22 United States The EconomistAugust 3rd 2019
T
he dolphinscontested their final meet of the summer last
weekend. It was an away contest—so held at the neighbour-
hood pool of a different Maryland suburb from Lexington’s own.
Yet it was much the same as the dozen meets, home and away, his
local swim team had competed in since mid-June. There was an
early start, with swimmers aged 6-18 required for warm-up laps by
8am. Swim parents—mostly both parents of each Dolphins swim-
mer—meanwhile gathered in knee-length shorts and polo shirts
to commiserate one another on the early morning scramble.
Then there was the national anthem—typically sung by a child
(because how many adults can manage “and the rockets’ red
glare...”?) but this time played by a teenage swimmer on her cello.
Several hundred parents and children turned solemnly towards
the national flag, hanging limp by the pool, with hands and gog-
gles on hearts. Then, to a burst of pop music and cheesy wisecracks
from the announcer, starters, timers and stroke-and-turn judges
took their places, and the first row of swimmers took their marks.
Of the many benefits America has bestowed on your (British)
columnist, few beat the Dolphins. The neighbourhood swim team
is one of his family’s main shared activities. (The feeling of
amused satisfaction as the boys’ hands reach for their hearts dur-
ing the anthem never fades.) It also affords them superb competi-
tion—powered by its local teams, swimming is huge in Maryland;
its swimmers won more golds at the 2016 Olympics than Australia.
The Dolphins and their home pool on the edge of Washington, dc,
are also a source of friendships. Part-funded by a portion of the lo-
cal property taxes, they are the heart of a community that is sur-
prisingly close-knit given how busy and itinerant its residents are.
This makes the Dolphins an example of Tocquevillean America: a
nation of strong communities founded on voluntary service. Well-
heeled suburbs are where it still thrives.
That might seem unlikely. American wonks have fretted about
declining civic participation since the publication of Robert Put-
nam’s groundbreaking study, “Bowling Alone”, two decades ago.
The main explanations included growing work pressure—mainly
because of women’s entry into the workforce—and the decline of
social institutions such as mainline protestant churches. And as
those factors have proved unremitting, so the decline has contin-ued.Figures released by the Bureau of Labour Statistics suggest a
quarter of Americans volunteer for community or charitable en-
deavours, a proportion that is high by rich-world standards; but
America’s lowest level for two decades. Most troublingly, the de-
cline is steepest in small towns and rural areas whose communi-
ties were once ironclad. Yet the overall volume of voluntary service
has held up, in part because well-educated suburbanites such as
your columnist’s neighbours are doing more of it.
The effort behind the Dolphins illustrates this. The team’s di-
rector, Jeff Mascott, estimates that almost all the parents of around
100 swimmers contribute somehow (and he knows who does not).
Around 30 have a formal role; a similar number volunteer infor-
mally, as timers or by providing meals. The uncommon property-
tax arrangement is a huge advantage. Yet the biggest investment in
the team is parental time.
This setup gives rise to a few heroes. When not running the Dol-
phins—and until recently the local road race, a soccer team and va-
rious things at church—Mr Mascott manages a company and four
children (his wife is merely a law professor who helps with itfor
the Dolphins and sits on the board of the local school foundation).
Otherwise, for most of the parents involved volunteering for the
Dolphins is not at all altruistic because the benefits are so large.
The company of broadly like-minded people is amusing (and
could constitute useful networking). As well as being great fun, the
team is likewise a lesson for the children in building social capital.
For working parents, its daily training sessions are a solution to
the long school-holiday.
The fact that less well-educated Americans have struggled to
replace their dwindling Methodist churches and labour unions
with neo-Tocquevillean projects like the Dolphins underlines how
inadequate income is as a measure of inequality. Social capital is a
huge contributor to well-being that more and more Americans are
missing out on. This will weigh on their children’s prospects, too.
Lacking experience of social institutions, they are less likely to
participate in them. It is a sobering comparison with the lucky Dol-
phins—made worse by the fact that such community activities,
though not obviously a cause of inequality, are much less of a sol-
ution to it than the earlier social institutions. The churches and
unions were far more powerful—and also inclusive and evangelis-
ing (though non-whites were often excluded). The swim team is
only open to people able to afford the local property prices.A lucky stroke; a poor turn
In other words, American civil society is not so much declining as
bifurcating; just as work and educational opportunity is. Privilege
and disadvantage are becoming entrenched. That suggests it will
be hard to rebuild social capital where it is fading fastest. Its de-
mise is part of a broader story of stagnant wages, poor schools and
shaky confidence—which, in turn, will take more than a renewal
in local organising to arrest. Yet that is still an important goal. And
the vibrant social institutions of privileged Americans should at
least be easier to spread around than their other advantages, be-
cause they draw on such well-established traditions.
More than money, they require local leadership and enthusi-
asm, qualities as old as America. And, as the country’s still-high
rates of volunteering show, they remain characteristic of it. For a
newcomer to the Tocquevillean tradition, that is the most striking
thing about a local effort like the Dolphins. It represents a culture
that simply does not exist anything like so vigorously in most oth-
er countries. It is America, for richer or poorer, at its best. 7Lexington The mighty Dolphins
Lessons in national well-being from a well-run neighbourhood swim team