Social Capital Quotes

• What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership, but active and involved membership.

  Robert D. Putnam

  Views, Engagement, Membership

  Robert D. Putnam (2001). “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community”, p.58, Simon and Schuster

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• Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph. In measurable and well-documented ways, social capital makes an enormous difference in our lives...Social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.

  Robert D. Putnam

  Life, Change, Differences

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• Even five minute meaningful conversations with other people not only fuel us in the moment but also build up a reserve of social capital so that when hard times strike, we can draw down on that bank account.

  Michelle Gielan

  Meaningful, Hard Times, People

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Social capital may turn out to be a prerequisite for, rather than a consequence of, effective computer-mediated communication.

  Robert D. Putnam

  Communication, Community, May

  Robert D. Putnam (2001). “Bowling Alone”, p.177, Simon and Schuster

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• Including the value of natural resources and our social capital in national accounting is a vital step to achieve economic growth that is equitable and sustainable.

  Achim Steiner

  Growth, Steps, Economic

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• Competing against each other leaves little space for reciprocity and the growth of social capital. Running against another in a race may benefit our speed, but jointly organising the sports day produces cooperation and trust. There are many situations where cooperation and reciprocity are more effective than competition. Civic virtues come from building on what we have in common rather than by using our differences to create in-groups, outgroups and fear driven competition

  Eva Cox

  Sports, Running, Race

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• Women, who are a majority of the peoples of the earth, are indispensable to the accumulation of the kind of social capital that is conducive to development, peace, justice and civility.

  Mahnaz Afkhami

  Justice, Majority, Development

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• In reality, quitting Facebook is much more problematic than the company's executives suggest, if only because users cannot extract all the intangible social capital they have generated on the site and export it elsewhere.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Reality, Quitting, Social

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• Informal relationships are not mere minor interstitial supplements to the major institutions of society. These informal relationships not only include important decision-making processes, such as the family, but also produce much of the background social capital without which the other major institutions of society could not function nearly as effectively as they do.

  Thomas Sowell

  Decision, Important, Social

  Thomas Sowell (1996). “Knowledge And Decisions”, p.30, Basic Books

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• The free economy is not the enemy but the friend of social capital.

  Ted Malloch

  Enemy, Economy, Social

  "Doing Virtuous Business: The Remarkable Success of Spiritual Enterprise". Book by Ted Malloch, 2011.

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• Just as any revolution eats its children, unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.

  Mark Carney

  Children, Long, Revolution

  "Bank of England governor: capitalism doomed if ethics vanish" by Angela Monaghan, www.theguardian.com. May 28, 2014.

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• Regarding social order, [Francis] Fukuyama writes, "The systematic study of how order, and thus social capital, can emerge in spontaneous and decentralized fashion is one of the most important intellectual developments of the late twentieth century." He correctly attributes the modern origins of this argument to F. A. Hayek, whose pioneering contributions to cognitive science, the study of cultural evolution, and the dynamics of social change put him in the forefront of the most creative scholars of the 20th century.

  Douglass North

  Fashion, Writing, Order

  "Orders of the Day" by Douglass North, reason.com. November 1999.

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• I think that's been really the key, the idea of trying to harness social capital for selling purposes. That we've let this happen so easily without clearly getting something in exchange is kind of amazing to me.

  Tim Wu

  Thinking, Keys, Ideas

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I grew up in and the teachers. I think I was very lucky. I think I had a lot of social capital, and so when I found myself in this position of influence, I just - then I started to engage a bit with some of the problems in the world and realize that I could actually have an impact.

  Matt Damon

  Teacher, Thinking, Impact

  "Actor-screenwriter-producer Matt Damon, Part 1". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. December 11, 2012.

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• When you have characters talking about music in any way, especially about music someone doesn't know, some people presume it's about showing social capital and sneering at those who don't have it.

  Kieron Gillen

  Character, Talking, People

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• What type of new economical system can organize this system? There is another sector in our life, that we rely on every single day, that are absolutely essential: the social commons, the social economy. It is all the activity we engage in to create social capital. It doesn't create capital market. Social commons is growing faster than the market place. It is growing faster than the market place. The social commons include any activity that is deeply social and collaborative.

  Jeremy Rifkin

  Essentials, Growing, Economy

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