Trust
Given that trust is so crucial at so many levels, in intimate relations, in business and in government, it is important to understand what it means, how it works, and how to restore this most essential part of our social being when it goes missing.
Without trust, we cannot stand, Confucius said to his follower Tsze-kung. Three things are necessary for government: weapons, food, and trust. If you must give up one of these, give up weapons first, food next. Trust should be guarded till the end.
Bank robbers place the same importance on trust. Honour among thieves is traditionally at its most vulnerable when the stakes increase: witness the successful Northern Bank raid of 2004 in Northern Ireland. The robbery foundered when the thieves saw the size of the booty. It was so big that the bond of trust was compromised. The gang split up and got caught.
In marriage, trust is decisive: once it breaks down, the relationship is usually irretrievably lost. "You betrayed me - How could you do such a thing when you promised you wouldn't?" However, in choosing to trust (when you don't know, when there may even be grounds for mistrust), the marriage partner can turn a situation around: the wife who finds evidence of her husband's unfaithfulness can choose to ignore it and act as if she still trusts him. This atmosphere of trust can in turn create the conditions for trust to flourish, and for the husband to change his ways.
The alternative to such an atmosphere of trust is a climate of suspicion. And because this climate can become so poisonously destructive, nurturing an atmosphere of trust is often seen as a better policy. Samuel Johnson got it right when he said, "Better to be sometimes cheated than never to have trusted." This also explains why companies like Google adopt a policy of Trust and Verify, which translates into giving the person the benefit of the doubt (at least for the first time).
Trust is the willingness to place one's interests under the control of others in the belief that these others will protect those interests, even if it means sacrificing some of their own interests.
Consider how we entrust our money to a bank, and how quickly that trust can unravel once the bank loses our confidence. First there was Northern Rock in the UK, then Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers in the USA, then WaMU and all the others, as the trickle turned into a flood, and the 'credit crunch' of October turned into the Recession by December and the spectre of the Depression appeared by January 2009. The speed of the collapse was a reminder of just how fragile trust can be.
Or consider a more homely example. In traditional Gaelic society, a chieftain would put his children in the care of another family for a period of years. This system of fosterage forged a unique bond between the families, and the bond forged between the child and the foster-parents was said to be stronger than the bond of blood.
In an everyday sense, we say that we trust or have confidence in devices that protect our lives, like forms of transport, or like the way parachutists trust their parachutes (but pack a second, just in case!). But while we say that we trust/distrust a piece of equipment, this is only by extension from the primary sense of trust, which is said of another person. Much of the richness implicit in a relationship of trust becomes visible only when it is seen in the context of a relationship among adults.
When we say we trust someone, this includes several elements:
Competence: we believe that they are capable, responsible people.
Fulfilling promises: there is some history of having delivered on commitments in the past.
Character: referring to what we believe to be trustworthy behaviour, yet referring to something more than behaviour.
Although the calculation of trust can be quite complex, it must often happen quickly. For example, when you are hiring professionals, or assessing a supplier or a customer. Attempts to model this process scientifically - to eradicate subjective error - can satisfy some of the necessary criteria such as competence (evidence of professional qualifications, peer referral, curriculum vitae etc.) and promise fulfilment (any historical evidence that demonstrates delivery of promises). But it is generally accepted that there is an irremediably subjective element in the decision to trust someone. This makes it difficult to later give an account of this aspect of the decision - "He struck me as a sound character" - "You could tell that she would not let you down", "It was the handshake, the look in her eye..."
This rapid and somewhat mysterious calculus can be seen on an even bigger canvas in the public assessment of a political leader. Consider former US President Bill Clinton's self-presentation as he attempted to win back the people's trust after the Monica Lewinsky affair*. But even he could not rebuild the trust that had been lost.
The nomination process for the US Election of 2008 was an extended drama of trust. How far could we trust Barack Obama to take that 3am phone call? Could we trust John McCain's judgement? Was the race-card, the age-card or the gender-card going to prove the trump in deciding the winner in November by undermining the credentials of one or other candidate? Was one of the candidates going to break through the wall of doubt and establish winning credibility? The first strategy of each candidate's team is to raise doubts about the competence of the opposing candidate. The second strategy is to find evidence in their record to support an argument that they have not delivered. And the third is to sow doubts about the candidate's character, as happened in the case of John Kerry and other recent US presidential hopefuls.
Without trust, what would happen to our society? Look how quickly international relations degenerate and move towards military aggression, as happened in the Georgia/Ossetia/Russia engagement of August 2008. Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher, argued that such warfare is in fact our natural state and that, in the state of nature, "Mankind lives in a perpetual warfare of every man against every man", as a result of which human life can be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." For Hobbes, it is the State which provides the sole defence against such anarchy, a conclusion he reached based on his witnessing the English Civil War of 1642.
Like Hobbes, Nicolo Macchiavelli believed that we are by nature selfish:
“One can make this generalisation about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well, they are yours, but when you are in danger they turn away.”
Even if we do not accept all Macchiavelli's claims, it is clear that without trust as a social glue, we would only have very simple forms of human cooperation which could be transacted on the spot. Planning would be impossible. Paranoia would paralyse the people, as happened with Soviet citizens under Stalin.
