The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7466 p208
25 August 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

PDF 60K, Acrobat Reader

• The Society (4)
• Retention fees (12)
• Venous thromboembolism
• Social capital
• Pharmacist attire

Letters to the Editor

Social capital

Refreshing viewpoint

From Mr K. D. Ball, MRPharmS

The article on social capital by Stephen Fishwick (PJ, 11 August, p164) was interesting and gave a refreshing viewpoint. I was, however, surprised that Francis Fukuyama’s book on trust and the social virtues and the creation of prosperity¹ was ignored.

This is one of the seminal works on this subject although there are many others concerning matters of trust and its relation to social cohesiveness. The “glue” to which the author refers is not social capital but trust, which is the item that underpins social capital.

There is plenty of literature on trust and social contracts including a large amount of work on feminist perspectives by Trudy Govier² and Annette Baier.³ To assist your readers in pursuing this fascinating topic I would suggest reading the Fukuyama book and then literature by the two female authors as well as more renown philosophers such as Hume and Locke.

This would then provide a more balanced approach to the interpretation of social capital and its relevance to pharmaceutical matters.

Ken Ball
Wigton, Cumbria

References

1. Fukuyama, F. Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. New York: Free Press; 1995.

2. Govier, T. Social trust and human communities. Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press; 1997.

3. Baier A. Trust and antitrust: trust and its varieties. Ethics 1986;96:231–60.

Send your letter to The Editor

Previous Topic (Venous thromboembolism)
Next Topic (Pharmacist attire)