Fukuyamas 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);
Hegels 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 wellbeing;
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

Trust: the social virtues and the

creation of prosperity

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

Trust: the social virtues and the

creation of prosperity
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;

The Great Disruption: human

nature and the reconstitution of
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;

The Great Disruption: human

nature and the reconstitution of
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;

Conclusions
1. 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