Using Motive to Distinguish Social Capital from Its Outputs
Author(s)
Schmid, A. Allan
Abstract
The concept of capital as a productive input to an economy has been extended from physical capital goods (machines, buildings, and so on) to human capital (skills) and more recently to social capital. But much more work remains to make social capital operational and measurable. Institutional economists have long argued that the social relationships involved in habit, custom, norms, and law make a difference in the realization of the potential in physical goods and human skills. But a new name extending the capital metaphor is not needed to describe the institutions of collective action. Rather, this paper calls attention to an underdeveloped subset of institutions regarding motivation to which the term social capital can be most usefully applied. Motive is regarded here as a variable and not a given as in neoclassical economics. The plan of the paper is to first review some of the measures of social capital extant in the literature and to illustrate how they do not clearly identify and distinguish capital sources from its outputs. Next, a deeper interpretation of the capital metaphor, focused on motives, is offered. This is followed by an analysis of the role of sympathy and caring as distinct from norm following. Finally, a survey instrument is developed arid tested to measure the mix of motives that provide the energy of social capital.
