What social capital is, and why it is so important to the health of our state
It’s the Christmas season in Georgia. If you’re lucky you’ll have a parade where businesses, churches, charities and schools ride floats, play music, wave from vehicles and spread some Christmas cheer. It makes you wish for that spirit to be bottled up year-round. We Georgians definitely need it. And a LaGrange College student shows why it’s more important than we think.
In mid-November, LaGrange College undergraduate Pete Alford stood before professors, graduate students and undergraduates, and presented his senior research project to the Georgia Political Science Association conference in Savannah. His presentation explained how a concept of social capital is connected to the health of capitalism in a state. Here is a definition: “Social capital refers to the resources available to people and entities because of their networks. The assets we possess by virtue of the social relations that we develop and maintain, and the shared values which arise from those networks, make up social capital.”
Though the term was created and coined by academics such as Robert Putnam (whose book “Bowling Alone” documents how bowling in America is up, but bowling in leagues as a community is way down), but it’s definitely embraced across party aisles. In fact, I got the research for this article from the Social Capital Project from Utah GOP Senator Mike Lee’s website, www.lee.senate.gov.
Sadly, the Social Capital Project shows Georgia has a long way to go. The Peach State ranks 41st in social capital. Our Family Unit Subindex (births, percentage married, single-parent families) puts us 43rd out of 50 states plus D.C., with Family Interaction Subindex (fewer kids on TV and electronic devices, and more being read to) only ranking us 40th in the country. Our Social Support (trust and help from neighbors, friends, getting emotional support) and Community Health scores (joining nonprofit organizations, attending public meetings, volunteering, demonstrating for one’s values) have us 45th and 40th for the USA, respectively.
Our scores for Institutional Health (voting, participating in the Census, trusting corporations and the media and public schools), Collective Efficacy (low crime rates) and Philanthropic Health (charitable donations) have us a little better, between 30th and 39th for America. But the project shows how far Georgia has to go before it can have the kind of community people want.
Personally, I would add participation in community events, kids in symphonies, scouts and sporting leagues, 5K races for charity and, especially, church attendance. But it’s clear that even if these are taken into account, we’ve got a long way to catch up with those New England states, or those from the Rocky Mountains and Prairie States, who lead the country for the best scores. Much of the Southwest and Southeast struggle, just as Georgia does.
Mr. Alford found that that these personal relationships were instrumental in creating and maintaining a free market system. Trade, investment, currency confidence and so much of our economic activity that’s not controlled by our government need this trust to survive and thrive. He finished second in the competition for best paper by an undergraduate, and his work has definitely helped his pursuit of law schools, as well as taught us something about the importance of trust.
For all of those who profess to “hate socialism” and government control of our economy, a free market is not going to work with a country or state of isolated individuals. As Alford’s research reveals, economic freedom’s going to take something once derided by those pushing for a cutthroat brand of capitalism: a community.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is JohnTures2.