Robert D. Putnam Quotes

Contemporary discussion of inequality in America often conflates two related but distinct issues: • Equality of income and wealth. The distribution of income and wealth among adults in today’s America — framed by the Occupy movement as the 1 percent versus the 99 percent — has generated much partisan debate during the past several years. Historically, however, most Americans have not been greatly worried about that sort of inequality: we tend not to begrudge others their success or care how high the socioeconomic ladder is, assuming that everyone has an equal chance to climb it, given equal merit and energy. • Equality of opportunity and social mobility. The prospects for the next generation — that is, whether young people from different backgrounds are, in fact, getting onto the ladder at about the same place and, given equal merit and energy, are equally likely to scale it — pose an altogether more momentous problem in our national culture. Beginning with the “all men are created equal” premise of our national independence, Americans of all parties have historically been very concerned about this issue.

"If we think of politics as an industry, we might delight in its new "labour-saving efficiency", but if we think of politics as democratic deliberation, to leave people out is to miss the whole point of the exercise."

Busy people tend to forgo the one activity - TV watching _ that is most lethal to community involvement

today is a place of stark class divisions, where (according to school officials) wealthy kids park BMW convertibles in the high school lot next to decrepit junkers that homeless classmates drive away each night to live in.

teacher flight from the challenges in such schools — violence and disorder, truancy, lower school readiness and English-language proficiency, less supportive home environments — means that students in these schools get a generally inferior education. Many teachers in poor schools today are doing a heroic job, driven by idealism, but in a market economy the most obvious way to attract more and better teachers to such demanding work is to improve the conditions of their employment.

parents in poor neighborhoods are more likely to experience depression, stress, and illness, which in turn “are associated with less warm and consistent parenting.

Here the question is whether growing up in a poor neighborhood imposes any additional handicaps. The answer is yes.

we tend not to begrudge others their success or care how high the socioeconomic ladder is, assuming that everyone has an equal chance to climb it, given equal merit and energy.

these costs total about $500 billion per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). More specifically, we estimate that childhood poverty each year: (1) reduces productivity and economic output by an amount equal to 1.3 percent of GDP, (2) raises the costs of crime by 1.3 percent of GDP, and (3) raises health expenditures and reduces the value of health by 1.2 percent of GDP.

As a matter of fact, mankind now possesses for the first time the tools and knowledge to create whatever kind of world he wants...

High-quality national surveys of high school seniors confirm that kids from less educated homes are less knowledgeable about and interested in politics, less likely to trust the government, less likely to vote, and much less likely to be civically engaged in local affairs than their counterparts from college-educated homes.

The U.S. educational system cannot be the sole cause of the waning educational stature of the U.S.

Schooling — unequal as it is in America — plays only a minor role in alleviating or creating test score gaps.

Slavery was, in fact, a social system designed to destroy social capital among slaves and between slaves and freemen.