I
began this report by observing that despite so many marvelous new
discoveries, inventions and technological developments, progress in
addressing our basic social problems remains as slow as ever; perhaps
even slower than in some past eras. Now, after having reviewed my
experiences in setting up the community computer center in Colonia
La Herencia and a theoretical model of social capital based on John
Dewey's theory of the active self, it remains to be asked what can
be concluded from this experience. Based on my fieldwork, I believe
that if the experience of setting up the community computer center
in Colonia La Herencia is any indication, much more can be done to
promote social progress through the careful design of community education
projects.
Certainly
first and foremost it must be said that, as Professor Cavallo concluded
based on his work in Thailand, I also found that there also seems
to be no shortage of social capital in Colonia La Herencia. This social
capital may at times be latent, but with properly designed community
programs it can very readily be accessed for effective community development
programs. The support that we received from the community in Colonia
La Herencia was overwhelming. A very great number of people from within
the community were willing to come out and help, and they were responsible
for the success the program had in Colonia La Herencia. Also there
were the donors, without whom the center could not have been built
an the computers could not have been bought. There was a lot of social
capital all in all that went into making the community computer center
at Colonia La Herencia; it was ample and given without any desire
of getting anything in return, and that was what made the community
computer center possible.
What
about the Emergent Design method? That too worked as intended. Being
an open ended method, it was ideal for the circumstances. It empowered
the people; tapped latent learning potential, and probably did result
in some people learning quite a bit more about computers than would
have been accomplished with traditional teaching methods. True, the
classes eventually drifted back to the traditional format, but with
the important difference of being so as a program run by the community
and under their direction. The young people who taught the classes,
and especially the young man whose idea I understand it was deserve
a lot of credit for taking the initiative to set it all up, and it
certainly was something I would not have expected and could not have
predicted. They are fine young people and it augers well for the future
of the Colonia to have this great network of individuals who are so
confident, capable and willing to help with the needs of their community.
And
it all I guess is a tribute to Dewey's model of the active self, which
does seem to explain why individuals are willing to help with a social
cause without expecting anything in return. Granted, they do probably
usually receive some intangible gratification for helping, as I did
and do when I can participate in something like the community computer
center at Colonia La Herencia. We of course as Dewey knew receive
psychic as well as tangible gratification from what we do, and even
in the case when we are not getting paid monetarily we receive intangible
rewards in place of money. But, as Dewey said and as the theory of
the active self models, it is not necessarily true that these intangible
rewards are sufficient justification for doing what we do when we
help with a social cause at personal expense and without monetary
recompense. We are all "active selves" and we know that
we are in some control of our natures, of ourselves while we are here
in this world, and we know that we had better be smart about it and
try to make of ourselves what we may when we can, because we are all
too prone to slack off and make wrong turns when we are not paying
attention. So Dewey's theory of the active self may indeed explain
why we act well sometimes and try to do some good for a social cause
when we are receiving nothing in return. If we could make any criticism
at all of the theory it would be that perhaps Dewey could have stressed
more the economic side of it, that when we are active we are not doing
so in a vacuum, but that we must be able to leverage resources in
the social environment along with our own efforts to achieve the ends
which we hope will make us the persons we wish to be. But overall
I think the theory of the active self is a fine theory, as theories
go.
So
what of the overall conclusion? Can we say it was a success, with
the social capital, the Emergent Design, the Active Self, and all
of that? Was it a success overall? Can we say that?
Unfortunately,
I don't think so. At least not yet.
A
lot of good has already come out of the community computer center
at Colonia La Herencia. But a lot of resources went into it too. And
the real question for progress is not whether something is received
but whether there is a net gain. Adam Smith said that financial capital
must be converted to grow. It has to stop being capital for awhile
and then be transduced back to it's original species to result in
being more than there initially was. And social capital is just the
same way. Too many people think, as Dewey pointed out, that prosocial
behavior or charity is an end in itself. We lose sight of the need
for this prosocial behavior to result in long-term systemic change.
Ultimately, the amount of social capital within a social domain has
to increase. Development programs need to be able to manage an ever
increasing amount of resources within the social system for progress
to occur.
