[neilk]

Yochai Benkler's book The Wealth of Networks talks about this at length. The whole text is available online but don't let that stop you from running out right now and buying a seminal work of our time.

Here's a passage you may find interesting:

"For a wide range of reasons - institutional, cultural, and possibly technological - some resources are more readily capable of being mobilized by social relations than by money. If you want to get your nephew a job at a law firm in the United States today, a friendly relationship with the firm's hiring partner is more likely to help than passing on an envelope full of cash. If this theory of social capital is correct, then sometimes you should be willing to trade off financial rewards for social capital. Critically, the two are not fungible or cumulative."

Benkler's argument is rather complex, so I urge people to read the chapter in full (if not the book) before gainsaying it.

http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php?title=Se...