Social capital is a term used in sociology? and economics as a sometimes-vague replacement for such terms as "repute", "trust", "social ties?", "goodwill?". It is generally acknowledge that the legal instrument of trademark exists primarily to "protect" earned value in these as property rights. This is very different from the rationale for copyright? or for patent which protect specific works not specific groups.
Metrics that purport to value social capital tend to invoke social networks, analysis, mention social contracts and institution?s, and refer vaguely to "the value of interpersonal ties and relationships."
The main economic view of social capital is that it substitutes for other kinds of capital in various sorts of operations, e.g. instead of financial capital credit rating? or cash, one might have ties or bonds to friends in a position to provide resources without payments or borrowing, e.g. instead of instructional capital in the form of a business plan, one might simply be trusted to do the right thing at the right time with the right resources.
The "social economy" of unpaid volunteer services has become a major focus of government policy. This term is often used in parallel with the term social capital - one way to define "social economy" is "that subset of the service economy that relies on unpaid labour provided by volunteers on the basis of some social capital exchange - a gain for volunteers and an obligation for receivers of help."
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