I am not the first scholar to notice a decades-long slump in many forms of political engagement. Equally ominously, interest in political and social issues among students entering college reached a 30-year low last fall. Americans have not stopped trying to influence government, even though most of us are increasingly skeptical about our chances of success. We are no less free with our opinions, but we are listening to each other less. We are shouting and pressuring and suing, but we are not reasoning together, not even in the attenuated sense that we once did, with people we know well and will meet again tomorrow.
Financial capital grows in political importance, while social capital declines.
To those Americans who have more money than time, this may seem a mere change in coinage, but the transformation is fundamentally debasing our democracy. In fact, the unusual civic engagement among Americans raised in the first half of this century was probably the fruit of a period of civic revitalization around the turn of the century. So far the recent debate on how to restore social connectedness has been, as Skocpol says, largely a monopoly of the right. One important merit of Skocpol's important essay is precisely that it opens up this issue on the left. Another is that she brings historical evidence to bear on contemporary debates.