Member-only story
Bleeding Social Capital
What was imposed on indigenous Americans is coming to the settlers.
Political scientist Robert Putnam made creative use of the concept “social capital” in his book Bowling Alone, chronicling the diminution of social capital in modern America. The relevance of bowling to social cohesion is that the number of lines bowled went up while — at the same time — bowling leagues were shutting down.
Social capital is the glue that keeps us from having to lock our doors and from needing institutions to care for orphans and the elderly. A society that is rich in social capital can better endure shortages of economic capital. During the Great Depression, my grandmother used to tell me, few people had anything but those who did, shared.
Some reservations exist in a permanent depression by design where people were involuntarily settled on lands inadequate to support them. The foreseeable result was there were few jobs and tribal government controlled those that did exist.
In a society that retains high social capital, the crime rate would stay low even as incomes remained inadequate. The sick and elderly would lack nothing that could be provided by labor. The able-bodied unemployed would keep the wood chopped and the water hauled and the roof patched with whatever materials could be put together…
