and the Olive Tree. The "golden straightjacket" and the "electronic herd," he argues, is forcing
nations to choose between adopting relatively open and bridging forms of social organization
that link them to the global economy or retaining more exclusive forms of social organization
that will ensure that they remain economically less developed.9
The writers just mentioned have identified some basic truths about the negative
consequences of not possessing effective bridging ties. At the same time, however, their
analyses fail to adequately deal with the negative outcomes that result from trying to force
communities and nations to simply abandon their traditional indigenous forms of bonding social
capital and adopt a "one size fits all" form of bridging social capital. The first and most dramatic
outcome is that groups under such pressure will react with a vengeance, as in the case of the very
effective attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ironically, globalization of travel
and communications permits effective coordination between those opposed to globalization and
increasingly suggests that such reactionary movements cannot simply be eliminated by
overwhelming force. This also helps to explain the tremendous growth of fundamentalist
movements in various parts of the world that challenge the very essence of globalization, even in
the face of extremely powerful corporate and governmental (national and inter-national) efforts
to stop them.10
There is however, a more serious long-term negative societal and international outcome
that can result from trying to force traditional communities and nations to give up their
indigenous social capital in order to gain bridging social capital. A tragic illustration of this is
found in the attempt to integrate Native American children into mainstream European-American
culture and social organization by placing them in boarding schools where they were forced to
abandon all use of their traditional language, religion and dress. The result was an extraordinary