Mike Wiik asks,
> Anybody know any references on how trust is formed in human societies?
>
> I read with interest here the comment that, for some time (a millenia),
> it's been impossible in chinese society to trust anyone outside your
> family. Elsewhere I have heard similar things about Indian society. I am
> curious as to trust levels in different societies.
A book which sounds like it discusses the topic is Francis Fukuyama's
"Trust : The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity". Fukuyama is
best known for his essay, "The End of History" a decade ago, in which he
proposed that modern democratic capitalism is the final form of social
organization (a view he has sense modified).
>From the blurb at amazon.com:
Neoclassical economics, Fukuyama maintains, is 80 percent correct but
ignores the role of social capital ("reciprocity, moral obligation,
duty toward community, and trust" ) in facilitating the "stability
and prosperity of postindustrial societies." High-trust societies like
Japan, Germany, and (in spite of our individualism) the U.S. develop
the kind of flexible organizations that the global economy demands
far more easily than do low-trust societies or "familistic" nations
like China, France, Italy, and South Korea.
Hal
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