I am old enough to have lived through the period when the Masons the Elks and the Rotary were large organizations rapidly declining in size. By the 1960s and the rise of the hippies these large American organizations were in complete decline.
These organizations were mostly male but they had female counterparts. One reason for joining was to enhance and expand an individual's business contacts. The other reason and the most important reason was to learn the rudiments of organization.
These organizations provided the future corporate leaders, lay social leaders and most importantly the political leadership in our society.
With their demise came the rapid decline in the quality of urban, state and national political life. There are books on the subject the most famous of which came out of an article titled Bowling Alone. I lived through this. I subscribe to this reliable observation of the nature of American society.
What I have observed on my own is that we went through a period of hyper individualism and now people are learning their organizational skills from jobs, college courses, MBAs and most importantly from observing the people around them who are managers.
Corporate managerial skill has now replaced the learning medium that was formally held by volunteer organizations.
For me this is positive because it is a shift to the commercial world as the direct source of management and leadership. In time, this may move some of our commercial mores into the political world.