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Fukuyama’s Trust

The role of trust and trust networks in the society

Overview

I. Brief review of the books of Fukuyama

II. Key concepts

III. Derived ideas

IV. Conclusions

The End of History and the Last Man

• the end of communist and fascist dictatorships in many countries (East and South Europe, South America, Far East);

• Hegel’s concept of ‘end of history’;

• original state (Hegel, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau) and social contract;

• foundation: Jewish-Christian tradition of egalitarianism and original personal freedom;

• forces:

a. the evolution and accumulation of rational science;

b. the personal pride (the ‘thumos’);

The End of History and the Last Man

• the best is the liberal capitalism = free market + individual freedom rights;

• the liberal capitalism:

a. allows and supports the development and accumulation of rational science;

b. channels the personal pride into non-destructive forms and the people focus on economic well-being;

c. allows regular change and refreshment of the social leadership;

• this is the end of history in the sense of Hegel.

Trust: the social virtues and the creation of prosperity

• the neoclassical economic theory explains up to 80% extent the economic events, the rest depends on the role of the state and of the social organization of the society; language of good and bad;

• family centred societies:

a. China and the Confucianism: big families;

b. South-Italy: isolated small families;

c. North-Italy: family networks;

d. France: the family as the counter pole of the strong state


• common characteristics (family centred societies):a. the trust ends at the border of the family;

b. family based companies, which are usually small;

c. strong state, dream carrier: state bureaucrat;

• institution centred societies: Japan, Germany, US

• common characteristics (institution centred societies):

a. they have customs to extend the trust beyond the limits of the family;

b. large companies with the involvement of non-family members at high positions;

c. extensive civil society and strong bounds between group members


• advantages of high trust:

a. lower administration costs, higher institutional reliability;

b. large and efficient organizations;

• disadvantages of low trust:

a. corruption and trade with influences;

b. small and inefficient organizations;

• objective: reproduce the trust system of the society

The Great Disruption: human nature and the reconstitution of

social order• particularly well documented with statistical tables;

• how to measure the social disruption:

a. criminality;

b. family disorganization;

c. reduction of trust in social/political institutions;

• effects of social disruption:

a. reduced family socialization;

b. higher juvenile delinquency;

c. decreasing trust in social/political institutions;


social order• the disruption is culture-dependent;

• how to stop the disruption and restore the order ?

• the humans evolved to cooperate and to organize themselves;

• homo hierarchicus;

• the limiting factors of spontaneous organization:

a. trust radii;

b. transparency;

c. justice / equitability;

d. long standing bad choices;


social order• what to do:

a. decentralized religion;

b. civil society networks;

c. self-regulation and self-organization to reduce crime;

• effects of capitalism on the social capital:

a. destruction: new technologies, freedom of dissidence;

c. construction: freedom of self-organization, free market competition;

• past experience: moral revolutions, well-founded modernization, integration of immigrants;

Key concepts

1. Trust in individuals and institutions:

expresses the beliefs about the predictability of actions;

2. Economic, social and leadership efficiency:

how efficient are in handling problems, specially problems of growth;

3. The role of the state:

to what extent should the state intervene in the development of spontaneous economic and social order

Key concepts

4. The role of culture and religion:

the language of good and bad

5. Family socialization:

cultural value transmission if exists

6. Delinquency and crime:

decreases the trust, special attn: juvenile delinquency

7. Homo hierarchicus:

evolutionary determination of humans to cooperate and organize;

Key concepts

8. The evolution of science:

the rational science accumulates and fuels the social evolution;

9. Networks of interaction:

the personal and institutional networks are means of trust generation;

10. Integration of immigrants:

essential to solve growth problems

Derived ideas

1. Information transmission:

the behavior of individuals and organizations transmits implicit information by the rules to which they conform;

2. Predictive stability:

if a society is able to process the information originating from its environment and itself and predict the problems and their solutions it can stay on its desired path of development;

dynamic and static stability;

Derived ideas

3. Levels and circles of trust:

the belief about the predictability of actions varies in steps and each step has its associated trust radius;

4. Optimal level of trust and efficient organizations:

the organization is efficient if the overall trust level within itself and within its connectional context is high enough;

having high trust sub-networks with low inter-network trust level can be very disturbing;

Derived ideas

5. Integration of scientific advances:

those societies have higher predictive stability, which are able to integrate fast the scientific and specially technological advances in their organizations;

6. Simple, transparent, coherent rules applied with consequence:

the cultural and legal rules are better if they have these qualities, otherwise their support to the predictive stability of individuals and organizations is reduced;

Derived ideas

7. Networks of individuals and organizations are sources of trust:

their trust producing ability depends on their rules;

8. The legal system:

extends the trust by the belief that the rules of it will be respected and applied as announced;

Derived ideas

9. Value selection of cultures:

critical to have expandable trust systems and to create trust generating organisms and mechanisms;

10. Integration of dissidents and immigrants:

provides the intra- and inter-social mobility necessary for the growth and channels the sources of delinquency into non-disturbing outcomes;

Conclusions1. Those societies can build efficient economy and social

organization, which have wide and efficient trust networks, sustain and integrate scientific development, and manage their internal and external dissidents.

2. The humans evolved to form hierarchical organizations in order to increase their individual and group predictive stability. This does not guarantee that they necessarily build efficient societies.

3. The choice of cultural values and procedures has a strong influence on the ability of a society to become efficient in the sense of predictive stability. The societies may survive for long time without being efficient.

4. The regeneration of trust resources is a key issue for the current western societies