Robert D. Putnam 
The upswing: How we came together a century ago and how we can do it again
by Robert D. Putman with Shalyn Romney Garrett
(The Swift Press, £25.00)
Frank Litton
This is a book for anyone who is interested in the history of the United States of America. Covering the last 125 years, from the ‘Gilded Age’ to the present, it stands apart from many histories of that period; written by social scientists, it tracks the paths of economic, political, social, and cultural change with data most often found in the domain of the social sciences. It will also interest those concerned with the condition of US democracy, and, indeed western democracies in general.
Robert D. Putman is best known for his investigations into the factors that sustain a healthy democracy. He introduced the concept of ‘social capital’. When citizens come together to run clubs, societies, associations, they generate social capital. It pays dividends in healthy democracies whose politics paint the ‘big picture’.
For example, the social capital produced by the Irish Country Women’s Association and Macra na Feirme has and does support our democracy, even if, or rather because they are apolitical. Should its membership decline and its pitches close, then our democracy would be weakened.
Inequality
Like so many, Prof. Putman laments the rising economic inequality, social divisions, and partisan politics in today’s US. It’s difficult to articulate and implement a vision of the common good as individuals retreat into their ‘bubbles’. Prof. Putman saw similarities with the condition of the US in the late 19th Century.
He decided to investigate, and with a master-sociologist’s grasp of where data could be found and what it could reveal, he did find similarities between then and now. Individualism, inequality, and political tribalism mark both the gilded age and the present. He found more: he found the path from then to now had the shape of an inverted horseshoe.
Putman calls it the ‘I:we:I’ route and finds it again and again. For example, in the rise, fall and rise again of economic equality; in the rise and fall of national chapter-based associations; in the move from individualism to community and back to individualism between 1890-2017.
Conclusion
All in all, 57 figures displaying indicators from diverse sources converge on the same conclusion: the United States moved from an individualistic, unequal and conflicted society to a more equal, communitarian and politically-united society and back again. The high point of ‘we’ occurred in the 1950s, the 1960s mark the pivot towards today’s ‘I’.
Prof. Putman recognises that the 1950s were far from a perfect realisation of ‘we’. He investigates the circumstances of both African Americans and women – both groups who were far from equal members of the ‘we’. He reports, however, that substantial progress was made to redress the inequalities on the upward path.
Analyses can take the form of a ‘chain’ or a ‘rope’. In one, the conclusion is supported by a chain that moves via well-established propositions and rigorous deductions to its conclusion. This analysis is as strong as its weakest link. The rope analysis weaves together many strands. While each is itself weak, brought together they gain considerable strength.
Prof. Putman and his associate are outstanding weavers. It is not just the massive quantity of data [threads] they collected that impresses, their presentation in figures and prose is exemplary.
Prof. Putman wants to do more than provide a tapestry of the last 125 years. His worry is the distemper of US politics and his intention is to find lessons for change in history. The lesson is obvious: the ascent to ‘we’ was propelled by the social capital produced by formation of many associations, so we should form new associations rebuilding social capital. Obvious, yes, but useful?
* * *
Have we any reason to expect history to repeat itself bringing back the sense of shared purposes and the common good?
Prof. Putman pays no attention to the debates of political philosophers and economists that accompanied the changes he charts. We need to bring these into focus if we want to access the prospect of a return to ‘we’. These debates were framed within the tradition of liberal democracy. It provided the resources for the ‘we’ as well the basis for its critique.
It helps to see the I/we distinction as a reflection of the more basic distinction between belonging and autonomy. We need both to belong and to be autonomous. What is the value of belonging without autonomy? Or autonomy without belonging?
Criticism
The 1960s saw increasing criticism of the conditions of belonging by an increasingly autonomous citizenry scandalised by the treatment of African Americans, the oppression of women, and futile slaughter of an unjust war in Vietnam.
In the process the ‘belonging’ was undermined, and the value of autonomy amplified. Today we approach a culture that satisfies neither our need for belonging or autonomy. The problem can be traced to the liberal order that presents the balance between autonomy and belonging as a trade-off: belonging is the price individuals must pay to enjoy autonomy.
We need to recover an understanding that allows us to see both belonging and autonomy as mutually-enhancing.
