Social Capital? Must we equate everything to a monetary value? Why not just simple goodwill,empathy and respect for fellow man which most of our corporate elites and their Govt shills wouldn't have the foggist notion, being blinded by their bottom line of avarice and bigger profits.

Arjay of course never contributes to the despicable institution of capital by buying anything.

But Arjay's point is good in this. What the author is talking about is voluntary co-operation. It adds nothing to the discussion to call it social capital. Capital - the produced means of production - is already a social thing. We don't say "social language" or "social morality", so why say social capital?

Maybe the use of the term social capital is an attempt to try to get the value of it recognised. As has already been pointed out it does not show on the measures generally used to rate how well things are going.

It's harder to measure than a banks profits or a government surplus/deficit but does help tell what kind of society we live in.

R0bert