This article aims to correct the widespread imbalance in contemporary liberal thought, which makes explicit appeal to the "least advantaged" without parallel attention to the "most advantaged" as a distinct group in need of regulatory attention. Rawls's influential theory of justice is perhaps the paradigmatic instance of this imbalance, but I show how a Rawlsian framework nonetheless provides three justifications for why implementers of liberal justice—above all, legislators—should regulate the economic prospects of a polity's richest citizens: as a heuristic device for ensuring that a system of inequalities not reach a level at which inequalities cease being mutually advantageous, as protection against excessive inequalities threatening civic liberty, and as redress for a liberal society's inability to fully realize fair equality of opportunity with regard to education and politics. Against the objection that such arguments amount to a defense of envy, insofar as they support policies that in certain instances impose economic costs on the most advantaged with negative or neutral economic impact on the rest of society, I attend to Rawls's often overlooked distinction between irrational and reasonable forms of envy, showing that any envy involved in the proposed regulation of the most advantaged falls within this latter category. - downloaded via iphone to dbox

Farr, James. "Social Capital: A Conceptual History." Political Theory 32.1 (2004): 6-33. Web. -- Taking its departure from current debates over social capital, this article presents new textual findings in a backward-revealing conceptual history. In particular, it analyzes the texts and contexts of Lyda J. Hanifan who was rediscovered by Robert Putnam as having (allegedly first) used the term; it offers discoveries of earlier uses of the term and concept-most notably by John Dewey-thereby introducing critical pragmatism as another tradition of social capital; and it recovers features of the critique of political economy in the nineteenth century-from Bellamy to Marshall to Sidgwick to Marx-that assessed "capital from the social point of view," especially cooperative associations. While it ends with Marx's use of "social capital," Dewey is its central figure. The article concludes by returning to the present and offering work, sympathy, civic education, and a critical stance as emergent themes from this conceptual history that might enrich current debates. -- downloaded via Air

Plan de l'article
Une clarification sémantique préalable
I - La querelle de la sécularisation et l’interprétation de la modernité
II - Malaise dans la civilisation post-moderne
III - La modernité sortie de la modernité ?
Duvoux Nicolas, « Les grammaires de la modernité. Notices bibliographiques autour de trois débats essentiels», Le Philosophoire 2/2005 (n° 25) , p. 135-152
URL : www.cairn.info/revue-le-philosophoire-2005-2-page-135.htm.
DOI : 10.3917/phoir.025.0135.
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Premier effet pervers du démocratisme culturel : le maintien dans un état d’inculture (non pas au sens anthropologique, on l’aura compris) de ceux qui n’étaient pas les « héritiers » d’un « capital culturel » familial – pour parler la langue de Bourdieu. Second effet pervers, très bien analysé par Serge Chaumier : la confusion de la culture et des loisirs fait le jeu du consumérisme. Les démocrates voulaient favoriser une contre-culture (celle de la rue, des banlieues, des cités, etc.), mais ils n’ont fait que faciliter la marchandisation de la culture

Est-il possible de soumettre la philosophie à un ensemble de démarches usuelles en sociologie, tout en tenant compte de sa spécificité ? Peut-on échapper à l’alternative du réductionnisme externaliste et du renoncement à parler de ce qui est présumé interne ? En quoi une approche sociologique déjouant pareille alternative serait-elle intéressante pour le philosophe ? Pour répondre à de tels questionnements, trois points sont envisagés à travers des illustrations. Le premier point concerne la sociologie (historique) de l’interprétation des textes. Un deuxième point est la façon sociologique d’aborder la question, à laquelle s’attachent traditionnellement les commentateurs, de l’unité et de la cohérence d’une œuvre. Le troisième point est celui du rapport entre classements sociaux et classements théoriques.

The Symbolic Economy of Social Capital
Drawing on several studies dealing with upper-class sociability (in particular an investigation of Milan’s traditional social clubs and Rotary clubs), this article develops a relational analysis of social capital, i.e. one that is attentive to the distinctive value of the forms taken by social capital. Indeed, unequal conditions of accumulation of social capital give rise to a relation of symbolic domination between the different ways of actualizing it, of maintaining it, and of representing it. We review the main theories of social capital – network analysis and cultural sociology – in an attempt at combining them. We show how they both neglect this relational dimension. Finally, we present the heuristic advantages of an approach sensitive to the fact that the different ways of describing (and legitimizing) social connections are themselves symbolic resources in the accumulation and preservation of social capital. -- downloaded via iPhone to DBOX

