The Decline Of Social Capital

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The decline in social capital in the United States can be explain with the political concepts of freedom, equality, and community. Freedom is known as liberty and can refer to a relationship that is free of oppression and coercion. Freedom also ties in with equality, which can be defined as either equality of people, foundational, or equally distribution of goods, distributional. These two topics then can be tied in with community since community is a form of social interaction that usually carries a positive connotation. With the political concepts being defined we can have a better understanding on how it social capital is declining. Social capital in the United States includes trends in volunteering, philanthropy, and altruism (117). That means we as Americans help out others in our community to not only better ourselves, but also better others. How the United States is on a slow decline is that we our using our freedom to the fullest. We are being selfish by going to work and going home to sit around and rest all day instead of going out and volunteering in our community. We have already gone past the era where many Americans were fighting for their rights and marching and standing up for equality. Since we Americans may think everything is equal in the world we do not go out and do our civic duty. In the day people would go out and participate everyday because they think helping others is a civic duty (117). Unless our image is looking good while volunteering or we are getting a reward for doing so Americans today do not go and volunteer. Since many more Americans are working today they have less and less time to participate in their community. Marx would agree that part of the decline in social capital is more people spend... ... middle of paper ... ...ning and social capital rising. The last phase in the stage model is policy evaluation. This focuses on the policy’s impact with particular attention to its intended and unintended consequences, political accountability, and whether policy knowledge is created. How this is put into play by society is that it helps policy by gathering input and serving the clients desires and goals. Another way this can also be looked at is by politicians dual where there is conflicting goals. How this benefits social capital and its uprising is the coming together of communities to share ideas and thoughts about their goals and desires. Given social capital can benefit individuals, it is perhaps no surprise that it also can help neighborhoods (322). So when more political debates are happening in society then neighbors and communities come together which then raises social capital.

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