A heckler once interrupted Krushchev in the middle of a speech in which he was denouncing the crimes of Stalin. "You were a colleague of Stalin's," the heckler yelled, "why didn't you stop him then?" Krushchev apparently could not see the heckler and barked out, "Who said that?" No hand went up. No one moved a muscle. After a few seconds of tense silence, Krushchev finally said in a quiet voice, "Now you know why I didn't stop him." (From The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, p.73.)
“Trust is the great civility that acts as an umbrella over all our transactions, or as a ground for them. Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives; when it is damaged the community as a whole suffers.”
Are we entering a period in history when social trust is in decline? MORI polls (www.ipsos-mori.com) show that many respondents claim that they do not trust professionals, the police, the government or financial institutions. In Ireland, trust in the Catholic Church is in decline, at least partly due to clerical child abuse scandals of the 1990s. The many tribunals which were instigated to expose corruption in planning laws and other areas seem to have increased the level of popular cynicism but without adversely affecting the average turnout in Irish elections which at 71.2% runs just behind the figure for other established democracies of 73%*.
Confidence
While English speakers use the term trust, French and Germans speak of confidence. Zygmunt Bauman in his Liquid Modernity (2000) speaks of confidence as the central feature of modern capitalist society: confidence in oneself, in others, and in institutions. All three used to be indispensable. They provided the framework for the investment of trust and the credibility of the claim that the present value system would go on being cherished and the rules of the game would not change. The enterprise was the most important site for the sowing and cultivation of trust. Any conflicts were conditioned by this underlying framework of confidence. With the demise of this trust went the decline, for example, of the labour movement. The current pensions crisis means that the employee is no longer encouraged to trust the employer's promise of a defined benefit at the age of retirement, but instead is encouraged to play the stock market and take on the full risk him/herself. French theorists speak of precarite, the Germans of Unsicherheit and Risikogesellshaft, the Italians of incertezza and the English of insecurity. This insecurity operates at three levels:
Insecurity of position, entitlement and livelihood.
Uncertainty as to their continuation and future stability
Unsafety of one's body, one's self and their extensions in the form of property, neighbourhood and community.
In Ireland the Social Partnership that has underpinned much of the economic growth of the Celtic Tiger looks to be unravelling, which may be an even more perturbing socio-economic indicator than the flight of manufacturing industry to cheaper countries.
The recent collapse of the property market, the credit squeeze triggered by the sub-prime housing loans collapse in the USA, and the resulting global recession have certainly undermined confidence in the economy. But the deeper social issues pointed out by Bauman may lie concealed behind the panic that currently grips markets in Ireland, Europe and the USA.
Trust Networks
Where there is little trust in central authority, in a barrio in Rio, for example, or amongst immigrants in Birmingham, England the trust network provides an alternative structure. A trust network is a group bound by similar ties. A tie gives a member of such a group a claim on the attention or help of another. Such groups are often formed around a collective long-term project, such as an underground religion or a long-distance trading opportunity. The collective enterprise is at risk to individual malfeasance or failure, and so they must provide safeguards against this risk. These normally take the form of controls built into their routine operation, for example cell structures to minimise the number of members that are known to, and can be betrayed by, any one member. The cell structure reduces the trust boundary, as an admission of the limits of that trust once it comes under stress. In some cases, family provides a basis for such a network, and this has its origins in the original trust network, the clan system. In the clan system in the Scottish Highlands, for example, the chieftain called even the lowliest of his kinsmen cousin, and was obliged to protect and house clan members who fell on hard times.
In contemporary culture, the TV series The Sopranos provides an opportunity to study the workings of such an ancient trust system at work. The dramatic tension is generated by the contrast between this hierarchical, ritualised collective and the contemporary suburban culture of New Jersey around it. This contrast is captured in the central relationship between Tony Soprano and the analyst, Dr. Jennifer Melfi. Tony's decision to undergo psycho-analysis is at odds with the core principle of the Mafia, omerta, the code of silence which seals the boundary between those within la famiglia and those outside. The fault line between the archaic blood-brotherhood and the law runs through in-laws (Adriana la Cerva, married to Christopher Multisanti, becomes an FBI informant), mavericks (Ralph Cifaretto who is incapable of the self-discipline required of a secret society) and Tony's children (Meadow and AJ in their schooling and their relationships with the opposite sex). The point here is the mixed feelings generated in the viewer: the dynamics of the trust network exert a powerful fascination and seem to offer a more ancient law than that to which it is opposed. Honour, respect and duty are commonly used terms amongst the Mafia but do not appear in the police vocabulary. What is illustrated is a culture clash between a pre-modern code (Tony is said to be based on Cesare Borgia, Macchiavelli's patron) on the one hand, and the civil society born in the Enlightenment on the other. Where the pre-modern code is personal, verbal, ritualised and hierarchical, the modern code is anonymous, text-based, functional and individual. The Badabing Club uses self-enforcing sanctions on improper behaviour (even if entirely based on the whim of the boss), while the state uses legal sanction and 'due process'. While one side hugs, kisses and looks deep into the eyes, the other side prepares to 'throw the book at them'.