Whether
the amount of social capital resulting from what was done at the community
computer center in Colonia La Herencia will end up being more than
what was put in, I don't know. It's too soon to tell. Maybe so, maybe
not, frankly. I hope so but it is too soon to tell, and it will ultimately
probably depend most on the people who come later. But in closing
this report I would like to talk a bit about the kinds of things that
make projects like this really a success in the long run, because
I think that is one thing about social capital that many people often
confuse, or maybe all of us often confuse.
We
saw in the previous chapters how the idiosyncratic processes which
lead people to give things to the social good when they are not receiving
anything in return unfold. We discussed how sometimes this is necessary
because there are cases where social systems work themselves into
a corner, where they become unjust and economic and political forces
within the system aren't sufficient to budge them out of it; where
they stop at equlibria which are neither fair nor efficient. We said
that when this happens social capital is needed to get them out, and
to help them move to better and more fair and more efficient equilibria.
And basically, we saw that the two main things driving social capital
are the subjective visions of the people within the social system
and the available resources within the system that the people can
leverage. Now I would like to talk about the last piece of the puzzle,
which is the organizations that are available to mediate the other
two and to help to coordinate the various desperate efforts of the
well-meaning people within the system. It seems to me that organizations
play a unique and extremely important role in that they help social
capital within a social domain to be converted and accumulated, which
enables it to grow. Organizations really do for social capital what
markets do for fiscal capital. Organizations it seems are what makes
it possible really for me to benefit from your social capital and
you from mine; they make social capital fungible.
And
there are two major fronts I think upon which organizations fight
this battle. First of all they help to manage the common pool resources
that are within a social system. Secondly they help to make the members
of the social system better "systems analysts" as it were,
or better social utilitarians by helping them to understand better
how their plans and "subjective visions" will mesh best
with those of their peers - and this process we call "moral education".
The remainder of this document will deal with each of these topics
separately. I won't be able to talk about the community computer center
at Colonia La Herencia here because it is so new, and I don't have
the data on that, but I will make reference to several other organizations
which are exemplary case studies of organizations which help to manage
and develop social capital.
Organizations
are what make social capital fungible. The value of the goods, services
and information which any individual is willing to contribute to the
social good needs to be leveraged and converted, and so it needs to
be accessible to other persons. In this way organizations connect
latent social capital within an environment with opportunities of
usefulness.
Organizations
are really what link everyone to everyone else. They mediate our experience.
They bridge intentional and automatic action, cementing our intentions
in ways that we could not do by shear willpower. As William James
has observed, our thinking tends to follow a process of automatization.
This process can also be thought of as occurring on the social level,
where ideas which were first new and requiring a great deal of attention
eventually become the automatic or normal way of doing things. On
the social level this process involves trust-building.
In
making an intervention for development, what we are basically doing
is setting up a market for social capital, or a mechanism for the
exchange and conversion of social capital. That is what effective
development organizations do. In social work they talk about a "crawdad
effect" wherein one persons efforts to move ahead may be overcome
by the overwhelming needs within the social system. Organizations
can work against this process and help to see that resources within
the social domain are always available and growing. It is really like
nurturing or starting a fire. The institutional environment needs
to be such that the social capital which is contributed is nurtured
and kindled, like starting a fire, so that it won't be lost. The problem
is not so much creating social resources but pulling them together
in a bricolage or an organizational fashion, in order to prevent the
social capital provided by individuals within the system from dissipating
before it has a chance to accumulate and be leveraged by others.
In
the model of development which we have been forming based on Dewey's
theory of the active self there are three components. The first two
are the two inputs to social progress, i.e. the subjective visions
of the members of the social system, and the social resources available
within the environment which are available to be leveraged and help
those visions come about, in whole or in part. It is a stepwise process.
Organizations constitute the third part of the model, and they modulate
the interactions between the two other parts, to help to see that
progress can occur and that the efforts of individuals within the
social system and the social resources do not dissipate.
With
respect to the management of resources within the social environment,
the role of development organizations is to make these resources available
to scaffold the process until they can be converted back into social
goods. Generally speaking this means making available enough resources
and at the same time making sure that what is attempted is not so
ambitious as to waste the social capital. If people expect too much
of the enterprise more than is able to be produced, it won't go. Development
organizations have to make sure that the resources which are put into
a social system are not overly extracted so that they can begin to
accumulate and grow.