Pinto Louis, « (Re)traductions. Phénoménologie et « philosophie allemande » dans les années 1930», Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 5/2002 (no 145) , p. 21-33
URL : www.cairn.info/revue-actes-de-la-recherche-en-sciences-sociales-2002-5-page-21.htm.
DOI : 10.3917/arss.145.0021.
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Robert Putnam made the leap from the academic prominence he had already achieved to something much broader in 1995 with an article in the Journal of Democracy…

Paul A. Lewis, King's College London - Department of Political Economy -- Emily Chamlee-Wright, Beloit College - Department of Economics and Management -- Two of the most influential concepts in social science over the past two decades have been 'social embeddedness' and 'social capital'. This essay introduces a special issue of the Review of Austrian Economics in which those concepts are examined from the perspective provided by Austrian economics. In particular, the contributors consider the compatibility of notions of 'embeddedness' and 'social capital' with the Austrian theory of the market process and explore whether reformulating those concepts in the light of Austrian ideas can contribute fresh insights. -- Number of Pages in PDF File: 26 -- Keywords: Austrian economics, economic sociology, trust, social capital -- downloaded pdf to Note

Reviewed: (1) Jean-Luc Chappey, Ordres et désordres biographiques: Dictionnaires, listes de noms, réputation des Lumières à Wikipédia, Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2013. (2) Clare Haru Crowston, Credit, Fashion, Sex: Economies of Regard in Old Régime France, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. -- Historians of 18thC France have become increasingly interested in the ‘individual’. Inspired by the conceptual framework of such theorists as Foucault and Bourdieu, research on identity, self-fashioning and reputation has in recent years become bound up with the study of historical processes (social mobility, rising consumption, public opinion) that reveal a historically unstable and contingently produced ‘self’. The two monographs under consideration here investigate these themes, especially the problem of ‘regard’, that is, how individuals saw and assessed each other. Although the authors analyze different phenomena – biographical notices for Jean-Luc Chappey, fashion and credit for Clare Haru Crowston – both explore the practices that developed in the 18thC and early 19thC for representing and managing reputations. To be sure, the use of print and fashion to assert one’s standing in society had existed for centuries. Two developments, however, altered their importance in the 18thC. First, the consumer revolution, which made print and fashion increasingly accessible. This revolution offered new means for understanding the world (print) and expressing oneself (fashion). Second, the rise of a critical public sphere in which moral assessments about individuals – what they wrote, for example, and what they wore – became increasingly difficult to control. Struggles over social standing took place in an increasingly competitive world, where textual accounts of one’s life and work (Chappey) and sartorial strategies (Crowston) became vulnerable to the vicissitudes of market forces and public opinion. -- downloaded pdf to Note

Advisors: Black, Jeremy & Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas -- Date Issued: 2010-09-22 --
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10036/2999 -- Following the appointment of its first aristocratic Grand Masters in the 1720s and in the wake of its connections to the scientific Enlightenment, ‘Free and Accepted’ Masonry rapidly became part of Britain’s national profile and the largest and arguably the most influential of Britain’s extensive clubs and societies. (..) Freemasonry became a vehicle for the expression and transmission of the political and religious views of those at its centre, and for the scientific Enlightenment concepts that they championed. The ‘Craft’ also offered a channel through which many sought to realise personal aspirations: social, intellectual and financial. Through an examination of relevant primary and secondary documentary evidence, this thesis seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of contemporary English political and social culture, and to explore the manner in which Freemasonry became a mechanism that promoted the interests of the Hanoverian establishment and connected and bound a number of élite metropolitan and provincial figures. A range of networks centred on the aristocracy, parliament, the magistracy and the learned and professional societies are studied, and key individuals instrumental in spreading and consolidating the Masonic message identified. The thesis also explores the role of Freemasonry in the development of the scientific Enlightenment. The evidence suggests that Freemasonry should be recognised not only as the most prominent of the many 18thC fraternal organisations, but also as a significant cultural vector and a compelling component of the social, economic, scientific and political transformation then in progress. -- downloaded pdf to Note

Steve Fuller’s programme of Social Epistemology was initiated some 25 years ago with the launching of a journal and the publication of a monograph with those very words as their title. Since then, the programme has evolved in a constant critical dialogue with other players in the fields of epistemology and science studies. Fuller’s main confrontation has been with analytic epistemology which, in its classical form, adopts a contrary position on most key issues. However, analytic epistemologists have gradually moved in the direction of Fuller’s views and even adopted the term “social epistemology” for their emerging position. Still, substantial disagreement remains between the two identically named programmes with regard to the proper philosophical approach to knowledge as a social phenomenon; in this article, I try to pinpoint the locus of this disagreement. However, Fuller has also been engaged in minor skirmishes with his Science Studies fellows; I also examine these clashes. Finally, I express my wishes concerning the future direction of social epistemology. -- downloaded pdf to Note

