Human capital
Desiderius Erasmus, by Hans Holbein the younger. Wikimedia Commons
The world of
Erasmus and Bourdieu
Social capital
Social capital is something you inherit, and also something you can build up by your own activity. Social capital enables you to achieve results which you could not achieve without it. It is the sum of relations you have with other people, in terms of contacts, access, good will, friendship, and all other elements that shape people’s disposition towards you.
By birth you automatically acquire contacts, access and good will in those social arenas where your family is accepted and appreciated. You can build on those elements by playing along with the rules of conduct of those arenas, and thereby increase your social capital further from that point of departure. The social arena you are born into will have numerous rules of behavior, codes of communication, codes of appearance and sets of values that you need to adhere to if you wish to capitalize on the good will your parents have built up. Some rules and codes are flexible, and others are rigid. By stretching the flexible codes to their utter limit, you will acquire reputation for excentricity – which is to your advantage if you know how the flexibility of the codes operates. If you interpret the flexibility in the wrong way, you may transgress borders and thereby lose good will.
This social capital that you are given at birth will be kept intact throughout your childhood and early youth because you are not held responsible for your acts in this period. Your social capital at this stage consists of your possession of all the codes and rules of conduct (as well as the good will) that are transferred from your parents to you. Later on you may lose this capital gradually by being passive and withdrawn from this social arena, consciously in opposition, or by developing a life style in breach with their codes of conduct – either through lack of attention to the evolution of the codes or through a failure to live up to the standards of success of those arenas.
Cultural capital
Culture is the sum of attitudes, values, and ways of doing things that you find in a society or a community, communicated and maintained over time by way of codes and rituals.
As you see with social arenas, you also find cultural arenas – with their own codes and rituals. The notions of social and cultural arenas are overlapping in many respects. Within a given social stratum you will find many cultural varieties, as you will find representatives of many social strata within a given cultural arena.
A social arena is a place where people from a given social class gather. The purpose of the gathering may be of any kind, but the interesting feature in this context is the character of the social classes gathered there. The more exclusive the arena is, the more socially homogeneous will the assembly of people be.
A cultural arena is a place which is characterised by the type of activity that goes on there. It may be a concert, a football match, or any other type of activity. The cultural arena may contain people from many different social classes. Some cultural activities draw people from many classes, while other activities may be very narrow with respect to the spread of social classes present. It is possible to study the degree of correlation between types of social classes and types of cultural activities. Some activities are socially exclusive, either because of the awkwardness of the activity or because of its financial cost.
Education is a central key to access to cultural arenas. Formal education gives you access to most arenas where this particular education is valued. If you in addition possess the codes of conduct and have personal relationships with the dominant persons of these arenas, you will have access to the so-called inner circles of these arenas. Access to these circles gives you high visibility, and high visibility opens up opportunities.
Aside from formal education, birth is a powerful provider of access to socially valued cultural arenas. Being born into one of the “right” families provides automatic informal education that leads to the possession of those codes and knowledge of those rituals that are in use in these circles. In addition to the access provided by the family ties and networks, this cultural competence opens opportunities in other arenas where this competence is valued. A combination of good formal education and “right” birth, ensures access to the social and cultural strata with the highest status – with the possible exception of strata that consciously aim at being “counter-cultural”. In the latter, personal indicators of high traditional social and cultural status are handicaps that will have to be surmounted if access is desired.
There are, of course, many social and cultural arenas where neither education nor birth is important at the outset. Popular political movements are examples of such. The history of labor movements in many countries shows that the founding leaders usually came from social groups with low levels of education and small financial means. However, as the movements became important, people with social or cultural status were motivated to join, and little by little took over the leadership – based on their superior educational competence (often in spite of their sometimes deficient possession of the prevailing cultural codes of their constituencies).
Financial capital
The importance of and the methods of access to financial capital are of course far less mysterious than the former two types of capital mentioned above. The ways to acquire it are numerous, with various criminal methods – organized or not – at one extreme, and honest building of a business starting with two bare hands at the other extreme. The whole specter of methods can be found in the economic life, and the power it bestows on the holder depends on the way it has been acquired. Legitimate acquisition of financial capital gives easier access to legitimate roads to power. Illegitimate acquisition requires hidden methods of acquiring and wielding power.
As organized crime proliferates, so does the revenue of organized crime. This revenue is either plowed back into further organized crime or whitewashed and invested in legal activities. Investment in legal activities by criminals is a source of power which can be used to strengthen the general relative power of organized crime.
