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States, where Robert Putnam struck a chord with the publication of his book Bowling Alone. It presented evidence such as declining participation in social organizations, bowling leagues among these, and other markers of shared activities. But with the exception of Scandinavia and Japan, there appears to be a common pattern of a decline in trust in developed countries during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as reductions in political participation and organizational activity. The earlier part of the twentieth century saw social capital rise steadily in the United States, peaking around 1960. The data show that other developed nations lag behind the U.S. trend by approximately two decades.48

The General Social Survey in the United States has tracked changes in trust (among its standard core of demographic and attitudinal questions) over several decades. In answer to the question “can people be trusted?” in 1972, 46.3 percent answered positively; by 2006 only 39 percent did so. In Pew surveys trust was found to be lowest among the youngest Americans, increasing up to middle age, then leveling off.49 Generations born up to the 1940s exhibited high levels of trust, but each generation born after that was less trusting than the one before.50 Trends in Australia are similar to the United States, with a general decline in most forms of social capital and particularly in rates of interpersonal trust from the 1980s to the 1990s.51

The same is true of many other industrial countries. In the United Kingdom, Peter Hall found that there was no equivalent erosion of social participation in Britain, but there was a decline in social trust. In 1959, 56 percent of adults agreed that most people could be trusted, but by 1981 this had fallen to 44 percent. British Social Attitudes data indicates that this was followed by a two-decade period of stability.52 There are a few exceptions, however. Across nations, Swedes rank highest on measures of trust and organizational activity. Sweden differs from many other industrial democracies in that it does not appear to have suffered the same sort of collapse in civic engagement; involvement in sporting clubs and charities, as well as rates of informal socializing, were higher in the 1990s than in the 1980s.53 Civic engagement in Japan has been essentially stable since World War II, and the past two decades have seen a slight rise in social trust and trust in political institutions.54

I return to the question of trust in the next chapter. There are good reasons to believe that a negative vicious spiral of declining trust and increasing inequality has operated over the years. In Bowling Alone, Putman argued that people’s engagement with their community, the level of social capital, has diminished as American society has become decreasingly egalitarian. “What is at stake is not merely warm, cuddly feelings or frissons of community pride. We shall review hard evidence that our schools and neighbourhoods don’t work so well when community bonds slacken, that our economy, our democracy and even our health and happiness depend on adequate stocks of social capital,” he wrote.55 The two probably feed off each other: we are more likely to engage in community organizations with people we feel comfortable with because they are pretty much like us, including in their social and economic status as well as their interests or beliefs; and the less contact we have with a wide range of other people in our communities, the more likely it is that the business or job opportunities open to us will be quite narrow in their range. Job offers and deals typically come through informal contacts, so your social circle makes a big difference to your individual prospects.56 Some evidence of decreased social mobility in the United States and United Kingdom ties in with this.57

The increasing distance between the incomes of the rich and poor has unquestionably contributed to reduced trust and social capital in the countries where inequality has become extreme. The very well off lead lives so separate that in some cases they literally