“Prosperity requires not just investment in economic capital, but investment in social capital,” Carney argues, having defined social capital as “the links, shared values and beliefs in a society which encourage individuals not only to take responsibility for themselves and their families but also to trust each other and work collaboratively to support each other.” A stirring through the hall, a focusing of gazes — Carney has the attention of the chief executives, bankers and investors gathered here for a conference on “Inclusive Capitalism.” His bluntness reflects the fact that, six years after the crisis, the core problem has not gone away: The deep unease and anger in developed countries about the ways globalization and technology magnify returns for the super-rich, operating in a world of low taxation and lax regulation where short-term gain becomes a guiding principle, even as societies become more unequal, offering diminished opportunities to the young, less community and a growing sense of unfairness.

The concept of environmental capital is throughly entrenched in policy dicussions but largely missing from mainstream economic curriculums... Environmental economists have long modified growth models to account for the role of the environment, thus revisiting the conditions that ensure growth, whether sustainable or sustained. Classical references are three 1974 articles by Partha Dasgupta and Geoffrey Heal, by William Nordhaus, and by Robert Solow (though Solow could be hardly defined an environmental economist). More generally, existing work is summarised in the survey chapters by Tasos Xepapadeas and by William Brock and Scott Taylor, both published in 2005. A more recent example that compares ‘traditional’ (brown?) and ‘green’ models of growth is a 2011 World Bank working paper by Stephane Hallegatte, Geoffrey Heal, Marianne Fay, and David Treguer. As a result, environmental economists tend not to talk about economic growth per se, but about sustainable economic growth. When macroeconomists refer to sustainable growth, however, they usually mean sustained growth. When growth economists study the role of externalities in the growth process they almost exclusively refer to technological and knowledge externalities, and generally ignore environmental ones, even though the latter are likely to become largely more relevant in the coming decades. Even social capital, a relative newcomer in economics, appears better integrated into the growth literature.

Today, social networks analysis has become a cross-disciplinary subject with applications in diverse fields of social and economic life. Different network designs provide different opportunities to communicate, to receive information, and to create different structures of cultural capital. Network analysis explores modes and contents of exchanges between different agents when symbols, emotions, or goods and services are exchanged. The message of the article is that social network analysis provides a tool to foster the understanding of social dynamics, which enhances recent debate on a micro-macro gap and on limitations of the cognitive and explanatory potential of economics. -- paywall -- large references list quite interesting

Short plea for the social capital types to link up with institutionalists and economic sociologists, with a Polanyi angle -- downloaded pdf to Note

We introduce the concept of group social capital--the set of resources made available to a group through members' social relationships within the social structure of the group and in the broader formal and informal structure of the organization. We argue that greater group social capital resources lead to greater group effectiveness and that there are many different conduits through which group social capital resources flow. We present a multilevel, multidimensional model arguing that an optimal balance of all these conduits maximizes group social capital resources and group effectiveness. -- didn't download

This study introduces the concept of group social capital, which is the configuration of group members' social relationships within a group and in the social structure of a broader organization, and tests the proposition that group effectiveness is maximized via optimal configurations of different conduits for such capital. These conduits include intragroup closure relationships and bridging relationships that span vertical and horizontal intergroup boundaries. Results from our 60-team field study of informal socializing ties provide empirical support -- see bibliography on jstor information page -- didn't download

This paper uses data from the sales division of a financial services firm to investigate how a leader's centrality in external and internal social networks is related to the objective performance of the leader's group, and to the leader's personal reputation for leadership among subordinates, peers, and supervisors. External social network ties were based on the friendship ties among all 88 of the division's sales group leaders and the 10 high-ranking supervisors to whom they reported. Internal social network ties consisted of 28 separate networks, each representing the set of friendship relations among all members of a given sales group. Objective group performance data came directly from company records. Data on each group leader's personal reputation for leadership was based on the perceptions of three different constituencies: subordinates, peers, and supervisors. Results revealed that leaders' centrality in external and internal friendship networks was related both to objective measures of group performance and to their reputation for leadership among different organizational constituencies. -- see bibliography on jstor information page -- didn't download