Social capital is something you inherit, and also something you can build up by your own activity. Social capital enables you to achieve results which you could not achieve without it. It is the sum of relations you have with other people, in terms of contacts, access, good will, friendship, and all other elements that shape people’s disposition towards you.
By birth you automatically acquire contacts, access and good will in those social arenas where your family is accepted and appreciated. You can build on those elements by playing along with the rules of conduct of those arenas, and thereby increase your social capital further from that point of departure. The social arena you are born into will have numerous rules of behavior, codes of communication, codes of appearance and sets of values that you need to adhere to if you wish to capitalize on the good will your parents have built up. Some rules and codes are flexible, and others are rigid. By stretching the flexible codes to their utter limit, you will acquire reputation for excentricity – which is to your advantage if you know how the flexibility of the codes operates. If you interpret the flexibility in the wrong way, you may transgress borders and thereby lose good will.
This social capital that you are given at birth will be kept intact throughout your childhood and early youth because you are not held responsible for your acts in this period. Your social capital at this stage consists of your possession of all the codes and rules of conduct (as well as the good will) that are transferred from your parents to you. Later on you may lose this capital gradually by being passive and withdrawn from this social arena, consciously in opposition, or by developing a life style in breach with their codes of conduct – either through lack of attention to the evolution of the codes or through a failure to live up to the standards of success of those arenas.
Cultural capital
Culture is the sum of attitudes, values, and ways of doing things that you find in a society or a community, communicated and maintained over time by way of codes and rituals.
As you see with social arenas, you also find cultural arenas – with their own codes and rituals. The notions of social and cultural arenas are overlapping in many respects. Within a given social stratum you will find many cultural varieties, as you will find representatives of many social strata within a given cultural arena.
A social arena is a place where people from a given social class gather. The purpose of the gathering may be of any kind, but the interesting feature in this context is the character of the social classes gathered there. The more exclusive the arena is, the more socially homogeneous will the assembly of people be.
A cultural arena is a place which is characterised by the type of activity that goes on there. It may be a concert, a football match, or any other type of activity. The cultural arena may contain people from many different social classes. Some cultural activities draw people from many classes, while other activities may be very narrow with respect to the spread of social classes present. It is possible to study the degree of correlation between types of social classes and types of cultural activities. Some activities are socially exclusive, either because of the awkwardness of the activity or because of its financial cost.
Education is a central key to access to cultural arenas. Formal education gives you access to most arenas where this particular education is valued. If you in addition possess the codes of conduct and have personal relationships with the dominant persons of these arenas, you will have access to the so-called inner circles of these arenas. Access to these circles gives you high visibility, and high visibility opens up opportunities.
Aside from formal education, birth is a powerful provider of access to socially valued cultural arenas. Being born into one of the “right” families provides automatic informal education that leads to the possession of those codes and knowledge of those rituals that are in use in these circles. In addition to the access provided by the family ties and networks, this cultural competence opens opportunities in other arenas where this competence is valued. A combination of good formal education and “right” birth, ensures access to the social and cultural strata with the highest status – with the possible exception of strata that consciously aim at being “counter-cultural”. In the latter, personal indicators of high traditional social and cultural status are handicaps that will have to be surmounted if access is desired.
There are, of course, many social and cultural arenas where neither education nor birth is important at the outset. Popular political movements are examples of such. The history of labor movements in many countries shows that the founding leaders usually came from social groups with low levels of education and small financial means. However, as the movements became important, people with social or cultural status were motivated to join, and little by little took over the leadership – based on their superior educational competence (often in spite of their sometimes deficient possession of the prevailing cultural codes of their constituencies).
Financial capital
The importance of and the methods of access to financial capital are of course far less mysterious than the former two types of capital mentioned above. The ways to acquire it are numerous, with various criminal methods – organized or not – at one extreme, and honest building of a business starting with two bare hands at the other extreme. The whole specter of methods can be found in the economic life, and the power it bestows on the holder depends on the way it has been acquired. Legitimate acquisition of financial capital gives easier access to legitimate roads to power. Illegitimate acquisition requires hidden methods of acquiring and wielding power.
As organized crime proliferates, so does the revenue of organized crime. This revenue is either plowed back into further organized crime or whitewashed and invested in legal activities. Investment in legal activities by criminals is a source of power which can be used to strengthen the general relative power of organized crime.