broadcast, some later through a DVR or other recording means, some even later in re-run and on a different station in syndication, and today some using hand-held devices, computers, and even telephones to see the same program. These people are still sharing the basic experience of the cultural artifact, the television show, though they are doing so on their own schedule and using different media for the experience. Is Putnam concerned about the lack of a shared experience of the cultural artifact itself or of the television set as a technology? Clearly, he is concerned about the lack of a shared experience and not a shared technology, but the way he analyzes that part of the issue fails to recognize the realities of how people interact with culture itself and the fact that they share much of the same culture and cultural attitudes even if they do so on a different timetable.

Another view of the power of social capital is offered by Coleman (1987). The desire to understand political and social development has given way to different theories about such processes. Coleman considers the issue in terms of social norms and finds that norms are important in human behavior and that they are backed up by sanctions. He indicates the distinction between rational choice theory and functionalist theory, the latter supported by Talcott Parsons and others. Functionalist theory takes the normative structure as a starting point and then assumes that there will be conformity to the norms. Since conformity is not universal, though, Parsons had to develop a concept of deviance to account for the lack of complete conformity. Rational choice theory holds that norms constitute constraints within which choices are made. Coleman points out that social behavior is also a matter of exchange, and many social interactions can be conceptualized as an exchange between the parties to an interaction, with the interaction continuing if the exchange is profitable for both. Social norms can thus represent social capital:

Their presence results in higher levels of satisfaction -- though perhaps at the cost of reducing the satisfaction of some members whose actions are most constrained by the norms (Coleman, 1987, p. 153).

Coleman suggests a shift from primordial social organization toward purposively constructed organization. Most control is derived from social norms. Primordial social control depended on social capital that has been eroded with the change, eroded by the closure of social networks and by technological changes that have expanded social circles. In some areas, the old social organization is no longer valid and a new one has not yet developed to take its place.

Putnam's concern about the possible decay of social capital is understandable but does not appear to be as stark as the picture he paints. If anything, social capital today has bifurcated in political terms, leading to the political gridlock many see in the American system based on an electorate more divided than in the past. In a way, this new separation between right and left suggests that people still tend to join a community of shared interests and are affected by many of the same forces as in the past but that three is a growing divide on major issues. Such a divide cannot be explained in the way Putnam does, for his fragmented social order would lead to far more divisions than we see today. The decay in social capital he foresees would lead to a much more fragmented social and political order than simply the two major divisions we see now. There was a time in the 1980s when the possibility of a third political party was very real, but this seems much less possible today, suggesting that however much the two sides may lack social cohesion on certain issues, they are still dedicated to the value of the political system as it has developed and to keeping the number of divisions to a minimum. That is not a fragmented social order but a divided one, which is somewhat different.