![]() ![]() Nevertheless, Nancy Fraser’s work, for example, shows how even well-intended measures of redistribution can fail and even exacerbate the problems of low status and stigmatisation. This is a contestable conclusion, and insofar as “social capital” theory is a cover for cutting welfare, it should be contested. The focus on “social capital” forces us to ask: “What is it that makes people poor and excludes them from social life?” The naïve, mainstream answer has been “not enough money” or “nothing to sell,” and the social capitalists claim that there is more to it than that, and further, that giving people money, for instance by means of transfer payments or job creation schemes, is not solving the problem. And we should make common cause with those people, and we stand to learn a lot in the process. Secondly, in this domain of “social capital” theory we meet not only Third Wayers like Mark Latham, but genuine people dedicated to solving the problems of poverty and exclusion who already know that there is more to well-being than a fat bank account and more to poverty and exclusion than not having a bank account. This gives socialists, and Marxists in particular, the opportunity to respond with a critique aimed at doing the reverse, i.e., of critiquing economic theory (“social capital” theory in particular) and policy from the standpoint of social life and exposing the real, social and political roots of poverty and exclusion with a view to overcoming them. Thus, they are engaged in a critique of the boundary between economics and politics, with the intent of extending that boundary outwards. This is, I think, an ideological reflection of the process in which economics is in reality subsuming social life. However, there are a good reasons I think for taking this move seriously.įirstly, what the social capitalists have done is to extend the domain of economic science so as to subsume non-economic social life. Rather, we must describe the changes in qualitative terms.” What was all the fuss about then, one might ask.Īnd there is every reason to suppose, as Chris Scanlon has pointed out, that “social capital” theory has the effect of “naturalising” a neo-liberal approach to micro-management of deviant communities, and providing a rationale for political and financial decimation of the public sector. The guru of the statistical analysis of “social capital,” Robert Putnam, now says: “social capital is stubbornly resistant to quantification” and “we must take care not to frame questions about change solely in terms of more social capital or less social capital. It is so riddled with methodological absurdities and ideological sleight of hand that it is sometimes difficult to take it seriously. It’s very easy to belittle “social capital” theory. Talk at New International Bookshop, 12th May 2004 Send us feedback.What's wrong with 'social capital' by Andy BlundenĪndy Blunden May 2004 What’s wrong with “social capital” These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'subsume.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Charlie Fink, Forbes, 6 June 2022 See More 2022 For these reasons, the phrase web3 may yet subsume the word Metaverse. 2022 On a less exclusionary internet, new mediums might need not subsume older ones, and different forms of media might exist parallel to one another rather than each seeking to devour the others. 2022 What’s worse is that George’s personality threatens to subsume hers. 2022 For others, many of them younger professionals, seeing the ways other leaders have allowed work to subsume their lives is a turnoff. 2022 Yes, Ukrainian cultural institutions have been attacked and looted by Russian forces, in a systematic attempt to subsume one nation’s culture under another’s. Alexander Lee, Discover Magazine, 9 Apr. 2016 Rather, rising sea levels fueled by climate change threaten to subsume the country, whose average elevation is only 6.5 feet above sea level. Adam Hadhazy, Discover Magazine, 4 Nov. 2023 Even the galaxies in our Local Group will eventually either subsume each other or fly apart as emptiness asserts its reign. ![]() Recent Examples on the Web The light through thick stands of hemlock and behemoth ancient cedar was harder to obtain, more gratifying to subsume because of it.
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