Social Capital Framework And Its Implications To Economics

After being produced, the Social Capital theory has been accepted rapidly by all fields of social discipline. Social scholars used the theory in their researches and developed it in the same time. But as a new discipline, the Social Capital theory hasn't developed into a systematic system. The discussions on its concept, producing, accumulation and function mechanism was widespread. Scholars brought up different opinions on Social Capital from different viewpoints. However the development of social economy has demanded social discipline of something new research. The systematization of the Social Capital theory will be important to both sociology and economics.Just as the economy has always developed with the society, so the research on economy also need social knowledge. Based on the former scholars' researches on Social Capital, this paper is intended to systematize the Social Capital theory by using some knowledge of the economics, sociology and behavioral science and some logical means.Social Capital is substance embedded in the social system, which have the capital property: actors can get expected revenue by investment on it. Social system is composed of two elements: actors and something—events or resources—mastered by the actors. The interactions focused on the events or resources between actors facilitate the operation of the system. We hold that, Social Capital is composed of three integrated parts: networks, social trust and social norms. The production and accumulation of Social Capital are based on three conditions: the long-term interactions between actors, the quality of actors' action to pursue profit, the actors' altruism behaviors.As the quality of capital to pursue benefit, the natural function of Social Capital is that actors can get expected revenue by investment on it. The individuals can get and master more social resources via Social Capital. On the meso-aspect, Social Capital can improve the inter-cohesion and coordination in the Social Networks and Organizations. On the macro-aspect, a nation or society can fully mobilize the resources and power embedded in the social system. Constructing some appropriate variables on network, social trust and social norms, we can do correlation analysis on the Social Capital and the development of the Social Economy.As far as our nation to be concerned, the status of Chinese Social Capital is decided by the "Diversity-orderly Structure" of Chinese society. It is that: the affinity networks, the rupture of trust, the ineffective of norms and the lacking of Non-Government Organization.