Managing
resources in a development process for the accumulation of social
capital is a tricky process. That is why there is so much general
advice against merely distributing resources in situations where there
is apparent need. In many cases merely giving out aid can cause more
harm than good, because it may create dependence and other undesirable
side effects. One finds advice from many thoughtful analysts, such
as Andrew Carnegie or John Dewey, exhorting against a blanket policy
of giving away resources. However programs which move resources into
the social domain to be used and shared fairly, and then replaced
may have a major positive effect on social progress. The outstanding
example of a modern program which has done that successfully is the
Grameen Bank, where social resources are accumulated, lent and then
later largely repaid by the beneficiaries. Although the Grameen Bank
is satisfied if it can merely on average recover the principle of
the amount it lends, it still is in doing so building an accumulation
of social capital so that the efforts of the donors and program participants
are not dissipated and wasted.
Managing
resources in the social domain is one major role of development organizations.
A second and by far more important role of development organizations
is educational. We said, based on the Dewian model discussed above,
that individuals function basically as social utilitarians. That is
to say they attempt to actualize their subjective visions via the
implementation of social systems. However their subjective visions
often clash and this results in competition for resources. Given this,
it is vitally important that development organizations participate
in an educational process, to help each member of the social system
understand how she or he can in effect become a better social utilitarian,
or work to instantiate systems which are more mutually beneficial
to all the members of the social system. This is a process which is
sometimes referred to under the title of "moral education".
Probably
the most important role of any development program, wherever it might
be, is promoting civility. There needs to be a moral education and
any sort of development program which is really going to help people
has to promote this as a central focus of the program. It is the most
important thing development organizations can do, and successful development
organizations like the Grameen Bank do it well. In promoting these
standards of civility this is not to say that we can always live up
to them. We are all human and we often fail. No one can completely
live up to the ideal. However while realizing this, we should at the
same time maintain the goal of promoting civility, and promote it
as a central part of any development effort.
This
vision of a society of good is something that comes through in the
writings of John Dewey . He recognizes that there is something in
the social which transcends mere organization. Institutional environments
form incrementally, subject to a fundamental tension between the idiosyncratic
individual and the needs of the group, or the fact that everyone cannot
have their way. Development organizations, as was noted by Hanifan,
can provide the opportunity for trust building and forging bonds.
As I saw in Colonia La Herencia, in this type of work one meets very
exceptionally good people. What is really needed is the institutional
support that can support people like this. That is why development
organizations need to help in the process of promoting civility and
a constant mores of respect for all individuals. This is not to say
that we ought to attempt to make decisions for other people , but
rather that we ought to try to support them in their own inclinations
to choose rightly.
An
organization which is a model of effective moral education is Alcoholics
Anonymous. While not imposing any particular beliefs on participants
or assuming a "holier than thou" attitude, AA shares wisdom
with participants in helping them to see the social world more objectively,
making them in effect better "social utilitarians". It doesn't
impose a plan on them, but it gives participants rubrics and heuristics
which can help them more effectively implement their own emergent
visions of how to live better, one day at a time. AA provides its
members with conventions to let the individual mark themselves against
some fixed goal, and general advice on being responsible and caring
for others. Thus AA is an excellent example of how a development organization
can participate in moral education without imposing upon the beliefs
of others.
Basically
then organizations are the third component which is suggested by the
Dewian model of social capital, the other two elements being resources
in the social domain and the subjective visions of the individuals
involved. Viewing development as a dynamic interaction of these three
basic elements of any development effort, it is hoped, may help practitioners
to analyze a variety of different situations.
As
one final point, though, it should be said that the above is not meant
to imply that forming an effective organization to accumulate social
capital is an easy task. It is a difficult process and probably the
organizations which really do it well are far fewer than those which
attempt it. When it does happen it is a great credit to the dedicated
individuals who have made the commitment to make it possible - by
unselfishly giving of their own time, resources and energy for the
social good and expecting nothing in return.