{"id":88838,"date":"2025-12-31T15:02:49","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=88838"},"modified":"2025-12-31T15:03:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:03:22","slug":"glossary-entry-social-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/12\/31\/glossary-entry-social-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"Glossary entry: social capital"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>As part of my work on\u00a0<a class=\"glossary\" title=\"Defined in glossary\" role=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/glossary\/C\/#capital\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">capital<\/a>, which in turn contributes to my thinking on the politics of care, and how it must be defined, I have posted this new glossary entry on social capital, which is an addition to the entries already made on capital and <a class=\"glossary\" title=\"Defined in glossary\" role=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/glossary\/C\/#capital-maintenance-concepts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">capital maintenance concepts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\">Social capital<\/span> is the stock of institutions, relationships, norms and shared understandings that enable cooperation, trust and collective economic activity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">It includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p3\">public institutions,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">democratic systems,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">legal frameworks,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">administrative competence,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">social cohesion, and<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">shared expectations of fairness and reciprocity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p3\">Social capital underpins all economic activity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Markets require trust, enforceable contracts and legitimate authority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Money requires collective belief and institutional backing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Investment requires stability, predictability and social consent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Where social capital is strong, economies are more resilient, adaptive and inclusive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Social capital is depleted by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p3\">inequality,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">corruption,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">exclusion,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">privatisation of public purpose, and<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">the erosion of democratic accountability.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These processes weaken economic coordination and legitimacy, even when they appear to increase short-term efficiency or profitability.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Maintaining social capital requires sustained investment in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p3\">public institutions,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">representation,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">transparency,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">fairness,<\/li>\n<li class=\"p3\">and shared purpose.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When social capital is run down, economic activity becomes increasingly extractive, coercive and unstable, relying on enforcement rather than consent and producing diminishing returns over time.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Related posts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Capital<\/li>\n<li>Capital maintenance concepts<\/li>\n<li>Financial capital<\/li>\n<li>Physical capital<\/li>\n<li>Human capital<\/li>\n<li>Social capital<\/li>\n<li>Sustainable cost accounting<\/li>\n<li>Income<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>Comments\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p>When commenting, please take note of this blog\u2019s comment policy,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/about\/comments\/\">which is available here<\/a>. Contravening this policy will result in comments being deleted before or after initial publication at the editor\u2019s sole discretion and without explanation being required or offered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of my work on\u00a0capital, which in turn contributes to my thinking on the politics of care, and how it must be defined, I<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/12\/31\/glossary-entry-social-capital\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,35,206,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-glossary","category-politics-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88840,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88838\/revisions\/88840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}