The Nature of the Community: Intergeneration Capital, Gemeinschaft , and Lifestyles

What the paper says

In studies of Comparative Economic Systems, the traditional paradigm to view system-choice of a country on a linear scale of State versus Markets needs to be extended to a Triangular Institution System-choice problem (TISP). Intergeneration capital is introduced as the basis to grow locational based social capital that will evolve to have the characteristics defining a community (ISC). Essentially, a system-choice problem entails choosing the lowest transaction cost method of facilitating public goods, private goods, and intergeneration goods. (Rajan, Raghuram. 2019. The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind by Raghuram Rajan. London: Penguin Press) is useful to build a framework embedding Schumpeterian insights for this analysis, involving an implicit exchange between State, Markets, and Community. While exit-voice and loyalty can help communities to self-select the forming of a community, there are transaction costs in shaping a particular pillar depending on the country and the community being studied. The approach restated a proposition of (Cheung, Steven N. S. 2020. “On a Fallacy in the Coase Theorem and the Theorem of Transaction Costs Substitution.” Man and the Economy 2020) on transaction costs substitution, with the objective not limiting to gain from trade, but establishing win-win-win for sustainable development. In terms of visible embodiment of abstract ideas, for every State , there is a flag. As much as Markets are embodied in many shopping malls today, sustainable development has been incorporated in many private Community developments. It leaves an open question on who and how best to fix dying communities, or even that they need fixing at all.