Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

“On the contrary, American history carefully examined is a story of ups and downs in civic engagement, not just downs – a story of collapse and of renewal.”

Putnam is documenting the decline of civic engagement in the late 20th century for the purpose of beginning a public conversation about how to reinvigorate it. He does not maintain that the erosion of social capital and the ensuing negative consequences are permanent.

“Financial capital – the wherewithal for mass marketing – has steadily replaced social capital – that is, grassroots citizen networks – as the coin of the realm.”

Putnam is referring to political participation, which became capital-, rather than labor-, intensive in the late 20th century. Candidates relied upon mass advertising to reach voters instead of campaign volunteers going door-to-door. The effect was to turn active citizens into passive spectators.

“The organizational eruption between the 1960s and the 1990s represented a proliferation of letterheads, not a boom of grassroots participation.”

While membership in civic organizations, such as environmental groups, increased in this period, the organizations were professionally staffed, based in Washington, D.C., and without local affiliates. Membership requires little, perhaps just writing a check. Therefore, these organizations fail to provide the social connectedness that past organizations, such as the PTA, provided.

“As a rough rule of thumb, our evidence shows, nearly half of all associational memberships in America are church related, half of all personal philanthropy is religious in character, and half of all volunteering occurs in a religious context.”

Putnam is emphasizing the importance of religious institutions to social capital in the US. Decline in religious attendance and membership impacts social participation profoundly. The denomination gaining ground in the late 20th century, evangelicals, do not have the same commitments to public participation that the declining mainline religions have.

“Teamwork stops feeling so amicable when you are subtly competing with your teammates for your livelihood.”

Referring to economic changes in the workplace, such as performance-based pay, job instability, and outsourcing, Putnam notes that social connections are harder to make in the workplace. People are inclined to keep their heads down, stressed about keeping their own jobs.

“We spend less time in conversation over meals, we exchange visits less often, we engage less often in leisure activities that encourage casual social interaction, we spend more time watching (admittedly, some of it in the presence of others) and less time doing.”

Informal social connectedness is an important part of social capital, and it too has declined in all segments of American society. Those informal connections can bridge the way to more formal ones. Additionally, Americans are watching more than doing. Instead of singing or making music, they listen to that produced by professionals.

“A check in an envelope, no matter how generous, cannot have that same effect. Social capital refers to networks of social connection – doing with. Doing good for other people, however laudable, is not part of the definition of social capital.”

Increasingly, people are not giving their time to voluntary efforts. Unfortunately, involvement in community life is the most consistent predictor of giving, both time and money. Those who join are more likely to donate. Thus, while total amounts of charitable giving are up, Americans are giving a smaller percentage of their income to charity than they were in the 1960s.

“In some respects, this development may be one of the most revealing indicators of the fraying of our social fabric. For better or worse, we rely increasingly – we are forced to rely increasingly – on formal institutions, and above all on the law, to accomplish what we used to accomplish through informal networks reinforced by generalized reciprocity – that is, through social capital.”

With social trust down, Americans want agreements in writing and use the law to enforce their terms. Such an approach is confrontational, not cooperative, and is costly. The assumption is that people will not keep their word.

“One central question, of course, is whether ‘virtual social capital’ is itself a contradiction in terms.”

In the 1990s, the Internet’s potential was subject to debate. Putnam does not want the Internet to replace face-to-face communication but hopes that it can be used to increase social contact. He worries that people will not seek out those who disagree with them in the virtual world and that the Internet will become more a source of private entertainment than a form of active communication.

“Thus education boosts civic engagement sharply, and educational levels have risen massively. Unfortunately, these two plain facts only deepen our central mystery.”

Because higher levels of education are associated with higher levels of civic engagement, the US should be experiencing a surge in civic engagement. Putnam thus labels the decline as even more unexpected and seeks alternative explanations for it.

“Pressures of time and money are supporting actors in our mystery story, but neither is easily cast in the lead.”

Putnam casts himself in the role of a detective seeking to unravel the mystery of civic disengagement and unmask the villain or cause of it. While financial and time pressures contribute somewhat to the decline, they are not at all the main causes.

