Social Capital and Inequality

Social capital and inequality refers to the systematic relationship between network position and the distribution of material and symbolic resources. Pierre Bourdieu's analysis of social capital was always about class reproduction: exclusive networks function as mechanisms of exclusion, converting social connections into economic advantage. The empirical literature confirms that social capital is not merely unequally distributed but actively produces inequality.

Network segregation — the clustering of high-status individuals with each other and the isolation of low-status groups — means that bridging capital is structurally unavailable to those who need it most. The meritocratic framing of social capital as something individuals can build through effort obscures the structural barriers that make network access itself a class privilege. Social capital theory without a theory of power is merely a celebration of the networks that already exist.