It Takes a Family

Senator Santorum argues that a genuine conservative is animated by a sense of stewardship for an inheritance. But what do we inherit as Americans? Building on Robert Putnam’s discussion of “social capital,” the habits of connection and trust that are the pre-conditions of any decent society, Santorum assesses how well, in the past generation, Americans have cared for various kinds of inherited “capital”: social, moral, economic, cultural, and educational. He also discusses innovative policies by which we can undertake to replenish such capital. Throughout this book, Santorum emphasizes the central role of the family—in contradistinction to the abstract “village” of the centralized state, as promoted by Senator Hilary Clinton—in achieving the common good.