If we are to believe the proponents of the Theory of Practice and of Rational Choice, the gap between these two paradigmatic approaches cannot be bridged. They rely on ontological premises, theories of motivations and causal models that stand too far apart. In this article, I argue that this theoretical antinomy loses much of its edge when we take as objects of sociological investigation processes of historical change, that is, when we try to specify in theoretical terms how and in which conditions historical actors enact and endorse shifts in patterns of relations as well as shifts in the symbolic and cognitive categories that make these relations significant. I substantiate this argument in light of the distinction between two temporalities of historical change: first, the long waves of gradual change and, second, the short waves of moments of breaks and ruptures. Along the way, I develop an argument about the conditions of emergence of self-limiting norms and the centrality of epistemic beliefs in situations of high disruption. -- see bibliography on jstor information page -- from keywords looks like it uses marriage patterns e.g. endogamy as illustrations -- didn't download

Over 200 references -- Downloaded pdf to Note

Taking its departure from current debates over social capital, this article presents new textual findings in a backward-revealing conceptual history. In particular, it analyzes the texts and contexts of Lyda J. Hanifan who was rediscovered by Robert Putnam as having (allegedly first) used the term; it offers discoveries of earlier uses of the term and concept-most notably by John Dewey-thereby introducing critical pragmatism as another tradition of social capital; and it recovers features of the critique of political economy in the nineteenth century-from Bellamy to Marshall to Sidgwick to Marx-that assessed "capital from the social point of view," especially cooperative associations. While it ends with Marx's use of "social capital," Dewey is its central figure. The article concludes by returning to the present and offering work, sympathy, civic education, and a critical stance as emergent themes from this conceptual history that might enrich current debates. -- downloaded pdf to Note

Advocates Lakatos rather than treating network analysis as a Kuhnian normal science - thinks work on networks as nonlinear complex adaptive systems worth investigating given the issues with simple network theory in handling change and persistence and emergent qualities, eg big effects from small efforts -- see bibliography -- didn't download

Heavily cited -- didn't download

Extensively cited -- starts with critique of Putnam's Bowling Alone -- interested in processes of long term change -- using US history, sees significant role of the state in change process -- downloaded pdf to Note

Cited by over 300 articles in jstor alone! --downloaded pdf to Note -- This paper reviews the origins and definitions of social capital in the writings of Bourdieu, Loury, and Coleman, among other authors. It distinguishes four sources of social capital and examines their dynamics. Applications of the concept in the sociological literature emphasize its role in social control, in family support, and in benefits mediated by extrafamilial networks. I provide examples of each of these positive functions. Negative consequences of the same processes also deserve attention for a balanced picture of the forces at play. I review four such consequences and illustrate them with relevant examples. Recent writings on social capital have extended the concept from an individual asset to a feature of communities and even nations. The final sections describe this conceptual stretch and examine its limitations. I argue that, as shorthand for the positive consequences of sociability, social capital has a definite place in sociological theory. However, excessive extensions of the concept may jeopardize its heuristic value.

Social capital is a contested concept, embraced by the mainstream as "the missing link" in economic analysis. This article suggests a way to turn it into a more meaningful understanding of how social relations matter in the economy. It will do so by unpacking the concept into various elements, distinguishing what social relations are from what they do, and by recognizing power in social relationships. We will illustrate our alternative approach with two case studies on the Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SME) footwear sector in Ethiopia and Vietnam. We conclude with suggestions on how this more contextual approach to the understanding of the economic influences of social relations may contribute to social economics. -- good bibliography -- didn't download

Huge literature review -- didn't download -- Much of the literature on the impact of institutions on economic development has focused on the tradeoffs between society and community as mutually opposed forms of institutional coordination. On the one hand, sociologists, geographers, and some economists have stressed the positive economic externalities that are associated with the development of associational or group life. Most economists, in contrast, hold that the development of communities may be a second-best solution to the development of formal institutions or even have negative effects, such as the promotion of rent-seeking behavior and principal-agent problems. Societal institutions-such as clear, transparent rules and enforcement mechanisms-are held to be universally positive for development. But there are no real-world cases in which only one of the two exists; society and community are always and everywhere in interaction. This interaction, however, has attracted little attention. In this article, society and community are conceived of as complementary forms of organization whose relative balance and interaction shape the economic potential of every territory. Changes in the balance between community and society take place constantly and affect the medium- and long-run development prospects of every territory. The depth and the speed of change depend on a series of factors, such as starting points in the interaction of society and community, the sources and dynamics of change, and the conflict-solving capacities of the preexisting situation.

