Low-trust Society
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A low-trust society is defined as one in which interpersonal
trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...
is relatively low, and which do not have shared
ethical values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...
. Conversely, a high-trust society is one where interpersonal
trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...
is relatively high, and where ethical values are strongly shared.


Institutions and mechanisms

According to researchers, low-trust societies are typically kinship-based; outcomes of low-trust societies can include difficulty in forming and maintaining corporate structures. Mechanisms and institutions that are corrupted, dysfunctional, or absent in low-trust societies include respect for private property rights, a trusted civil court system, democratic voting and acceptance of electoral outcomes, and voluntary tax payment. Research has identified a correlation between ''linear-active cultures'' (i.e. following a daily schedule with a single task at a time) with high-trust societies, and ''multi-active cultures'' (flexible schedules with many tasks at once, often in an unplanned order) with low-trust cultures.


Self governance

High-trust societies display a high degree of mutual trust not imposed by outside "contractual, legal or hierarchical regulation", but instead are based upon "prior moral consensus". Much writing on the subject refers to Francis Fukuyama's 1995 book, ''Trust: Social Virtues and Creation of Prosperity,'' in which he describes "the ability of various peoples to organize effectively for commercial purposes without relying on blood ties or government intervention".


References


Sources

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Further reading


Trust me
a 2016 '' Freakonomics Radio'' episode about trust in societies * – Example of low-trust society. {{socio-stub Sociological theories