Consumer Brands
A consumerist culture no longer operates like a clan. Transactions are impersonal, fluid, functional. Brands offer the consumer authority that they can trust: in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the car, as a credit card, as a guarantee of sexual attractiveness. In a busy world, you can trust brand x to deliver, because
1. Brand x is capable (read the label)
2. Brand x has a history of delivering on its promises (see the advertising for evidence of its efficacy)
3. Brand x has character and brand values with which I identify.
The point here is that in an increasingly insecure world, consumer brands are offered as surrogates to supply the need for trust. In the absence of other trust indicators, brands operate socially not only as a guarantee of reliability but also as a badge of identity.
In a society where people feel insecure, it is not surprising that high-trust networks like the Mafia, or secret societies like the Freemasons or Opus Dei, or cults like the Moonies, exert a powerful nostalgic attraction. If you have sufficient wealth, you educate your children in elite schools and you live in gated communities (12% of the US population)*. But this tendency leads to a retreat from participation in the life and structures of the state. For example, military service is less attractive for the wealthy - hence the high percentage of army recruits that come from disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The erosion of social trust therefore represents a considerable threat to the cohesion of society, bringing with it the fragmentation of the populace, and a flight from democracy.
Building Trust
How then can trust be built or re-built? How can I develop a trusting relationship? Where are there examples of trust providing a good basis for a society, economy or enterprise? As Flores and Solomon point out in Building Trust, true trust is not to be confused with naive credulousness. Naive trust is out of place, for example, in business. This is why some hard-headed business people think that all trust is out of place. In fact, the success of Toyota's manufacturing system - acknowledged to be a global benchmark of excellence - lies in the very vulnerability of the process and the consequent requirement for high levels of trust in the workforce. The contrast here is with Henry Ford's system at River Rouge (as analysed by Francis Fukuyama in Trust: the Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity).
Ford minimised the discretion of the operator and maximised control through specialisation and supervision. The subsequent evolution of car manufacturing has discredited Ford's low-trust process and recognised the superior efficacy of Toyota's high-trust system. High trust societies, Fukuyama concludes, are good at creating prosperous partnerships.
In fact, trust is not so brittle that it can be destroyed easily by perceived betrayal. As Solomon and Flores argue, breaches of trust are part of the process of learning how to trust, because authentic trust entails the possibility of betrayal. If you say that you trust your adolescent offspring with your car and you mean it, you are admitting the possibility that the car will not be returned in the same condition in which it was lent. Learning how to trust involves acknowledging the other's intention - "I know that you did not mean to hit the gatepost" - and therefore allowing the difference between an honest mistake and betrayal of trust. Authentic trust changes the truster and the trusted, e.g. the father who trusts his son to carry out a task and who is not sure that he can, is happily surprised when the son succeeds in carrying it out. The son earns his father's respect and trust, and the relationship changes. This kind of authentic trust is a conscious choice, with something at risk, and stands in contradistinction to what Solomon and Flores refer to as cordial hypocrisy which poisons a relationship.
All of this is not to say that distrust has no place in our society, or plays no useful role. Democracies incorporate distrust into the system of 'checks and balances', including the distrust of power because of the wealth of evidence that we are unable to resist being corrupted by it. "There is danger from all men," as John Adams said. "The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."
The armed forces are distrusted to the extent that a barrier is placed in most democracies between the military and the government, with the senior officer reporting to a Minister of Defence. But such useful elements of distrust are enabled by a larger consensus about what matters, and, if anything, serve to underline that consensus.
Online Trust
Finally, how can this notion of trust apply to online communications? How does one establish the bona fides of an email acquaintance? Do you cite Wikipedia as a trustworthy authority? How do dating agencies, for example, map out the steps of love's old dance as they apply in this new medium? What if Google, the new Leviathan of the internet age, is not to be trusted with its immense databases? Or should we be more worried about sheer stupidity, in the number of instances where laptops containing confidential information were lost, left on buses and taxis?
Or perhaps we are witnessing, in the web, the development of a new mode of communication with its own rules and personality, one which is the outcome of an unprecedented sharing and connectivity, but which opens the possibility of a planetary conversation.
* Bill wanted to be liked, and was a serious student of the art of winning trust. His use of the handshake became a signature. There were four handshake options. The first was conventional, reserved for distant acquaintances and the leaders of unpopular regimes such as Mugabe. The second, or 'glove handshake' used two hands and imparted warmth to someone for whom he wanted to express his admiration. The third was an elbow-clasp, extending sometimes to a ;hand-on-the-shoulder, and accompanied by a warm smile or laugh conveying lively affection. The fourth moved the hand around the shoulder, and was suited to facing the TV camera side-by-side, demonstrating comradeship and buddyhood.
*www.idea.int/vt/findings.cfm and Voter Turnout in the ROI&, R. Sinnott and Pat Lyons, 2003 (www.ucd.ie/dempart/workingpapers/ireland.pdf).
* Evan McKenzie, Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government (New Haven, CT, 1996) p.12.
