(impact of friendship on traditional liberal values, such as equality, diversity, and mobility, is mixed. ) *The impact of friendships on values, equality, diversity, and mobility (likelihood of moving to new locations) sometimes leads to change and sometimes leads to supporting the person to continue as he or she already was. (political downsides for governments committed to social inclusion: it is, by definition, exclusive). *Friendships tend to be limited. Most people have one or two really good friends and a fairly small group of other friends, excluding (keeping out) everyone else from these relationships. Each pair or group of friends is not the same as other pairs or groups of friends, which will automatically lead to differences between friendship groups. (hoard social advantage to the detriment of social mobility.) *People in the higher ranks of society befriend each other (hoarding=keeping these friendships in these groups only). These friends improve the social status of those already in their friendship groups, leaving out everyone else. This can make it challenging for people trying to change (mobility) their social status. Friendship is seen—with some justification—as a private matter, but the strong links between friendship and other social goods—including better health, more effective careers, and higher life satisfaction—should be enough to merit greater attention from (decision-makers). *"Decision-makers" in this instance means the people in government who make the decisions. (So what are the political implications of these observations? Perhaps the best politicians can aim for is not to make things worse for friendships. But political institutions can improve or worsen the conditions in which friendships are formed.) *If politicians could encourage friendship building between people who might not have become friends naturally, they may be able to use friendships to make the changes they desire.

(impact of friendship on traditional liberal values, such as equality, diversity, and mobility, is mixed. ) Friendship both helps, and hurts, traditional liberal values. (political downsides for governments committed to social inclusion: it is, by definition, exclusive) Friendship conflicts with the goal of government. The goal of government (social inclusion) is to ensure every citizen has equal opportunity. Friendship creates inequality, as people with more friends are more likely to be helped by them. (hoard social advantage to the detriment of social mobility.) Rich people have mostly rich friends, and that they help each other, but not the poor. (decision-makers) Politicians. (So what are the political implications of these observations? Perhaps the best politicians can aim for is not to make thing worse for friendship. But political institutions can improve or worsen the conditions in which friendships are formed.) Should friendship be included in laws? Perhaps politicians should try not to affect existing friendships. But political institutions can affect how new friendships are created.