Download this publication - PULP

122 Chapter 4
The efforts of Halpern, Lin and Putnam have led the avatar of
capitalism, the World Bank, to acknowledge the centrality of social
capital:
Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the
quality … of a society's … interactions. Increasing evidence shows that social
cohesion is critical for societies to prosper and for development to be
sustainable. Social capital is not just the sums of the institutions that underpin
a society – it is the glue that holds them together. 22
In light of Putnam, Lin and Halpern's definitions, social capital can be
understood to link together my primary justifications for the protection of
associational life and religious practice in the following manner. Social
capital is what keeps our intimate, economic, political, cultural,
traditional, reformist and religious associations going. Without it, nothing
works. Social capital explains at least part of what is at stake for both
individual identity and social cohesion: the constitutive. Social capital
recognises that we store the better part of our meaning in fundamentally
involuntary associations. Squander that social capital, nothing that truly
matters will continue to exist. Social capital recognises the dominant
rationales for ceding control over membership and purpose to the
association. Social capital recognises both the real and the figurative sense
of ownership that animates associational life. If anyone and everyone can
claim ownership of and in an association, then no one owns it. Social
capital takes seriously the threat of various kinds of compelled association.
Trust, respect and loyalty have no meaning where the association is
coerced. These several virtues can be earned, but never commanded. No
trust, respect or loyalty: no social capital. 23 No social capital: none but the
most debased association. 24
2.3.1 Social capital: Bonding networks and bridging networks
But just as not all associations are alike – not all forms of social capital are
fungible. For the purposes of this article, two forms of social capital
networks are of particular import: bonding and bridging. Putnam puts the
difference between these two distinct forms of social capital or social
networks as follows:
22
World Bank Poverty and social capital (1999). See also D Naravan ‘Bonds and bridges:
Social capital and poverty’ Poverty Group, World Bank (July 1999).
23 A Baier ‘Trust and antitrust’ in A Baier Moral prejudices (1995) 95 96 98 128-129.
24
Of course, associations have their dark, hierarchical and punitive dimensions. They
may prevent members from securing the goods necessary to flourish. See S Woolman
‘Freedom of association’ in S Woolman et al (eds) Constitutional law of South Africa (2nd
ed, 2003) ch 44. As I have explored elsewhere, one remedy that does threaten
associational freedom might be a finding that an association that limits the life
opportunities of a class of its members should, along with the state, provide the means
for exit that would allow individuals to seek justice elsewhere. See S Woolman (n 7
above).