Where would you go to find the social capital of the North? That depends on whether you are looking for a party or looking for the resources to make the North a better place to live.
“Social Capital” is the Moby Dick of the social sciences. It seems like every social scientist is out hunting for it, or else at home writing reports about how it cures every ill.
The term “social capital” was designed to make good social policy sound like good business. Every time someone says the words, it is a little victory for the business community. Community activists and pointy-headed academics like me are using the language of business to make sense of something that is very unlike normal business.
Capital is a productive asset. You invest your capital to get a return in the future. Any asset you own that gives you benefits over time can be called capital. Social capital is supposed to be capital that provides a return for the whole community. The weird thing about this social capital is that no-one owns it.
For example, say you smile at your neighbours every day. That is a small investment in social capital. One day you slip and fall and a neighbour comes out to help you. Your investment paid off. A stranger gets the same treatment. You have a community that takes care of people.
The very same smile might encourage your neighbours to spend more time in the front yard working on their gardens. All those pretty gardens increase the value of your house. Social capital makes you safer and richer. You may not be able to liquidate your share of social capital and use the money to move to Florida, but on the other hand, you can collect a return on the investments made by other people.
Like so many tricky academic terms, the expression “social capital” helps us think about something invisible, very hard to measure, and important.
For example, social capital might be a good name for whatever it is that lets people work together raising money for charities, building local parks, and finding good candidates for local councils. Social capital might be a town’s reputation for having hockey leagues and a branch of the Canadian Legion, and for the spirit that supports a volunteer welcome wagon, and a volunteer fire department.
Whatever it is, social capital is probably important for Northern Ontario. If it is, we should look for strategic investments to build our stock of social capital.
We might get some clues from Robert Putnam. His groundbreaking book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, put social capital on the map. It came to stand for a world where the connections between people were evaporating. Social capital had disappeared. In one section, Putnam talks about “bridging” social capital that helps connect people from all parts of the community. When people are connected they can be more secure, more productive and more influential.
There must be a thousand ways to build social capital in the North. The CBC and Northern Ontario Business help. Sports tournaments help. If we had our own Northern Katimavik for youth, that would definitely help.
Putting Northern poetry and stories into the schools would help. Community forests would help. Encouraging district heating would build social capital at the same time as it made Northern Ontario more economically viable.
In fact, anything that builds a Northern identity contributes to Northern social capital. Remember how Expo 67 and maple-leaf pins helped to build Canadian pride? Having a Northern council of mayors, as Michael Atkins has suggested, would make a small contribution. The mayors could give awards for Northern Ontario architecture and poetry. They would building pride by making local heroes. Ed Diebel’s Northern Ontario Heritage Party probably contributes to Northern social capital too.
Putnam, the fellow who set off the discussion of social capital, has another suggestion. He quoted advice from a century earlier calling on Americans to “multiply picnics.” Getting together for fun builds social capital. That’s why it’s our duty as Northerners to have more parties, bigger parties and longer parties, especially during the Christmas season.
It’s the social capitalist thing to do.
Dave Robinson is an economist with the Institute for Northern Ontario Research and Development at Laurentian University.
drobinson@laurentian.ca
