Trust

Prosperity (financial, social) is more than just property rights and contract enforcement. Without trust, fundamental human interactions are too costly; that harms human societies. How to measure such an intangible? Fukuyama teaches by example, describing social institutions in high-trust cultures (Japan, Germany, USA) and low-trust ones (China, Southern Italy, France). He analyzes and explains, and warns us – fifteen years ago! – of the dangers of relying on trust without building more. He sees the US doing just that ... and that was before Bush II, before Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, before Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya/whatever is next. Before the current crop of Batshit-Crazy Republicans. And he correctly warns that it's easier to spend trust than to build it. We're in trouble.

Fukuyama holds no punches. He is not afraid to make moral judgments, especially about the tendency of multiculturalists to say that all societies are equally valid. They're not, and good on him for stressing that. To my dismay, though, he defends religion – especially Protestantism – as a force for good, in the sense that it is strongly linked to building a work ethic in developing cultures. Ouch. It hurts me to consider that, and I don't know if this “good” is enough to justify the rest of the evils brought on by religion ... but clearly I need to evaluate the possibility.

Sadly, Fukuyama doesn't touch on issues near and dear to me: the effect of urban mobility on trust; reputation management; or biological/evolutionary components of trust (his analysis is historical/cultural, i.e. recent). I'd love to see followup writings taking those into consideration.