The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind

by Raghuram G. Rajan

have focused on the physically proximate community through much of the book. We have more sources of identity than just the neighbourhood we live in, and thus more communities we belong to. I am a resident of Hyde Park, a neighbourhood in Cook County in Chicago, a city in the United States. I have other affiliations also. I am a citizen of India and a professor at the University of Chicago. I am a Tamilian Hindu; I speak English, Hindi, French, and Tamil with varying degrees of fluency; and I am a member of various organisations, both professional ones like the American Finance Association and those with a policy focus like the Group of Thirty. I am a member of various chat groups, including family and college alumni groups. Not only do we have identities that come to the forefront at different times, these identities can imply varying degrees of engagement and support. Nevertheless, few groups that we identify with engage and support us in the many ways that the ideal proximate local community and its constituents – our family, friends and neighbours, kin, colleagues at work, church, etc. – do. Many of us do not live and work in an ideal local community, though. That is why we look to other communities for our sense of identity. Some find it in religion, others in nationalism, yet others in criminal gangs or extremism. For those without strong ties to a real, grounded, community, these weaker ties to imagined, virtual, or criminal communities may become important sources ...

Without ties to a strong, grounded community