Why "social capital" (like "disparities") is fashionable

Alan Smart's stated objective in his article on social capital is to answer the question, why is social capital, the concept and the term, so widely used today in the social science literature? While he points toward an answer, I do not believe he actually provides it - the one he seems to provide is not convincing, at least to me, because he does not consider the political context in which social capital appears in the social sciences.First, let me note that while the term social capital is relatively new, the concept is rather old. I believe the first author to use the term was my own professor, James Coleman, when he taught at Johns Hopkins University in the 1960s and I was one of his graduate students. But the concept of social capital is much older. In fact, it goes back to the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, especially in his Democracy in America (2000) in which he speaks at length of the sense of communitarianism in the U.S. that he saw as characteristic of American democracy. Communitarianism, and the sense of belonging and togetherness that went with it, was critical to his understanding of the U.S. He thought communitarianism defined the political and social lives of the communities he had visited in New England. The richness of what would later be called "civil society" in local communities impressed him profoundly. He contrasted this communitarianism and local social cohesion with the hierarchy, social tensions and indeed, class struggle in Europe at that time. He saw the U.S. as the way of the future, and Europe, with its class struggles, as beyond redemption.I believe that de Tocquevule's idealized vision of American society is the reason the U.S. establishment has always loved him. He is the most cited European thinker of that time. In his version of the U.S., the country was an oasis of calm, in contrast to the agitated and tumultuous European political scene, where intense struggles were taking place around control of the state. In the U.S., in de Tocquevule's view, all was placid and cohesive. The central state - the federal government - barely features in his writings; it is something far away, in the background. I have published elsewhere a more extensive review of de Tocquevule's vision (Navarro 2002). But I believe I have summarized his position accurately here.Social cohesion and communitarianism have long been major elements in the imagery of the U.S., based on the New England town-hall type of participatory democracy as portrayed in Norman Rockwell paintings. Actually, in my almost 40 years of U.S. academic life, I cannot recall any U.S. president who has not called for a revival of communitarianism. Republican presidents tend to do it with stronger conviction than Democratic presidents, but the call was expressed in strong tones under President Clinton's Democratic administration. Even in the U.K., Prime Minister Blair has spoken forcefully about communitarianism. He even replaced the famous Clause 4 of the Labour Party Constitution, which called for state direction in all areas of productive life, with a new Clause 4 that called for "the development of a community. . .where we live together freely in the spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect." In this narrative, communitarianism is an alternative to state and public intervention. It is no coincidence that the Democratic president who most often spoke of communitarianism (and social cohesion) was Bill Clinton; he was also the Democratic president who relied least on federal public interventions to resolve the country's enormous social problems. He continued the policies first developed by President Reagan and the first President Bush, and these same policies have been continued by the second President Bush. All of them emphasized communitarianism as an alternative to federalism and state intervention.Social capital is the individualized version of communitarianism. An individual holds capital derived from his or her membership in networks established in the community. …