Describes concepts and research methods for identifying interlocking governance and ownership relations in the corporate community -- used in the new study (separate bookmark) - Interlocks and Interactions Among the Power Elite: The Corporate Community, Think Tanks, Policy-Discussion Groups, and Government by G. William Domhoff, Clifford Staples, & Adam Schneider - August 2013

Back to the Enlightenment and Adam Smith. -- comments section has interesting cites to other cognitive neuroscience models and connections to social theories that involve individual decision making. -- downloaded pdf to Note -- Brain plasticity refers to the ability of the brain to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. Some of this plasticity is no doubt genetically determined but some brain change is a product of individual effort and represents the individual’s investment in intangible capital (standard human capital, social capital, personal capital, and so on). In this revised view, the balance that individuals, groups, and societies strike between ego and empathy orientation is to a great extent determined by these intangible investments, not simply by brain physiology. In other words, it is the plastic aspect of the brain that determines how the capacity associated with brain physiology gets expressed.

JSTOR: The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 51, No. 201 (Feb., 2000), pp. 83-89

JSTOR: Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 85-111 -- downloaded pdf to Note

Citation: Lilti, Antoine. “The Kingdom of Politesse: Salons and the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Paris.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/38. -- in "Rethinking the Republic of Letters" -- downloaded pdf to Note; a copy already in Ef -- The bibliography on the Republic of Letters is long, but most scholars would agree the notion has a double meaning: on the one hand, the Republic of Letters is a historiographical tool to refer to networks of scholars organized around academic institutions, learned journals, informal gatherings and epistolary exchanges; on the otherhand, it is the normative ideal of a community of scholars and writers who have egalitarian and personal relationships, autonomous from political power, from religious solidarities and from national identities. In Anne Goldgar’s words, the Republic of Letters is a “reflexive event.” I would like to suggest that Parisian salons did not fit any of these definitions. As a site for sociability, they were, above all, venues of entertainment for polite elites, and were deeply rooted in court society. The ideal which guided the writers who attended these salons—Morellet, Thomas, Marmontel, and many others—was not the Republic of Letters, but Parisian high society (le monde), where some men of letters, polite and successful, were welcomed because they conformed to aristocratic norms. In other words, they were dreaming about the kingdom of politesse rather than the Republic of Letters.

Citation: Chen, Bianca. “Digging for Antiquities with Diplomats: Gisbert Cuper (1644-1716) and his Social Capital.” Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts 1, no. 1 (May 1, 2009): http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/36. -- in "Rethinking the Republic of Letters" issue -- downloaded pdf to Note -- Gisbert Cuper’s career and his rise to fame allow us to examine the working practices of the Republic of Letters and reconsider how to judge a scholar’s merits in a historical context other than our own. First appointed professor of history and rhetoric at a provincial Athenaeum in Deventer (1668), Cuper subsequently became Rector of the institute (1672), burgomaster (mayor) of the city (1674), a delegate of the city to the meetings of the provincial States (the States of Overijssel), a delegate of the province to the States General of the Dutch Republic (1681-1694) and finally, for that highest governing body, a commissioner in the field during the War of the Spanish Succession (1706)...... This article will examine how the concurrence of politics and letters was important for the advancement of scholarship and how it led to the perception of Cuper as a particularly significant cultural intermediary in the Republic of Letters. I will refer to the concept of social capital to emphasize the importance of networks of patronage and the exchange of services within any community, including within the Republic of Letters. Explicitly stressing the value of correspondence to the Republic of Letters in general and to Cuper in particular, I will pay special attention to his large and diverse network of correspondents from different backgrounds. Ultimately this article seeks to demonstrate how successfully Cuper bridged the world of politics and letters by employing his social capital for the sake of learning and the subsequent benefits for his reputation in the Republic of Letters.

JSTOR: Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 33 (2007), pp. 21-30, C1-C3, 31-41 --- This article traces the transatlantic diffusion of Pierre Bourdieu's ideas into American sociology. We find that rather than being received as abstract theory, Bourdieu has been actively put to use to generate new empirical research. In addition, American sociologists have used their findings to problematize and extend his theory. Bourdieu's sociology, in other words, has inspired a progressive research program in the United States. We trace this process in the two main forums for presenting research: journal articles and books. Content analysis of articles published in four major sociology journals reveals that, far from a recent fad, Bourdieu's ideas steadily diffused into American sociology between 1980 and 2004. Case studies of four influential books in turn illustrate how researchers have used Bourdieu's key concepts (capital, field, habitus, and symbolic power) to inform debates in four core subfields (political, economic, cultural, and urban sociology).