Editing Social capital (section)

=== 18th–19th century ===
The power of ''[[community governance]]'' has been stressed by many philosophers from antiquity to the 18th century, from [[Aristotle]] to [[Thomas Aquinas]], and [[Edmund Burke]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bowles|first1=S.|last2=Gintis|first2=S.|year=2002|title=Social Capital and Community Governance|journal=The Economic Journal|volume=112|issue=483|pages=419–436|citeseerx=10.1.1.508.4110|doi=10.1111/1468-0297.00077|s2cid=12530827}}</ref> This vision was strongly criticised at the end of the 18th century, with the development of the idea of ''[[Homo economicus|Homo Economicus]]'' and subsequently with ''[[rational choice theory]]''. Such a set of theories became dominant in the last centuries, but many thinkers questioned the complicated relationship between ''modern society'' and the importance of ''old institutions'', in particular family and traditional communities.<ref name=":3" />

The concept that underlies social capital has a much longer history; thinkers exploring the relation between associational life and democracy were using similar concepts regularly by the 19th century, drawing on the work of earlier writers such as [[James Madison]] (''[[The Federalist Papers]]'') and [[Alexis de Tocqueville]] (''[[Democracy in America]]'') to integrate concepts of social cohesion and [[connectedness]] into the [[Pluralism (political theory)|pluralist]] tradition in [[American politics (political science)|American political science]]. [[John Dewey]] may have made the first direct mainstream use of ''social capital'' in ''[[The School and Society]]'' in 1899, though he did not offer a definition.

In the first half of the 19th century, de Tocqueville had observations about American life that seemed to outline and define social capital. He observed that Americans were prone to meeting at as many gatherings as possible to discuss all possible issues of state, economics, or the world that could be witnessed. The high levels of transparency caused greater participation from the people and thus allowed for democracy to work better.