Re: Question of trust

From: hal@finney.org
Date: Thu Sep 07 2000 - 09:05:59 MDT


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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