“The car and the commute, however, are demonstrably bad for community life. In round numbers the evidence suggests that each additional ten minutes in daily commuting time cuts involvement in community affairs by 10% [...].”

Putnam highlights how suburban sprawl contributes to the decline in civic engagement. People are working in different communities than those in which they live. However, Putnam does not identify sprawl as a primary cause of the problem.

“A major commitment to television viewing – such as most of us have come to have – is incompatible with a major commitment to community life.”

Television keeps people at home, and it is primarily watched for entertainment, not for news and information. Not surprisingly, the introduction of television coincides with the decline of civic engagement, and Putnam views television as one of the decline’s most significant causes.

“[E]ach generation that has reached adulthood since the 1950s has been less engaged in community affairs than its immediate predecessor.”

The most significant cause of civic disengagement, accounting for 50% of the decline per Putnam, is generational succession. As the Baby Boomers and Generation X gradually replace their parents and grandparents, respectively, civic engagement declines. Society changes, while the individual habits of each generation do not.

“[...] America has epitomized market capitalism for several centuries, during which our stocks of social capital and civic engagement have been through great swings. A constant cannot explain a variable.”

Seeking an explanation for the decline in social capital, Putnam insists that the culprit must be correlated with the decline. Market capitalism does not fit that bill and therefore cannot explain the change.

“Places with dense associational networks tend to have frequent public meetings on local issues, places that have high electoral turnout tend to have high social trust, places with lots of local clubs tend to support many nonprofit organizations, and so on.”

Putnam is addressing the consequences of high levels of social capital. The benefits are many. He also notes the regional variations in social capital in the US, with areas with high social capital, such as New England, experiencing better public outcomes.

“Statistically, the correlation between high social capital and positive child development is as close to perfect as social scientists ever find in data analyses of this sort.”

Children flourish in those states with high social capital. Putnam provides multiple factors, such as infant mortality rates, teen birth rates, and school dropout rates. He acknowledges that the statistic does not prove causation, but advanced statistical analysis concludes that social capital is second only to poverty in its impact on children.

“In any event, citizens in states characterized by low levels of social capital are readier for a fight (perhaps because they need to be), and they are predisposed to mayhem.”

States with low levels of social capital have higher crime rates and rates of violence. With trust at low levels, people are less able to resolve conflicts civilly. Putnam notes that behavior, while dependent on individual traits, is impacted by the character of others.

“The community’s success was based on its unwavering commitment to the idea that citizens would not benefit individually unless they pursued their goals collectively.”

Referring to Tupelo, Mississippi, Putnam explains how local leaders transformed one of the poorest communities into a national model for economic development with this commitment. In this town, social capital brought economic success. Putnam argues that this lesson holds for other communities; social capital not only benefits individuals economically but communities as well.

“Statistically speaking, the evidence for the health consequences of social connectedness is as strong today as was the evidence for the health consequences of smoking at the time of the first surgeon general’s report on smoking.”

Given the dire health consequences of smoking, this analogy is a powerful one. Putnam goes on to argue that social connectedness is directly related to health, happiness, and life span.

“Just as one cannot restart a heart with one’s remote control, one cannot jump-start republican citizenship without direct, face-to-face participation. Citizenship is not a spectator sport.”

The decline in political participation leads to poor results for democracy. Putnam is concerned that moderates have dropped out of active politics, benefiting extremists. As a result, politics has become more confrontational with compromises hard to reach. The only solution is to re-engage citizens.

“Conversely, the last third of the twentieth century was a time of growing inequality and eroding social capital.”

Putnam uses this fact to challenge those who maintain that social capital, or fraternity, comes at the cost of equality. The two values are not necessarily in conflict. Bridging social capital, in particular, is conducive to equality.

“The communitarian Progressives decried the erosion of such close-knit ties in urbanizing, industrializing America. The impersonal and attenuated ties of the market replaced the sturdier bonds of family, friendship, and small-town solidarity.”

Putnam compares the late 20th-century US to the Progressive era. He argues that Progressives faced a time of dwindling social capital and found ways to re-invent it. They did not seek to return to the past, which was impossible, but created new forms of social capital for their era. He hopes that people will do the same at the dawn of the 21st century.